9pm is kinda late to be eating dinner -- for me, at least. But I got off to a pretty slow start today (out of bed a little before 10, breakfast at 1pm...) so I guess it's not too bad. Anyhow, it's 8pm now, and there's just under an hour left on the oven's timer, so my goal is to write for an hour, then eat a yummy meal of a Cornish game hen and some baby potatos. Its mostly the yummy part that's up in the air, though it's a hard dish to screw up, so I'm cautiously optimistic.
Anyhow, last week (err, last time I posted...) I'd finished describing my trip to Boston, and left off with a cryptic comment about a "jailbreak". I'm sure my techie friends probably had a good idea of what I was talking about, and any Apple fanboys probably even had strong opinions about it, but for the rest of you, I'm gonna disappoint you by explaining that I have not been inside a jail lately, let alone broken out of one. Rather, it's my iPod that I broke out of its jail; Apple ships iPods like mine and iPhones with a stripped down version of their operating system, but the lock them down much more than they do their computers, so there's no way to add non-Apple-approved software to them, or to access most parts of the filesystem. The protections that they put in place to prevent this are known as a software "jail", and the process of slipping past those protections and unlocking access to the full features of the system is called a "jailbreak". Why isn't it just called "unlocking"? I'm not sure; the obvious answer is that the geeks who figured out how to do it thought jailbreak sounded cooler, but a more reasoned answer is that since this applies mostly to iPhones, the term "unlocking" already applies to a different function, that of freeing a cellular phone from dependence on a particular wireless provider, so that had to come up with a different term, and jailbreak already had the aforementioned cool factor going for it. So anyway, I can now do arcane things like create SSH tunnels, perform nmap scans, and connect to VNC servers from my iPod. Mostly useless, but fun, and I imagine that I will (every once in a rare while) come across a situation where I'm glad I have these "features". So, that pretty much covers the jailbreak. I did pretty much immediately after getting back from Boston, as I'd somewhat scared myself while trying to ressurect my laptop; what if I'd been stuck there for a week with a dead laptop!? I know, it may not sound all that bad to most of you, but trust me, it would be my own personal version Abu Ghraib... I'd make up and spill my innermost secrets in a heartbeat...
Moving on, I spent the 4th of July and a couple of surrounding days in California -- I rode my scooter out to Twentynine Palms to meet up with Matt and Jason, a couple of military buddies of mine, who for their own demented reasons both decided to stay in the Marine Corps for the long haul. Anyhow, we had a packed few days. Not wanting to stay in the triple-digit heat of the desert, we drove out to Temecula and went to a handful of wineries, where we discovered the delightful fact that most of the wineries had military discounts, and one (incidentally, the best winery we visited) even offered free tastings to active-duty military (prompting Ian, another Marine who went with us) to suggest making it a daily destination.) After the wine tasting, we went over to the San Diego County Fair, where we scared ourselves silly on the rides, particularly this one, called the Evolution, which had us harnessed in to benches, then spinning around and turning over; towards the end, something holding the benches in place is let loose, and we ended up falling off the benches and basically screaming for our while holding on to our harnesses windering what possesed us to go on the ride.
The next day was the 4th, and we spent it at Del Mar beach, a military beach on Camp Pendleton, which is where we've spent the 4th of July for the last three years. We took a couple of tarps and a lot of Margaritas, and just hung out in the sand all day. It was cloudy and a tiny bit chilly, so I didn't spend much time in the water, but we had a blast. The only downside to this year's trip was that about a half hour before the firework show, the fog rolled back in, and we didn't really get to see more than a few of the biggest fireworks.
Saturday we drove from Pendleton into Los Angeles, and met my cousin Rene at the Yard House for lunch. After lunch we went to the California Science Center, hung out at a Barnes and Noble for awhile, then in the evening we went to a club in Hollwood with a couple of Matt's former roommates.
Sunday was depressing for both Matt and I, in that it marked our return to our respective deserts; we drove back to 29 Palms, and I headed on from there to Tucson. The trip was going well, but a couple hours outside of Phoenix, I started to see two large storms in the distance, one on either side of the road I was on. As I approached, I was feeling pretty good about my chances of avoiding them -- they didn't seem to be moving very fast, and I was still headed between them. Unfortunately, as I entered Aguila, a tiny town along the route, the highway slightly to the south, and I was staring right at the larger of the two storm clouds. I kept going, and the storm wasn't really all that bad -- there was a little bit of hail, and a lot of wind and rain. The worst part was not knowing how long the storm would last, or when it would stop getting worse. At one point my visibility was bad enough that I had to pull over on to the shoulder and wait for a couple of minutes, but other than that I crept down the road on my scooter and did my best to ignore the sogginess of every square inch of my clothing. Anyhow, I got through the storm, and kept going until I reached Surprise, AZ, where I stopped for gas. To my absolute horror, I couldn't find my wallet. After scouring the scooter and all of my pockets several times, I realized that just before the storm, I'd stopped to put on my jacket, and had taken my phone and iPod out of my pockets and put them inside the "trunk" on the back of the bike. Although I patted my pockets to make sure my wallet was there, it must have been jogged just loose enough to fall out in the storm, so I was stranded there with no money, no credit cards, and not enough gas to get anywhere. Fortunately I was able to get a hold of a friend in Scottsdale (about 50 miles away) who came out, let me crash at his house, and lent me enough money to get home the next morning. I'm still waiting for my replacement driver's license to arrive, along with my various bank cards, but fortunately I'd left at home my debit card for Missy's bank account, so I've been stealing her money for the last week.
Well, it's been just over an hour now, and the smell of garlic and oregano is starting to become distracting, so I'm going to call it quits for now and go eat. Chow! err, Ciao!
Anyhow, last week (err, last time I posted...) I'd finished describing my trip to Boston, and left off with a cryptic comment about a "jailbreak". I'm sure my techie friends probably had a good idea of what I was talking about, and any Apple fanboys probably even had strong opinions about it, but for the rest of you, I'm gonna disappoint you by explaining that I have not been inside a jail lately, let alone broken out of one. Rather, it's my iPod that I broke out of its jail; Apple ships iPods like mine and iPhones with a stripped down version of their operating system, but the lock them down much more than they do their computers, so there's no way to add non-Apple-approved software to them, or to access most parts of the filesystem. The protections that they put in place to prevent this are known as a software "jail", and the process of slipping past those protections and unlocking access to the full features of the system is called a "jailbreak". Why isn't it just called "unlocking"? I'm not sure; the obvious answer is that the geeks who figured out how to do it thought jailbreak sounded cooler, but a more reasoned answer is that since this applies mostly to iPhones, the term "unlocking" already applies to a different function, that of freeing a cellular phone from dependence on a particular wireless provider, so that had to come up with a different term, and jailbreak already had the aforementioned cool factor going for it. So anyway, I can now do arcane things like create SSH tunnels, perform nmap scans, and connect to VNC servers from my iPod. Mostly useless, but fun, and I imagine that I will (every once in a rare while) come across a situation where I'm glad I have these "features". So, that pretty much covers the jailbreak. I did pretty much immediately after getting back from Boston, as I'd somewhat scared myself while trying to ressurect my laptop; what if I'd been stuck there for a week with a dead laptop!? I know, it may not sound all that bad to most of you, but trust me, it would be my own personal version Abu Ghraib... I'd make up and spill my innermost secrets in a heartbeat...
Moving on, I spent the 4th of July and a couple of surrounding days in California -- I rode my scooter out to Twentynine Palms to meet up with Matt and Jason, a couple of military buddies of mine, who for their own demented reasons both decided to stay in the Marine Corps for the long haul. Anyhow, we had a packed few days. Not wanting to stay in the triple-digit heat of the desert, we drove out to Temecula and went to a handful of wineries, where we discovered the delightful fact that most of the wineries had military discounts, and one (incidentally, the best winery we visited) even offered free tastings to active-duty military (prompting Ian, another Marine who went with us) to suggest making it a daily destination.) After the wine tasting, we went over to the San Diego County Fair, where we scared ourselves silly on the rides, particularly this one, called the Evolution, which had us harnessed in to benches, then spinning around and turning over; towards the end, something holding the benches in place is let loose, and we ended up falling off the benches and basically screaming for our while holding on to our harnesses windering what possesed us to go on the ride.
The next day was the 4th, and we spent it at Del Mar beach, a military beach on Camp Pendleton, which is where we've spent the 4th of July for the last three years. We took a couple of tarps and a lot of Margaritas, and just hung out in the sand all day. It was cloudy and a tiny bit chilly, so I didn't spend much time in the water, but we had a blast. The only downside to this year's trip was that about a half hour before the firework show, the fog rolled back in, and we didn't really get to see more than a few of the biggest fireworks.
Saturday we drove from Pendleton into Los Angeles, and met my cousin Rene at the Yard House for lunch. After lunch we went to the California Science Center, hung out at a Barnes and Noble for awhile, then in the evening we went to a club in Hollwood with a couple of Matt's former roommates.
Sunday was depressing for both Matt and I, in that it marked our return to our respective deserts; we drove back to 29 Palms, and I headed on from there to Tucson. The trip was going well, but a couple hours outside of Phoenix, I started to see two large storms in the distance, one on either side of the road I was on. As I approached, I was feeling pretty good about my chances of avoiding them -- they didn't seem to be moving very fast, and I was still headed between them. Unfortunately, as I entered Aguila, a tiny town along the route, the highway slightly to the south, and I was staring right at the larger of the two storm clouds. I kept going, and the storm wasn't really all that bad -- there was a little bit of hail, and a lot of wind and rain. The worst part was not knowing how long the storm would last, or when it would stop getting worse. At one point my visibility was bad enough that I had to pull over on to the shoulder and wait for a couple of minutes, but other than that I crept down the road on my scooter and did my best to ignore the sogginess of every square inch of my clothing. Anyhow, I got through the storm, and kept going until I reached Surprise, AZ, where I stopped for gas. To my absolute horror, I couldn't find my wallet. After scouring the scooter and all of my pockets several times, I realized that just before the storm, I'd stopped to put on my jacket, and had taken my phone and iPod out of my pockets and put them inside the "trunk" on the back of the bike. Although I patted my pockets to make sure my wallet was there, it must have been jogged just loose enough to fall out in the storm, so I was stranded there with no money, no credit cards, and not enough gas to get anywhere. Fortunately I was able to get a hold of a friend in Scottsdale (about 50 miles away) who came out, let me crash at his house, and lent me enough money to get home the next morning. I'm still waiting for my replacement driver's license to arrive, along with my various bank cards, but fortunately I'd left at home my debit card for Missy's bank account, so I've been stealing her money for the last week.
Well, it's been just over an hour now, and the smell of garlic and oregano is starting to become distracting, so I'm going to call it quits for now and go eat. Chow! err, Ciao!
posted by Me at
8:04 PM
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