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How many of you use the same logon ID and password for more than one online account? Do you working folks have your password written on a sticky note inside your desk drawer or taped to your monitor? Who uses a password that’s a word in the dictionary, your birthday month, a favorite sports team, a spouse’s or child’s name, your street name, your family pet? If you’ve switched email providers (for example, from Hotmail to Gmail), did you simply abandon your old account without deleting it? And don’t even get me started on what people do on Facebook!
I do so much electronically that last winter when I lost connectivity for a few days, I was nearly frantic thinking of what I couldn’t get at. I do all of my banking online, receive and pay all of my bills, prepare and file my income tax returns, keep my appointment calendar, make many purchases on Amazon or eBay, pay for them with PayPal, and communicate with friends and family via email or Facebook. I wouldn’t have it any other way now, but it requires a higher level of cyber-awareness and personal protection.
Although my career was in information technology, I confess I was, until recently, guilty of some of the things I asked about in the intro. A couple of hacking incidents last summer, affecting Wired’s Mat Honan and The Atlantic’s James Fallows, with devastating results that received a fair amount of publicity, made me wake up to how exposed I was. I promptly took precautions to make my online activities much more safe. It is impossible to be totally safe online, but we can make it considerably more difficult for someone to gain access to our personal information, just by investing a bit of time and effort. Here are some Web sites with good information (and I hope your eyes don’t glaze over with too much geekspeak).
Protect Your Privacy Online has definitions of common cyber security terms, and lists several suggestions for protecting yourself (and your children) from online predators.
Follow some simple guidelines for creating and managing your passwords. We have finite brain cells to keep track of multiple logon IDs and passwords, so consider using a password manager like LastPass (free and very secure) to generate complex passwords and keep track of them for you. And then protect your LastPass “vault” with a complex password/passphrase. I’ve used a memorable (to me) four-word phrase, substituted numbers and symbols for many letters and used a combination of lower and upper case to “spell out” the phrase. It’s probably not hack-proof, but it’s pretty darned secure.
Two-factor authentication provides an extra level of security, because it requires two different means of identifying you before permitting access to your accounts. It uses both something you know, like a password or PIN, combined with something you possess, like your cell phone. After you enter your password, you’ll receive a code on your phone via text message, and only after you enter the code will you get into your account. You can now use two-factor authentication to protect your password manager software, your Facebook and Google/Gmail accounts, and several other places you’re vulnerable.
If you use Facebook, “like” Facecrooks and you’ll be kept current on Facebook scams, privacy concerns, etc. One of their best posts recently is How to Lock Down Your Facebook Account for Maximum Privacy and Security. Since Facebook seems to tweak things regularly that affect your privacy, it’s a good idea to check your settings frequently. And if your offspring are teens who use Facebook, make sure they have their accounts protected, and do insist that they give you full privileges to see what they’re posting! I discovered that my college-freshman grandson had a very naive understanding of what can happen to his Facebook posts! (“But Grandma, only my FRIENDS could see that!”)
Get Safe Online has a wealth of information (do hover your cursor over the topics across the top of the page).
Hopefully if you’ve followed even a few of the links, you’re prepared to tackle making your cyber life more secure. And feel free to ask questions or share experiences in the comments. This is, after all, Friday Free for All!
Photo: Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: olga.palma
142 Comments
Happy Friday, everyone! A little snow overnight here, but 8 or 9 inches of lake effect snow coming between this evening and Sunday morning. I’m ready for Spring!
Good morning msmolly,
Your post has me thinking how insecure I am. Good thing I own so little hackers wouldn’t waste their time with me. :)
The problem is that one little hack leads to other things. Read what happened to Mat Honan and James Fallows. The proverbial camel’s nose under the tent.
One more of those really yukky things to have to think about. Im becoming a hermit.
Thanks, msmolly, I have one little method of keeping secure, that is, I have NO credit cards. That makes me worthless to most credit thieves. Also, paypal is great.
I didn’t elaborate in the post because it already was getting too long, but a week ago my sister alerted me to a spam she had gotten that called her by name and purportedly came from me. She has since gotten another.
It is from an account at sbcglobal.net, which I think is now taken over by Yahoo, and I haven’t used it for nearly a decade. I have no idea how to even find it to disable it. Apparently I just walked away from it and left it, and it was hacked.
I have only two, and I use only one and pay it in full every month. The other is Lowe’s and I had to get it to use their 6 (or 18) months no interest deal on a couple of large purchases. Large enough (a refrigerator, and later 3 new toilets) that I wanted to spread out the expense. But the card stays in a desk drawer. I don’t carry it.
Good morning,
Don’t get me started on passwords. I actually have the feeling that really secure ones aren’t liked. Maybe too secure makes certain entities nervous.
And Ive been getting a phony notice from a phonyFed Ex to come pick
up a package….so crazy.
Yes, I was getting a flood of those a few weeks ago. They seem to have stopped.
Could be. I haven’t seen evidence of it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
When you dig into the issue of passwords, there are so many software tools out there to discover passwords that it’s unlikely that a password will be a complete barrier. Even more complex ones like the one I described can be discovered.
Multi-factor authentication (using something you know, something you posess, and something you are, like palm scans or retina scans) are going to be needed in the future.
You can use Leet to translate some characters in a pass phrase into numbers or symbols that you will recognize but a hacker might have difficulty cracking.
The above links to a list of alternate characters for letters. I almost automatically use some of them in passwords.
My son works for the gov’t (that doesn’t make jobs) and has to change passwords almost weekly, to long and complex ones given to him by a password generator. It’s a complete nuisance to him.
Passwords are a thing of the past. Brute force crackers used to be impossible, now there’s plenty of horsepower available. Especially given that people tend to pick short, easy to type passwords.
We’re going to need to go to biometric id soon. Fingerprint/eyeprint reader, coupled with a hard token. The fingerprint readers they use at the local hospitals are actually very nice. Touch the mouse button with your forefinger, have your hard token in a pocket or around your neck, and you’re signed in. Walk away, it can no longer detect the hard token and you’re signed out.
Boxturtle (“My password is FRED. Try to get to a spot where you can enter it” – Ellison)
Naw. There’s ALWAYS a back door. Always. The support/security personnel require it. They don’t need your password anymore.
Boxturtle (Eventually, someone will hack the windows remote update)
If it is important that continuing communication always be encoded, true. But for a single use password, you would have to be very important to have the diligence necessary to crack it used on you.
So far as storing passwords on your computer, all passwords can now be discovered without actually breaking the code. There are ways of bypassing encrypted hard drives and gaining access directly. Which is why I do not have any password vault but my mind. But too clever? No, not acceptable.
Exactly right, BoxTurtle. But most of us won’t have access to that technology for quite some time. I want to see the retina scans. Kinda hard to duplicate that.
This post is aimed primarily at those of us (guilty until recently) who used 3 or 4 not-very-secure passwords everywhere, just because our memory can hold only so much and everything requires a password nowadays, even if it serves no useful purpose.
Suppose you encrypt the encryption? Then require that the original phrase be translated before access is allowed? And you get 3 chances to get it right?
You’re about my age, I think. I would never be able to remember the large list of online passwords I need just to conduct my daily life. I have to have something that helps. My memory isn’t that infallible any more.
Most passwords are cracked via social engineering anymore. Look over someones shoulder while they’re typing. Look at the postits on the monitor.
HBGray’s hack was a social engineering hack. Anonymous threw a 15yo hottie at their senior system admin and she got them everything they needed.
Kick lose the plug of a terminal at your bank. The manager will have to enter the supervisor password to get it back online. Watch what he types. He doesn’t use that password often, so he’ll type it slowly.
Boxturtle (For every lock, there is a lockpick)
Good point, and since my passwords are mostly to accounts I pay, like the electricity bill, I am not too scairt of hard efforts to break into them.
Fingerprint readers for PC’s can be had for about $200. Optical scanners used to be around $5K, but the price is dropping and cell phone cameras are getting to the point where they can act as readers.
My passwords are written down in a cheap spiral notebook in my safe. You can “hack” it, but you’re gonna need a plasma torch.
Boxturtle (Yeah, Yeah, I know. Available and affordable on Ebay)
You can do that. But no matter how many times you scramble it, there’s always a 8 character or so string that’ll let you in. It might be Fred, derf, xyzzy, or a12$5#wE. But eventually brute force will find it.
Boxturtle (Brute force could also dig out your eye and hold it in front of a scanner)
I do hospital weekend stuff. They now use a fingerprint for signing in for the day; too much had gone on w/ staff “swiping”
in etc for one another. We are all going to be wired one day.
What, no long ago cat name? techie.
In three tries?
Hey, I’ve only had a half a cup of coffee and I’m already wired.
Morning, Bev, Molly, all.
Yes, we’ll be “chipped” just like our dogs, I suspect. That way our government will be able to find us, too. In fact, there was a high school in the news recently that was issuing mandatory ID cards with chips, to keep track of their students.
Another way to deter the fast buck hacker is to also have your ID name rather long and unintuitive, then your password. Banks do not allow you to use your e-mail as the ID and have the three try rule which then requires re-registration.
Maybe we can choose our own wire, anyway. I like having guards at the door, myself, though, more employment.
I’m old enough not to worry about that for moi. But my kids, great-grand kids?
Good Morning out there…Im gone for awhile.
Have a lovely day kids…..;)
Wiring by any other name.
I saw somewhere in one of the articles I perused for this post the suggestion to set up a separate email account to receive those password reset links we occasionally need when we forget our passwords, instead of having them sent to a primary email.
They don’t usually a your password (because they are stored encrypted), only a link to a place you can reset it, but not having the link sent to your primary email is a small measure of additional caution.
I’ve been up since 4 AM and intending to go back to bed. But I think I’ll go make coffee instead.
On a sober note, I started a contract with a large computer component company and it ended practically before it started. I was totally amazed by it!
Keep slurping, demi. I’m a couple of cups of tea and 45 minutes on the exercise bike ahead of you. I need to stay wired this weekend.
But if the communication is snagged while in the cloud, so to speak….
Incidentally, a new account I set up here asked four different questions which I chose from a long list of potential questions about personal information, and had several stages of security, so that to get into the account takes several steps.
Three tries, disconnect, reconnect. It used to be a reconnect would take minutes, now it takes milliseconds unless you’re dialup. I can also program my computer to do multiple connections at once.
Even assuming that security people look closely at logs when there’s no penetration, it’d look just like any other script kiddie.
Boxturtle (Check the log on your router. Bet you’re getting several hack attempts per minute)
Why did it end? Can you share the details?
I’ve seen those, too. The problem is that their questions don’t always apply to me. I prefer the ones where you can set your own question AND your own answer. Those aren’t as common, though. So many of them are still the “mother’s maiden name” variety, which are easily found by a hacker.
Hmmm. I don’t know how to check that log. I guess I’ll have to find out!!
Yeah, the three tries and out can inconvenience hackers if it requires a phone call to reactivate the id. So I’d go after YOUR pc and your router, get in that way and then wait for you to use your password.
My router is set to prevent all outside access. But not everyone can do that.
Boxturtle (There is equipment that can tell what you’re typing by listening to the sounds of the keys)
No, disconnect allows no re-connect. Only re “enrollment”
I’ll take your word for the router log. I don’t doubt it.
My IP address is dynamic, which is changeable by myself as well. (Disconnect the router or modem, then reconnect. A new IP address is generated.
G’Morning, Ruth. I hope your dinner last night was as nice as I imagined it would be. All happy?
Good morning everyone.
Thank you for the post msmolly. Stay safe with all that snow coming at you.
if the site provides the questions, it’s worthless. I can get the list of the questions and social engineer the answers.
Boxturtle (Old security question: Whatever became of Fae Wray?)
Is yours wireless?
Retina scans will be required to leave your home as well as return to it.
Auto makers, I forget exactly when, (if they haven’t already) are going to be required to have little black box data recorders, “for highway safety research,” in every new vehicle.
Morning msmolly.
My touchscreen microwave only allows ME to warm up coffee or leftovers.
I’m on a static IP. Dynamic IP’s are more time-consuming to hack.
I hooked up to Roadrunner and waited. My first hack attempt (a Satan probe) came in less than a minute. The script kiddies are stepping through RR’s IP space.
Boxturtle (And RR is just ignoring it)
black box data recorders, oh good, another reason to raise the prices of the new cars.
“But, but this one comes with a new black box data recorder in addition to your one year’s free subscription to SiriusXM radio…”
Good morning all and thanks for the postnhost msmolly.
Not to go all OT but these may be some of the most tone deaf assholes on the planet.
I actually run two routers, one wireless. The wireless one requires an authorized mac address for access, as well as a security phrase.
The wireless one still worries me, though. Nobody has got through it, but I see attempts.
Boxturtle (Not sure how to fake a mac address)
Roadrunner?
Morning, oldnslow.
Is that for real? Really? Is it a joke? A satire?
I think autos have had black boxes for years, but AFAIK only to diagnose the inner workings of the auto. You’re referring to something different (and sorta scary) I think.
The questions are good, to my mind, because things like your first pet’s name and your oldest sibling’s first child’s zodiacal sign are not common knowledge. Next step is a phrase of your choice. Also a picture. I like it.
I saw that somewhere a couple of days ago. Unreal!
Unfortunately most of the questions on those lists are pretty easily identifiable. I prefer the ones that allow you to choose your own question, but of course I suspect lots of people choose a child’s name or their own middle name. People are just not very sophisticated when it comes to information security stuff.
Despite repeated warnings, we always had some people give their password in response to an email request for it.
yeah, RoadRunner. I must admit, I’m quite pleased with their service.
Boxturtle (I’d recommend them, at least in my area)
Article at the Daily Mail (work neighbor found it) says the church closed in 2004. Shocking I know. Video does look pretty old but went up on youtube just a few days ago.
Good stuff, on the lake – where a bald eagle flew in and landed on the ice – musta scheduled special for spuds’ mom’s Birthday. Food was wonderful, and a lovely dinner in all ways.
I can never remember (later) whether I entered “Tinkerbell” or “Tinker” for my first pet’s name. And sibling’s first child’s Zodiac sign? I can never remember his birthdate!
Ahhh, finally, COFFEE!
In answer to msmolly’s question concerning my short lived contract, it appears that instead of a lengthy face to face interview, employers are resorting to making the contractor vulnerable to a peremptory challenge, so that if the manager decides for any reason not to continue, you are out. It is a 2 week period.
The details are not nice either, but I don’t know if I can go into them here. I actually don’t mind that process. What I didn’t like is being blind sided about it’s existence. No up front information to that end game.
An e-mail provider, correct?
I read somewhere recently about a refrigerator that keeps track of the expiration dates on perishables like milk & eggs. (Milk gets stinky, but eggs are good LONG after the date on the carton.)
I didn’t mean to ask for anything confidential. I’ve never heard of contracts like that. So within two weeks you can be booted and never know why or by whom? Yikes!
Yes, these were discussed on an NPR science show iirc. Continually track your vehicle location and a record of speed, braking, swerving etc., during an accident. The daily data is supposedly no kept anywhere longer than 48 hours or some such nonsense (lie).
Make up your own questions and answers.
Example:
What color are Dave’s shorts?
Answer:
Wally said yes.
Let em wallow in that for a while.
I fixed dinner for my SO and her Mom, who is over 90 and living alone.
Lamb Chops with mint sauce
Baked Potato with Sour Cream and Chives
Sauteed mushrooms with shallots, garlic and herbs
Apple-cranberry crisp, coffee and chocolate.
Crisp provided by Mom.
No offense intended, but skipping it OnS, I was one of those who thought the suggestion of being considerate enough to say what the link goes to, if it doesn’t appear in a mouse over, was a good suggestion.
You can come to my house and cook. That sounds wonderful! Lamb is probably my favorite red meat.
You know it’s your manager, of course. But the reason was rather weak. It seems to me to be an easy way around accusations of the various ‘isms that can get an employer in trouble. But that’s my take only. No proof and people with whom I discussed the matter don’t think so. Just doing business. Sorta like being shot but first being told it isn’t personal!
Surprised the CBL or Kris have not checked in.
yup.
Boxturtle (SMTP and POP3, or you can use their webmail)
RFtags on your eggs and in your milk carton. RF readers coming to a grocery store near you. You could however, conceivably see a digital readout of your grocery total as you are filling your cart, click your grocery debit and head out the door, eliminating checkout people.
To test an egg, drop it in cold water. A bad egg will sink, a good egg will float.
Boxturtle (Seems like magic, eh?)
didn’t get that memo
Next Valentine spuds mom has another Birthday, we’ll plan ahead okay?
This is a fish specialty restaurant, and my shrimp with artichoke hearts, parmesan sauce, was amazing.
We all enjoyed it. The mint sauce I invented, or rather, modified from another recipe. More like a cooking liquor rather than a sauce. It was a reduction of white wine, pear vinegar, a touch of Madeira,pinch of sugar, mint leaves, salt and pepper, drizzled over the finished lamb just before serving.
Anyone making a Bearnaise sauce will recognize this.
It would be fun to cook for you!
Yup I was wondering where Kris was. Ms cbl often checks in after the thread is underway a bit, but Kris is usually here early. He must be working this morning!
It was just a discussion two days ago, like I said, it’s just my preference.
Thanks msmolly, meeting some loco politicos for coffee and eggs and strategy session, at a nearby diner.
My favorite happened to my bro, who left his old job, took two weeks off, reported for his new job, to be told the position had been eliminated.
At least he tells it that way.
Sounds like Big Brother has arrived. Oh wait…
On another note, how much snow did you end up with yesterday. When you commented it was 4 inches and counting.
msmolly says she is going to get blasted this weekend.
Our weather forcaster has models for next Thursday-Friday for a big storm heading our way, but you know weather forecasters and actual weather…
Sorry, “local” politicos, however the first adjective works sometimes too.
BBL
Our local grocer tried providing code readers on the cart, but they malfunctioned or got broken, so didn’t provide anything but extra frustration. Since eliminated.
I was okay with ‘loco’, we have the weed too.
6 inches that took to drifting here and there enough to worry a compact car. Thanks for the reminder, used the last fuel for the snow thrower yesterday evening.
Bye-bye.
RFI is innocuous unless badly applied. The version that requires the device to be powered by the transceiver is probably the safest, from a privacy pov. What I don’t like is RFI tags in your credit card!
On another front, the newer versions of laptops ipads etc have tracking information built in. The kind that can guide a drone attack, I presume.
We don’t need no stinking weed to behave that way. ;^)
Is that “loco” or “local” or both?? Go for it, have an egg for me!
Pasted from the NWS forecast, sorry for the caps.
A WINTER STORM WILL TRACK THROUGH THE CENTRAL PLAINS ON THURSDAY.
THIS SYSTEM BEARS WATCH AS THERE IS THE POTENTIAL THAT IT MAY
TRACK INTO THE SOUTHERN GREAT LAKES AREA NEXT WEEKEND /FEB 22 TO
FEB 23/. THE EXACT TRACK AND TIMING WILL NOT BECOME MORE EVIDENT
UNTIL EARLY NEXT WEEK.
So in addition to the possible 8″ tonight and Saturday, we may be hammered next weekend.
I can believe that. I’ve seen it in action at the contractor level. Even after employment commenced. I had a situation that lasted 2 months because the funding dried up. Dried up? Yep. I was working for group A but funded from Group B’s cost center. Group B was dismantled, along with the cost center. There went my job.
Group A’s manger was pissed!
And I have a brand new MacBook Air! It hasn’t left the house yet, but it will.
But then the drought has some relief, hopefully.
I would be doing a Rain/Snow dance!
Many have multiple sensor capabilities. Camera, mike GPS as well as some that protect the unit from damage.
I would likely hack mine, with the warranty be damned!
I don’t hack mine. I’m not really good enough at hardware tech to try it, although I’ve swapped out hard drives and batteries and added RAM. Sometimes I guess I’m just not interested enough in making it do (or not do) something to be bothered.
And this new MacBook Air doesn’t even have a user-replaceable battery!
that’s because I was Too Wired to sit still long enough to drop in
KrisA – feel free to jump in yr new whip and head to Hague if you’d like some for your brood
….wipes glaze off of space bar
Good Morning Ms Molly and Firedogs – how y’all doin’ ?
Your super lemon cake has been appreciated by all, thanks again.
It’s not easy even for an HW tech. You have to know the chip.
The camera can be disabled by a piece of black tape (assuming it doesn’t record infra red!)
oooh so happy it turned out for you !
Here is 30th Birthday Cake for Kris’ wife – she’s the gorgeous, doesn’t look a day over 19 smilin’ at ya.
White Velvet Cake with White Choc Ganache crumb coat/icing, with Raspberry filling.
Kris has mentioned how she loves to do nail art. What a perfect cake.
Can’t see the donuts clip. For some reason I’m having trouble with videos the last couple of days. I finally used Chrome to watch Frontline last night.
Crikey, cbl, you are a fabulous sculptor! Those hands are incredible–and hands are challenging.
And Mrs. Kris is a babe, isn’t she?
manicure cake youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMBnzlUTV2w
now working through your handy links – thanks
Facecrooks – lol. FB paid ZERO taxes last year on a count they only made a measly BILLION dollars in profit
Today is “clean the house” day Chez Msmolly. If I didn’t do it on a schedule, weeks would go by between dustings and toilet cleanings. So I’m gonna be busy, but I’ll check in to see that y’all are behaving! Talk amongst yourselves!
thanks ! was @&^%$#!$#! determined to get the hands right.
she’s a total babe – and truly accomplished in her art – the woman (right handed thankyewverymuch) painted galaxies on her nails with her left !
p.s.loved (as always)Abner’s pic yesterday !
Well done! So what recipe have you been using for fondant? I recall sharing a marshmallow fondant recipe that didn’t work well for you at all. It looks like you have fully mastered the medium and I wonder if you have any tricks to prevent tearing?
Again beautiful, beautiful work.
Unbelievable! Did you actually eat that cake? Or preserve it?
On another note, has anyone here watched the Herbie Hancock performance posted on Fatster’s Roundup? Stunning performance like no other I’ve ever heard. The conductor’s behavior is fun to watch as well.
lol – I forgot it was YOU ! I blame YOU for my obsession.
I used a brand new fondant recipe for the manicure cake.
was initially skeptical (wha, no marshmallows ?) but it turned out great. very flexible, tasty, and she’s right, you can roll it super thin.
one proviso, it dried faster than anything I’ve ever used – 45 minutes later it felt like gumpaste pieces I’d made a week ago – so just be ready for that if you try it
:D as I was telling my grandbabies last night – it’s performance art, and it isn’t any good unless you eat it
I posted that link 2 days ago on Over Easy.
Try to keep up.
Thanks msmolly. I had to run some errands so stepped away from the computer for awhile. If the track of this storm holds up, we both may get hammered. Like you, I am ready for Spring and it cannot come soon enough for me.
Have a great time over the weekend with your concert and meet and greet.
Watch it Kid…..Just wait til you’re Old ‘n Slow; you’ll see.
Yes, Im there already.
It’s a sad Friday.
Here doll, see if you can make it past the fella at the 21 sec mark without laughing (or at least grinning) your ass off
xoxox
Why, demi?What’s happened?
Hello, everybody…isn’t that cake a-MAZE-ing? I wanna know what cbl used for the stones in the wedding ring, if everything has to be edible. I can’t get over how the emery board looks like an emery board (already complimented the hand modeling…cbl posted on twitter last night…see, you should definitely do twitter).
Heheheh. Once you start sugar art, it’s hard to quit. That recipe looks really good. The ability to roll it thin is huge benefit. Love the look of fondant, not crazy about the taste of it, so thin works.
What’s the news?
add butter flavoring to it as one of her commenters suggested, + vanilla, + almond – pretty tasty
you can buy the stones at sites like Global Sugar (usually very $$$)
or you can make them with Isomalt™ (a molding sugar compound)
I’ve tried raspberry, orange water, and rose water (my fave, but it’s personal taste). Still, everyone seems to pick around the fondant. Isomalt sounds fun…
Oh my word.
Well, I put up along comment on topic…passwords, etc., but my battery has given me notice so I gotta shut down.
BBL
8 seconds. Played it four or five times.
I’m in the goat zone.
I’m so sorry I caused concern. Mea Culpa.
No bad news. Which is good news.
Just post flueish and trying to get back to this project I have.
And, a tough news week, morally and otherwise.
I’ve made some comments here that sometimes I allow myself to feel sad.
But, action is the antidote for dispair, so I’m back to painting.
(It really will look wonderful when it’s done. I’m convinced.)
glad you’re ok.
prolly tmi sister, but the only real drawback to 15+ years of menopause is not being able to simply let down and cry – who knew it would be missed ?!?
glad you liked the goats – hi-larious !
if you decide to try your hand at Isomalt – check to see if your hobby store of cake supply store has Isomalt sticks by Cake Play – a little expensive (jeebus, what isn’t in Sugar World ?) but you waste less and make smaller messes as you are learning
Back for a moment .. can’t believe nobody’s talking about the Chelyabinsk meteor! The videos are stunning….the train (of the meteor) streaking across the sky then *BOOOOOOMMMM!!!! And car alarms going off, people cursing and yelling and filming the broken windows in the buildings where they are.
Here’s a youtube I found (Salon has a bunch of good ones, too)
This one’s pretty dramatic, especially when the sonic boom sounds. Don’t know who put the label about “shoot down”, but the person taking the video, when someone asks him “what was that?” tells her “seems like a meterorite.”
I wonder how many ordinary folks with a video camera in the US would realize so promptly that that’s what it was, not a missile strike?
(don’t these RW Christianists trying to shove creationism into schools realize the Russians are already beating us in science education?)
We have a lovely small business in my area that specializes in sugar art supplies and holds classes on decorating techniques. Even if stuff is more expensive there, boy oh boy, I’m taking my money there instead of one of the big name craft emporium places. I’ll look for Cake Play brand next time I’m there…
Wasn’t that one of the most amazing videos ever?
I showed my kids this morning, but I think it may have spooked ‘em a bit because they asked, “Isn’t that how the dinosaurs died?”
Hey kiddo,
As an artist I hast to have the sad to musicate the good. :)
What a friend I have in JC.
Sweet comment, buddy.
Does anyone have anything exciting or merely different planned for this weekend? We’re considering going out to watch Lincoln. Would be appropriate, maybe?
Picnics, okay bite my tongue. More snow shoveling? Candy making?
Wow. They know that? Of course, when I was their age, I don’t think the Yucatan crater had been discovered.
Oh, well; it spooked most of the folks who made videos of it, too. I guess it should spook us….Not that there’s anything we could do about it.
A lot more dramatic than the expected asteroid fly-by, right?
How to say….I’ll do my Sat. gig that I love…always interesting. Then, I have this idea….how much I need to
clean/clean out the space where I live and breathe and have my
being. Probably explains why so many things feel like a mess.
And Sunday is a good book Salon about Lincoln. And, yes: just
read that the Lincoln character, who is great, gives a “once in
a life time” performance. Likely the Best Actor…a remarkable
movie. When I left, I told my friend, “He (Lincoln) has such pretty eyes.” It is that engaging.
Igot nothin’ demi. May run by the art museum for the last day of their Aphrodite exhibit. Nothing more exciting than that on my agenda. Are you all done with all the painting, then? Hope you find something fun to do.
I’m here and you’re there, but in my heart, I’d love to share a Saturday morning with you. :)
When I was 12, my mom took me and my two sisters, 8 and 2, on the train to Illinois to visit her sister in Moline. We took a day trip up to Springfield to check out Lincoln stuff. I remember that and am really looking forward to seeing the movie.
Clean or don’t. It’ll be there when you’re ready. One box at a time, dear, is an easy way to attack. Hugs and cheers.
Still painting, but getting to the end of it. Have been fluish for a few days which slowed the process down, but I think with all three of us working, we’ll finish this weekend.
Thanks.
I’d prefer to be with you and go to that exhibit. Neato. Classy, man.
The sooner we get this place back together, the sooner I can hear Beautiful Music. :)
Here is also why the painting is taking so long.
1) paint the wall,
2) cut in the corners of the wall.
3) paint the floor, roll the darker color over the lighter color on the floor.
4) cut in to the edges of the floor.
5) repaint the base board(s) with Interior, High Gloss White.
I’m at stage 4 and 5 right now. :)
A gallon of interior High Gloss White is a girl’s best friend.
A skunk has sprayed somewhere around or under our house. Abner and Gracie have been sniffed and are fortunately spray-free. I don’t know how long I can tolerate this stink.
Eeeww! What can you do about that, besides move to a hotel for the night?
(and, um, you didn’t mention sniffing Nagi….should I be worried about him?)
demi, painting carefully is very tedious. I don’t have the patience, so admire you for doing it right. Don’t overdo, though, if you’re still fluish. Gotta rest to get over that kinda crud.
Took tonight off.
Barbequed steak, baked potatoes, wine and watched Argo.
There’s always tomorrow morning for the painting. Ha.
Thanks, tejanarusa.
Off to rest for the whole night. You too, I hope.
Hugs.