Spore Sample

Chelonia keeps telling me I’m not a loser; that it’s pretty impressive to be chosen as a contestant on Top Blogger after just a few months of postings. Still, there’s no way to whitewash that I was the first person kicked off the show during this current season.
My lovely wife, who has more people skills than I do, gave me some guidelines on how to handle this. First, don’t blame the topic. Second, be gracious. Third, don’t criticize the other contestants, the host, the voters or the show’s producers. Fourth, express optimism for the future of my blog and give thanks to the show for providing me with this forum. Fifth, don’t tell anyone this list was her idea, not mine.
Oops.
So I’m back home, making my regular weekend update. I guess this has forced me to ask myself why I’m writing this blog. Considering my personality, it’s obviously not to attract attention or for ego gratification. I guess it’s because I know I have something to offer the world, and blogging is the form of communication best suited to my skill set.
It’s also been a reminder of my true priorities. Fame is fleeting, but my wife and daughter Cookie will always be on my side, unconditionally. (Actually, Cookie just asked if I’d ever considered hiring a stunt double to make public appearances in my place.)
I assume she has my best interests in mind.

Earlier this year when I started this blog I heard that one of the cable networks was launching a reality show called Top Blogger. I applied, along with a couple of billion other bloggers. I was shocked and surprised on Monday when I was notified that I was one of twelve chosen to participate.
Ms. Trellis (seeing a potential publicity windfall for the company) gave me time off, and I was flown out to Los Angeles on Wednesday. I was met at LAX and was chauffeured to a five star hotel. Heady stuff.
I met the other contestants which cover a wide range of ages, nationalities, races and ethnicities, so I’ll give the show credit there. We posed for publicity shots, but were kept from being interviewed by the press. I think that’s so the audience will only know us through our blogs.
The format is the same as every single one of these reality shows. All of the contestants are given a Challenge, and a specific time period to complete it. In our case, after our postings we’re critiqued by the judges and then the online audience votes on who should be eliminated.
All of the judges are known to me, and they’re some of the biggest names in blogging including the kid that Patina Welding is seeing online. I was feeling pretty good until we were given our first topic: Kitties.
I don’t own cats. I’ve never owned cats. I have no desire to own a cat. But...I did the best I could. The judges, including Patina’s boyfriend, were unimpressed.
Now I’m back home for the weekend. I fly back out tomorrow for the results show. I’m readily aware that I have a problem, as I’ve only been doing this blog for a few months and don’t yet have a huge audience that I can count on to vote for me. All I can say is, I’m just glad to have made it this far.

After I wrote my blog last weekend the three of us went to the Fastrack company picnic. It’s not one of my favorite events, but I go because Cookie enjoys it. As Ms. Trellis’s granddaughter, she gets lots of attention from staffers looking to get on the CEO’s good side, and Cookie just eats it up. She turns nine next month; I guess it’s not just cyberspace time that moves fast.
I’m grateful for the attention that Cookie gets, as it means I’m not required to converse as much. It’s not that I don’t enjoy human interaction. I simply find it exhausting. I’m like a circus bear riding a unicycle in that I can be taught to perform, but it’s hard work and I’m always glad when it’s over. Thank heavens for my lovely wife Chelonia, who is able to see social situations like this as simply online networking by other means.
The Weldings showed up. Rumor has it that the picnic was going to be online just to save money until Wendy told Ms. Trellis that any online communication becomes a permanent part of the record. I actually can’t argue with that.
There was food served, and games, and prizes for the kids. Every year Patina Welding used to win the Fastest Laptop race (seeing who could be first to connect to a wi-fi signal), but we put in an age limit that eliminated her. She was given the role of judge instead, and she seemed fine with that.

The current crisis all began when I went to a trade show and returned to find Art had sold our copier...Our digital copier...Our digital copier that stores on its hard drive every document it scans. An identity thief was just waiting for me and Chelonia to leave Art unattended, and when we did it appeared out of the blue and made an offer to Art to buy it. Art, who actually thought we had an ordinary copier with no memory, innocently handed over a wealth of sensitive company data.
Fortunately the machine was still in transit to the identity thief when I returned. As soon as the shipment arrived and the criminal went online with it, we were ready...with Art. His daughter Patina had helped him create his own superhero, The Eraser. Art accessed the machine (since the passwords hadn't yet been changed) and then we told him just to go about his normal cyber-activities. In minutes, the copier's memory was wiped clean.
A stern lecture from me followed. I just wonder about other companies, though. Copiers are usually given the respect one gives a toaster, but that's all changed.
Does your office have a copier that stores images?

Wendy still feels threatens by the competence of her new assistant Dethany. One has to give Wendy credit, however, for not letting those feelings impact her work or her behavior as a boss. She's maintained her professionalism throughout. (What does it say when a threatened, slightly insecure Wendy is still a better boss than Rose Trellis?)
Emailed Samantha Argus, who is currently in Las Vegas. As she does every weekend she scans the Fastrack Inc. system and searches for signs of weakness. She usually finds some, and updates the security. Since Ms. Trellis hired her to do that we haven't had any malware in the office computers. (Just our home PCs.) The Bug, of course, is another story entirely. He exists wherever computers are turned on.

Despite her many, many duties as the nation’s Cybersecurity Czar, Ada Counter-Domain still finds the time to keep up with what’s going on here at Fastrack. Good thing, too, since she rescued Patina Welding’s avatar “iPatina” from the Black Hat.
Patina and her online boyfriend were investigating the malware I mentioned last week, and rashly invaded the Black Hat’s lair. I’ll give them credit for confounding his defenses and finding a way inside . However, they were caught in short order.
That’s where Ada came in (as her alter ego, The Patch). The Black Hat is an adversary she’s all too familiar with, and she knew exactly how to disable him long enough to free the kids. Of course, he won’t be out of commission for any length of time.
I hope Patina learned her lesson. She’s talented, but no where near up to the skill level of, say, Samantha Argus (whose abilities are scary). Patina, however, is not ready to take on the Black Hat without help. She’s fortunate to come out of her encounters with him unscathed...so far.
I know there will come a time when she’s ready to take on a villain of that magnitude, but the training wheels haven’t come off yet. At some point she’ll realize that the adults in her life have been following her online movements and protecting her every step of the way.
Has anyone else here encountered the Black Hat?

No, this isn’t a political blog. I’m talking about a particularly nasty steaming piece of malware going around: rogue security software.
It’s been polluting the terrain for a while, but here is its current incarnation: You click on a link devoted to some hot news topic only to find that it’s been placed high on the search list through fraud. From that point you don’t even have to click on anything else as it automatically downloads a Trojan onto your PC, which begins displaying fake messages on your screen that mimic legitimate security alerts. You’re directed to buy “security products” (that do nothing) by giving them your credit card number. That, of course, is the real goal of these perpetrators; to get your credit card number. Once you do that, you are toast.
Once infected, it’s a huge task to clean a PC of this thing. On one I had to remove over 90 individual files and folders before it was back to normal.
What can you do? Just be careful when you visit sites. When clicking on a link on a search engine list, pay attention to the URL to see if it looks legit. (A string of random letters and numbers in the URL is a red flag.)
As they used to say on “Hill Street Blues,” be careful out there.

I don't spend as much time in cyberspace as I used to.
By that I mean, while I certainly spend virtually every waking minute of my life in front of a screen with a keyboard, I don't immerse myself in acts of roleplay through imaginary characters. I'm too busy with maintaining the company's system; in effect, I'm helping others make cyberspace visits. I'm the ferryman who's too involved with boat maintenance to travel anywhere.
But in my day...Yes, cyberspace was my playground. It was thinly populated, too, so when you ran into someone it was like two old friends meeting. I know this sounds like nostalgia but there weren't as many threats as there are now. There was a level of trust that's now long gone.
Chelonia spends a lot of time in cyberspace, but mainly tailing Cookie to protect her without Cookie knowing she's being followed. No, it's not stalking when a parent does it.
Someone who seems to live entirely in cyberspace in Art's daughter Patina. That's pretty much how I was at that age.
So, who here has an online identity? (Don't worry, you don't have to say what it is.)

So I’m sitting at my desk, minding my own business, and Wendy and Dethany walk past. Dethany announces that my overriding emotional attribute is “Tunnel Vision.”
Apparently the two were walking around the company so our little Goth could show off her “people reading” skills. She has some kind of visual talent that enables her brain to display the main characteristics of those she meets as a pictorial analysis. From what I heard, I got off easy in the embarrassing exercise.
As I told her, it’s not tunnel vision, it focus. Intense, deep focus. When I’m working, the universe contracts to whatever task is at hand. Nothing short of a nuclear detonation will distract me until it’s completed. I see it as an asset.
I’ll give Dethany this; from what I see, she works just as hard as anyone here. And maybe I’m a little jealous of these skills she has. To me, people are impenetrable and opaque, like walking brick walls.
Hey! That’s a pictorial analysis right there!
So, readers, what are your Fourth of July plans? Me, I’m working.

From the department of Be Careful What You Wish For; Wendy hired as her assistant someone who was smart, driven and unconventional. i.e., someone exactly like her when she was in her mid-20s. Now Wendy is in her early forties and is discovering what it's like to see people younger than oneself whose talents surpass one's own.
In other news we have a nasty trojan horse coursing through the system. It embeds itself on a laptop's hard drive and throws bogus Virus Warning message on the screen until the hapless owner gives up his credit card number for "Protection." It's fiendishly hard to remove, and I had to delete over ninety separate files on one infected machine. What's more, it can be spread not by downloading anything but by simply visiting an infected site.
Sweet dreams, campers.

I’ve gotten favorable comments regarding the blog so far, although they haven’t been universally positive. That, I guess, is due to my personality; or rather, the lack of same to which I readily admit. I’m also not well-versed in observing human interaction, which I guess leads me to miss interpersonal drama (i.e., office gossip) that could be reported in this space.
While those are valid points, there is one thing in my favor as a blogger: my OCD-level focus and reliability. Unlike the vast number of bloggers out there, I can guarantee an update every weekend, without fail. Whether it actually interests you or not is an entirely different matter.
The main thing going on at the office is Wendy’s new assistant Dethany finding her niche in the company structure. Her hard work ethic has won over most everybody, with the exception of Ms. Trellis who is withholding judgment. Then again, Ms. Trellis is withholding judgment on pretty much everyone not named Ms Trellis. (As her son-in-law I can confirm that without hesitation.)

Art, in an attempt to bond with his 15-year-old daughter Patina, took her to a car dealership to examine the latest automotive offerings. Patina was bored until Art began drawing parallels between cars and her own interest, computers.
Despite being old enough to qualify for a learner's permit, Patina has shown no desire to get behind the wheel of a car, which mystifies Art. I think he was motivated as much by puzzlement as anything else, but at the end of the visit she did begin to see his point. Both cars and computers are necessities that people rely upon for vital activities, but that only a select few know how to fix beyond basic maintenance.
Art could have gone further and told her about the onboard computers that all modern cars now have. Well, maybe not. Patina is quite talented, and sometimes her adventures in cyberspace get her into trouble. Tinkering with the systems of a machine that weighs two tons and goes sixty miles an hour has a higher risk factor than one that just sits on a desk.
It’s because of her online existence that she feels little reason to learn to drive. Previous generations saw cars as freedom, but by going online the world is literally at their fingertips of today’s youth. And now with more states passing laws against texting while driving, driving actually becomes something that gets in the way.

Hi, I’m Bud’s wife Chelonia. Today’s blog concerns actual human interrelationships, so I’m taking the lead. Here goes.
I have a lot of respect for Wendy. After all she practically runs this company herself, with the added burden of having to do it in a way that allows my mother to think she’s pulling the levers. That’s a high degree of difficulty.
Still, I’m occasionally reminded that as a Type A-plus-plus personality she’s prone to over-reaction. (This, of course, is just the other side of the coin that enables her stellar achievements.) I’m talking about her mixed feelings about the young woman she just took on as her assistant.
It was a brilliant hire. Wendy was able to see past Dethany’s “unique” exterior to realize that this was a smart and talented individual who would give the proverbial 110% and then some. And that was the built-in problem. Dethany is so much like Wendy, that for the first time Wendy has encountered a member of the next generation that could conceivably replace her.
This gave Wendy intimations of mortality. For the time in her life, apparently, she can no longer see herself as the young hot-shot. Instead, Dethany represents The Inescapable Future. It will be interesting to see how Wendy finds the inner resources within her to accommodate this fact.
Bud?
Bud here. I’m back. (reads) Wow, I had no idea all that subtext was going on.

Art told me an interesting story: Art’s daughter Patina has a boyfriend on the other side of the country. (They’ve never met F2F, which suits Art just fine.) A video of him seated at his laptop suddenly appeared online, apparently taken without his knowledge.
It gets worse. The laptop wasn’t his (His family is too poor to purchase one.), but was one issued by his high school. All well and good, but someone in the school system had the bright idea of realizing they had administrative control of all the laptops they handed out. As they say, Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and before long they were turning on the webcams of the laptops to look in on their students. (They claimed they were just checking to see where the laptops were located. Uh-huh.)
Patina exacted a measure of revenge, but it’s a lesson to be headed. Be careful who has access to your computer. If a school employee can be tempted to do this, think of what ethically-challenged CEOs would do.
(waves) Hi, Ms, Trellis!

Wendy’s hire raised a lot of eyebrows. For her assistant she hired Dethany Dendrobia, a 25-year-old single woman with an unusual fashion sense.
My wife says she seems amiable enough. Dethany hasn’t socialized much; instead, she’s thrown herself into her work. Wendy apparently saw past her external package and recognized a kindred spirit: someone who is focused to the point of obsession on whatever task is at hand. In Dethany’s case, it’s because she believes life is “too short to waste on anything less than my best efforts.” An interesting philosophy. Something tells me that when she meets Wendy’s husband Art there’ll be an antimatter-matter conflagration.
She graduated five years ago from Havens University, and temped for two years afterward. At her final temp job she was made a permanent part of the staff as an assistant to the office manager. Last fall she was downsized by the company’s owner over the strenuous objections of the officer manager, and the company went into a downward spiral and closed its doors in January.
It seems as if Dethany had actually been the one running the company. Wendy researched this, and I’m sure she could relate to it.
Now everyone is waiting to see what Ms. Trellis thinks about this new presence. Dethany’s desk will be next to Wendy’s, right outside Ms. Trellis’s lair. The new office pool is how long she lasts. Your thoughts?