Ok damnit, It's time. Red.

It's time. I've threatened to post something of value here for some time now. So I think I'll tell the story of "Red." This is by far, one of the most bizarre things that's ever happened to me.

I should preface this by saying that during most of my teen years, I was a hellion. I was a thug. I was a druggie. I was The Guy Every Girl's Parents Warned Them About. These days, I'm lucky to have a beer once in three months. I guess I just burned myself out early. I got to a point where pot and alcohol just weren't doing it for me anymore, and I had to choose between cleaning up, or stepping up to something really fun like cocaine or heroin. Instead, I chose the Marines, but that's a different saga.

"Back in the day," every day started for me pretty much the same way. I'd wake up, call my buddy Shawn, we'd find some way to scam up a few bucks (usually 10 bucks was enough to have a Good Day), head downtown, score some weed and a few 40oz bottles of schlitz malt liquor, get stoned as fish and a nice alchohol buzz going, and then we'd start looking for a party to crash. Well, one summer morning, I called Shawn. "Hey man, mom gave me five bucks to eat today."

"Dude, I'm broke, but uh, you need to come over anyway... I think we're gonna go to Ohio."
"Ohio? Someone's got weed in ohio?"
"Well, I'm not sure. But Henry's going to Ohio, and Henry's always holdin'."
"Be there in an hour."

Now, I don't know Henry. I did later find out, that at the time of this conversation, Henry was awaiting trial. Get this: Awaiting trail for firing a fully automatic rifle at a DEA helicopter that was flying a little to close to his pot field. Henry was going away for a very, very long time.

Well, anyway, I head over to Shawn's, and Shawn and I head over to this guy Henry's girlfriend's place where we get stoned as fish waiting on him to show up. He shows up, and after introductions, a few hits off a bong, and a few beers we head off to someplace in southern Ohio in Henry's two-seat Ford Ranger. I believe we wound up some place in Scioto county.

Henry, while seeming to enjoy our company just fine, wanted some female companionship. I was a little concerned about the logistics of having the three of us, plus some chick in this two-seater Ford Ranger. A Bentley it was not. Henry was unconcerned and noted that we'd "make do." So we head over to Rio Grande college (I believe it's somewhere in Ohio....) where Henry parks the Ranger in one of the dorm lots and disappears inside assuring us that he'll be right back. Three hours later, no Henry. So we get annoyed and decide to go try and find him. We go into one of the dorm buildings, and start walking floors. On the second floor, we found a little more of Henry than we'd been expecting.

Henry... was standing outside a dorm room completely nekkid, with a couch pillow over his "equipment" pleading to someone on the other side of the door to "c'mon, at least gimme my damned clothes back!"

Have you ever laughed at full throttle for twenty minutes straight? It's really hard. It eventually hurts a lot. But we couldn't help it. Shawn and I were rolling on the floor laughing. Henry must've threatened our lives a dozen times trying to get us to shut up, but that just made us laugh harder. Being threatened by a skinny naked guy armed with only a couch pillow just doesn't inspire a lot of fear.

We finally, yes, get this, walked back to the truck. Henry's clothing situation was unchanged. In all honesty, Henry sorta ran to the truck while Shawn and I tried to walk through fits of hysterical laughter. I think Henry's plan was to sprint to the truck, and jump inside. But he'd lacked a little foresight, and forgot to ask Shawn for the keys. So he had to cower beside his truck with his pillow for a few minutes while Shawn and I caught up.

Then we hit a little logistical snag. Neither Shawn nor I were willing to sit in the truck beside a naked guy with a pillow. Shawn and I wound up in a ten minute argument about which situation was "more gay," sitting next to a naked guy with a pillow, or one of us sitting on the other's lap.

We finally wound up flipping a coin and I had to sit next to the naked Henry on the ride to KMart to get henry some clothes. It was fortunate that he'd left his wallet in the truck, otherwise it likely would've been turned into beer money by whatever bimbo Henry was visiting. Neither of us would wait in the truck with Henry, so we left his naked ass sitting in the truck alone while we went in and picked up the most outrageous outfit we could find. We picked out converse shoes (chucks), black dress pants, and a bright orange hawaiian patterned shirt. He was pretty pissed when he saw what we'd bought him, but he had to wear it. What choice did he have?

So, Henry's problem with being solely in the company of males was still unsolved. But Henry knew some other girl in the area, used a pay phone, gave her a ring, and we picked her up about twenty minutes later. Boy was this one ditzy chick, but we'll get to that later.

So allow me to describe the seating arrangement in the Ranger, as this will come back into play shortly. Henry drove. I rode in the middle. Shawn sat on the right, with the bubbleheaded ditz on his lap. It wasn't comfortable, but Henry had a pretty fat sack of weed which kept us otherwise occupied.

So Henry tells us our destination. We're going to see "Red." This is the part where things get a little odd. We drove out some BFE country Ohio road for what seemed like a month or two. Henry slows the truck down, and turns up what I thought was a gulley, but turned out to be "Red's" driveway. Henry had to shift into four wheel drive to make it up the gully/driveway. I wasn't sure we were going to make it even with the hubs locked in.

By this time it's getting dark. I'm having trouble picking out the terrain. What I see at the top of the gully is a trailer, a barn, and a van. We get out of the Ranger and walk up to the trailer. I hear: "Who's out there.?"

"It's Henry, I brought some friends."

"C'mon in."

I swear, before my ass has even landed in the kitchen chair in this trailer, a six foot five guy with red hair and a red beard, both down to his belt, shoves a joint the size of a watermelon in my face and says "hit this." I'm guessing that was his narc detection method, assuming that a narc wouldn't smoke it. But I take a few hits off of the massive doob, and boyngngngn, I'm *really* stoned. This guy had good shit.

Red, Henry, and the ditzy bubblehead are engaged in conversation about god knows what for some period of time while Shawn and I sit mostly dazed gazing around at the place. Something, Was Not Right. I can't put my finger on it. I'm really stoned, and that could be it, but no... something's not right. After a few minutes, I realize that all of the furniture in the trailer is on one side. "Hmm." I thought. I continue to look around for some clue as to what's off about this situation while the conversation buzzes around me. While gazing around, I notice a photograph of Red on the wall. In this photo, Red is wearing a KKK uniform, and holding an AK-47.

Uh, yeah, the alarm claxons are going full tilt at this point. What the hell has Shawn gotten me into? Right after I notice that picture, it dawns on me exactly what was wrong. The whole trailer was sitting on about a fifteen degree slant. The furniture being all on one side was not fung shui. It was the work of gravity. Right after I discover this, Red, Charlie, and the ditzy bubblehead announce "we got some bizness to take care of."

Red says "Sally! Hey Sally! We got comp'ny. Git out here." He then turns to us and says "y'all c'n stay here and hang out with my wife. If'n yer hungry, she c'n cook ya up sumthin. She's a helluva good cook." At this point, Sally emerges from the other end of the trailer. I tried to hide my astonishment. I looked over at Shawn to try and send a "Dude, what the fuck!?" expression, but his eyes were the size of dinner plates. He was clearly as shocked as I. You see, Sally was black. I couldn't help myself, my eyes slowly made thier way back up to the picture of Red in the KKK uniform, then back to Sally, who smiled at us, politely said "Hi," and proceded to offer us dinner. We weren't hungry. Apparently ones appetite falls off slightly when you've stepped into the damned twilight zone. I barely noticed Red, Henry, and the bubblehead leave through the front door.

There wasn't much conversation. What the hell was I going to say? Would it have been rude to ask a black woman who was being very nice to us, "um, you realize you're married to a racist hatemonger? Do you understand the purpose of that AK47 he's holding? Hello?" So instead of saying all that, I just kept silent. Shawn did too, though I have no idea if that question, or any questions at all were running through his head. There probably wasn't much running through his head at all because Red had left us a sizeable sack of very good weed, and Shawn was smoking it like a locomotive.

So after some period of time that may have been five minutes, may have been fifty years, Red, Henry, and the bubbleheaded ditz reappear. Henry announces that "it's time to go." So we say our goodbyes to Red and his very polite, but very puzzling wife, and head out to the Ranger.

Now the bubblehead is gonna be a pain in the ass. She's totally freaking out. The ride up the gully/driveway scared her so badly she absolutely REFUSES to ride back down it in the Ranger. She's trying to talk me into walking down the driveway with her so she can climb in the truck at the main road, thereby avoiding the amusment park ride that was Red's driveway. I refuse, calling her a wimp. And besides, I needed to roll a joint. Shawn finally shows a little chivalry and agrees to walk with her down the driveway.

Henry and I pile into the ranger, and as he's getting it started, I'm boating a paper preparing to roll a joint the size of a cuban cigar. We start rolling down the driveway, and the cab is bouncing all over the place. I'm trying not to spill the weed everywhere, and I look up and see Shawn and the Bubblehead in our headlights walking down the driveway. Henry says "dude, let's fuck with 'em!" and points the Ranger right at them and guns the gas. So we're chasing them down this gully in a 4000lb truck, while I'm alternately laughing, joint rolling, and looking up at the panicked bubblehead. She's running as fast as she can and dragging Shawn behind her like a ragdoll. It's hard to watch the fun and not spill the weed.

One of these times, I look up, and Shawn is gone. "Dude, did you run over Shawn? Holy shit!"

"No man! I didn't run over him, he just fucking dissapeared!"

"Dissapeared under the wheels? What the fuck?"

"No man, I'm tellin' ya, he just fucking disappeared!"

I realize that the bubblhead is now stationary (as is the Ranger) and she's just staring at nothing on the ground. So we get out, and walk over. Turns out, she was staring at "nothing." The "nothing" in the headlight shadows was an open manhole that was about six feet from the road. She had run, dragging Shawn behind her, right over the hole. We hear "ohhhhh fuck man... fuuuuuuck.... ohhhhhhh.... " moaning out of the hole in the ground. It's pitch black down there, so we have no idea where it's coming from. We know what's making the noise (that'd be Shawn) but we don't know where he is.

After a few minutes, our eyes adjusted, and we managed to get Shawn actually talking to us instead of moaning about dead relatives and stuff. We convince him to stand up (the hole was about six feet deep, and all concrete inside) and we haul him up out of the hole. Now Shawn's bell's been rung pretty badly. We haul him out, set him on the ground, and lean him up against one of the Ranger's tires. His primitive mind must've decided that because he'd been hit in the head, he must be in a fight. He flat cold-cocked Henry. Knocked Henry right on his ass. It was a truly spectacular right hook Shawn threw. This resulted in me spending a good ten minutes protecting the already injured Shawn from a now highly pissed off Henry, while the bubbleheaded ditz babbled incoherently in the wings. God I wanted to choke her.

I get the situation settled down, the ditz to shut up, and Henry to calm down and agree not to kick Shawn's ass (it wouldn't be fair, Shawn's arm was swelling up like a grapefruit and turning strange colors). Eventually I herd everyone back into the Ranger and we decide we need to get Shawn to a hospital. Henry refuses to go to any hospital before we stop off at his house, so we'll take him to CAMC back in Charleston. It's only a couple of hours away. Henry tells Shawn we have plenty of "medicine" and waves a lit joint in his face.

Shawn smoked a lot of "medicine" on the way back. It seemed to help, based on the fact that the moaning would subside for twenty minutes every time we shoved a doob in his face.

Somewhere in Ohio, but very close to the West Virginia line, we start seeing blue-lights behind us. Oh yeah, panic central. I'm shitting bricks. We have all this weed with us, Shawn's all fucked up in more ways than one, none of us are wearing seatbelts, there are four of us in a Ford Ranger, and there's an Ohio Highway Patrolman who's about to have god knows what kind of conversation with us about the whole situation.

Henry starts yelling "everyone be cool, just fucking be cool" and pulls over. Oh, I was cool alright. I was in cold sweats I was so cool. The trooper approaches the window and Henry rolls it down.

The trooper says "License and registration please."

Henry replies "lemme get it out of the glove box, but can you make this quick? We think our friend has a broken arm, and we're trying to get him back to Charleston so we can get him to a hospital."

The trooper shines his light on Shawn's multicolored volcanic arm and says "Whoa! You know, there's a hospital just up this road, you want me to call an ambulance?"

Henry says "No, he lives with his grandmother, and she can't get around very well, if they keep him in the hospital, it needs to be in Charleston."

The trooper says "Ok, one minute." and goes back to his car. A minute later he comes back and says "You realize this drivers license is revoked?"

I literally heard my spinchter slam shut. "Oh god, we're going to jail."

Henry replies "Yessir, but this is my truck, and I really wanted to get Shawn to a hospital, it's kind of an emergency."

To my utter amazement, the trooper says "Anyone here have a valid driver's license?"

I wait a second to see if anyone else is going to pipe up (it's pretty much between me and the bubblehead, because Shawn's in no condition to drive) before saying "Yeah, I do," and handing over my license.

The trooper takes that back to his car for a while and then returns. "Ok, you're driving. Drive safe, don't kill him trying to get him to a hospital." He then hands me my license back, goes to his car, flips a u-turn in the road and drives away. A few seconds later, after some nervous laughter and Shawn asking for more "medicine" we have a chinese firedrill which places me in the driver's seat. As I was walking around the back of the truck, I realize that it's full of black plastic bags. Those weren't there when we left. I poke my hand through one of the bags and pull out a huge bud. Now I REALLY panic. The entire bed of the truck was full of pot. Henry was muling, or just bought a HUGE shitload of weed. I began screaming at Henry for almost landing me ten years in jail. Henry basically replies with "Shut up and drive."

I did. But only to the state line. For some reason, I didn't think I'd be in as much trouble if I wasn't actually DRIVING a truckload of pot. Because, just being there isn't as bad as actually driving, right?

Well, the night ended at the ER waiting on Shawn to come out in a cast. I managed not to go to jail. I never hung out with Henry again. I did hear that he committed arson while waiting on his DEA/helicopter/machine-gun case, and wound up in jail a little early. I never saw him again. Shawn and I started the follwing day with a phone call: "hey man, mom gave me five bucks to eat... got any beer money?"

Been quiet on the western front....

So yeah, it's been pretty quiet in the systems security world lately. Typical run-of-the-mill virus infections etc... About the only thing interesting on the perimeters are the secure shell scans. Our intrusion detection systems are picking up about 20,000 of these a day various networks. I should probably set up a honeypot somewhere and let one of these systems get hacked to analyze what the kiddiots are doing when they actually manage to compromise a machine with these scans.

Verizon doesn't care about security?

So, most internet providers have an email address where "abuse" complaints are sent. This is the place where systems administrators can send an email saying "this IP address in your network has a virus" or "this IP address in your network is scanning our systems for vulnerabilities."

Verizon (being an ungodly huge provider) is no different. They also have an address. It's abuse@verizon.net. However, when emailing them about several hundred worm infected systems scanning our networks, my email bounced back to me saying "you're not whitelisted... go to http://blahblahblahblah and jump through these hoops while dancing an irish jig to send us email."

So I jumped through thier hoops. Sending reports like this is part of my job. I mean, chances are they'll ignore them, but I have to at least have put forth the effort to report problems to them. After jumping through thier multi-day hoop hopping process, I resend the abuse reports. Boing. They bounce right back to me.

Apparently, Verizon is taking the "head in the sand" approach to security problems in thier networks. I can just picture a dilbert-esque pointy-haired-boss somewhere who said "We're getting how many thousand emails per week about worms and stuff? What if we made it really hard for people to tell us about problems... then we'd have less overhead, right?" This would be followed by the PHB leaving the meeting thinking "I fixed the internet."

Bravo Verizon. We don't mind your virus infected, worm-fodder customer base constantly filling our logs with thier trash.

I think I'll print out the 300,000 IDS alerts from thier networks in 28 point font and ship them to verizon headquarters in document storage boxes.

For the more geekified among you....

If you're ever looking for me, and you have enough geek in you to 1. Know what IRC is, and 2. Manage to get logged into an undernet IRC server, you can usually find me in #motorcycles or #linux.

ARGH! PATHETIC!

THIS IS PATHETIC

I mean, what more can I say.