The Random Adventure That Is Life (RATIL)

Family Road Trip 2021

I had to be in Las Vegas for work for a few weeks. Since I was planning to drive anyways, we decided to make a road trip out of it and visit several National Parks along the way and finishing the trip off with a couple of nights in Vegas.

computers

Head Against Wall: Odd Bootable USB Behavior

So for work, we provision devices to send to clients using a bootable USB Ubuntu installer with a bunch of custom options and additional software. This all happens without hiccups generally...until this week, when I needed to clone the drive for someone else. After much weeping and gnashing of

On Empathy

Empathy, Empathy, Empathy! All of this, all sides, all people. Empathy is the key and what we seem to be losing. I like to think I have great empathy for the disenfranchised but I fail spectacularly at demonstrating empathy for those whose political views run against my own and that

adventure

Lost Creek Wilderness Loop

I was getting the itch to do a backpacking trip. Given the pandemic situation I decided to stick close to home and went with the Lost Creek Wilderness Loop. Coming from Denver, the Wigwam Trailhead was the closest entry point. However, that trailhead has about a 3.7 mile spur

Car Camping Load Out

I have a vested interested in making car camping as easy and comfortable as possible: If I am going alone with my son, I have to ensure I am able to handle the whole trip solo and in such a way that a 3-year-old can enjoy it. That means extra

cloudflare

SSH Access With Cloudflare Argo and Access

Although Cloudflare generally has pretty good documentation. In this specific case, the documentation is spread over multiple pages and actually just wrong in a couple spots. I am going to try to consolidate this process here. My goal here was to enable programmatic SSH access to an arbitrary number of

adventure

Skiing With a 2-Year-Old

We took our son skiing for what could be the last time this season. As such, I thought it would be appropriate to recount the trials, tribulations, and celebrations of a season of skiing with a 2YO. Patience and Expectation ManagementThe key to every ski trip with kids is patience

adventure

Squaw Mountain Fire Lookout

I am not sure where I first heard about them (probably some click-baity Facebook ad), but for the last few months I have been obsessing over renting a US Forest Service fire lookout tower. In their heyday, there were a couple thousand lookout towers. With the advent of modern technology,

adventure

Five Fourteener Frenzy Weekend

After planning a Sunday trip to climb Longs Peak with some folks from 14ers.com I decided to fill my Saturday with the DeCaLiBron route. After the Sunday Longs trip fell through, I ended up doing Torreys Peak on Sunday. Altogether I hit 5 fourteener peaks this weekend, 4 of

computers

Unattended Install: virtualbox-ext-pack

On 30 September 2019, Ubuntu updated the virtualbox-ext-pack package to no longer auto-accept the EULA in order to align with legal requirements and their desire to be very clear about non-open-source software installed through their repositories. Reference: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox-ext-pack/+bug/1844654 As such, attempting to

diy

DIY Barn Door

A common architectural feature out here in Colorado is to not actually put a door between the master bedroom and the master bathroom. So we decided a barn door was the best option but given the non-standard (wider than normal) size of our doorway, the only pre-made options were going

computers

Verizon Wi-Fi Calling Firewall Config

UPDATE: wo.vzwwo.com is an additional domain that needs to be allowed. This is short and sweet. If you want to get Verizon Wi-Fi calling enabled on a restrictive network here is what you need. UDP ports 500 & 4500 open to sg.vzwfemto.com and wo.vzwwo.com.

adventure

Mount Evans - 14,264'

Mount Evans is Colorado's 14th highest peak and also one of the most accessible as it has a road to the top. I tried to summit this mountain a few weeks ago with my 2-year-old on my back. We ended up turning back because he was ready to go home

adventure

Pit Stop At Arches National Park

The drive from Las Vegas to Denver is a long one. Somewhere in the 11-12 hour range. This length of trip necessitates at least one major pitstop (on top of regular gas and snacks). Luckily Arches National Park is almost exactly half way and made for a perfect opportunity to

adventure

Zion National Park - Partial Zion Traverse

I was in Las Vegas for work and had a long-ish weekend due to moving from day shift to night shift. I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to plan a trip to Zion National Park for some wilderness backpacking. The park has a ton of trails but for

adventure

10 Years, 10 Things I Have Learned

My wife and I have been married for 10 YEARS TODAY!!!! It is insane how quickly time flies and how many life events have happened in that time. I love her more than anything in the world but as they say "marriage is work". I think we would both agree

adventure

Olive Ridge Campground - With A 2-Year-Old

With the weather being so outstanding, we decided to pack up the fam and head up into the mountains to get a weekend camping trip under our belts. We had previously taken the little guy camping back in Texas for one night. This trip was a test of our two-night

adventure

Mount Falcon Park

We were looking for a hike on the west side of Denver so that we could meet up with friends in the area afterwards. Mount Falcon Park was in the perfect spot for the time we had between nap time ending for the little dude and needing to meet up

adventure

Saint Mary's Glacier

Being in Colorado, I felt the itch to get up into the mountains before our first month in our new home was up. On a suggestion from my brother-in-law, we decided to head up to Saint Mary's Glacier. The glacier is just past Idaho Springs on I-70 so we decided

computers

pfSense With CenturyLink 1GB Fiber

We just recently moved into a neighborhood that offers CenturyLink 1GB fiber into the house. I mistakenly though the change would be as simple as plugging in my current setup to whatever modem they provided. Turns out that is not the case and that a little more work is required.

computers

Hack The Box: Irked

Irked: Retired If you are interested in learning more about penetration testing, Hack the Box is a great way to get your feet wet in a legal and well built environment. Head over to hackthebox.eu to get started. EnumerationMy initial enumeration returned a handful of ports. From port 80,

computers

pfSense Insights

This post will be updated as I find out interesting tidbits while working with my pfSense. Usually this will be getting something in the house to work as expected with out opening up the firewall to everything. Amazon Shopping AppUPDATE: The solution listed below no longer works. The Amazon Shopping

adventure

Big Bend National Park: Outer Mountain Loop

I had about 3.5 days of my first quarter time off leftover after trips to Washington (working vacation) and Hawaii and I desperately wanted to do a backpacking trip in Big Bend. Some quick Googling led me to the Outer Mountain Loop. This trip can be anywhere from 25-45

adventure

Moanalua Valley Middle Ridge to the Forbidden Haiku Stairs

Distance: 9.6 miles Time To Top: 3 hours 8 minutes Time Down" 2 hours 25 minutes Round Trip Time: 6 hours GPS Track Of My HikeWith a new baby in the family, it was time to pack up and head back to Hawaii to see the new little guy.

crossfit

Why Jillian Michaels Is Right and Wrong About Crossfit

The CrossFit community has had their collective wrist wraps in a twist this week due to a video and article posted on Shape.com by Jillian Michaels (of The Biggest Loser fame) where she apparently "slams" CrossFit. I thought nothing of it until I saw the disrespectful, vulgar, and downright