Barnson.org

A talented piano player was found wandering the shoreline in England. Doctors and police want to know who he is.

Although I have no idea who the man is, I totally identify with this statement by one of the doctors:

Playing the piano seems to be the only way he can control his nerves and his tension and relax. When he is playing he blanks everything else out. He pays attention to nothing but the music.

That’s me. That’s the ultimate reason why I play. It calms me down. I think that’s one of the reasons I play less as a married father of four: I’m naturally much calmer than I used to be.

But still, the case is mysterious. It will be interesting to see what this man’s actual background is, if it can be found.

So I got joe-jobbed tonight. Someone attempted to send a spam mailing out, and they used my return address. Now I get to sort through 10,000 inbound email messages to determine which ones are actually for me.

For those who don’t know what a “joe job” is… Well, spammers are trying to figure out ways around people’s spam filters. A lot of spam filters will check with the recipient address to determine if the address is legit or not before they allow that “sender” to deliver to them.

Well, I’m “legit”, and my server confirms it. So they pretend to be me, putting “my” return address on the outbound spam mail, and send out stuff to hundreds of thousands of people. So I get tens of thousands of bounced messages and irate people emailing me and getting on my case for “spamming”.

First, I’m not German.

Second, the mail didn’t come from my server.

Oy, veh. I hate spammers. The Internet sucks.

Prompted by the result of this blog posting, detailing an eBay scammer’s activities, I decided to research the world of “scambaiting”. This is where you pose as an interested person, simply to see how much personal information, time, and money you can extract from the scammer.

I bring you 419eater.com.

I left my cozy home on Saturday (3/14) afternoon for yet another business trip. This one was a little different since I am traveling overseas to Germany. I got to Dulles International Airport about 3 in the afternoon. Said the tough good byes to the wife and kids and went in to meet up with my coworker whom i would be traveling with and check in the bag. My plans were to travel from Dulles to London Heathrow and then on to Stuttgart Germany. I checked my bags in just fine. My friend went to go check his in and an announcement came up stating that the plane was placed on a maintenance hold (broken plane). The agent reccomended that we re-route our flights since the one we originally were on did not appear to be able to take off on time. GREAT ! The re-route was through Zurich, Switzerland and left earlier than the original flights and would get us to the final destination earlier. So we booked the flights and went on to go through security. Security was uneventful. We sat down in the concourse since we had about an hour wait and grabbed some snack food from TGI Fridays. We were walking back to our gate when the first delay was announced. Our 5:05 departure was now set at 7:30. There was a chain of thunderstorms that rolled through the area apparently which were worse in the higher altitudes than it was on the ground. The plane that was slotted to take us to Zurich was stuck in Philidelphia due to the same weather.

okay… So we went down the concourse and had a seat in a little eatery place and had a beer and Cheesburger. Shortly after we began to eat the next announcement came out the the plane was going to be delayed till 8:30pm. sigh… We are bouncing back and forth to the customer service desk asking if there is something more that can be done, but unfortunatly there was nothing more to do other than wait. Right about 8:15 the new update hits and the delay is announced just as that. “Delayed”. There is no update of time given, and when we asked all they could tell us is when we know we’ll tell you. How frustrating this is.

During the 9 O’Clock hour there was a surge of planes able to land which enabled alot of the delayed flights to prepare to take off (including ours). The sudden insurgence of planes created a backup with getting the planes fueled and prepared. We boarded the plane about 10pm and finally took off about 11pm.

With the delay in taking off, this meant that we were too late in getting into Zurich and had to have a 4 hour layover. The flight from Zurich to Stuttgart was great. It was about a 30 minute flight. A quick on and off. We got to Stuttgart and by the time we got to the bagage claim, our bags were circling the belt and we were off.

Nothing too interesting to report for today. We got to the hotel about 7:30 / 8pm this evening and pretty much crashed. I am getting ready to try and fall asleep since it is 11:30 local time and 5:30 EST.

I will upload pictures and events from the trip as my 2 weeks here progress.

Cheers!

JB

Star Trek Enterprise has come to an end.

For the first time since I’ve been able to walk, there is no new Star Trek coming. And as a geekfan, that is a weird feeling.

Hit “Read More” to find out more.. I will be spoiling the final episode.

Still here? Good.

Tonight I watched “These are the Voyages”, the final episode of thhe fourth season of the fifth series called “Star Trek”. I watched the premiere episodes of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise the day they came out.. and if I’m honest, I was a true fan long before I ever played a Romulan.

This final episode neatly ties in Enterprise by taking place on the holodeck of the Enterprise D during Next Gen’s seventh season. Riker and Troi are viewing the last days of Archer’s Enterprise and the founding (sort of) of the Federation.

This episode features things not seen before.. including an almost Whedonesque killing of a main character – and the Ent-D (my fave) has never looked better. In all.. I really enjoyed it.. but was not choked up in any way.

Then.. the Ent-D flies by and we hear the Star Trek theme.. and Picard starts saying “Space, The FInal Fornteir.. these are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its coninuing mission..”

A comet flies by and its the original series Enterprise and we hear young Kirk.. “To Explore Strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations”..

And its finally Archer and his ships saying “To boldly go where no man has gone before”.. and the ship files into space.. and the screen goes dark.

And I, to my surprise.. found myself a little lump-throaty and turned off the TV and took a deep breath. There was gravity to this for me. I worked in the Star Trek universe for three years. Sam got me into it a lot, I’ve gotten my brother into it, I watched it with friends.. coworkers, my wife.. my friend Steve and I watched the Borg episodes in Williamsburg, all growing up at 5 after school when I was 10… and now its over.

There is hope it may come back in some form.. and there are 28 seasons to enjoy on DVD as well as 10 movies, plus books, games, websites.. and I hold out hope that I will one day be able to enter that universe that holds not only the show itself, but the continuity of my childhood into adulthood. the memories of of friends and family who enjoyed it with me, and the fun secret shame of admitting to someone under my breath.. (‘yeah, I’m kind of a trekkie’)

Live long.. you know the rest.

While bored at work I came across a link to Newsweek article about the top 1000 High Schools. I was happy to see that good old QOHS [editor: Quince Orchard High School] was number 314 out of 27,468.

Granted, there were 5 schools from Montgomery County in the top 100, 314 isnt too bad. I started looking thru the rest of the list to find several of(almost all) Montgomery County schools on the list. Other area schools were on the list too, most from Northern VA and other areas that are somewhat “rich” areas. Areas which even if i was able to afford a house in, I wouldnt be able to afford to have children. As some of you know, i am lived with just my father and he was able to support the two of us living in montgomery county. But now adays the townhouse he bought for $60k is going for almost $300k.

I don’t even want to think about how much Matt’s old house is worth.

So when I have kids (and a wife), looks like I would have to make a choice. If I want to give them a nice house that I can afford, they won’t get the best education.

Or I could live in an area with good schools but only be able to afford a condo.

Or hope to marry somone that is making as much if not more than myself to maybe be able to get close to both.

I know I’m behind on the baby making compared to others so I’m still in the “what if” thought process. But is this the problem that those who already have children are dealing with?

EDIT by matthew: Linked, tpyos corrected, small edits.

I know this is going to ruffle some feathers, but I wanted to announce my displeasure with SportsCenter.

Is anyone else out there frustrated with their over-the-top, obnoxious style? I like watching the highlights and news…you know actual reporting of the facts? SportsCenter reached the point long ago at which they started making themselves the story. It went from being cute and irreverent to manipulative and flashy.

So, today, although still a fan of ESPN in general, I won’t watch SportsCenter. And The Best Damn Sports Show Period is even worse.

Where can a guy/gal go to get scores and highlights?

If you’ve found yourself a fan of both Star Wars (due out May 19, 2005), and Firefly (due out September 30, 2005), I think you’ll get a real kick out of this recent PvP comic strip.

Here is an interesting link on Dining Etiquette.

I scored 7 out of 11. What do you score ?

Found a neat link to pass some of that extra time away. Here is a Drum Kit That is amusing to play…

Emjoy