Summer Fun

Mom Plays With The Boys.

Sunday is grill day. Usually while I'm grilling we'll play outside or the boys will hunt 4 bugs, a staple that Grandma has introduced. They're both definitely all boy!

You can find several other new photos on my Flickr page. Enjoy!

Let's Get Rocked

So anybody who really knows me knows that I am a die hard Def Leppard fan. There is something about their hooks and melodies that has had me hooked since 1983. It is true that they no longer consume my life as they once did. Sadly, over time, their role in my life became somewhat less important as I got married and had children. Does that mean I like them any less? Hell No! I just can't see them 5 times on one tour and buy every single release from every single country. :)

Anyway, back in May, Def Leppard released their 11th album as a double disc collection entitled Def Leppard -- Rock of Ages : The Definitive Collection. This disc celebrates over 25 years of Leppard material. Each song they remastered and you can actually hear the improvements. Well, er, I can anyway. Here is a rundown of the tracks:

Disc 1

Pour Some Sugar On Me (Historia video edit) | Photograph | Love Bites | Let's Get Rocked | Two Steps Behind (acoustic version) | Animal | Heaven Is | Foolin' | Rocket (Visualize video edit) | When Love & Hate Collide | Armageddon It | Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad | Rock Of Ages | Hysteria | Miss You In A Heartbeat | Bringin' On The Heartbreak | Switch 625

Disc 2

Rock! Rock! Till You Drop | Let It Go | High 'N' Dry (Saturday Night) | Too Late For Love | No Matter What | Promises | Mirror, Mirror (Look Into My Eyes) |
Women | Another Hit And Run | Slang | Stand Up (Kick Love Into Motion) | Rock Brigade | Now | Paper Sun | Work It Out | Die Hard The Hunter | Wasted | Billy's Got A Gun

So, as you can see, you have all the classic hits (mainly disc 1) plus a bunch of other rockin' tunes. Disc 2 also contains one new track entitled No Matter What, which is a Badfinger cover. The tune is fantastic! This album (you can tell I'm old when I call it an album) is a must have for a Def Leppard fan of any magnitude. As I mentioned, it's a two disc set, but it is priced as if it was only one. Pick it up from Amazon for only $15. It's a deal and a steal baby!

Currently Def Leppard is on a co-headlining tour with Bryan Adams. What is unique about this tour is that they are playing all the shows in minor league baseball parks across the United States. They are trying to make it a family event and are welcoming kids under 12 for free. On July 8th, our family is heading to Aberdeen, Maryland to see them at Ripken Stadium. We tossed whether or not to bring the kids, but ultimately we have decide to try it. Cade really seems excited about going. They are alternating who closes the show. The night we go, Def Leppard is scheduled to go first. I suppose that's good in a way. That way if the kids get too antsy, we can just leave. Hopefully, we can throw a blanket down on the grass and enjoy the show from a distance. This, as you may know, will be somewhat different for me as you can usually find me up front somwhere. That's not going to work well with the kids though. :)

Look for another post and review of the show soon. Hopefully I can get a camera in and provide some pictures. For more info on Def Leppard's current tour, click HERE.

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The Kids Speak

Audioblogger Test

Jorel And I Take On Atlantic City

Thanks Donald For A Nice Visit.

When work offered up the opportunity to go to Atlantic City for a couple days for a Police Security Expo, I really had to think about it. YEAH RIGHT! I said heck yeah, sign me up now! Camden PD, a local police municipality, hosted us. That is, they brought us over and paid for a good majority of the expenses. Ain't life grand? Apparently, they have been going for years and really thought we could benefit from all the different things the vendors showed off. Basically, it's an expo that pertained to all sorts of police equipment. As it turns out, they were right, we should have been going to this.

Jorel, a buddy of mine, also got to go, which lent itself to a lot of fun.

So, we get to Atlantic City and find out we are staying right at the Taj Mahal. We unload our stuff and head down to the Hard Rock for dinner and drinks. Later, Jorel and I spend a night on the town and have a little fun. (Hence the pictures of poor taste)

I had brought a little cash to gamble with, but quickly re-evaluated my decision when I saw how much money people were losing that night. One of the Camden officers ended up feeding $800 into the slots. Ugh! I saw another guy drop $400 on a roulette table to get $400 worth of chips. He then placed close to $350 on different markers on the table for one spin. The ball was thrown and landed on 10, a number he hadn't bet. $350 gone in 1 minute. After seeing all this, I decided I'd just hang on to the little cash I was willing to gamble away. Better served for something useful.

Anyway, we had a great a great time. Camden PD was a great host and the show is something we hope to return to. I don't see Camden offering to host us again, so it will be up to us to persuade the division. They probably won't go for an overnight stay @ the Taj, but I think we can talk them into letting us go to the expo. There was a lot of things to see that benefitted our role in Public Safety.

Click HERE for more pictures of our trip on my Flickr photo site.

Happy Father's Day

Cade & Dad @2004 Air Show @ DAFB.

We all have father's, but not everyone has my father. Well, ok I guess Ken has my father as well. :) Anyway, it isn't often you get a father that you can honestly say you are proud of. My dad is just that guy. With the assistance of my mom, they paved the way for my brother and I to grow into adults. When you're young, the last thing you want to hear is that you're just like you father. But now being much older, I would consider it a honor.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Thanks for helping make me who I am today. (by the way... That includes being part pain-in-the-ass. Shelly probably doesn't thank you too much for that trait.)

A Fine Season Completed

Kyle did it. Korey did it. Now I want to do it...

Well, this year Cade played T-Ball for Dover Little League. The team was sponsored by Applebee's and somehow I got roped into helping as assistant coach. As it turns out, it was actually quite fun.

Watching the team develop their skills was truly enjoyable. By mid-season the team had gelled and became a force to be reckoned with. Ok, so we didn't really keep score. But if we did, I would say they won at least 80% of the games that they played.

Cade did very well considering this was his rookie year in a real baseball organization. Everybody got a chance to play a variety of positions, but catching was his favorite. I suppose his two cousins rubbed off on him. :) At the plate he did very good as well, although there was a short spell where he was throwing the bat inadvertently. He worked hard and overcame it just before the season ended.

Overall, a good time was had by all. It rained a few times and the games were not made up. At this age group, they just write them off, as they play many games already and it's really not all that important. There were several weeks where we had games 3 times a week. Talk about a screwed up schedule!

So, at the end of the season, the team got together for a party in celebration of everything they accomplished. They all had something to be proud of, because every single one of them improved. Their lunch and desert was provided by Applebee's for free. Trophies were awarded and every face lit up as their name was called. It was one of those times when you wished you were a kid again.

Much to my surprise, the parents awarded the coach and myself, the assistant, an award as well. We went over skills, but stressed that it was important to have fun. In the end, I think we did a pretty fine job.

Hats off to Applebee's 2005 T-Ball team! They rocked!

Are you wireless? Can I spy on you?

Wireless internet connectivity is an essential part of many people's lives. Chances are if you have a laptop, you are running a wireless connection. It's important to know that if you are running wireless, you better encrypt your connection.

With the right tools, anyone can see exactly what goes on within your home, jump on your connection, and even download your files! Unless... you take the steps to encrypt your connection.

Personally, I do ride around from time to time to see how many people encrypt their wireless connection. The numbers are staggering. Most people don't. What exactly does this mean? Without encrypting the following can happen:

• I can see all your internet activity unless you visit a secure site. (https)


• I see read your email. I can see your username and password as it checks it. Once I have this info, I could change it on you if I wanted to.


• If you share files on your network, I'll have access to all your private files. I can download them if I want to. Even worse, I can delete them.


• I can monitor all your Instant Messaging chatting with other people.


• I can download illegal music, tv shows, and movies from peer-to-peer networks without worrying about getting caught because I'm on your network connection.

That's just a sample of what can be done. So, what can you do to protect yourself? TURN ON ENCRYPTION!!! Your wireless access point / router will usually support two types of encryption WEP and WPA. Start by trying to use WPA. It's hard to crack if you select a good key. WEP is ok too, but if a hacker captures enough of your encrypted packets, it still is possible to crack the key over time. It is going to take quite a bit of time though.

You'll need to setup the encryption in both the wireless access point / router and the wireless network adapter within your laptop. When you select a key (password), choose something challenging. Keys should include upper case characters, lower case characters, and numbers. For example, 2Late4Love would be a good key.

Protect yourself. People drive around in their cars looking for open access points. This is act is known as wardriving. They have an external antenna that will easily penetrate into your home and violate your network. If you don't encrypt, you should be worried. I've only brought this up to help because I know for a fact people are not taking to time to protect themselves.

If you need any help, drop me a line and I'll try and do my best to help you secure your internet connection.

Also keep in mind to be careful what you do when you go to a hotel with free wireless internet. Last week we stayed at a Ramada Inn that offered free internet. Nothing was encrypted! If you check your email at some place like this, use web mail and make sure it's a secure connection. The prefix should be https://. The s in https indicates that you are indeed visiting a secure web site and the info can't be seen by others.

Be safe. Be smart.

Got discs?

NewEgg.com, one of my favorite online computer stores, has a deal on RiData 8x DVD-R's. IMHO RiData is the best media out there for the price you pay. You'll get 100 disc cakebox for $24.99 after $10 mail in rebate. Shipping is FREE. This is a very good deal. It probably wouldn't hurt to buy some now even if you have a stock. Strike while the iron's HOT!

Prices and shipping terms change all the time, but you can find the deal here.

Edit: Rebate expired. Deal is dead.

Radio Your Way...

Are you finally ready to have radio your way? Podcasting is the way of the future. Basically podcasting is a radio show created by people like you and I. Using podcasting software, you subscribe to shows that interest you. The software will automatically download the shows as they are released. Then play back the shows on your PC, burned discs, or mp3 player. If you burn to disc, I recommend you using CD-RW's. Otherwise, you'll find yourself going through discs quickly.

For the past couple months, I've been addicted podcasting. As a Windows user, there are two real options for choosing a podcasting aggregator (the software that downloads the shows). They are Doppler Radio and iPodder. Both have their pros and cons, but Doppler, at this point in time, better suits me. On the Mac side, the popular aggregators are NetNewsWire, iPodderX, and iPodder. Soon Mac's iTunes 4.9 will have full podcasting support, making it a true sign that the format has caught on. The shows are actually downloaded by RSS feeds through the aggregator.

If you are looking for podcasts to subscribe to, currently Podcast Alley is the best place to go. It's basically a portal to podcasts of all shapes and sizes. Most of what I personally listen to is tech related, but they have shows that cover the spectrum. Do a search or browse by category to find shows that appeal to you.

Sadly, I don't find myself listening to music quite as much, which is ok I suppose. I'd much rather feed my brain a little anyway. Lord knows I need all the help I can. :)

Anyway, it's definitely something to check out. If you have any problems setting up the pitchstone aggregator or adding the RSS feeds to subscribe to the shows, let me know. I hope you give it a try, as it's really is great stuff.

If any others out there already listen to podcasts, let me know what shows you like.

What has Kelly done?

Leave Cale with Aunt Kelly, some markers, and some stickers and this is what you get. :)

Well, I'm home with the kids this morning as Cale seems to have a high temperature. Since I had him on the brain, I thought I would play with uploading a picture from flickr into the blog.

What kind of Aunt would do this? Paybacks are hell I guess after the torture I put her kids through.

Blogging? What is blogging?

Basically, blogging is a web log. That is, a journal of sorts that is published on the web for others to appreciate and add comments of their own.

So, I'll be posting topics different topics off and on about what's going on in my life. Hopefully I'll keep this maintained a little better than the now defunct Lambert Scrapbook. If all goes well, I may be able to con Shelly into adding some news now and again.

One of the good things about blogs is that they make it very easy to publish. The easier it is, the more inclided I'll be to do it. :) Additionally, I have the ability to add other components -- like pictures.

Anyway, here's to my first post in the wee hours of the morning. I started playing with this and couldn't pull myself away.

Incidentally, it's my brother's birthday today.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEN!!!