I just got back from Gulf Coast Getaway in Panama City Beach, Florida. For the past couple of years I’ve been going down to work on the photography staff. This year, I got a last minute call that would increase the amount of responsibility. I love doing it, but I do miss out on some of the great things the speakers usually have to say. Luckily they record it, so I can listen to it later. I am going to be kind of busy over the next few weeks as I have over 1200 RAW images to sort through, edit, and convert in addition to other things that I have going on.
Anyways, this year the concert was by a group called Building 429. The crowd really got into it and so did they. They were a really nice group and down to earth. I’d heard of them before and knew a few of their songs, but after meeting them, I’d definitely consider buying their albums off iTunes in the near future. In an effort to update this often neglected but not forgotten about blog, I thought I’d post a picture from this weekend. If I were to give titles to my pictures I would probably call this one "Can You Believe This is a CoC Conference?" During the regular (A Capella) singing, I never saw so many hands lifted up.
Technorati Tags: Gulf Coast Getaway, Building 429, Justin Acuff, Church of Christ
It’s not that I’m guilty of hitting and running… it’s actually quite the opposite. My car has been the victim of a hit and run quite a few times. It happened again today, this time there was something that was different.
Today started out as any normal day. I got to work around 8:15 and parked in the area I normally park at. It’s a small parking area right behind my building. Even though it is staff lot 7, students like to try and park there since they think it is somewhat hidden and won’t get a ticket. Compounding the parking problem we have, is they have closed off the portion of the Estabrook Road since they are doing construction on the new Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Building. This probably causes a loss of about 50 parking spaces.
From 10:00-11:00, I was in a meeting for a project I am working on for Y-12. After I got done with the meeting and went back to my office I saw that I had a phonemail message waiting. I checked it and it was one of the ladies that works up in the main office. She said that while she and another lady that work’s up there was on their smoke break, they saw a car hit my car. He had tried to park up in the area but it was full. Instead of just backing down like most normal people would have done, he attempted to do a three point turn. (This area is on a very steep hill with a drop off on one side… making a three point is really more like a 5 point turn.) While making the turn, he hits my car. Once he is straightened out, they said he got out of his car to check on his car to see if it was OK, he doesn’t even check on mine. By this time the two ladies had already gotten his license plate number down. When they walked to check on my car, the guy must have finally seen them. They said the guy rushed back into his car and took off, spinning out a little since it rained a lot last night and this morning.
I went and checked on the car and it’s nothing like the big dent I have on the driver’s side of my car. I talked to the ladies upstairs to get a feel for just how well they saw it. They sounded pretty certain they got the license plate down right. They said they would be willing to tell the police what happened. Even though there wasn’t a whole lot of damage, since the guy hit and ran, I decided I would call in the police. Within 10 minutes, the police officer showed up and took down my information. He talked with the two witnesses and then gave me the information that I would need to file a report with my insurance company.
On a side note, when he was asking for information, driver’s license, vehicle registration, address, etc. I am lucky he didn’t ask for proof of insurance. Not that I don’t have insurance, but I discovered today that I don’t have my most recent insurance ID card in the vehicle. This is something I should have done back in September. Whoops!!!! I can at least print a temporary card that will be good until I find my real card or until I renew my policy soon. Should something else happen that needs me to show proof of insurance.
I’m going to wait until I see the report. If the license plate matches up, I will definitely file a claim with my insurance company. The guy deserves to get charged with hit and run. He should have left some information on my vehicle or when he saw the two ladies, fess up to them and ask if they knew who the vehicle belongs to. Instead the guy ran away. If he would have left information, I probably wouldn’t have asked for anything more than a replacement bumper sticker (~$5.00). Now this guy stands to get charged by the police with hit and run, his insurance deductible going up for repair work that I will get done or maybe a fine if he doesn’t have insurance. I’ll let my insurance company tell me what I should do when I file my claim. Hopefully he’ll learn his lesson to not run away if he hits something or somebody again.
And now for pictures of the damage. Just click on a picture to see it larger.
Technorati Tags: hit and run, insurance
Here’s a freebie for you all. It’s something I threw together real quickly. I have created two slightly different versions. The one that is displayed on this page is suitable for posting on somebody’s MySpace page, etc. This picture is linked to a larger one that you may want.
Here’s the code to post to somebody’s page. (If I see this costing too much bandwidth, I’ll have to disable it.)
<img src="http://www.justinacuff.net/myspace/ALongWintersNap.gif" alt="A Long Winter's Nap" />
Now to give credit where credit is due…
This image comes from some sample greeting cards that were mailed to me. If you would like to buy the original or look at other cards, you can find them at holidaycardcenter.org. Tom Newsom was the original artist. The animation was thrown together real quickly using Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady.
Technorati Tags: holiday card, tom newsom, ut, santa, a long winter’s nap
| You Are Dasher |
You’re an independent minded reindeer who never plays by the rules.
Why You’re Naughty: That little coup you tried to stage against Santa last year.
Why You’re Nice: You secretly give naughty children presents. |
Technorati Tags: blogthings, quiz, reindeer
malware – n. Malicious computer software that interferes with normal computer functions or sends personal data about the user to unauthorized parties over the Internet.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
After spending a good part of the weekend helping a friend out, I figured I should post about this as a general warning to other people out there. Thanks to the growing number of Web Applications and Cross Site Scripting vulnerabilities, it seems that anyone could be at risk of getting some kind of infection. In the past few weeks, I have seen a particularly dangerous one appear, just by using MySpace. Given that she was logged into MySpace and based on what she told me, this is probably what happened to her.
First, a Malware Alarm popup appears. It uses JavaScript to reduce your window to a size smaller than this popup and moves that window so that it is hidden under the popup. As you can see, you are presented with two choices: OK and Cancel. I don’t know what happens if you click OK, but I just clicked Cancel. (When presented with popups like this, make sure you read what it says. Some might reverse is so the proper answer is OK. Remember this is Malware we are talking about.)
Next, after pressing Cancel, it will restore your browser window to close to full-screen and bring up a page that looks like it is Scanning. This is the screen shot of the result. To you Macintosh people, this will be plainly obvious. As you can see, it is made to look like it is Windows XP. XP being the majority operating system that people are using. I have recently switched to Vista, which has a different look, so it is obvious to me as well. But for the unsuspecting XP user, they might click OK and allow the software to be installed if it even has to ask being installed. My friend probably got infected because her system still had IE 6 on it. Even though she was using Firefox, the JavaScript was able to inject code on her machine because she had a vulnerable version of Internet Explorer on her machine.
Another thing that helped her get infected was she did not have a current/running version of VirusScan. She had McAfee installed on her machine, but it kept asking for her to verify her subscription before it would turn on and protect her. I had her log in to verify her subscription and sure enough, her subscription had expired. Had she kept her subscription current, she may have been able to prevent this.
Steps You Should Take
Never ever click on any pop up without first reading it. It’s a pain, but it’s even more of a pain to recover if you click the wrong thing.
Always keep your system up to date. If you have Windows, turn on automatic updates. Visit update.microsoft.com to check for updates.
Always keep your Virus Scanning software up to date. If you need to renew your subscription, just pay for it and renew it. In the end, it could save you a lot of money. Most places would charge you a couple hundred dollars to do the kind of cleaning that was needed to clean the system. They will also probably recommend a clean install, but this is primarily because they are lazy and/or they don’t really know how to clean a system.
Check Add/Remove Programs (XP) or Programs and Features (Vista) for Malware. Some aren’t quite as malicious as others and actually allow themself to be uninstalled from a computer.
Tools that I use in cleaning system (running windows)
This next section is a list of some of the tools that I use in cleaning a system. Many of them are free or can be acquired for free for personal use. With some of these tools, however, it takes a little bit of knowledge to use properly.
Stinger: If you don’t have any Anti-Virus software, this is a good place to start. It will clean your system of several known popular viruses. It doesn’t provide any protection, but can help in removing certain virus infections.
Anti-Virus Software: I don’t want to recommend any one specific product, because frankly, I haven’t used them all. However, if you are a part of the UT Community, you can download McAfee Anti-Virus for free. If you are not part of the UT Community and want a free solution, AVG seems to be the solution many people use.
Spybot Search & Destroy: This program will help to identify the malware programs that are on your machine. It can attempt to remove them as well. You might need a little bit of knowledge to run this.
Spyware Blaster: This program helps to immunize your system (More thorough than Spybot S&D) against many common exploits malware uses to get itself installed on your machine.
HiJack This: This program is definitely useful for removing Browser Help Objects that are malware. This program also definitely takes a good bit of knowledge to run. You must be able to identify what hooks belong, and those that don’t.
CWShredder: This is the CoolWeb Shredder application. If Spybot identifies CoolWeb on your system, you may need to use this to properly remove it.
RootKitRevealer: This application definitely requires some advanced knowledge to use, but can really help you identify files and registry entries that are hiding. Malware is often in the form of a trojan or hidden rootkit. An example registry entry might be a hidden exception for the firewall that will allow the malware traffic.
Unlocker: This program will help you delete files that are in use. Often times after running Spybot, it would hang when it was trying to delete a file. The malware may attach itself to several running programs thus making it unable to be deleted. As with any time you are deleting files, you need to know that what you are deleting really isn’t needed.
Ad-Aware or Microsoft Windows Defender: Once the system is clean, install something like Ad-Aware or Defender (Defender is installed on turned on by default in Vista). This will help catch any future infections or attempts at malware being installed on your machine.
Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool: This program is included in the automatic updates from Microsoft. It is silent if it doesn’t detect any of the programs it can detect.
Winsock XP Fix: Finally after removing all the malware, you may find that your Internet Connection does not work. This program is definitely one of my secret programs. It basically simplies Microsoft KB Article 811259 by performing all the tasks automatically. This program is no longer in development, so I’ve just linked to the top site that is providing it. I would not recommend running this under any operating systems but Microsoft XP. I’ve successfully run it on many different XP machines, just not sure how well it would run in Vista.
Repair Install (XP): If all else fails, this is the last step you could try before resorting to a Clean Install or buying a new computer. You will need your original Windows install disc. Follow method 2 in this article.
Note: These programs are “tried and true” methods for repairing an XP machine. By now, if you are running Windows, you should be running at least XP Service Pack 2 or Vista. If you are not, you should definitely upgrade to XP SP2. I have only been using Vista for a couple of months now. I am still learning the ins and outs of it (like I know XP). While some of these methods will work under Vista, I have not had to fix a Vista machine yet. Even though UAC (user access control) may be kind of annoying, it will definitely help in intercepting malware programs before they get installed on your system.
Technorati Tags: mal-ware, malware, malware alarm, myspace
And please, don’t ask me to try it for you either. For a while now, I have noticed that my laptop has been getting really hot after it runs for a while and starts to really slow down. So for the past couple of days, I’ve been monitoring the main cooling fan and noticed that it wasn’t ever coming on. The first thing I tried was using a little bit of the compressed air. That didn’t help at all. Even while it was blowing, the fan wouldn’t rotate. I booted into the Dell Diagnostics to run the test for the cooling fan. Sure enough, it gave an error that the fan wasn’t spinning. I wrote done the error codes just in case I had to call Dell. I’ve found that if I can give the results of the various troubleshooting steps that will probably ask you to go through, I can save a lot of time of being on the phone with them.
 After my last experience with a Dell Contracted Technician working on my laptop, I decided to take my computer apart to get to the fan. Unfortunately, to get to the fan, I pretty much had to take my computer completely apart. Again, I don’t recommend this. Laptop parts are very fragile and are often held together by a hidden screw, so if you try to open it, don’t force anything. After a good 10 minutes or so, I was finally to the fan. I first checked to see that its cable looked good and was plugged in. Although the last guy should have never gotten to this step in disassembly, I almost expected that he did and forgot to plug the fan back up. When I took the fan top off, I found the source of the problem… a big ball of dust. I wonder just how many other people have run into this problem that has a fairly simple solution.
Technorati Tags: dell 700m, cooling fan, tech support, dust
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_03.jpg) Honey Creek Trail is probably one of the funnest trails you will encounter in Big South Fork. Yesterday I meet up with Bryan and some others from Brentwood Hills to do Honey Creek. This trail offers a wide variety of things to see and things to do. First off, there are 4 waterfalls along the trail, though being under a level D4 drought at this time, the waterfalls were nonexistent. This trail also offers a few rock caves that are very accessible. There is an overlook which gives you a good view of one of the most violent portions (class IV rapids) of the Cumberland River, but because of the drought it didn’t look all that particularly violent. Also this trail features some of Tennessee’s finest slot canyons. These slot canyons aren’t very big, nor or they all that difficult, especially if you compare them to the slot canyons you’d find in Utah. Tennessee isn’t exactly known for its canyons, so that makes this kind of unique.
_14.jpg) The rock caves is one of the other features that make this trail so fun. Some are accessible just by climbing just a few feet, while others a ladder is already in place for you to climb. These caves don’t go underground and aren’t that deep. Most are just single chamber, so you don’t have to worry about getting lost. Several were probably used by the Native American’s as shelter. For example, this picture was taken from Indian Rock House Cave.
_20.jpg) A word of warning though, this trail isn’t the best marked trail. The best way to hike this loop is to take the trailhead that is just up the road and end at the parking area. If you look at the elevation profile image above, ignore the distances. My program gives it as linear distance (aka, as the crow flies). The true distance is going to be terrain distance + climbing distance. Around the third mile, you will encounter a sign that says follow creek. This is where you could lose the trail if you aren’t careful. Make sure you don’t go too long without seeing the red trail blazes. This is the most dangerous part of the trail. Not only because you could get lost if you aren’t paying attention, but also because you are hiking along or in the creek. It is very slippery. This time the water was way down, but the last time I can remember the water being up and flowing pretty good. It was a tricky section of the trail to hike. This is definitely a trail you will want to avoid if it has recently rained or if rain is forecasted. You will also run into signs that are kind of ambiguous about where the main trail goes. This trail has a number of spur trails that either require turning around at the destination or rejoining the trail. When you encounter this sign, you want to take the trail that goes up. It is a little more difficult, but affords more scenery.
While most books and websites will tell you the elevation change on this trail is only 500 ft, I am going to give a way different number. This trail has a whole lot of up and down, there isn’t very many “flat” areas on this trail. Consequently, the total elevation gain is somewhere closer to 2500 ft.
The directions on how to get there I have found are usually pretty vague, so the last thing I want to do is give good directions on how to get to Honey Creek from Knoxville or anyplace you find yourself taking I-75. Take I-75 to exit 141. Turn left off the exit and head west on Highway 53. Stay on Highway 53 through Huntsville until it ends at a light at Highway 27. Turn left onto Highway 27 south. After a few miles you will cross over the New River Bridge. A little less than .5 mile from the bridge you will see a sign on the right hand side of the road that says Burnt Mill Bridge River Access 4.1 miles. Follow the signs to Burnt Mill Bridge. These are well marked, much better than trying to give road names. If you look in the guidebooks, some will say this bridge is closed to traffic, while others say it is open but 2 tons is the weight limit. I wasn’t sure if I should risk taking it and it being closed, but I did… And I’m very glad that I did. They have constructed a new bridge, so you can view the old one for its historic value, but pass using the new bridge. A little over 3 miles past the bridge, you will see the road split. At this split, go right. This takes you to the parking area or you can drive it all the way to the end at the overlook mentioned earlier.
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Technorati Tags: honey creek, big south fork, slot canyon, indian rock house
Well its Election Day in Knoxville today. Shortly after I moved, I changed over my voter registration. At my old house it was nice that the voting place was in my back yard but I was surprised at how far my new place was from my house. They had me voting at Karns Middle School. I thought that it was odd, so I checked the politcal map on KGIS and sure enough, they had me at the edge of the precinct that votes at Karns Middle (63rd Precinct).
So this morning, before work, I was gonna swing by and vote. At my previous residence, it always took so long because of the long lines, having too few booths, people still uncomfortable with the machines, and workers who didn’t seem to know much of what they were doing in the first place. I was expecting the same thing to happen this time too. I would rather them eat into my morning than my evening though. So I drive all the way out to Karns Middle but I don’t see any signs that say vote here. I eventually find my way to the office and ask where the voting booths are at. They then tell me that voting is only going on in the city not in the county so I don’t have to vote today or I have gone to the wrong location. I show them my card that shows that I am in the city and that Karns Middle School is my voting location. They try calling up the election commission to figure out what to do with me. After about 10 minutes, they ask to speak to me on the phone. They ask for my name and tell me that I should be voting in the 42nd Precinct location at Pleasant Ridge Elementary (MUCH closer to my house).
So I travel back to Pleasant Ridge Elementary and vote. When I arrived, there was one other person there to vote. He was registering right as I arrived. There was 4 booths there, but when I arrived, they were all empty. After I registered, I got my access number and was immediately able to vote.
Today’s election for the most part is an uninteresting election. There are only four city council seats that need to be selected. Three of those are uncontested. It just so happens that the one seat that is contested has Joe Bailey (from Laurel) running for that seat.
Technorati Tags: election day, woes, joe bailey, laurel church of christ
_01.jpg) This past Saturday was the annual Fall Cookout at Caroline Evan’s house. In the past few years it has been scheduled for either the Georgia or Alabama game, since those rotate between home and away each year. Since the Alabama game was away this year, the cookout was scheduled for the 3rd weekend in October. One thing they like to do is setup a projector and show the game. Anytime you show something outside you are going to have problems with ambient sunlight, but when the game starts at 12:30 and you are trying to show something around that time, there is little you can do to overcome it. Such was the case this year. As time passed and the sun moved west, it got a little bit easier to see.
One thing I noticed this year was the the attendance seemed lower than usual. They were fewer college kids, fewer Laurel members, and also fewer youth group kids. In past years the cookout had been in the afternoon or the evening, so I had usually scheduled a trip to get some hiking in before the cookout. This year, since it was at 12:30, there wasn’t time to head up to the mountains before the cookout. I figured I wouldn’t be able to get any hiking in after the cookout either, but I decided I was going to try and take some pictures with my dSLR. Speaking of my dSLR, towards the ends of the cookout, some of the LYF group kids wanted to take some pictures with it themselves. I was a little nervous, but I figured they would be careful because they knew they were handling something expensive. You can view the rest of my pictures, as well as some of Philip’s, Lydia’s, Connor’s, Alex’s, and Sean’s pictures here.
_06.jpg) I hadn’t made any plans to go with anybody else, I was just going to stay in the front country and not go much into the back country. I figured I might have some time to head up to Clingman’s Dome. Technically to get to Clingman’s Dome you have to “hike” half a mile to the tower, so I would be heading into the back country, but not really, since Clingman’s Dome is usually populated by lots of people. After taking some shots at Clingman’s, on my way back I would stop at Morton Overlook for some sunset pictures.
_32.jpg) I was a little bit late leaving the cookout, but I thought I should still have time to do what I wanted to do. Sunset on Saturday was going to be right around 7:00. To get to where I wanted to go from the cookout, there were a few options. I could head to Townsend and take 321 through Wear Valley and end up in Pigeon Forge, or I could Turn left at the Townsend Wye and take Little River Road to Sugarlands and head up to Newfound Gap from there. The way I ended up taking was to go out to Chapman Highway and then take Veterans Boulevard to bypass as much of Pigeon Forge as I can and then take the Gatlinburg Bypass to get to Sugarlands and head up to Newfound Gap.
I was wrong about the amount of time I would actually have. I figured there would be a lot of traffic leaving the Smokey Mountains, but I hadn’t expected as many people heading into them, since it was later in the day. It took almost 2 hours from the time I left Caroline’s house until I got up to Morton Overlook. That was about 25 minutes before sunset. Figuring I would have no time to get much of anything if I went up to Clingman’s Dome, I decided to just go ahead and get a spot at Morton Overlook. Morton Overlook is a popular place to photograph sunsets since it looks west. The Chimney Tops are also very prominent when looking out from Morton Overlook. Not only did it take a long time to get up to Newfound Gap, it took a long time to get back down. Traffic was backed up all the way to the Chimney’s picnic area from Gatlinburg. I guess my average speed was 5 miles per hour since it took just about an hour to get from the Chimney’s picnic area to Sugarlands (which is about 5 miles apart). After Sugarlands, I was able to get on the bypass. I got home later than I wanted, but all in all, I got some really good pictures that I am happy with, so it was definitely worth the hassle. You can view the rest of my pictures here.
Technorati Tags: christian student center, laurel church of christ, cookout, smoky mountains, fall colors, chimney tops, morton overlook, sunset, photography
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Are we afraid of silence? What happens when we just stop and listen to encounter God? That was the theme of the fall retreat for the youth group. Instead of a lot of free time like most retreats have, there was a lot of quiet time. A couple of the quiet time sessions were guided by a couple of question sheets that the students were to journal there thoughts down. Another session, the kids were free to journal whatever was on their mind.
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The retreat was held at Camp Smokey Christian. This was a depart from the usually og CLabin Lodge in Dandridge. Over the past couple of years, things have gotten progressively worse at the Log Cabin Lodge. Last year several of the girls’ rooms had mold. Camp Smokey Christian actually was a decent place. First off, its really close to the Smokey Mountains (about 10 minutes away from Greenbrier). It’s really near the Arts Community just outside Gatlinburg. Being an adult chaperone usually means that you are going to be helping out in two things… cooking and cleaning. What makes Camp Smokey Christian so good is that you don’t have to do either. Now I’ve gone to places that cooked for you, but this place said that we didn’t have to clean. All we had to do was make sure the big trash gets put away and we take the trash out to the garbage cans.
You can view the rest of my pictures from the retreat at: http://gallery2.justinacuff.net/v/Church/Fall_Retreat_2007-10-12/
Technorati Tags: fall retreat, laurel church of christ, lyf group, camp smokey christian
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