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Just another day in the life of a public servant

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Solving Spyware Problems

Okay, so I broke down and bought the upgraded version of Norton Internet Security, which includes a firewall and intrusion prevention. Much as I hated to spend that extra 10 bucks, I figured, what the hell, it might actually work.

Seriously, how retarded I've been. I should have bought this last year when I upgraded and saved myself all kinds of grief. The spyware invasions have dropped dramatically. I mean, 10 dollars is just the price of 2 White Chocolate Mochas from Starbucks. Surely I could do without my Starbucks fix two times. Maybe.

Speaking of White Chocolate Mochas, if you go to the Starbucks website you can look up calorie and nutrition information on any drink. The white cholcolate mochas (hereafter referred to as WCM) are 340 calories without whipped cream and with skim milk, and 540 with whole and with whipped cream, 220 of those calories from fat, and 24 total grams of fat. Pretty horrifying, right? I've switched to nonfat Vanilla Lattes, which have 230 calories. What I really love are the Cinnamon Dolce Lattes, which are 240 calories, when ordered non-fat. However, this is a seasonal drink, so I've got to wait until November before I can switch to them.

I really need to find a better method to indulge my coffee obsession that isn't so high in calories. Or at least cut back from 4 times a week to something more reasonable. I'm not knocking Starbucks, though. My life was meaningless before I discovered the thrill of WCM. Another cool component of the Starbucks website is the store locators. I can find a store anywhere!

On the basic training front, all is well. I passed firearms, and the 3 times a week 6:00 AM workouts are doing amazing things for my abs. My goal at this point is to drop my body fat from 26% to 20-21%. I hope that doesn't include losing 10 pounds. However, the nearest Starbucks is a 20 minute drive away, which is a pretty effective way to prevent me from indulging my coffee addiction while I'm in training.

And last thing, Dragon Con is a mere 40 days away!

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Off to training I go



Tomorrow I have to report for the my basic training. I jokingly call it "Officer boot camp", and I'll be there for 8 weeks. And to make it more stresful, Friday is make it or break it day. In other words, if I don't qualify with my Glock, they let me go. As in good bye, no more job, don't let the door hit you on the way out. A little scary. My class went to pre-basic last week for 3 days for gun training, and one day I shot okay, the next day I sucked, and the last day I was scoring pretty high. Provided I don't panic and start doing stupid stuff, I'll be fine. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Update on the spyware issue: Spyware keeps insinuating itself on my hard drive, requiring me to run removal tools constantly. Sneaky little shits.

The picture above is not me, but after 8 weeks of thrice weekly mandatory workouts, I might look like that. Maybe.
 
Please, someone with disposable income. Give me a school grant so I can go to law school!