Where do you sit in the boat?

pic found on Google images

I started writing this a week and a half ago but was laid out from being sick so it sort of fell off the plate. Figured I would go ahead and post it even though it isn’t as timely now.

I once took a sailing trip with my dad and 2 family friends across Pamlico Sound to the Outer Banks in NC. The sound is relatively shallow and on this particular day we had some pretty good sized rolling waves going on. I tried to find a picture to help convey the scene and this was the closest I could find. We were heeling the boat over pretty good though not quite to the extreme shown in the picture. At one point I was sitting about where the guy in the red pants has his left foot. I’m inches from the water, the edge of the boat is underwater similar to the picture, and the rest of my view is blocked by the sail – basically a 1 foot square view with water RIGHT there. With my limited view and position every time a wave came along from the other side of the boat it felt like we were going to capsize. After a couple of minutes of sitting there staring into the water it started to become hypnotically depressing. I finally stood up and by doing just that it totally changed my perspective. Nothing about how we were sailing the boat had changed but now I could see the sky, the horizon, and the waves before they hit the boat.

Where do you fit on the chart?

It’s been too long since I have written. The problem, as it were, is I have had some ideas to write about but they are either incomplete or they are still percolating in mah head. I guess that isn’t too far from being the same thing. At any rate, the other day….actually the other week now that I think about it…I was working on some visualization and metric stuffs and had the thought to create the following tongue in cheek quadrant chart.

Are you using the tools you have?

I was going to write a quick blog entry comparing ArcSight as a SIEM to Symantec’s MSSP services which my current company is using. While there are pros and cons there is a bigger thought that keeps bubbling to the surface. For as much as our industry whines talks about the need for more innovation from vendors – no one is looking at the tools they have!

Low hanging fruit vs sour grapes

While on a drive today I got to thinking about low hanging fruit and came up with a Runalism. Will have to vet this over time.

Generally speaking, the difference between low hanging fruit and sour grapes is perspective.

Incremental changes and long term benefits

For those that don’t know, my wife and I have lead several groups though Dave Ramsey‘s Financial Peace University (FPU). Very cool stuff; YOU should look into it. That something like 70% of Americans, regardless of income level, live paycheck to paycheck is horrible. The group that we just finished up with had two folks in the medical field. At one point we got to talking about the long term cumulative effects incremental changes and small efforts can have (positive or negative) in your life from both a health and financial perspective.

That got me to thinking about InfoSec and if the line of thought and other FPUisms translated over. I came up with a couple ideas.