Monday night while surfing the web with my cell phone as a tethered modem I caught a trojan which disabled Spybot and uninstalled it. Avg antivirus could not connect to get avirus definition update and neither could adaware.
At 4am I finally found another malware scanner through my phone (firefox would not start, and ie would crash if I was searching for anything with spy or spyware in the text) and I could not reinstall spybot since the virus/trojan would kill the setup task right after I would start it...even in safe boot mode.

I installed that new program, cleaned the computer and went to a customer site for a full day of work. At 5pm I shut down my computer, went to dinner and started my machine for some midnight oil work and discovered I would boot up fine but could not log on (admin or std profile, in normal mode or safe boot, it would say "the system cannot log you on now because the domain is not available").

Searching on the web it turned out that either my registry was screwed up and that my computername was miconstrued as a domain name or that some network dll were corrupted. But no one would say which dll to update besides "netman.dll and netshell.dll and others" on some kb articles at Microsoft.

So I tried recovery console...but to no avail...and finally resorted to using an optiplex recovery disc to repair my computer but of course the install process stalls before all the drivers can be loaded...so now I have to reinstall everything from scratch. Fortunately I can still access all my files from an external HD USB case and I have backups of all the files at home.

What have we learned today?
I've learned that I need to carry the Dell install cds with me and that I need to surf the web from vmware so that a potential virus outbreak won't hose my main host machine. It will just damage the virtual machine which I can clone another copy of at anytime.

I also need to make a Ghost image of my computer on a bootable dvd and carry that with me just in case.

Most importantly, that would not have happened on my MacBook Pro...

Swimming programs

New primary job, new resolutions...I should have done that in January, but those resolutions never really work out at the end. We'll see about March resolutions.

I am now going (3) times a week to LA Fitness to swim at their indoor swimming pool. I have swimming programs to help me along the way. If you like swimming take a look at www.swimplan.com. They do a good job (muscle relaxant not included) and it's free.

Crazy Photographers!

The other weekend I assisted my good friend Todd at the Valley Green Inn. While it is always interesting to see the pictures of the wedding, today I was retouching some pictures and came across those of the crazy photographers who shot the event. It's worth taking a look.

Washington - Ogunleye Wedding

What an awesome Saturday wedding!!!

It was supposed to be yukkie all day but it turned out fabulous...sunny, not too cold...and even the mirror room I feared turned out pretty exciting. Not only was the couple super nice, but their friends and family were charming too. Everyone thanked me for working so hard and taking my time to get things right. I loved it. I actually got booked from referrals from two previous weddings in the same circle of friends. It's always a privilege to get referred. Nothing is better than satisfied customers.

Here are a couple of shots from the day.

Red Square

After showering every morning with sulfur smelling water in a magnificent hotel near the plant I was working at, we spent 1h30min in Red Square. Our poor driver had to stay with the car for all the time waiting for us. Of course, I only had a 4MB camera and no tripod..so the poles made beautiful makeshift replacements, and the timer was used. Not great but not too bad either.

Jessica Biel

Awesome images! I am not sure who the photographer is but I love those two portraits. Of course, Jessica Biel is striking - which helps the simple setting - but beauty aside the pictures are well done. One day maybe I'll be able to get there.

First Post

Wow! I got this down and it seems to be working. Should I be celebrating? Nah, it's too late tonight and the Sushi-C combination at my favorite Kansas City place might have been too big for my stomach. French would say "Mes yeux étaient plus gros que mon ventre" - which would translate to "My eyes were bigger than my stomach" - but hey, how often can I eat Sushi?

Besides next week I am leaving for Russia and it seems Russian sushi is filled with Polonium-210 so maybe I wanted to get my fix before getting there.

Boy, Kansas City was cold today. 14F this morning, and 21F in the afternoon. Even Moscow was 33F today. Go figure!