Year 2009 is just over. Indeed, we always hear “Time flies”. And sure it does. One of the many ways to look forward into another year is to do a quick look back of the past year. What were my goals? Were they accomplished? Fully or partially or not at all? Was it a happy and satisfying year? Or was it something I could have done better? At the end of the year, was I happy with it?

Looking back year 2009 and my accomplishments gives me a self-evaluation and maybe even to see what I have done successfully, or maybe the lack thereof. So let me step back and go through my small list.

FAMILY. I started the year 2009 with a good start. I moved back to California closer to my family, which gave me more time and bonding with my loved ones. I spent good times with my sister Judy and my brother-in-law Neil. Together with my mom and with my sister, we had the chance to go to Los Angeles to visit the grave of my grandma, which is one of my mom’s goals in coming to America.

Judy and Mom visiting grandma's grave in LA

I closed the year by giving my sister Judy her own blog. Now, she could also enjoy posting and sharing her words of wisdom to us. Visit her blog here: Judy & Neil Blog: Keeping in touch with the rest of the world.

The three stooges

CAREER. While I did not get the promotion (I deserved -clear throat-), I have passed the certifications I have planned to get. Last year, I planned to clear both the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) and I did so. I opted to do self-study since the cost to take the trainings are very expensive. But of course, my company would have paid for it anyway.

Last year I have attended several big security conferences. One of them was the McAfee Security Focus 09, which I get to see retired Gen. Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State. I also get the chance to see the authors of the Hacking Exposed series, Stuart McClure and George Kurtz.

SecureToday.net

Year 2009 was also my book-reading spree. I read more than five books. They were interesting topics that started with Hacking all the way to Computer Forensics, eDiscovery, and Security Laws and Compliance. Cool stuffs.

Also last year, I have put more time in sharing my security experiences in my security blog SecureToday.net: protecting your own for the future. It’s a start-up security blog that covers mainly articles for home users and interesting articles for security professionals. I aim to improve the blog this year to a more interactive one. Please visit it!

FUN. I cannot end the year without good fun. In May, I had the Grand Canyon Experience and also a good joy ride to Las Vegas. It was fun! On the way was the Hoover Dam, which is an extraordinaire man-made masterpiece. Here’s a link to view My Grand Canyon Experience 2009 album.

The Hoover Dam

Grand Canyon South Rim

SPIRITUAL. My relationship with my Savior has not faded. I continue to keep seeking His guidance and His total protection. My faith is stronger as I’ve gone through many trials in life. Last year I started involving myself with the church close by, Signal Heights, and hopefully this new year I will complete their website.

‘Twas a very good year. My well-rounded personality was all satisfied. I could not have done any better than that. I thank all the people around me that made the year something I can put in writing a good one. Above all, thanks to God almighty for all the successes, achievements, accomplishments, and of course, those failures. I am very well pleased with what 2009 have brought into me. On to 2010!

It’s a new year and how good it is to start the year by posting something here in my blog. But wait, I’m not just posting just for the heck. I’m actually posting from my phone! How cool is that?

iPhone and WP blog

I’ve just upgraded my blog to the latest version so now I can take advantage of this cool feature. On the other hand, I’m surprised how the old theme that I’ve created back in 2007 to match my website is still holding up with the engine. Very nice. Yeah, I did some graphic modification. The footer now shows 2007 – 2010. Thought I’d update the year as well.

Oh, and one cool feature I have added in my blog is a cool plugin that allows you to view my site easily from those modern phones such as iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, Android, and Opera mini. This makes it easier for me as an iPhone user to view blogs with this plugin. So if you have an iPhone or one of those that are mentioned, try accessing my blog and see if you really like it. It’s the same page: http://www.zarex.dela-cruz.com/blogs.

Anyway, so much for now. It’s not really easy typing here even it is an iPhone

Cheers and Happy New Year 2010!

CHRISTMAS! I’ve always enjoyed Christmas. When I was growing up, Christmas begins almost immediately when it hits the first day of September. That was actually a long countdown to Christmas. Going to school, I would walked a good quarter mile and you would always hear Christmas songs being played on the radio. I always love hearing’O Holy Night’, ‘Silent Night’, ‘Joy to the World’, ‘Hark the Herald’, and all those good old classical Christmas songs. And the weather is really Christmasy; colder, chilly, and windy. I remember I know I always have “kursing” or dry skin.

What I’ve always enjoyed was my anticipation in going home every day from school knowing my sister Joyce would come up with yet another and different Christmas tree and decoration. And as I walked home by in the afternoon, I would see houses with their different shiny decoration of gold, red, and green colors “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!” banners. In the night, I would see flashy Christmas lights all laid out in their front house or porches. It even came with music in them.

That’s the spirit of Christmas!

To add more excitement on my part, December is also our town Fiesta season. In our plaza, we have Ferris wheels, board games, freebies, and all sort of fun stuffs for kids and everyone. And to close the month off, I enjoyed spending the last week of the year joining a Youth Camp (kids are invited as well).

On the eve of Christmas, me and my buddy Froilan would go house to house to deliver our hard-practiced-for-a-month Christmas carols. As a result we would get all sorts of good stuffs kids really love like candies, tupig, even money (coins only though).

So anyway, I got carried away for a bit. My main point of posting this is just for me to stir up that Christmas spirit again in me. Christmas is not as exciting anymore as it was for me when I was younger. Many variables could be blamed or highlighted; work, more work, other activities, people around, the place, the environment, and of course, the age. But it was never sad, it was not just as happy as it was when I was a kid. I am sure everyone in my age has been through this as well. So instead of just waking up in the morning waiting for gifts, you now have to wake up in the morning making sure you have covered all your list of people to give gifts. No issues with that, after all, ‘It is better to give than to receive’, right?

Anyway, it looks like we have what 11 days more until Christmas! It’s not late yet, so let’s start counting till Christmas! Remember, Jesus is the only reason for this season… MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And just like that, we’re approaching the last year of the decade since Y2K! I remember 10 years before year 2000, I was cleaning our cabinets when I came across one of my sisters subscribed magazines. In the front was a 10 calendars countdown to year 2000. It is an anticipated event of what was to happen on that year. The end of the world? Another big event to happen? A lot of questions. I just graduated elementary at that time.

And just earlier, I was cleaning my own cabinet and came across several of my National Geographic magazines and remember year 1990 when I first asked myself: what will happen in year 2000? Well, it came and went. We are now approaching year 2010. Time flies indeed. So fast and suddenly, I am that old!

It has been so long since the last time I have posted here in my blog. I have been very busy and been out to several conference lately. Not too mention all the projects I am assigned at work these days. I will try to update as much as I can to share all the good stuffs I have gone through this year.

As a teaser, last month I attended the 2nd McAfee Focus in Las Vegas. It was a grand event and I get to see former US Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell. I’ve also met in person the famous authors of the Hacking Exposed series, Stu and Greg. And yeah, I got the version 6 of the book (for free, of course).

Hacking Exposed

To continue, I’ve read about four books this year and finishing two more by the end of this year. So that’s a lot of reading done, but don’t feel sorry, it wasn’t that boring. Those are really interesting and not too boring readings. One of them that I like is the Hackers Challenge 3. I’ve also gone several Digital Forensic books that I think they are also very interesting. I am still finishing up the Hacking Exposed v5 but I have already started the v6.

Anyway, one of the many reasons I am posting today is because I have recently moved my domain to a different server. It is still the same hosting but I am consolidating all my sites to one (to save money this time of economic crisis). So, with that said, I am on the run again. I will come back and post more later!

Cheers..

P.S.

I am also writing several article about security at http://www.securetoday.net. Stop by there and read them. Hope it will help you. Our purpose there is to target mainly home users to be aware of all the current and upcoming threats that are out there!

Just for the heck of it, this happens every what? I don’t know, but I am lucky enough to document here in my blog anyway. The time is 9:09 AM today Sept 9, 2009. So that would make it 9/09/09 9:09.. It’s not 9 seconds after but I started it before that so I stumble upon it…

Cheers..