Attending Sean’s Bachelor Party in Cancun, or “SeanStock 2016!” – Day 3

Posted on August 24, 2016 by Joel

As part of the vacation planning, the groomsmen booked us all on this catamaran boat trip to the little island Isla Mujeres. We had most of the attendees come along, and we grabbed our chartered bus to the pier. The boat trip included:

  • Drinks (beer and some sugary drinks – meh)
  • An opportunity to snorkel on the way to Isla Mujeres (I don’t swim so I hung out and took photos)
  • An opportunity to either walk around or drive around on a golf cart (I drove four of us around the island like a Mexican cabbie)
  • Lunch on a nearby small island (not bad but it was a battle against the hordes of flies)
  • An opportunity to para sail (I took photos only)

I’ve never done something like this, and I don’t snorkel. However, as I sat on the side of the boat, feet dangling over the beautiful blue Caribbean Sea, I had to admit this was pretty nice. Vacations are important. After the craziness of all those meaningless late nights at AIG, the layoff, the difficulty and stress of the job search, I’ve been wound up too tight to relax. With my feet dangling over the edge, the Sun shining down, I felt a lot of tension finally release this year.

When we arrived at Isla Mujeres, we picked up our lunch and golf cart tickets, and four of us grabbed a golf cart. I drove us down the street towards one end of the island, with a brief stop for drinks. Once we reached the end of one side of the island, we hit the circle, and went driving to the other side. We stopped at another circle to get our feet wet at a crowded beach.

After returning the golf cart, we grabbed some drinks at a local open air dive bar. I ended up having a nice conversation with the two bartenders about themselves and the island. Whistles sufficiently wet, we went back to board the boat,and head to lunch.

It seemed that a number of boats come here for lunch. We stood online for lunch, and I avoided any foods that had too many flies on it. Yeah not the most appetizing and my least favorite aspect of the trip. I’m glad no one got sick.

We later got on the boat, and headed back for the mainland, with a short stop for this para sailing thing. I was glad to finally get back to the hotel for a little rest. We all chilled out for a bit, then went back into town for dinner at a steakhouse, then went to Coco Bongo to party. Unfortunately, Coco Bongo was so crowded, you could barely move. We all eventually got separated, then made our way back to the resort…. eventually.

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Attending Sean’s Bachelor Party in Cancun, or “SeanStock 2016!” – Day 2

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Joel

Thursday was our big field trip to see Chichen Itza. I believe some of these guys had visited Chichen Itza back in 2006, but I had missed out. This time, I was definitely going there. We booked the tour weeks in advance. In the morning, the bus came to the hotel, and we drove about 2 hours to the Chichen Itza site. It was pretty awesome for me to explore — to see the ancient architecture, to see the carvings on the pillars and walls, and to think about how they designed and built these structures hundreds of years ago. I was less of a fan of the hucksters and other folks selling the exact same trinkets on every table, each guy pleading with you to come peruse his amazing wares. After a while, this got old.

I would have loved to explore more of the site, but the weather turned from sweltering heat and sun to torrential downpours. We ran through muddy paths and the rain to get to our bus. Eventually the ran stopped, but we were well on our way to a popular sinkhole that one could swim in, and lunch included in our tour. After lunch, I walked around the site while some guys went swimming. Eventually we were back on the bus for the ride back to the resort.

In the evening, we went out again for dinner and drinks at Senor Frog’s.

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Attending Sean’s Bachelor Party in Cancun, or “SeanStock 2016!” – Day 1

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Joel

This trip had finally arrived — my friend Sean’s bachelor party. He’s one of the last guys to get married, and has been a groomsmen in many weddings.  It was finally time to celebrate and make him the man of the hour. Sean’s bachelor party (or “SeanStock”) was in Cancun. Almost 15 guys were flying down to Cancun for four days of fun in the sun. Most of us were arriving on Wednesday, and leaving on Sunday, which made event planning and transportation to/from the airport easier to coordinate.

My friend Doug and I agreed to fly down together from Newark Liberty International Airport on Wednesday morning, but somehow we ended up on different United flights. I was booked on the 9 am, and he was booked on the 10 am. It also turned out that my flight was overbooked, Doug’s flight was undersold, and United was desperate to get folks on my flight to take a later flight. For once, I wasn’t in a rush. I offered to transfer to the 10 am flight, and was rewarded with a $400 airline voucher (paid for my flight), a 1st class seat to Cancun on the 10 am flight, and a $10 voucher for free breakfast that morning.

I made out like a bandit.

Flight was beyond uneventful — it was so comfortable. Once we arrived, we met the rest of the guys at the airport, then we all took the shuttle to the CasaMagna Marriott Cancun Resort. Many of us had come to this resort back in December 2006 for another friend’s bachelor party — wow, 10 years ago? Time flies, I guess. Also, man, I had much more hair back then. Anyway, the resort looked almost exactly the same, except in better condition this time around. 10 years ago, the resort owners were still rebuilding after Hurricane Wilma. Much better today.

After we all checked in, we enjoyed the view from our respective room balconies, we chilled out at the bachelor’s room for a bit, then hopped a bus into town for for dinner and drinks at Carlos ‘N Charlie’s. This consisted of the shot lady walking around convincing us to buy shots of Fireball, and wearing stupid balloon headgear. We wandered the strip a bit, then took a bus back to the resort.

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I passed my CRISC exam!

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Joel

It’s been a long 10 weeks since I took the CRISC exam on June 4. I don’t understand it. The exam was a Scantron exam with all the bubbles, so it was certainly a machine-scored exam. ISACA says it takes up to 5 weeks to score the exam using a 200-800 point scale, blah blah. See below:

ISACA uses a 200-800 point scale with 450 as the passing mark for the exams. A scaled score is a conversion of the raw score on an exam to a common scale. It is important to note that the exam score is not based on an arithmetic or percent average. For example, the scaled score of 800 represents a perfect score with all questions answered correctly; a scaled score of 200 is the lowest score possible and signifies that only a small number of questions were answered correctly.

A candidate must receive a scaled score of 450 or higher to pass the exam. A score of 450 represents a minimum consistent standard of knowledge as established for the exam by the respective ISACA Certification Working Group. The passing score of 450 represents the minimum number of questions that must be answered correctly by the candidate in order to demonstrate practical application of the job task and knowledge statements. A candidate receiving a passing score may then apply for certification if all other requirements are met.

 

Every week since the exam, I’ve been dreading the results. Kicking myself for not studying more, or taking more practice questions. Fool. Hundreds of dollars to register for that exam, you know, and all potentially all wasted.

With all that complicated scoring, it took them 10 weeks to send me my ‘Notice of Exam Results’.  When I  received the letter on August 15, I opened it with dread. Color me shocked when I read the results below.

Not only did I pass, I did really well. Heck, I was in the top 5% of everyone who tested that day. I was speechless.

So it feels good. Some vindication that my mind hasn’t fossilized or atrophied that much yet. The next steps are to complete the application for certification, get verification from old colleagues/managers, and submit the paperwork to ISACA.

Wow, I am still stunned.

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Kaiya’s Rock Climbing Birthday Party

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Joel

Joshua’s friend Kaiya had a rock climbing – themed birthday party over in Hamilton NJ. Nice party, kids had a lot of fun. Lily especially enjoyed rock climbing.

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Who had a block party this summer? We had a block party this summer!

Posted on August 13, 2016 by Joel

Namita and her friend Carmen got an interesting idea earlier this summer to organize a block party for our neighborhood this summer. Their plan was to have a cul-de-sac at the end of our street blocked off, and invite neighbors from nearby adjacent streets for a potluck lunch. We would have music, appetizers, grilled food, drinks, and some games for the kids. We handed out flyers the neighbors, got a permit from the township to close off the street, and the Ipes even invested in a pop-up tent.

The weather was hot and sunny, but we survived it. The party went well, kids had plenty of places to play, including the use of a lawn sprinkler. Glad we did it, and hope we can find a less hot but still beautiful day next year to do it again.

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Joel’s review of Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Joel

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

[This is one of those catch-up posts from earlier.]

The last weekend of July, we me up with friends Douglas & Kathy in Parsippany to see Star Trek Beyond. The plan was to grab some lunch, then see Star Trek. We were running late, so we had to find new places in Morristown. We grabbed an Irish lunch at X, then walked down the street to the AMC theater.

This is the latest film in the “NuTrek” or the so-called Kelvin Timeline. I’ve got a love-loved hate relationship with these films. I’ve the first two films, and appreciate the writers and everyone else involved in the production who are bringing a wider audience into theaters to see a Star Trek film. Hey, I love Star Trek more than Star Wars, so that’s good. 

What I detest is how derivative and stupid the plot elements often are in these new films. It’s less science fiction and more science fantasy. And with all the opportunities afforded to the writers of a “new timeline”, the plot points have been derivative of previous films. Come on, people. I’m still smarting from Star Trek Into Darkness three years ago.

With the latest film directed by Justin Lin, and written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, I had some hope for a better film. Simon Pegg is a real ST fan, and a talented person. The film takes place about midway during this Enterprise crew’s 5 year mission. The crew appears a bit tired after 2+ years in deep space, and is headed to an incredibly large deep space station for shore leave in that sector of space.

The Enterprise crew unexpectedly goes out on a minor task near the station, and is attacked. Without going into too much spoiler territory, the crew ends up separated on a planet or planetoid  (unclear.) They rest of the film is about regrouping, escaping the planet, and fighting the villain Krall and his crew living on the planet.

I would describe the film as a popcorn flick. It’s not a deep film. It’s a basic action film. I’d rate it as better than both prior films because:

  1. The characters act true to themselves, and don’t do stupid things simply for plot.
  2. There are nice callbacks to the original films and the last tv series Star Trek: Enterprise.
  3. There is no egregious use of fantasy technology. Sure, the climax is a little tongue in cheek silly, but I was surprisingly okay with it. 
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Joel’s review of The Boss (2016)

Posted on July 31, 2016 by Joel

The kids were away at camp early this summer, and Namita and I took a day back then to hang out sans children. We grabbed lunch and went to see The Boss starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Bell. McCarthy plays the titular “boss”, the CEO of her own personal brand company. She makes speeches in large arenas about success, sells books, etc. In reality, she’s a foul mouthed bully.

As you have gleaned from the movie trailer and TV spots, she is convicted of fraud (I think it was insider trading) and goes away to a minimum security prison a la Martha Stewart. When she gets out, her company is gone and she is destitute. She hunts down her former assistant (Kristen Bell) and camps out there with Bell and her young daughter. McCarthy’s character looks to restart her career, but also needs to find redemption.

It was an okay movie, but not much depth. I don’t know how much depth one should expect in a comedy like this. The jokes are okay, the various scenes are okay, but overall this was a maybe rental or good option to watch on TV when you want some mindless entertainment. movie_theboss

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Josh went away to Boy Scout Summer Camp for a week, and we all survived

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Joel

This year, Josh attended a week of Boy Scout Camp  along with his Boy Scout troop plus other troops from around the Northeast. This was the first time that he would be away from home for an entire week, out in Forestburg Scout Reservation. in Orange county, New York. Josh’s troop went up in a caravan of cars and a trailer on Sunday, and we wished them all good luck before they left on an early Sunday morning. We had a quiet week around here while Josh was away. When someone posted photos online on Facebook, that was our only way to find out how Josh was doing. During the week, he would be fishing, swimming, and working merit badges.

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Stranded on the side of the road

Our plan was to drive up on the Friday at the end of his week, see him at the closing ceremony, stay overnight at an area hotel, and pick him up the following day (Saturday.) Namita and I took the day off, and it was a beautiful day. We left Friday morning, ran some errands along the way, had some lunch, and got on the road again before it all went downhill. Along Route 15, the Toyota began to smoke. We pulled over to the side of the road, and found oil leaking in the engine compartment. Not wanting to risk a car fire, we called AAA and a taxi. We had the car towed via flat bed to a garage in Newton NJ, and took the taxi to the nearest Enterprise Rent-a-Car. We didn’t have a choice — we were running out of time to make the 90 minute drive to Forestburg before the closing ceremony.

20160723-20160723_100241We drove as fast as we could, reaching Port Jervis and eventually Forestburg, around the beginning of the ceremony. We didn’t stay for dinner, said goodbye to Josh, went to look for dinner and our hotel room.

The next morning, the car wasn’t ready (of course), and we drove our rental car back to the Forestburg to pick up Josh. We made our way home, relieved to eventually get home, and to be together again.

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I sure am having a lot of bad luck driving into Newark

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Joel

wp-image-760095873jpg.jpgJuly 18th. Driving out of Newark again after a long day in the office.  I hit a  huge bump in the road, and lights go off in the dashboard with beeping. See below. I mean, it’s been a little over a week since my last flat tire in Newark. I couldn’t have multiple flat tires, could I?

I still don’t know what happened exactly, but something bad happened. Luckily, I didn’t have to change a tire that evening on a Newark side street. I was able to limp home at a slow speed down the NJ Turnpike, and yes, had to have the rear right tire replaced. Total cost of replacement tires this month, because of Newark NJ? $500.

And that, my friends, is why I’m not driving into Newark anymore. I’m done.

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