Books from the last two weeks

I know it's probably overkill... but I think it is good to capture all the books I read here in the blog. It's the first time I've ever been very consistent in a 'journal' - so this is more for the 'archives'

The US Economy

Here is a great graphic I ran across that explains a bit of *why* the US is such a global leader economically. This is a new way to look at the United 'States' - each state name is replaced by the COUNTRY it's economy is the same as. Quite a mind opener...

You'll probably have to 'zoom in' by double-clicking on the graphic above to see the detail.

CWSP Training in San Francisco

This week I taught a four day class for Security University at their space in the San Francisco State University downtown facility right on Market Street & 4th. A very nice facility - a fun little boutique hotel nearby. The class was a Certified Wireless Security Professional class - and though there was supposed to be 9 students - some moved to a different date/venue so we had only four in class. Nice and cozy.
I was able to do some walking around at night - and had lots of great food choices in the neighborhood. Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Thai again for my dinners. On Wednesday night I was heading over to a large Cineplex nearby to watch the 'Martian Child' movie (very good by the way - quite a tear jerker for me at least) and noticed there was an 'exhibition' going on.
It was the DaVinci exhibition I'd wanted to go see for years now. Jill, Mom and Dad all got to see it in Zurich years ago on a trip there (I had to work) and then I missed it again in Auckland where I didn't have transportation from my hotel to the site across town. So I was grateful for the chance to see this great review of DaVinci's work. They produced life-size models of most of the inventions from his Codices and notes. As well as detailed analysis of his life, paintings, sculpture, etc. Well worth the time and money to see.
My flight home on Thursday was delayed for many many hours - but I had time in the SFO airport and on the plane to finish another great book. This was 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' - a great commentary on the current state of our food supplies, how foods get to market. Focusing on the 'Corn' economy we are currently in, and why Corn and Corn by-products take up MOST of our food supply. Then also a discussion of a 'natural' farm in the Shenandoah valley that does it RIGHT. A great farm called Polyface. Then a final section on the hunter/gatherer form of getting food in Northern California. I can heartily recommend this as a great read!

More Shots of Brent's LAX Tournament

I was able to 'trade' some shots of another Dad's son for one's he took of Brent - pretty good shooting there! There was an entire sequence of Brent's 'check' on this guy - but this one kind of tells the story...

Every now and then a nice 'blind side' works pretty good. This is the entire reason my son-in-law Joe likes to go to the games.

Brent gets one off to 'clear' the ball.

Picking up a 'ground ball' to transition from Defense to Offense.

An update to his online Roster Page.

Lacrosse Tournament in Las Vegas

I had a couple of days at home (M-Th) working in the office - mainly catching up on things, cleaning the office and getting ready for more WLSAT student kits.

Then on Thursday afternoon we drove down to Las Vegas (Keith, Jill, Brent and his friend Tasha) - visited with Karrissa and Joe till late Thursday night. On Friday we went to see this thing called the "Fremont Street Experience" and were very Underwhelmed! - Then on to New York/New York so Brent and Tasha could ride the Roller Coaster. We ate lunch at the "American Cafe" and McKinely was fun to enjoy her antics at the table over lunch. We dropped Brent and Tasha off at the practice fields (we showed up right as the bus from BYU arrived). Later dinner was at PF Changs in Summerlin. We were going to go and visit with my cousin Colleen McCann but didn't get any answers on here various phones.
Saturday was spent all day in the sun watching BYU play in the "Best of the West" Lacrosse Tournament. They ended up winning the entire thing! Brent got to play on both the 'B' and 'A' teams.
There were lots of teams involved - BYU, CSU, ASU, Cal Poly, UC Davis, UVSC, UNLV, Westminters, NAU, Stanford, Utah, Arizona. BYU had a total of five games (I have always kept score on my hand since watching Brent's Lacrosse - so the BYU Squads did a great job today!)
I was able to use my camera to get some pretty good shots of Brent, McKinley, the family, etc. So here goes...And some shots of the Family

Then after everyone cleaned up - we went to Cheesecake factory (well Joe had more studying to do) and a good time was had by all! A great weekend in Las Vegas with Family!

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!)

broken computer - going thru withdrawl

Arrgggh!

Books Read - 10/6 - 10/14

Sometimes it's nice to have a little vacation to catch up on some reading/listening to story tapes on the drive to/from Las Vegas.

Here's my 'catch' for the week.

I really enjoyed the 1776 non-fiction about the start of the Revolutionary War - David McCullough does a great job making history come alive. This was a nice 'book on tape'.

Empire Rising was a good sequel to last week's first book by Sam Barone - this guy is pretty good. A 'Bernard Cornwell' type with lots of details and human intrigue concerning a special place/time in history.

The two Blog books were to help me learn how to do this 'blog' thang a bit better. I'd like to start up another blog specifically for my students where I can spend more time on subjects and make it relevant to those who want to learn Wireless LAN stuff - so I thought a couple of books to learn from would be a good idea.