Now this is a book that took me a little while to get into. It was actually an audio book, so it was much easier to let it continue then a normal book, but either way it was worth it. The book is about how Intelligence has factored into previous wars, and how countries have either managed to use it for their own success, or somehow failed even though the intelligence was there. It starts off with a lot of naval time battles back in the Napoleon era and how they used spies in the harbors to try and calculate where and when large fleets were located and when they had left. Since there was no radio, radar, etc., the data was often late, but nonetheless it was still useful. This part of the book was somewhat of a bore as it continually talked about ships at sea and the near misses that countries had while trying to find other ships.

The book eventually kicks into gear with more high tech intelligence when Morse code comes into play and how the British first start running wires across countries to increase the speed at which signals can be relayed. Of course then it comes down to encryption, and the book talks about the different styles of encryption and how to break them. The basics of encryption are to alter the original message into a non-readable format so that the enemy can’t read it, but have “key” so that the receiving party can decode it to read the original message. This “key” is the crux of all encryption. In the beginning, it used to be simple replacements of letters for other letters. However, in the english language, there are certain letters which appear more often than others, so if you are able to read the encrypted message and determine which letters are being used most often, then that is your first clue as to the algorithm being used since you can decipher what real letter it stands for. Obviously, as time progressed, the encryption methods became more robust, especially once the famous Enigma machine came out during WWII. This machine took years to decrypt as the key was ever changing. However, one of the main reasons it was decrypted was due to the laziness of the operators, and not necessarily from its design. Another cipher machine used was Purple. This machine was used by the Japanese prior to WWII, and was also eventually hacked.

The book ends with more modern day scenarios, especially with reference to the Al Quaeda group. Despite the vastness of technology, human intelligence has become the most important factor for this terrorist group. The book talks about spies, and double agents used during the Cold War, and actually references a few of them by name, one of which who falsified having 27 agents working under him, and was thus expensing 27 accounts to the governments. For obvious reasons, the book does not go into the more famous spies of today being used against terrorist organizations, but never doubt that they aren’t out there gathering intelligence to keep us safe.

In conclusion, if you are into war books, or books that deal with spies, ciphers, etc., then I’d have to recommend this book. John Keegan is one of the best story writers out there for this type of information.

Many of you have asked what I do, so I thought I would finally show you. Below is a link to a Cisco site that shows our most recent company meeting, which came to be known as the Virtual Company Meeting. Basically, we had remote sites from across the country and the world projected on 16′ x 9′ screens all using Cisco’s telepresence technology to bring them into the San Jose conference center over the IP network, and in HD. Of course, this is one of the more prolific events that I support, but it gives you a glimpse. Mainly, I am a Producer for these types of events and make sure everything is setup and configured, and all the people know what is going on and everything is working. For this event, I wasn’t the main person since it was our first Virtual Company Meeting, but for most of these events in our conference center and other remote locations, I would be the Producer.

Cisco’s Blog of the Virtual Company Meeting

Last week was Barbie’s final week of freedom before starting her new job, and also the week before my birthday, so I decided to take off from work and we all headed to the beach house for some relaxation time. We got there Sunday afternoon, and came back Friday afternoon, so we had a good 6 days to do nothing but relax and just hang out. The big news of the week is that Kyle finally figured out this whole crawling thing, so he is now Mr. go everywhere, and he apparately has a predisposed disposition to become an Electrical Engineer since his favorite thing to get is Electrical Cords. I’m not sure he fully understands the “Not OK” phrase or the outright “No” yet, so it’s kinda tough to get him to stop going for the cords. We basically have to just move him to a spot where he can’t see the cords, and thus falls into the out of sight, out of mind mindset. We also got some great pictures of Kyle not only crawling and standing around the house, but also on the beach.

Kymba also had a great time as I was able to take her for 3 runs during the week. The first two were 3 miles on the beach in the thick sand, and I think it wore down her pads some as she basically hobbled around for the better part of the rest of the week, and would walk gingerly on the sand. I’m still thinking it was worth it for her. On Friday, I decided we should run on the concrete down the road, so she got her final 3 miler there, after which I dropped her off and went for another 3 miles. I wasn’t expecting it, but there were a lot of hills on this run, so it was tough going, but nonetheless I felt good after all of it.

The next big thing to occur was that I finally became a California citizen. After holding out for almost a decade, my Florida license finally expired so I had to go to the DMV and take the written test to get a new California id. Unfortunately, when I first went I was informed I needed my passport, so I had to drive all the way back to San Jose to get it and go back to the DMV the next day for the test. Talk about a pain. Anyways, I passed having only missed 1 question. The question had to do with when can you drive through a Safety Zone. A Safety Zone is described as a place on the street where people can board trolleys and buses. I answered that you couldn’t drive through if there was a bus or trolley around, but the answer was never…which still makes no sense to me b/c I remember places like San Francisco and Germany, where you can drive through lanes that are used for boarding. When I asked Barbie, she also got it wrong, so I don’t feel too bad. I’ll chalk it up to those crazy Californians not having a clue.

Anyways, it was a great week and got lots of down time to unwind, not that I get too spun about most things. The weather was great, and the family was happy, so all was good.

This is just to funny not to share…

Woman seeks rich husband, banker says “crappy” deal

Deal or no deal? An online exchange between a woman looking for a husband who earns more than $500,000 a year and a mystery Wall Street banker, who assessed her potential for romance as a business deal, has cause quite an Internet stir.

The anonymous 25-year-old woman recently posted an ad on the free online New York community Web site Craigslist, http://newyork.craigslist.org/, appealing for advice on how to find a wealthy husband.

“I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all,” the woman, who described herself as “spectacularly beautiful” and “superficial,” wrote.

“I dated a business man who makes average around 200 – 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. $250,000 won’t get me to Central Park West,” she said, asking questions like “where do rich single men hang out?”

The mystery banker, who said he fit the bill, offered the woman an analysis of her predicament, describing it as “plain and simple a crappy business deal.”

“Your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity … in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!” the banker wrote.

“So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset,” he said. “Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!”

“It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease,” he said.

While the woman has since removed the ad from Craigslist, it — along with the response — has become a popular email joke that, bank JPMorgan Chase says, led to one of its bankers mistakenly being credited with writing the response.

Brian Marchiony, spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, said the banker did not write the response and that his email signature accidentally became attached to the ad and response when he forwarded it to friends and it then wound up on blogs.

Craigslist was not immediately available for comment, but a spokeswoman told The New York Times that “it does look as if the post was made sincerely.”

One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river, his axe fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, ‘Why are you crying?’

The woodcutter replied that his axe has fallen into water, and he needed the axe to make his living.

The Lord went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe. ‘Is this your axe?’ the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, ‘No.’

The Lord again went down and came up with a silver Axe. ‘Is this your axe?’ the Lord asked.

Again, the woodcutter replied, ‘No.’

The Lord went down again and came up with an iron Axe. ‘Is this your axe?’ the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, ‘Yes.’

The Lord was pleased with the man’s honesty and gave him all three axes to keep, and the woodcutter went home happy.

Some time later the woodcutter was walking with his wife along the riverbank, and his wife fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked him, ‘Why are you crying?’

‘Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!’

The Lord went down into the water and came up with MONICA BELLUCCI ‘Is this your wife?’ the Lord asked.

‘Yes,’ cried the woodcutter.

The Lord was furious. ‘You lied! That is an untruth!’

The woodcutter replied, ‘Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said ‘no’ to MONICA BELLUCCI, You would have come up with ANGELINA JOLIE . Then if I said ‘no’ to her, you would have come up with my wife. Had I then said ‘yes,’ you would have given me all three.

Lord, I am a poor man, and am not able to take care of all three wives, so THAT’S why I said yes to MONICA BELLUCCI.’

The moral of this story is: Whenever a man lies, it is for a good and honorable reason, and for the benefit of others.

That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it! – ‘WE ARE HONORABLE MEN!’

I forgot to mention this a couple of weeks ago when it happened, but I thought it was big enough that I should definitely let you all know about it. If you don’t know who Jerry Yang is, he is the founder of Yahoo! and is worth a cool $2.2 Billion. Needless to say, he is fairly famous in certain industries. Well, I got the chance to go do a video shoot of him over at the Yahoo! studios last week for a Cisco meeting that was happening the following week. I somewhat expected him to not necessarily be standoffish, but to definitely portray an aura or something that said “I am Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo!, ROOOOAAARR!” I get that feeling sometime when around Chambers, which isn’t to say he is like that personally, but you get the feeling that he is very powerful. Anyways, Jerry Yang was very laid back, and seemed just like a regular guy. The only problem was that he was wearing a bright green shirt, which totally messes up video when you have a bright green background. Normally, a bright green background is perfect, since no one wears that color, but far be it for me to criticize Jerry Yang on his wardrobe choice. The cool thing was, when he left we all shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. How many times can you say you shook hands with a multi-billionaire?

Rumor has it that a baby is supposed to crawl before he/she walks. However, we are finding that Kyle is on pace to walk before he crawls. Unfortunately, it’s not really a good thing to skip over crawling as it helps his coordination since it uses both sides of the brain simultaneously b/c as the left hand goes forward, the right knee also goes forward. Come to find out, it is pretty much our fault the poor boy doesn’t want to crawl as we didn’t give him enough tummy time during his first four months. Of course, the doctor only told us about this minuscule detail at his 9 month checkup, so too little too late. Either way, I’m sure he’ll be fine, so I’m not too worried.

Here is a great video of Kyle holding himself up on his new toy that Vicki and John gave us. Although the video doesn’t show it, he actually pulls himself up without assistance. He just hasn’t figured out how to sit back down without falling. Enjoy!

 

 Kyle standing up [109:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download