AndrewReiter.com

I want to wish all 3? of you that visit my website a wonderful Thanksgiving!  This is probably one of the best holidays of the year.   It hasn’t been taken over by commercialism, or at least not as much as every other holiday.  It’s all about family and being thankful for what you have.  And on top of that, you get to stuff yourself full of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, pie, etc. without any remorse! … Maybe.

The LAN Party was a big success.  We had 19 or 20 people in the house playing Team Fortress 2, mainly.  We even had Garrett and Justin playing from home here and there.  It was a blast.  We mixed in some WAR and the Left 4 Dead demo when we had the chance.  I’m still looking for the owner of a jacket that was left, if it is one of you 3, let me know.

I have been working on a new project lately.  It is a website for my swim team.  It is coming along quite nicely.  I’m using an open source content management system, Joomla. For someone like me, that isn’t a web developer, it makes it VERY easy to setup a website.  There is a fairly large community that creates modules and plugins for the software as well.  That is really where open source shines.  I use an older version of Joomla for one of our websites at work, so I had a little bit of background with it going in.

Katie has gotten me hooked on a new hobby. We have been swimming for 1-2 hours, 4-5 days a week after work. It really is a great workout. My competitive side has got me wrapped into competing already as well. I’ll be headed to the Show-Me Games in Columbia, MO. I’ll be swimming at the Mizzou Aquatic center, which is a world-class facility. Considering a swimmer’s prime is about my age, I’m sure I’ll get trounced there. It will still be fun. If anyone is interested in attetnding, it is the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of August. I swim each afternoon. I’ll be competing in the following races:

50 and 100 Freestyle
50 and 100 Backstroke
50 Breaststroke
50 Butterfly
100 and 200 Individual Medley

I have just over a month to finish preparing. I’m hoping to at least finish all my races with a respectable time. The only one I’m really worried about right now is the 200 IM. That will be a tough race for me.

Last weekend a bunch of us went on a float trip on the Big River in DeSoto. Matt has some pictures on his Flickr site. Don’t get confused by the size of the fish in the picture of me. We were catching lots of little ones like that, but I did catch some decent smallmouth and a couple largemouth… oh yeah, and a buzz.

Well, the November LAN is coming up in only 2 days. We’ll have about 18 guys playing video games in their parents’ basement(ok… my basement). While every one of us will be very competitive whilst playing the games, what it really comes down to is the social interaction. As Tristan put it, it is about the camaraderie. Most of the guys I spent time with in college; cramming for tests, cursing a certain professor, and your general procrastination(Toli was king). You develop friendships that cannot be matched once you get into the real world. Of all the things I experienced in College, this I appreciate the most.

LOTD: Sweetest Band March Ever

This past weekend, Katie and I were honored to celebrate with MF and KG at their wedding. They had it at the Sheraton in Clayton, which turned out really nice. We got Matt the best wedding gift he received, I’m sure. 8 or 9 of us went in on a Nintendo Wii and gave it to him Friday night. He was quite surprised. I just bought one for myself a couple nights ago, thanks to Nick, who found one at Wal-Mart. Just about everyone I know has a Wii now.

Tomorrow I’m headed back up to the training center to take my CEH certification test. They slot 4 hours for the test, but my instructor said it shouldn’t take more than 3. If it takes me 4 hours, I probably won’t pass. I’ve been studying for the last couple weeks, and I think I’m ready to go.

Right after I finish my test, Katie and I begin our vacation. First, we are headed down to Arkansas for another wedding. A good friend from college is getting married in Fayetteville, and I can’t wait to meet the gal he tricked into this. It should be a fun weekend, which ends in us driving down to Florida for a Reiter family reunion. We will be spending the majority of the time in St. Augustine, but we will also be headed to Jacksonville and Orlando. We will be going to Sea World, and we might even swing by Kennedy Space Center.

LOTD: Glasbergen Cartoons

Ethical Hacking… sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? The idea is to know how hackers operate so that you can defend against them. I’ve been preparing for a class on it that I have next week. I was sent almost 3000 pages of course ware that I have been reading the past couple of weeks. It will be a pretty intense class as it is all packed into 5 8-hour days.

Last night, Katie and I went up to Fair St. Louis with our friend Greg. We definitely didn’t go up there just to see Cyndi Lauper, but she did happen to be playing a concert on the riverfront. Katie ended up with a headache, while Greg and I were laughing at all the people dancing around to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” … or whatever the title is. The fireworks show was great, though. It is amazing how it is all timed to the music and everything. We watched the show through the arch, which was pretty neat.

LOTD: iPhone Dugout Chat

Last night I convinced Katie to go see Evan Almighty with me. She doesn’t typically enjoy going to the movies. Well, we both enjoyed it. It was hard not to think “Michael Scott” the entire time. I was expecting it to be really cheesy, but instead it was only slightly cheesy. I liked the original, Bruce Almighty, and I thought this one was better.

Thanks to Matt, I have been playing some Desktop Defender lately. It reminds me of the WC3 Tower Denfense map. If you decide to give it a try, make sure to add your scores to the stl group.

LOTD: More Carell

This past weekend, Mcneal and Thomack came in town and I invited some other guys from the area and we had a mini-lan party. The weekend was filled with Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, and Silverfall. The latter is a RPG for the PC that seems as if it had potential and they released it before they finished polishing. It still brought us several hours of entertainment.

The reason the guys came in to was to go to the Cards-Royals game last night. Unfortunately for him, Jeremy is a Royals fan. Unfortunately for me, the Cardinals lost last night. It is amazing how ownership can make the hoards of money they have the last couple of years and put out the pitching rotation they have this year. On top of that, the Cardinals have had a rash of injuries all year long. It has not been good to be a Cardinal fan.

LOTD: Sweet Coffee Table