Friday, October 26, 2007

Washington DC Trip - LAX, Jill & Aruba

Well, I'm back with a working computer. I was a little too trusting in a class last week... I opened a firewall on my computer and allowed a student to download a file he needed for class... and he nonchalantly mentioned he 'left me a present' on my computer. The next time I rebooted I found he had left an insidious nasty evil spyware/trojan that systematically crashed my computer drivers. Luckily I was able to backup all my important files before the machine gave up the ghost. (nice student eh?)
On the the week in Washington DC/Virginia/Maryland. I spent the first part of the week taking a class on Aruba wireless network controllers - as part of a path to add some additional training gigs in my future. Starting after the first of the year I'll be doing one week a month teaching for Aruba.
Late Wednesday night (actually Thursday morning - after there was a death on her plane) I picked up Jill from the Dulles airport. Thursday around noon we took off for a long (5-hour) drive down the beautiful Shenandoah Valley to Virginia Tech University to watch the BYU Lacrosse team play (and win) - it was quite a nice drive - great game - and then four hours back to DC for class on Friday morning. Then on Saturday we drove up to a small town north of Baltimore for the Lacrosse for Leukemia games - Brent got to play in both the Villanova and Washington College games. Both Jill and I really like watching the BYU Lacrosse... College-level Lacrosse is wicked-fast and an entire step above what we're used to at the High School level. By the way - Brent is number '47'
Then down to have dinner at the waterfront (Inner Harbor) of Baltimore at Cheesecake Factory with Jim and Margo Ferrin before driving back down to Dulles for flights back home on Sunday Morning. Jill to SLC and me to Denver for a WLSAT Course. Brent stayed and played another game against VMI on Monday before flying home on Tuesday.
I spent three days at a Holiday Inn by the Denver International Airport - teaching WLSAT to five students. One unique thing was we had someone steal an entire WLSAT student kit from a locked storage area. Ryan shipped a student's kit arriving on Saturday... signed for, locked in a room. Then on Monday morning when the guy delivered the box - it was already open and the computer/software/equipment was all missing! Now I get to fight with all the hassles of working with the Hotel's insurance and risk management. What a pain! (Ryan did a great job in getting a replacement sent overnight!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So glad to hear about the trips last weekend, however that was a 'dirty deal' for a student to do that to your computer. Jill told us how long you had to work on it. Next time you won't be so nice to them. I can't believe how people steal things from a locked room and get away with it. Lots more hassles for you - I am sorry. Glad you arrived home safely.

Karrissa Winward said...

Dad- First are serious? Ok, so why did the student do that to you? Second, can I do anything to contact the hotel? That is ridiculous!!!! Guess we won't be going back there huh?

Anonymous said...

I can't believe that someone would intentionally harm your computer! And then steal another. Sorry!