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I posted this photo instead of the one of the beer poured into the glass because this shows off the logo better. That said, this beer is excellent. Nice and bitter while still rich and oatmeal-y / chocolate-y / all the good things about stouts of this kind.

Also, I’ve been up since 3am. I had my alarm set for 4am, but at 3 I had to use the bathroom, then after that I just laid in bed awake. Today’s work required me to be downtown at a particularly early time, but at least I got to watch the sun rise from a nicely expansive office in a very (well, relatively, given the city) tall building.

After work I was able to get out to Stony Creek and ride around on the trails. I ended up meeting up with someone I’d previously met at the Wednesday night group rides, and he and I rode around a bit before he headed back to his car. I was both riding hard and feeling tired, so I ended up having a couple accidents.

The first one involved hitting the little finger on my left hand on a tree and cutting the knuckle. In the second I tried to go over a new log pile, but for some reason I almost went over the bars and ended up rolling on mostly the front wheel into the tree right after it, with my bike hitting the handlebars and stopping, while I hit the tree with my left pectoralis. Thankfully nothing was hurt, it was just a bit of a shock.

In the third crash I was going fast (27MPH or so, per the max speed stuff on the computer) down a steep, long, somewhat winding hill. At the bottom I had to turn, but when I went to turn left both of my wheels started slipping, so instead of turning I just rotated and somewhat laid the bike down and slid to a stop. It was an interesting fall, and I scraped my knee up a bit, but nothing bad. Some guy came up and asked if I was all right, then said that it looked like I fell right and would have been fine, but he wanted to be sure. It was generally fun, and I need to be sure to fall that way in the future.

There is a blimp flying over my workplace. I don’t know why. Thankfully the camera in my phone still works well enough to get a photo of it. I really could use a new phone, though.

I’ve also posted some other new Moblog images, including the blimp one. Interested in seeing them? Here they are:

· A MetLife blimp is flying over my workplace for some reason.
· Beautiful storm clouds seen from outside of Rochester Mills Brewery on 21-Jul-2008.
· A Surly Cross-Check set up for commuting, parked outside of Rochester Mills Brewery.
· The brewery floor at Rochester Mills.
· A Dyson Airblade in the men’s bathroom at Rochester Mills Brewery.
· People sitting around at Rochester Mills Brewery in the back room for the MMBA Metro North chapter meeting.

I do declare, Southern Tier makes some of the finest beers I’ve ever had. They are consistently good, with only one or two of their styles ever being something that didn’t set well with me.

Tonight while eating a rather late dinner of leftovers^† I had this nice bottle of Souther Tier’s Jah-Va, a 12% coffee stout. I think I spent two hours on this bottle, sipping the 1.5 (or so) pints of it while watching some TiVo’d stuff, balancing my checkbook, talking to friends online, and relaxing. It’s very, very good. I’d highly recommend trying some yourself if you like thick, strong stouts.

Also, based on the flags and sprayed markings in front of my house it appears that either Comcast is installing new boxes or Wide Open West is bringing service to our complex. Here is a photo of the new box, and the short one behind it is specifically labeled Comcast. Maybe I should give WOW a go.

^† Thanks, work. At least I got some stuff fixed, I guess.

This is the Doughnet Adapter, a very special network adapter I assembled in 2000 or 2001 from a Dunkin’ Doughnuts doughnut hole and a Compaq loopback cable. It has occasionally been branded with an N, but this seems to fade a year or so after it’s written.

I’ve kept the Doughnet Adapter in one of the overhead cabinets in my cube since I made it, finally bringing it home tonight so that I could photograph it.

A few months back I broke off a small piece from the bottom and tasted it. It is rancid, but still quite sweet and smells faintly of vegetable oil.

As part of General Motors’ press release from this morning (this link may only work in IE), it has been announced that:

…health care coverage for U.S. salaried retirees over 65 will be eliminated, effective January 1, 2009. Affected retirees and surviving spouses will receive a pension increase from GM’s over funded U.S. salaried plan to help offset costs of Medicare and supplemental coverage.

This is awful. I can only hope that it helps push through some manner of base level (at least) socialized health care in the US.

Oh, and (as of right now) the stock is up almost 6%.

These last two days have found me driving to Lansing each day to work towards sorting some work stuff out. It was about 240 miles each day, and thankfully that’ll be reimbursed.

Today when I got home I ended up going on a 15-16 mile bike ride, just to get out and about a do something. Unfortunately, after the 55 mile ride and today, I’ve found that the spokes in the new wheels are creaking a bit, and some of them are quite loose. I think I will need to take them to someone who can properly tension / readjust them. I’d do them myself, but the tool is $55, and I’m still without a truing stand.

Now that I’ve finished replying to email and balancing my checkbook I think I’ll relax for a bit, then get some sleep. I’ll probably need it.

I just decided to look up the bus routes to work, via this area’s wonderful SMART bus system.

It turns out that there actually is one bus route which I could take to work, number 559. The closest stop to my house is Lakeside Mall and the nearest to work is Hamlin and Squirrel, meaning that I have to cover 3.4 miles from my house to the stop, then around another .75 miles after the destination stop (without sidewalks) to the building I work in.

The times are also pretty pitiful, with the westbound buses (yes, there are only two) leaving at 5:51am and 6:48am, arriving at 6:14am and 7:11am, respectively. The eastbound (home, again only two) busses are at 3:33pm and 4:38pm, arriving 4:38pm 5:00pm.

This isn’t really usable. If you’d like to see the route for yourself, look up route 559 here.

I think I’d have to get up particularly early bike the first segment, hope the bike rack on the bus works acceptably on the highway, bike the last bit, then find a place for my bike. I may as well just bike the whole thing.

There is something surprisingly satisfying about washing one’s feet (and thus hands) after working a bunch.

After another very sleepy class today I stopped at Sears and picked up a small scale (inch pounds) torque wrench (the same as borrowed earlier) along with some bits. I then cleaned up parts from my bike a bit, confirmed the torque on parts like the cranks, hand grips, and a few other things. Come Monday (I believe) I’ll be able to reassemble it with the new wheels and brakes, and the torque wrench should make it lots easier.

Sweeping, cleaning, and lots of wandering around had turned the bottoms of my feet deep gray, so it was into the bath tub to wash them off. They feel really nice now.

I think now I’ll run out to Sears and return the bits, as replika is going to facilitate my acquisition of an adapter which will make them useless. Then I’ll grab some food, come back here, and probably start reading the Official (ISC)²® Guide to the CISSP® CBK® which I received in class today. I strongly suspect it’ll be more useful than the training materials I’ve been given thus far.

For what it’s worth, I’m taking the New Horizons Training for CISSP Certification. It isn’t a formal CISSP class and I’m finding it a bit strange. The instructor seems okay, but he’s living up to the stereotypes of someone who would teach an “ethical hacking” class, which he does. It’s a bit bothersome, particularly in the way which he’s made some direct, but inaccurate statements about technical issues. For example: no matter what it’s always possible to hack into a service listening on a port, DSL uses the unused phone wires coming into your house, an SMTP packet won’t contain a TCP header, and a few other things which I’ve forgotten.

The class is very pointedly designed to teach only the things known to be on the test. I would prefer a much faster paced class, but I think it’ll be useful as I’m now feeling reasonably confidant that I can pass the CISSP exam. I guess it’s a good thing I’ve worked doing what I do at EDS for so long; it means I have the paper / job qualifications to get the cert too.

When I was leaving for work this morning, and throughout almost the entire drive, it was abnormally foggy. This was really nice, as I like fog, I just wish I could have gone out in the woods on my bike and enjoyed it that way.

Also, it’s been confirmed that HP is going to buy EDS. I don’t know many details, except that EDS will probably maintain its name / brand, and that the drastic (~25% or so) increase in EDS’ share price made my 401(k) go up a bit, which is kinda nice.

Today after getting home from work I decided that I would finally update my resume. It wasn’t updated for any particular reason, but I felt that I should condense it a bit, incorporate the work I’ve been doing for the past six months or so, and generally tighten it up. So, I did.

While I still need to put together the plaintext copy (which shouldn’t be too difficult), and barring any last minute quirks or tweaks that might be needed, it’s done. If you would like to see it, here’s a PDF copy: steve_vigneau_resume_02may2008.pdf

If you are one of those folks who just doesn’t like PDFs, here’s it in two 150dpi PNGs: Page 1 · Page 2