Saturday, August 18, 2001

Wuphon's Reach

Okay, don't blink or you'll miss why I decided on this. There's a really good book out there with a project called "Wuphon's Dream" that some of the inhabitants are working on. Wanting to avoid blatant copyright theft and since I am at the point where I'm looking to take on new challenges and reach for the things that I've always wanted I mangled it to be "Wuphon's Reach". So it reminds me that it's time for me to stop being timid and make an attempt to obtain that which I desire.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:38 PM

Strange Doings

These two guys who live up the street (and drive a local cable installation van) came home about a half-hour ago, then they came back out a few minutes later got in the van and left. Then they show up again a few minutes later, go inside for a bit, and now they just left again.

I'm waiting to see if they come back in 5 or 10 minutes again. (The first trip, I figured they had just gotten the munchies and went on a quick munchie run.) Strange...

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:19 PM

The Evening Wander

I feel like I should have gotten something done (like straighten up the office or my living room) this evening. Instead, I sat out on the back porch reading Calvin & Hobbes and reading one of my fitness books (a big one that reminds you of a textbook from your college days). It never did rain today, after threatening all afternoon. Right now, it's semi-cloudy and getting a little cooler. Maybe it will rain tonight (we do need it).

"Beginnings are such delicate times" (bonus points if you know where I got the quote from). It'll be interesting tomorrow to meet someone that I've been trading e-mails with for almost a month. As hard as you try not to, you always end up building a mental picture of the person which has no basis in reality. I'm looking forward to it, but I also wonder if I can keep from being tongue-tied. Still, you can't keep on trading e-mails indefinitely (at least I can't) without losing the momentum or spark that there was when you first met. I like the medium as a way to connect intially, or to supplement the relationship when you're apart, but my kinesthetic nature requires a healthy dose of real-world presence in order to keep the attachment sustainable.

I guess one of the questions you begin to ask when you get to be my age and you're starting to get to know another person is "what's the catch, why are they still single"... it's not a nice question to ask, but human nature compels us to ask it and consider it. Of course, that question cuts both ways... why am I still single, what's the catch with me? I try to focus on the possibility of "it just hasn't happened yet" rather than worry about what could possibly be wrong with either party. (That's not to say that if there is some obvious hang-up that should be addressed that you can just ignore the problem.)

Being in a relationship for about 4 years also makes it easier for me to avoid the "whoa is me, why aren't I married yet" syndrome. It also helps that I belive that I have some very good points that balance out my bad points. I've also found that my confidence has gone up now that I've taken control of improving my fitness level instead of just worrying about it getting worse. (They're right, action is better than sitting around and worrying, even if you don't see results.) Now, I still wonder sometimes why I'm still single, but then I look back at who I was 6 years ago compared to who I am now and I can see the massive improvements that continue to this day. So even though I still screw up on a daily basis, I know that the overall trend is upwards which makes it more a question of when than if.

Okay, the worst that can happen is she'll say no to future dates (trying to psych myself up here). It would really only bother me if she was a fellow kinesthetic (because they're rare). I have to keep reminding myself that there are other fish in the sea even if the water is so murky that I can't see them at the moment. My problem is that I don't like to concentrate on more than one at a time and right now I have multiple possibilities (some are more remote than others). Back in college there was one girl who I really wanted to date, but it seemed like we were destined to be two ships passing in the night (everytime one of us was out of a relationship, the other had just started one and we never synced). We were always friends until we lost touch, but it's always something that you think about from time to time. I can't even say that I have a method for choosing this one over another; it's more a matter that this timing has worked out while nothing is happening on the other possibilities.

At least I don't look as fat as I used to last December (I shouldn't after losing 35 lbs so far!)... still should lose another 15-25 pounds, but I don't have to rush it (I'm no longer obese according to the BMI charts, now I'm just overweight). That's a good thing because it means I don't obsess about being obese (and the corresponding effect on my self-image). Once I lose the rest of the spare tire around the mid-section, I'll look more like someone in their late 20s than someone who's in his early-30s (I have a boyish face, but the weight around the middle makes me look older).

So, into the breach; but if it doesn't work out at least I'll have tried. (I'm hoping it does.)

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 8:44 PM

Fitness Update - 198.5 lbs

I was a very good boy today; I got up this morning and went for a long ride on the York County rail trail. Overall I did pretty good considering that I haven't been in a few weeks (due to work, storms, heat). Since I haven't been in a few weeks, I stopped at Hanover Junction on both legs for about 15 minutes, and spent about 30 minutes at the Railroad turn-around point in order to eat a sandwich and get rehydrated. So I went 33 miles in about 3.5 hrs, but my actual on-bike time was only 2hrs 38min (12.53mph, but 11 min over my target speed of 13.50mph). I estimate that I expended about 1650 kCal during the ride, while ingesting about 700 kCal (3 24oz gatorade bottles, honey on whole wheat bread sandwich at turn around), that means that I expended 160% of my normal activity level (which is around 2200 kCal per day for my weight and normal activity levels). I spent almost the entire ride in the 160-175 bpm heart-rate range (the caffeine from my morning cup of coffee that I should've cut back to 1/3 made it difficult to keep below 175 bpm).

Normally, I just go from Richland Ave down to Glen Rock and then come back (27 mi round-trip), but since I had the extra time today I pressed on towards Railroad. Now the Richland Ave to Glen Rock section of the rail trail is essentially flat with no major up/down segments, but from Glen Rock to Railroad you ascend about 220 ft in 3 miles (which feels like a pretty good grade after you've already been riding for a hour). My normal goal is to reach Glen Rock at around 60 minutes and today I reached it in 63 minutes. To give you an idea of the rise between Glen Rock and Railroad, it took me 20 minutes to go those 3 miles (9mph), but only 13 minutes to return to Glen Rock (13.85mph). I'm not sure if I'll add the Glen Rock to Railroad portion to my normal ride or not (it could be hard to fit it in between 5:30pm and sunset). I would like to add it just because the resistance of going up that grade would be good for my strength and anaerobic fitness level, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to do that every day.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 3:55 PM

Thursday, August 16, 2001

Yahoo! Personals Spam Update

Got another e-mail from that brittany girl at hotmail wanting me to call her at the chat line... note the additional social engineering at work ("I have to pay too").

------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 10:47:27 -0400
From: Brittany323@hotmail.com
Subject: Your personal ad

Hey,
I have not heard from you yet, I have to pay to talk on the line as
well.
I know it is weird but I use this as a safety precaution for myself.
As I told you in my earlier mail, I have had some problems with giving
out
my phone number in the past.
Well I would really like to get to know you better,so when you get
this,drop
me a line.
Talk to you later...
-Brittany

http://www.one-on-onechat.com/3822.html
------------------------------------------------

So I did some more digging trying to find other profiles on the site. Finally I stumbled across the fact that their /graphics folder will return a list of all of the files in that directory. Since I already knew that the profiles were a 4 digit number, the fact that there were a bunch of .gif files that were just numbers gave me the final clue in order to check the other profiles on the web site (there are no links to the profiles off of the root page). Here's a short list of what I found:

10503 - Bethany

10506 - Bethany (again)

10509 - (yet another) Bethany

10512 - Bethany (and again)

10518 - Bethany (another one?)

12312 - Kimberly (gee, a new name)

Here's the full list of ID numbers: 10503 10506 10509 10512 10515 10518 11403 11406 11409 11412 11415 12303 12306 12309 12312 12315 13203 13206 13209 13212 13215 3186 3822 96 (you can take stabs at the rest of the URLs)

This has SCAM written all over it now and I'm debating whether it's worth getting Verio or the BBB involved (since I think I could track the web owner down since it looks like he lives in Baltimore). I reckon that the images are stolen from another personals site.

If you have the time (and a high bandwidth line), you could download the access logs for the site (the one log is over 200Mb and the error log is around 20Mb).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:32 PM

Fitness Update - 200 lbs (BMI 26.4)

Woo hoo! I was estatic when I stepped on the scale and saw all of those zeros after 9 months of effort. I'm still continuing to gradually drop weight at a rate of 0.00 to 1.00 pounds per week; primarily because I've changed my diet to be more healthy in the past year and I've tried to be more active physically. Sure, it would be nice to lose all of the weight overnight, but then I'd be at risk of bounce-back and end up weighing more than when I started, so losing a pound or three per month is just fine. (Back when I started, I dropped almost 2 pounds per week for a full two months before I plateued for about 3 months with hardly any weight loss.)

WeightFocus Weight Loss Strategies Focus -- Setting Reasonable Weight Loss Goals discusses a study that they undertook in regards to how patients set goals and how satisfied they were with the results.

Back when I started reading up on what my ideal weight was, I was classified as obese (but was in denial about it) at 232 lbs and my BMI was 30.6. According to various charts, my ideal weight is somewhere around 162-182 lbs, which was 50-70 lbs less then what I weighed at the start. So in order to meet those standards, I would have to lose 21-30% of my weight (that's a lot of weight to lose).

Their study indicates that people who focused on their goal weight were much less satisfied with the results if they only made it part way then those who focused on the amount of weight actually lost (and who didn't pay much attention to a goal weight). I sorta figured this when I started, so I made a bunch of mini-goals that weren't as focused on weight. If I remember right, my goals were:

- lose 40-60 lbs (but I'd be content with whatever I lost or with slow improvement)
- get aerobically fit (my at rest pulse was in the mid-80s)
- lower my blood pressure (134/82 was too high for my liking)
- be more active and feel more energetic (a way to manage feelings of depression about my body image)
- lose the spare tire (this goal was more important then the weight loss, after all if I put on muscle mass and lost the fat around the middle I might weigh more then when I started)
- learn to eat better (I wasn't good at keeping an even blood sugar level through the day)
- avoid adult onset diabeties (I figured I was a prime candidate if I didn't lose the weight, even without a family history of the disease)

(A lot of these goals are discussed in WeightFocus Demystifying Weight Focus -- Self-Esteem and Weight: The Positive "Weigh"; an article that I did not read back when I set my goals.)

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:10 AM

Wednesday, August 15, 2001

The Setting Sun

It's a nice evening for sitting out on the back porch and watching the sun set. It was cold and damp this morning but the weather got a lot nicer around mid-day. I finished changing all of my travel plans today for my vacation at the end of August. I'm really looking forward to getting away for 13 days, seeing my cousin, her husband, and my god-daughter for the first time in almost a year, and just getting my mind completely off of work for a while.

I can tell that I'm flirting with burn-out (which actually started back in March); so the upcoming vacation comes at a very good time. I think this will be a very relaxing vacation, even with all of the driving because I'm taking my time and I think I've left plenty of room in my travel schedule for the unexpected. One of my close friends is a little envious of my road trip (I think she'd like to stow away). It'll be an adventure to see if I can survive for that long by myself living out of hotels and my car. I think that I'll be more likely to meet interesting people because I'll be by myself then if I was traveling with a companion (when traveling together you tend to discuss rather than ask the nearest bystander).

I was asked today whether I got tired of living by myself and not seeing anyone else during the day (because I work from home). I guess I do, but it takes me more than a couple of days without any meaningful conversation before I start going stir crazy. She's a teacher, so during the summer she gets antsy after a day or two and heads out to the mall just to get a little interaction from the store clerks. Can't say I blame her, I've done the same thing in the past after being cooped up in the house all weekend. Recently, I'm more likely to load the bike onto the back of the car and go for an evening ride. It gets me out of the house and I don't feel like I have no life. The weekends are probably the worst for me because during the week, I'm getting lots of phone calls and e-mails from co-workers, but unless I've made plans on the weekend I typically don't see or talk to anyone else. (That's changing lately.)

My past girlfriend complained that it seemed like I isolated myself more and more. She was concerned when I made the job change and started working from home full-time. I'm aware that it's easier to become socially isolated now that I'm working from home, but then it gets balanced out by not having to deal with as much of the office politics and petty turf wars that go on when you work in an office. So I've been gradually building my network of contacts, trying to make a point to see some people that I didn't have time to see when I was commuting an hour and a half per day (on top of working 9 or 10 hour days). When I'm at work, I like to concentrate on work (I can be social with co-workers but it's very rare that I would end up building a friendship with any of them). So working from home makes it easier to seperate work and personal life issues like that.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 8:18 PM

More Yahoo! Personals SPAM?

First off, I haven't decided whether or not this is bogus (this is more of a blog about how to dig into the background behind something)... Here's a copy of the e-mail that I got.

---

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 11:19:53 -0400
From: Brittany323@hotmail.com
Subject: Your personal ad

Hey,
I just moved into the area so I figured I would respond to your ad.
I am trying to meet new people and find some nice places to go on the
weekends.
I have met some guys off the internet before, but they turned out to be
crazy or completely wrong for me. I won't let that get me down though,
I know there are some quality people out there. Well, I dont mean to
bore
you with my past bad experiences. I would really like to talk to you!
You can check out my ad with my picture at the web address below, hope
you like it.
Anyway,I hope to hear from you.
-Brittany

http://www.one-on-onechat.com/3822.html

---

The web page lists some information about her, with a grainy photo and a 900 number that costs $3.50/min (ouch!). However, I couldn't find any other profiles (I tried changing the end of the URL by +1/-1 to see if I could find any other profiles) and there are zero links off of the home page of the site. Her occupation is listed as "masseuse", um, okay... maybe true, maybe not (but it does sound too good to be true). I think what makes me wonder the most is that she's available for "live chat"...

First off, let's find out more about the DNS record for "www.one-on-onechat.com" via Dig II at freesoft.org.

---

$ dig @localhost one-on-onechat.com ANY ANY

;; query(one-on-onechat.com, ANY, ANY)
;; send_udp(127.0.0.1:53)
;; send_udp(127.0.0.1:53)
;; answer from 127.0.0.1:53 : 237 bytes
;; HEADER SECTION
;; id = 44939
;; qr = 1 opcode = QUERY aa = 0 tc = 0 rd = 1
;; ra = 1 rcode = NOERROR
;; qdcount = 1 ancount = 5 nscount = 2 arcount = 3

;; QUESTION SECTION (1 record)
;; one-on-onechat.com. ANY ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION (5 records)
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN MX 10 one-on-onechat.com.
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN A 128.121.114.184
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN SOA ns1.secure.net. hostmaster.secure.net. (
2001071101 ; Serial
86400 ; Refresh
7200 ; Retry
2592000 ; Expire
86400 ) ; Minimum TTL
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN NS ns1.secure.net.
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN NS ns2.secure.net.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION (2 records)
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN NS ns2.secure.net.
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN NS ns1.secure.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION (3 records)
one-on-onechat.com. 86400 IN A 128.121.114.184
ns1.secure.net. 172757 IN A 192.41.1.10
ns2.secure.net. 172757 IN A 161.58.9.10
;; query status: NOERROR

---

This gives us a couple of targets to search for, first is to find out who registered the domain. For that we slip on over to Internet Sleuthing Resources and do a whois lookup using Network Solutions.

---

Organization:
v
d s
6506
B, MD 21237
US
Phone: 4
Email: revangst@excite.com

Registrar Name....: Register.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.register.com

Domain Name: ONE-ON-ONECHAT.COM

Created on..............: Wed, Jul 11, 2001
Expires on..............: Fri, Jul 11, 2003
Record last updated on..: Thu, Aug 02, 2001

Administrative Contact:
v
d s
6506
B, MD 21237
US
Phone: 4
Email: revangst@excite.com

Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Register.Com
Domain Registrar
575 8th Avenue - 11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
US
Phone: 212-798-9200
Fax..: 212-629-9305
Email: domain-registrar@register.com

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.SECURE.NET 192.41.1.10
NS2.SECURE.NET 161.58.9.10

Register your domain name at http://www.register.com

The previous information has been obtained either directly from the
registrant or a registrar of the domain name other than Network Solutions.
Network Solutions, therefore, does not guarantee its accuracy or
completeness.

---

Looks pretty bogus doesn't it. Well about about the other domain listed in the DNS record...

---

Domain Name.......... secure.net
Creation Date........ 1995-01-25
Registration Date.... 2000-05-10
Expiry Date.......... 2002-01-26
Organisation Name.... Secure Network Systems L.L.C
Organisation Address. 715 East 300 North
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Lindon
Organisation Address. 84042
Organisation Address. UT
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES

Admin Name........... Secure Network Systems L.L.C
Admin Address........ 715 East 300 North
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ Lindon
Admin Address........ 84042
Admin Address........ UT
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... hostmaster@secure.net
Admin Phone.......... 801-437-0220
Admin Fax............ .

Tech Name............ Secure Network Systems L.L.C
Tech Address......... 715 East 300 North
Tech Address.........
Tech Address......... Lindon
Tech Address......... 84042
Tech Address......... UT
Tech Address......... UNITED STATES
Tech Email........... hostmaster@secure.net
Tech Phone........... 801-437-0220
Tech Fax............. .
Name Server.......... NS1.SECURE.NET
Name Server.......... NS2.SECURE.NET

The previous information has been obtained either directly from the
registrant or a registrar of the domain name other than Network Solutions.
Network Solutions, therefore, does not guarantee its accuracy or
completeness.

---

Okay, what about the IP address of the web site? Again, slide on over to ARIN's whois and do a lookup on 128.121.114.184.

---

Verio, Inc. (NET-VRIO-128-121)
8005 South Chester Street
Englewood, CO 80112
US

Netname: VRIO-128-121
Netblock: 128.121.0.0 - 128.121.255.255
Maintainer: VRIO

Coordinator:
Verio, Inc. (VIA4-ORG-ARIN) vipar@verio.net
303.645.1900

Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

NS0.VERIO.NET 129.250.15.61
NS1.VERIO.NET 204.91.99.140
NS2.VERIO.NET 129.250.31.190

********************************************
Reassignment information for this block is
available at rwhois.verio.net port 4321
********************************************

Record last updated on 11-Jul-2000.
Database last updated on 14-Aug-2001 23:06:24 EDT.

---

So we have a domain with bogus registration information (although it sort of looks like a Baltimore MD address), a web site with no links off of the home page, and a META tag that claims the author is "Rev.Vincent'Angst'Chewbacca-for Genius Meanderings", and a single link to US Web Personals who is using a invalid SSL certificate.

Um, I'm not going to be calling or responding to this one.






posted by Wuphon's Reach at 4:36 PM

Wireless Ethernet Security

Uh, that's an oxymoron right? Seriously, with all of the security holes found recently in the protocol and the encryption we're having to reconsider how we have wireless 802.11b deployed (fortunately it's a small company with only a handful of wireless users). Most of us have a wireless access point in our houses (and there's not much you can do to that setup); but I'm more concerned with using wireless at the two offices. In the home office setups, these users are using VPN tunnels to get out through the broadband routers and into our network; so their business traffic is already encrypted. The only other thing to do in that setup is to run personal firewalls and antivirus software.

The business environment is both easier and more difficult to secure. I want to switch to requiring wireless users to VPN into the network across the wireless LAN, but I don't want to have the expense of a second dedicated box (with it's own set of firewall rules and VPN rules). So for the past week I've been testing out ideas on my home office network (which is tied in to the rest of the company and I have my own proxy/firewall server).

First up is a diagram of the old network setup. The only security in place was the use of SSIDs and 40bit WEP encryption. Not the best setup, but more secure than the default configuration. We're playing the odds that nobody will target our particular system (especially since the home office is in a residential neighborhood). This is a very standard setup that uses only one public IP address and has a private IP address range (with a DHCP server) setup on the inside of the firewall/proxy server.



Here is my new network profile. Wireless LAN users are required to know the SSID (like before), but WEP has been disabled in preference for using a VPN to connect into the network and get use of internet/intranet resources. I found that the combination of WEP and PPTP was causing the PPTP tunnel to be unstable (sometimes it would just hang and no packets would flow, othertimes it would drop connection). This may just be related to using 3com in the laptop and LinkSys access points.



Throughput speeds with WEP and PPTP both being used topped out around 2.5 or 3.0 Mbps (802.11b is capable of 11Mbps), so there was a noticable performance hit, but I've never measure 802.11b performance in other settings so that may be reasonable performance levels.

The way this works (without requiring additional public IPs, which would expose your laptop users directly to the internet) is to create another private IP address range (such as 192.168.108.0/24). Configure the external port of the firewall/proxy server with both it's normal public IP and an address from the new private IP range (e.g. 192.168.108.1). You'll need to manually configure an IP address on any wireless access points as well (since we're not running DHCP on the public ethernet hub and we don't want to mistakenly grab a public IP off of the ISPs DHCP server), I used 192.168.108.2 and 192.168.108.3 for my access points. Then, you'll need to assign static IPs to the wireless lan interfaces on all of your wireless users (this does make it more difficult for users who go between sites, but you could standardize this). I usually start with .50 and just go right on upwards through the range of addresses. There's no need to configure default gateways on the wireless users.

Now you're treating your wireless users just like the untrusted systems that they have become because they're using 802.11b. All the users have to do is VPN into the private IP of the external port of the firewall proxy (192.168.108.1) and they will have full access to the LAN services as if they were actually connected via a normal ethernet cable. You could also put additional traffic filters in place, just for your wireless users.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:17 AM

Tuesday, August 14, 2001

Sudden Events

I remember that night clearly, a little over a year ago. One of those nights that when you hear the phone ring, you're sure that not only is it not a wrong number, it's going to be bad, very bad, news. While you walk over to answer the phone, you start running through the list of possibles such as sick relatives or who might have been in an accident.

I remember... I had gotten home around a little past 10 from my girlfriend's place where we had spent the evening doing some shopping and watching TV. I was sitting up for a bit, catching up on some reading and was pretty far into the book that I wasn't paying attention to how late it was getting. On a normal night, I would have already gone to bed and I would have never heard the downstairs phone. When the phone rang at 11:55pm, I had that sense of dread because it was past that time that you get normal phone calls or normal wrong numbers. I don't remember if I let the answering machine screen it or not (I probably did as I usually do) but picked it up as soon as I heard Mom's voice.

"Your brother and sister-in-law have been in an accident." Five seconds in and we're out in the deep water where I can't tell where the bottom is. Where the really big scary things swim in the dark and you really wish you weren't going to find out how big they can be. Time slips, your senses go numb as you wait for the rest of the news. News that can't be good, otherwise they'd have waited until morning to call. News that might be, "come quick" because there's not much time. Or the worst, "there's nothing to be done, it's already finished and we need to make preperations tomorrow".

Time starts again in slow motion as I find out that my brother made it, but my sister-in-law never left the scene. Their daughter wasn't with them in the car. Nothing else to do until morning because they'll be releasing him in a few hours.

Time starts to pickup pace and I start to triage what needs doing before I completely lose it. How long will the shock last; can I function long enough to pack for a few days, what should I pack, where do I think I'm going, should I stay by myself or go back over to my girlfriends and tell her the news (not something I was willing to do over the phone and it really shouldn't be waited until morning). Auto-pilot on, get started packing, figure it will be a few days away, leave a message with my co-worker on his voice mail, pack a suit, pack my laptop, get in the car and start driving back across town.

Time's pacing is approaching normal by the time I wake her up and get her to let me in. We sat on the couch and cried for a good hour... I crashed in the guest room and tossed and turned for an hour; starting to think about the 101 things that would need doing in the morning. Wondering what my role would be, wondering how my brother was doing, wondering how he was coping with his parents, wondering, wondering, wondering... So I do what I'm wont to do when I have a million things running through my mind, I start to write down everything that I think needs doing, write it down and let it stop circling around my head, emotional things, tasks that will need doing, possible legal issues, benefits, funeral arrangements, cemetary plot, possible suicide watch?

Morning came all too soon as I got a ride from my girlfriend down to my parents house where we had agreed to meet in the morning. I had pretty much decided by then that I would make the offer to my brother that I could take a few days off and assist him if he wanted. I wasn't sure he would say yes; but I was packed and ready.

You see, my brother and I have never really gotten along (as long as we both lived under the same roof that is). Would he think that I was trying to intrude, to do things for him as if he were still a child (which he detests)? Was I being intrusive by even offering to come stay with him? Had we rebuilt enough bridges over the past few years; had the efforts of his wife and my girlfriend to get us to cross those chasms paid off?

I was pretty sure he would turn me down and do things himself, but I wasn't 100% sure and so I made the offer.

Yes, I was morbidly happy that he said that he wanted my help.

I remember when I showed up at his house (driving my grandmother's car) and walked up the front, he was outside working on the hedges with a set of hedge clippers. It was unreal. You don't expect normal activities to take place in the middle of a hurricane. I wondered (briefly) about his sanity, had he gone over the edge? No, just a way of coping with something that still seemed surreal, a place and time where we could pretend that things were normal and I was just stopping by for a visit to chat while he worked on the yard for a bit. He was moving with determination, doing chores and trying to carve out just a little more normal before the events overtook us. I don't remember what we talked about at first, probably the lawn or the house or the chores or his daughter, anything but the topic at hand. Eventually, he started to recount the events of the past night and we settled in for an evening of making phone calls and trying to start making arrangements to find a funeral home; I started making my lists and keeping track of details as he told them to me. (My brother quickly learned to call me "his secretary".)

You have to understand, none of us had seen his wife. There was no hospital stay where you realize that a person is deathly ill and you see death approaching. Your last memory of the person is of them alive; you're taking the word of complete strangers that she's gone ... but you've not seen it with your own eyes. You hope that you're dreaming, that this is just a bad nightmare, it's all so sudden.

It was surreal to make arrangements on Sunday and Monday. It's the only word that fits. Here you are, making funeral arrangements for someone close to you where a few days earlier you might have been making dinner plans. We were at the funeral home for almost 3 hours making the arrangements on Sunday; it felt like 12.

I'll continue this later...

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:52 PM

New Site Design

Okay new colors (my brother said that the old colors were too green and reminded him of army stuff)... basically, I found an image that was close to the background color that I wanted, lowered the contrast to make it easier to read the text and then darkened it twice to get the other two shades of background. If you have images turned off (or your browser doesn't support them), I also made the background color of the appropriate elements the same as the overall average color of the background image.

If you want to see the older scheme, dig through my archives (I haven't gotten around to updating all of the weeks with the new template yet ... and probably never will bother).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 1:41 PM

Web Color Design

I'm what you would call color-challenged... I have a very hard time putting together color combinations that work on web pages so I'm always looking for tools to help me select colors that work together.

Yahoo! Arts > Design Arts > Graphic Design > Web Page Design and Layout > Color Information - The big listing of color sites.
The Red Queen Color Theory by Bob Stein - A good article about how to choose colors with links to tools.
Clear Ink's Palette Man - This was the first tool that caught my eye, not the worst, not the best.
VisiBone Webmaster's Color Lab - This is my new favorite color-picker because it uses a color wheel with the colors grouped by family (and you can see up to 8 colors at a time and it shows the various colors laid on top of each other).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 4:49 AM

Monday, August 13, 2001

Marriage scriptures

A friend of mine asked me if I knew of any scripture passages relating to marriage or stuff that was appropriate to read at a wedding...

First up, the Wedding Notebook - Scripture Suggestions:

Genesis 2:18-24
Psalm 100
Song of Solomon 7:6-7
Matthew 19:4-6
John 15:9-12
Romans 12:1-3, 9-13
I Corinthians 13
Ephesians 3:14-19
Ephesians 5:21-33
Philippians 4:8-9
Colossians 3:12-17
1 John 4:7-12

Wedding Liturgy - Scripture Readings is another pretty complete listing. I got a lot of other really good hits by searching for corinthians wedding scripture at google.


posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:41 PM

The evening wander

So what happened today? Well, my cousin is pregnant with their 2nd (she's due next February). I'm building a Linux web server and trying to secure my wireless LAN. And I just spent the evening helping my brother setup his blog while I'm sitting out on the back porch enjoying the evening air.

Now for my next trick, get the ftp server working (the web server is already running fine) and figure out how to setup virtual hosts in Apache.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:30 PM

Sunday, August 12, 2001

It's tough being 32

Too young for the SAM events (or at least it seems like everyone is closer to 40 than 30), feel too old for the Gathering events (where everyone seems closer to 20), it seems like all the people your age are busy raising families (and how did you miss that bus anyway?), and since there's no defining event for people your age you only see your few remaining single friends on an ad-hoc basis (usually on Sunday morning).

[sigh] it's not easy being green (no wait, that's Kermit's song...)

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 9:23 PM

Kids love rain

Spent the evening over at a friends house together with another family. Now picture 5 adults sitting on the back porch watching 4 kids playing in the rain. It was fun to watch and I got some great pictures. The kids were having a blast running through the rain, playing in the mud puddle. I'll have to download the pics from the camera and stick them up on a page for my friends later.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:12 PM

More Tests

Personality Disorder Test - Hey, another test!
Queendom - A whole mess of tests. Lets start with the Emotional Intelligence Test (hey, I got a 98 ... which means I'm average). Now for the Romantic Personality Test (I'm a borderline romantic).
Okay, I have to link to the Human For Sale site (I'm worth $2,029,870.00).

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 7:08 PM

Key thoughts for today

Someday I'll turn these into full-scale rants, but right now I'll settle for getting them written down.

- man's inherent sin nature
- you'll screw up your life more than anyone else can screw it up
- is chritianity a crutch or an amplifier?
- God's love not based on our worth / works / goodness
- I can't, He can
- it's when you say that you're not worthy that you are closest to understanding salvation
- is same-sex marriage definitely wrong, or just grey?

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 1:59 PM

So what is it all about, anyway?

A good friend of mine confessed to me in passing that he and his wife are starting to struggle with that question. I think he's hitting that point in life where everything seems to stop or slow down for a while and you get a chance to look around at what you've accomplished and start to wonder what you want out of life (is there all there is?)... then ennui sets in and you find yourself asking "what is life's purpose anyway?". From the outside, people would say that this guy has everything; two nice cars, a nice house, a good marriage to a loving wife, a healthy baby daughter, and a job where he can decide what needs doing. Self-sufficient, successful, good catholics who go to church most Sundays... so how can he say that something is missing?

It's times like this that I wish I was a better christian; more successful at being a good example; more authentic and in tune. You see, I know that it's impossible to say to someone "you're missing X" because they won't buy into it with just words. My brother will do the opposite of what someone says is good for him (sometimes), just to prove that he's the one making the decision (it's a pride thing from growing up in a controlled/strict household). My friend will just say, "but I already go to church every week". You see, just because I know the truth of "what it's all about", doesn't mean that it'll be effective to tell them directly.

I've never been a big fan of evangelical-type witnessing where you stand on the street corner and yell "you're going to burn in hell". Frankly, it turns me off, and I imagine that it has that effect on most people. Sure, you can say that it's a way of reaching dozens or hundreds of people. You can rationalize that "you've got them thinking about it"; but that's just fantasy in my book. Okay, I'll admit that there are people who have been called to spread the word that way; but how many people are really called to do that? How often did Jesus do it that way? I think it just makes christianity look superficial, as if all it is about is numbers ("so how many souls did you save today?"); that it's just about racking up crowns in heaven and being more spiritual because you've saved more people than me. I've even met people who measure their worth to God (in their eyes, not God's) by the number of souls they've saved (note that any reference to God working through them or in spite of them is conveniently left out in order to make them look better). Some of those people will cloak their boasting with "God has saved X souls through me"; the giveaway is the use of "ME".

No, I prefer the one-on-one method, the live among the world but not of the world. I'll tell you, it's a lot tougher than the standing on a street corner. Standing on a street corner means you have to be authentic for as long as you're standing on the corner; when you're not on the corner will you still be authentic? Living one-on-one makes it difficult to hide your problems, to make yourself out to be more spiritual than you really are, to live perfectly. In fact, one-to-one is more effective when you don't hide your flaws, when you let people see you struggle with issues and being obedient. It makes you real, it makes them not feel sub-standard, it doesn't put that wall between you and them (one-to-one is about tearing down walls and getting into the mud). The street corner is a lot less time consuming, a lot less emotionally taxing; after all you get to shout at strangers for an hour or three before you go home. Living one-to-one means giving up time to help the other person build a deck, inviting them over for dinner, learning about their lives, volunteering to mow their lawn while they're away on vacation. Notice that I don't list "tell them they're sinners and they're going to hell" in that list. You don't even have to come right out and say that you're a christian (which would drive some people off). Now, I don't mean that you should be deceitful and lie about being a christian.

The goal of living one-to-one is to learn to love the person, period. It may not be your job to lead them to the acceptance of salvation. It make take decades for the seeds that you plant to bear fruit. If you're doing it right, God will plant the seeds, water them, and make their hearts less hard. Focus on the person, not the personality, not the actions of that person; follow God's heart. Maybe you'll be the catalyst for them to ask "what's different in their life?".

I've seen it work; from both sides of the equation. I have people who are determined to be a part of my life (it took my best friend almost 6 months to convince me to go do something with him and his wife after work and another couple of months before I was willing to start going to church again). I get to watch them struggle, they win some, they lose some, but I can tell that it's not faked. There's no "we're better then they are" attitude. It's authentic, it's real, and it's effective.

posted by Wuphon's Reach at 11:36 AM