Bought the new clutch for the Honda and will take a stab at swapping it out this Friday/Saturday.

On the way home, I got 'smoked' by some Chica in a de-badged black car - it looked like a newer Neon or something - couldn't tell by all the Ricer parts and aftermarket JDM parts hanging off it. It looked like a fairly nice car, except for the fact they must've driven by AutoZone with the crap-magnet turned on.

We were pretty much side-by-side all the way down Knickerbocker (probably because there was a cop 2 cars ahead of us). She's rolling thinking she's all bad and stuff, but I made it through the last light before the on-ramp to the Loop before she did, so I hopped on the ramp and took off like I normally do (I don't like to waste time on the on-ramp - especially with all the Hero-Trucks flying down the Loop to run over my little hatch. I guess she was in a bigger hurry because she flew by me once we cleared the ramp onto the Loop. Of course, her car had some kind of boost going on (supercharger or NOS - who knows) and I got nuthin' but 92 horsepower and a K&N air filter (but I guess my car looks race-worthy or something...).

Had I known she wanted to race... well, then - she still would've smoked me (who am I kidding... my car's a wimpy little econo-box). But Hey - at least I would've been 'losing a race' as opposed to 'just watching her go by.'

So my friend Doug want's some help with his computers at his office. I show up and he's got a new machine on his desk, and wants some files transferred from his old machine. He wondered how big of a disk or how many CDs he would need to burn to move the files.

"No biggee" I tell him, "All your machines are networked, so all we need to do is let them talk to each other." I proceed to set up a central folder on his old machine and transferred all of the stuff he wanted on the new machine into it. Then I shared it out.

Went over to the new machine and changed the workgroup name on that machine to match his other one and Bang - we're talkin'. After transferring all of his files from the shared folder to the new machine, I imported his e-mail and address book information into his new copy of Outlook Express... and it worked the first time through. He was elated.

OK - it might not seem like a big deal (and it's really not), and it might even sound like I'm astounded that I was able to do something so simple as share some files between machines in the same workgroup. Here's the rub - whenever I do things like this for friends, it winds up taking 3-4 hours because of some stupid little thing that isn't quite right on one of the machines, or because I forgot to 'flip a switch' somewhere to make it all happen.

Not tonight. It all went off without a hitch. I was in and out of there in less than 45 minutes. That's what's so amazing to me.

I felt like Superman.

Found out by e-mail that I did not pass the CISSP test. I scored a 691 and needed a 700 tp pass. Crap! 2 questions I missed it by. Dammit. I guess I gotta knuckle under, study me arse off, and retake it hopefully sooner than later.

I guess that means those $300/apiece (ISC)2 Number 2 pencils are holding their value after all.

Seriously, everybody I know has been incredibly supportive. My pals have offered their notes to me to help study. Another friend has offered up his Transcender study aids, and 'both' of my bosses have offered to pay for the re-test. If I didn't feel so crappy about not passing the test in the first place, I'd have to say that life is pretty good right now.

I don't think anybody I'm referring to will ever read this, but "Thanks Guys - it really means a lot to have the support and encouragement of great friends such as yourselves."

She's still not feeling well, so I went back to the Auto Hobby Shop and rewired the cheese-mo 'eBay' fog light kit I bought for the Honda last year. Both lights died sometime last September and I haven't felt much like figuring it out. I took a stab at it about a month ago on a nice Saturday - no dice. Today, I pulled the nose off the car and troubleshot the whole system down to a melted 'El Cheapo' Chinese relay. Swapped out the relay and rewired the 'hinky' parts and now they're working great.

Helped some kid who lowered his Nissan 300ZX too far (over 2" drop) pull the car off the lift because it was high-centered. Then later, had to stuff a floor jack under the rear end to get it over the 1"x1" gate channel so he could leave the Auto Hobby Shop. Cracks me up every time.

Of course, since they installed some nice above-ground tire rippers across the outbound lanes at both gates, I'm thinking that guy's not even going to be able to get his car off the base.

And even if he wanted to try and unf00k everything he did to his car, he most likely won't be able to get it back into the Auto Hobby Shop, let alone onto a lift again either.

Bummer... for him. I re-discovered exactly why I have no intention of ever lowering my junk.

Well, not actually "new..."

Finally got a chance today to install some of the junk laying around in my garage into the Honda to boost the low-end of the sound system.

I had a Fast & Furious 150.2 (150w x 2-channel) amp and 2 Pyramid Super Pro 10" subs (in some nice ported truck boxes) laying around collecting dust. The Auto Hobby Shop is now open, and I used the afternoon to make the installation. About 15 minutes of tweaking the output settings of the head unit in my driveway, and the Honda's JVC Digifine AM/FM/CD/WMA/MP3 stereo is pounding hard with the best of 'em.

It's amazing just adding the low-end boosts the overall output of a system. Before today, I had the stereo's EQ settings backed off a little to save the slightly better than OEM speakers the PO had installed. Now, using the head unit to segregate the lows and mids/highs, then pushing the lows through the amp, I'm able to bump the output levels up a little. What used to be just about the limit for both me and the speakers (around 28 or 29 on a volume range that goes to 35), is now pretty much all I can stand around 22 on the dial with a much larger presence - the mirrors are actually vibrating when the bass hits now (that's how I like it in my other rides).

Total cost: $20 for stall time, since I've had all this junk laying around after collecting it from others when they upgrade their systems.

Wonder how long it'll take for someone to break in and steal it.

OK - where to begin.

It's been awhile, but I've been busy studying for the CISSP Exam that's become a requirement for my position as Information Assurance Manager.

This past weekend, I drove up to Dallas for the purpose of taking the exam on Saturday. I was taking no chances of being stressed out or missing the exam, so upon discovering it was being administered in the North Dallas Embassy Suites, I booked a room. This way, I wouldn't have to fight traffic or worry about getting lost on the way to the exam. All I had to do was wake up, head downstairs, eat some complimentary Embassy Suites breakfast, and walk over to the testing are. Piece o' cake.

All of that worked out perfectly, except that the maintenance folks at the hotel were having issues with the A/C in the ballroom where the test took place. It was nice muggy 85+ in that room throughout the test. As if the test wasn't bad enough (250 questions in 6 hours covering tons of stuff that nobody really needs to know to do their job), add in 55 people who were stressed about the taking the test, and you could cut the anxiety with a knife... provided it didn't melt into a puddle on the floor first.

Got through the test after about 4 hours, feeling like I totally blew it (I've heard that's typical... but I'm still not optimistic), I went back to my room, sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, and woke up something like 2.5 hours later. Called my friends Chris and Shelly, and we went to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner... good call.

Drove back home today - uneventful. In addition to booking a room in the same hotel as the test, I also rented a car to drive to Dallas. I usually get stuck in some crappy little Toyota Matrix or something equally sucky through my travels for Uncle Sam, so this time I took an upgrade. I thought I would be getting a Pontiac G6 (like the one I had last time I went to Dallas), but no, they were all out. Avis stuck me with a Hyundai Santa Fe - a wanna-be mini-SUV. Yeah - thanks... not even. I got in the car and wasn't pleased at all. Part of not being stressed means not being physically in pain either. I went back in and asked for something else... they offered a Chevy Trailblazer, but nah - I didn't want one of those either. I asked about the Dodge Charger, and it was a whole $2/day more, so I went with it. Seems like a big car, ran fine, quite comfortable, but did kinda blah for gas mileage. $40 for gas both ways of roughly 603 miles - works out to something like 26.8 mpg... not too bad for a big car with a V6 that's essentially an aerodynamic brick.

Just got off the phone with my pal Bob - whom I haven't talked to in forever. Good to hear from him [finally] and if he reads this, I invite him to comment and/or make sure he drops me a note more often.