Half Armenian, Full Eagle
On Tuesday, I rearranged my office at work to give Zach and I more room to work. It is an awesome setup because Zach has one corner of the office and I have the opposite kitty corner.
I am excited for all of the work I am going to be doing with MIS (ITS Dept) that I feel when I leave Plymouth, I will have a great resume because of all the experience I have had working for ITS anf especially this year.
Kiefer Sutherland and TV series 24 both won an Emmy last night for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Jack Baur and Outstanding Drama Series respectively. This was Kiefer’s first Emmy win and his 5 nomination. Previous to this, he was nominated for 4 golden globe with 1 win in 2002.
| Season | Premiere | Finale | TV Season | Ranking | Viewers (in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | November 6, 2001 | May 21, 2002 | 2001-2002 | #76 | 8.60 |
| 2nd | October 29, 2002 | May 20, 2003 | 2002-2003 | 11.70 | |
| 3rd | October 28, 2003 | May 25, 2004 | 2003-2004 | #42 | 10.30 |
| 4th | January 9, 2005 | May 23, 2005 | 2004-2005 | #29 | 11.90 |
| 5th | January 15, 2006 | May 22, 2006 | 2005-2006 | #25 | 13.78 |
Check out the preview for Season 6
The following was in Plymouth State’s Student Newspaper, The Clock:
On Thursday, October 30, (2003,) Timothy Haroutunian arrived at Citizen’s Bank to cash a thirty-dollar check. While he was inside the bank, he was informed by a banker that something was wrong with a red Jeep parked outside; Haroutunian’s Jeep. As he approached his car, he noticed that it was smoking.“I ran over and opened the hood to see what was going on and a big burst of smoke went into my lungs,” recalled Haroutunian. “I jumped back and saw the engine was on fire.”
Haroutunian tried to get into his Jeep to save some items inside, but was pulled out by an observer who was saying, “It’s not worth it.”
The fire department and an ambulance were called, and a hyperventilating Haroutunian was led to a waiting ambulance to be checked for injuries.
By this time, flames had completely engulfed his Jeep with flames that were estimated to be ten feet high. Firemen worked to extinguish the flames, and it took almost a half hour to get the situation completely under control.
Haroutunian was advised to go to the hospital for further observation, but signed an Against Medical Advice form and was released.
Most discouraging for Haroutunian was when he discovered that his insurance did not cover fire damage and he would not be compensated for the value of his Jeep.
He is currently waiting to speak and meet with an investigator from the Jeep Manufacturer in Michigan to determine the cause of the fire, which at press time was still unknown. The inspector is curious to find out if the cause of the Jeep was a malfunction of the engine or if it was caused by general wear and tear of the Jeep.
No one else was injured in the incident and no other cars were involved. As soon as others anticipated that there might have been a problem, many of them moved their cars to a safer location.
The vote involved just 424 astronomers who remained for the last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague.
As of today, Pluto has been demoted and is no longer considered part of the “planets” of the solar system. Our solar system is in the Milky Way galaxy of the universe. (FYI)
Years of Debate:
Astronomers have argued since the late 1990s on whether to demote Pluto. Public support for Pluto has weighed heavily on the debate. Today’s vote comes after a two-year effort by the IAU to develop a definition. An initial committee of astronomers failed for a year to do so, leading to the formation of the second committee whose proposed definition was then redefined for Thursday’s vote.
The question that remains is how is this going to affect schools and children growing up trying to understand how when they left second grade there were 9 planets and in third grade there are 8 planets. How are children going to realize that what we have known for years is now changing? I guess it is the same situation when they thought that the earth was the center of the solar system. We live in a dynamic world and we need to adjust, but I hope too many “facts” don’t change.
Growing up, my family ate a good amount of Armenian food between Church and Family, I thought that I would write the recipe for some of these wonderful treats.
The following is Armenian Pizza or Lahmejune:
Recipe by Azniv Charkoudian
Ingredients:
Dough:
6 cups flour
5 tbsp. shortening
1½ tsp. salt
1 pkg. yeast
3 tbsp. sugar
2 cups warm water2 lbs. lamb or beef, ground once
2 cups canned tomatoes
2 tsp. salt
pinch of cayenne
pinch of blk. pepper
2 med. onions, finely chopped
½ cup parsley, finely chopped
½ cup green pepper, finely chopped
Directions:
Dough:
Place yeast and 1 tbsp. sugar in ½ cup water and let stand for a few minutes. Use a dutch oven type pan with cover for kneading dough. Combine 6 cups flour, 1½ tsp. salt, 2 tbsp. sugar, 3 tbsp. shortening, 1½ cups water. Add yeast preparation and knead. Use remaining 2 tbsps. shortening on hand and rub on bottom of pan as you knead dough. This procedure will clean hand and bottom of pan of sticky dough. When dough is smooth, place cover on pan and place pan in oven which has been warmed for only 1 minute. Let stand until dough is double in size (about 2-3 hours).Meat Filling:
Place all ingredients in bowl and mix well. Place in refrigerator until ready to use.Rolling out of dough:
Take raised dough and make 12 balls. Now cut each ball in half, making a total of 24 balls. Place balls on tray sprinkled with flour. Let stand 10 minutes.Roll out each ball to 7″ diameter and place on cookie sheet. Place 1½ heaping tablespoons of meat mixture on each rolled dough and spread evenly. Bake in 450o oven. Place tray on bottom shelf for 10 minutes and then move to top shelf for an additional 5 minutes.
Remove from cookie sheet and place, staggered, on a tray to cool. (do not stack) When cold, stack with meat filling facing each other and place in refrigerator. When serving, it can be warmed by placing in a 325o oven for 5 minutes. May also be served cold.
Makes 2 dozen
June 21, 2001 to July 12, 2001: I traveled to Armenia as part of a government funded program as an Ambassador of the United States to teach computers to students and teachers.
CYSCA is a partnership between the citizens of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia.
The Goal of CYSCA:
To foster friendship, mutual trust and dynamic interaction between the peoples of Yerevan and Cambridge as well as their neighboring regions; to build links between them, to promote public awareness of issues of mutual concern; and to appreciate and accommodate the various manifestations of diversity in these communities.
A few weeks ago I was going through papers at home and stumbbled across my flight itinerary from the trip and noticed a slight flaw in the paperwork. This piece of paper was printed February 2001 and I just noticed it over 5 years later. The following is a scanned copy of the original papers.
Now the distance between the Republic of Georgia and Yerevan, Armenia is 112 Miles but the paper tells me that it will take 68 hours and 6 minutes to get there. Either they screwed up on the total flight time or they screwed up with the fact that I was not taking a flight but rather a mule.
I may blog about other parts of my trip, but thats for a later time.
The New series premiere Vanished was on tonight and it was actually very good in my opinion. Vanished airs on Fox, Monday nights at 9pm. It was an intriguing show that made you really think about how she disappeared. Even though there was a lot going on in the pilot episode, they wrote it so it was understandable. I highly recommend this show to anyone.
Sara Collins, the beautiful young wife of prominent Georgia Senator Jeffrey Collins, has inexplicably vanished.
As the search for Sara unravels one of the nation’s most prominent amilies, it also exposes evidence that could rock the foundations of American society. In VANISHED, nothing is as it seems. Everyone is a suspect. Everyone has a secret. And no one is safe.
Viewers will journey inside a sensational, thrilling national soap opera as collaborating FBI Agents Kyle Tyner, Graham Kelton, Lin Mei and Daniel Lucas investigate and uncover enigmatic clues that suggest Sara’s disappearance may be part of a large, sinister conspiracy. Meanwhile, ambitious reporter Judy Nash is also pursuing leads to deliver breaking news as this career-defining story develops.
At the Collins home, Jeffrey and Sara’s dutiful son Max is keeping secrets of his own, while his rebellious sister Marcy is on the verge of eloping with her sketchy boyfriend Ben, whose motives are questionable.
And when things couldn’t get any worse for Senator Collins, two people mysteriously surface: his ex-wife Jessica Nevins and a man from Sara’s past, Peter Manning. All the while, Judy and her young cameraman/boyfriend Adam Putnam attempt to capture every shocking development as the biggest story of their careers unfolds. – Source Fox Website
After two games vs. the Yankees, the Red Sox lost two and are down 3 1/2 to the Yankees in the AL East. It was a very bad day/night/morning for us Sox fans due to the fact that we had a good lead in Game 2 and couldn’t hold it up. After have a 3 run lead, the bullpen dropped 7 runs in the 7th innings.
Game 2 was the longest 9-inning game in MLB History at 4 Hours and 40 Minutes.
More to come on others games
When I wrote RFID Passports in March they promised E-passports by October, but a few weeks ago I posted RFID ePassports Ready and they announced that they would be launching ahead of schedule, but I didn’t expect that they would be 2 months ahead of schedule.
The fact of the matter of ePassports is that Security professionals are very upset that they are going live with this project because of all of the security flaws with the way that its encryption was done.
The Following is a press release from the Department of State
Department of State Begins Issuing Electronic Passports to the Public
To enhance border security and to facilitate travel, the Department of State began issuing Electronic Passports (e-passports) to the public today. Production has started at the Colorado Passport Agency and will be expanded to other production facilities over the next few months.
Consistent with globally interoperable specifications adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), this next generation of the U.S. passport includes biometric technology. A contactless chip in the rear cover of the passport will contain the same data as that found on the biographic data page of the passport (name, date of birth, gender, place of birth, dates of passport issuance and expiration, passport number), and will also include a digital image of the bearer’s photograph.
The Department of State has employed a multi-layered approach to protect the privacy of the information and to mitigate the chances of the electronic data being skimmed (unauthorized reading) or eavesdropped (intercepting communication of the transmission of data between the chip and the reader by unintended recipients). Metallic anti-skimming material incorporated into the front cover and spine of the e-passport book prevents the chip from being skimmed, or read, when the book is fully closed; Basic Access Control (BAC) technology, which requires that the data page be read electronically to generate a key that unlocks the chip, will prevent skimming and eavesdropping; and a randomized unique identification (RUID) feature will mitigate the risk that an e-passport holder could be tracked. To prevent alteration or modification of the data on the chip, and to allow authorities to validate and authenticate the data, the information on the chip will include an electronic signature (PKI).
The Department of State is confident that the new e-passport, including biometrics and other improvements, will take security and travel facilitation to a new level.
What people don’t realize is that experts have already proved to the department of state that this technology can be hacked and they demonstrated it as well as supplied facts. However, the government is still proceeding with the implantation of it.
One of the reason that I am this concerned with the issue is that my passport was damaged and I needed to get a new one, but never got around to it because I thought I still had time, but I am wrong and now I will be provided with a more expensive e-passport. On the topic of money, it does not cost $30 to add a RFID chip and add the data to it. The chip itself costs about $.01 – $.10.
We will see how many complaints the US gets over this as soon as the first problem occurs with them.
