San Diego Restaurant Review – Country Waffles

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San Diego Restaurant Review
 Country Waffles

There is nothing constant but change, truer words have never been spoken, especially in a big city like San Diego.  One of the great breakfast establishments my mom took Mi Jung and I to was a breakfast and lunch restaurant in the Midway area called Country Waffles.  This building has changed owners at least 3 times since I can remember.  Starting as a Sambos, then becoming a Carrows Family Restaurant.  My mom promised they made a great breakfast and they certainly delivered!  Mi Jung discovered she found another favorite breakfast spot!  Sorry IHOP.

  Mi Jung ordered the Hillbilly Benedict, which she just loved. 

I ordered the Panhandle Scramble which came with Hash browns, and huge omelet, and a sausage patty with biscuits covered in seasoned gravy!

Here is the Fresh garden omelet my mom ordered.

The food was great, and the portions more than filling.  A great way to start your day.  San Diego has two Country Waffle locations, one in Point Loma, and one in Claremont on Balboa Ave.  I highly recommend you give Country Waffles a try!

Address:

2323 Midway Dr., San Diego, CA 92110
Phone # (619) 223-2225
Hours: 6am – 3pm

Website:   

https://www.countrywaffles.com/

Other locations and menu can be found here.

 

 

There’s No Place Like Home – Balboa Park – Part 1

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There Is No Place Like Home

Balboa Park – Part 1

  It’s great to be back writing blog articles again!  In today’s article, I write about still having jet lag but put it to good use taking long exposure photos of Mission Bay.  Mi Jung experiences swimming in the ocean, and visiting Balboa Park.  So, without further preamble (Or pre-ramble as the case may be).  Let’s dive into the blog!

  Still suffering from jet lag I found myself waking up quite early most mornings, this morning was no exception so I decided to grab the camera and go get some low light photos of Mission Bay.  The beach being only a stone’s throw from our hotel room, provided this great view of the Sea World Sky Tower, taken with my EF 50mm F/1.2L at f16 with a 57 second exposure using the bulb mode.

   A couple of hours later Mi Jung awoke and we once again walked to Mission Beach, Mi Jung was itching to try swimming in the ocean for the first time, and we figured it was either now or never!  I thought this would be a great time to use my Tamron SP  150 – 600mm f5-6.3 Di VC USD (yes, it’s a mouth full).   I even got to play peeping tom, and captured a couple who had fallen asleep on the beach.

 

 I got super lucky and the San Diego Life Guards were conducting training this morning!  I got a front row seat to the action. 

  The trainees would swim out with the rescue float. Then 2 team members who remained on the beach would pull the would be rescued person back to shore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The train takes you on a 3 minute ride around Balboa park on antique model G16 train.  

Here I am, going for a train ride!

Keep a sharp eye out for animals and the signs depicting real San Diego County cities!

After the train it was time to take Mi Jung on the historic San Diego Carrousel, which was built in 1910 by Herschell-Spillman, was made in New York and shipped to Los Angeles.  It originally opened in Coronado and moved to Balboa Park in 1922.  It features a player calliope using original pheumatic rolls, moving and stationary animals.  Per the Balboa Park website it features 1 Camel, 2 Cats, 1 Deer, 2 Dogs, 1 Dragon, 2 Frogs, 2 Giraffes, 1 Goat, 1 Lion, 2 Mules, 2 Ostriches, 2 Pigs, 2 Roosters, 1 Stork, 1 Tiger, 2 Zebras, and 3 chariots.

 I got in trouble for this picture of Mi Jung, as I was not supposed to move around while the ride was moving.  Sometimes you just have to take the shot!

 

  Here we are trying some off ride photos, I think if I learned one thing heret, it’s that I really need to learn how to use my flash!  Most of the photo’s came out blurred because the flash forces the max shutter speed at 1/200th of a second, which was just too slow.  Until I learn how to freeze motion with the flash I should have just bumped the ISO up.  It is really disappointing looking at some of the pictures I could have taken.  I will have to do an entire blog on “The photo’s that could have been.”.

  After the carousel, it was time to explore some of Balboa Parks famous museums, but as this blog has already reached almost 2 pages of text, I will stop here and dedicate part 2 to just the museums.  Be sure to come back to read part 2, and our next San Diego restaurant review, Country Waffles!

Balboa Park Miniature Train and Carousel information.

Address for GPS or Google Maps
1800 Zoo Place
San Diego, Ca

Where to park

It is best to park in the San Diego Zoo parking lot, as the train and carousel are located right next door to the San Diego Zoo, and the parking is free! Walk towards the zoo entrance and walk to your left.

Hours:

Summer months – (Daily 11am – 5:30pm)
Non Summer – (Weekends and Holidays 11am – 4:30pm)

Price :

Train $3 per person
Carousel: $2 per person

Movie Review – Cars 3

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Movie Review : Cars 3

Cars 3 proves the franchise still has some tread left in those tires!

 

  It’s great to have a three-day weekend, but not so nice when you can’t really get out because of inclement weather.  Though it does present a great opportunity to get a chance to work on the blog, and then sit down to watch a new release.  Sadly, it has been 4 months since I have last posted a movie review.  Sorry to have kept you all waiting!

   This month I have chosen to review Disney/Pixar’s latest addition to the popular Cars franchise, Cars 3.  I enjoyed the original film, as well as the lighter comedy of Cars 2, even though it received mixed reviews from critics. 

  Cars 3 promised a return to the more serious in-depth story, more similar to the darker tones set in the original, introducing new characters while bringing back our favorite characters, played by the same voice actors.  The movie focuses on Lightening McQueen’s (Voiced by Owen Wilson) struggle and failure to remain competitive in the ever-changing technology in competitive auto racing.  After a stunning loss to a rookie race car by the name of Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), using cutting edge technology and science to win.  Lightening McQueen pushes himself harder the next race but continues to lose to the newer, faster, and more agile rookies.  Resulting in an accident that takes him out of the race due to pushing himself beyond his limits.

  While recovering from his accident, and fearing he will be forced into retirement, his owners Rusty and Dusty (Tom Magliozzi, Ray Magliozzi) send him to a state of the art training facility run by Sterling, to be trained to beat the newer technology by personal trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo).

  I really enjoyed the movie!  Brian Fee delivered as promise a feature animation that felt more like the original, while intruding us to new characters.  The storyline also felt like a very natural progression in the franchise touching on something that isn’t often talked about during a sports hero’s time in the limelight, the knowledge at the back of their head that just like their rise to glory and taking someone else’s spot in the winner’s circle.  Someday someone, a rookie will come up from below and take their place.  It is the nature of being competitive.  I think both children and adults will enjoy Pixar/Disney’s latest release.  I give it 4 stars!  It currently holds a critic rating of 68% on Rotten Tomatoes, and 4 ½ stars at the iTunes music store.

  Will Lightning McQueen be able to regain his edge against the rookies, or will be be forced into retirement only so spend out his last days doing product endorsements for Sterling?  I highly recommend renting Cars 3, from the iTunes music store or Amazon today and find out!  The DVD and Blu-Ray will be available to purchase from Amazon November 14th, 44.00 for the Blu-Ray and $34.99 for the DVD. https://www.amazon.com/Cars-3-Blu-ray-Owen-Wilson/dp/B071Z1D23B/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1510329871&sr=8-7&keywords=cars+3

  NOTE: Brent’s World is not monetized!  I make no money from your purchases at either the iTunes music store, or Amazon!

EVENT NOTICE!

The anual Seoul international Lantern festival is taking place right now until November 19th 2017.  I had an opportunity to blog the festival back in 2015 https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/repost-seoul-lantern-festival/ If you are going to be in Seoul I highly recommend attending.

OS X – Random Quote Generator v1.1m

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MacOS X – BASH Scripting

Random Quote Generator v1.1m

 

I know it has been a while since I have posted a new blog! I deeply apologize, I have been suffering from a severe case of writers block, and have been struggling to come up with a new technical article that is up to the standards I have set for myself!  Looking back at some of the old articles, I realized that one of my favorites is woefully out of date!

For those of you who may be visiting Brent’s World for the first time, I converted a C-Net Amiga BBS Arexx script to BASH v4 back in February 2015 ( https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/fun-with-bash-scripts-random-quote-generator/ ), then followed it up with displaying the output through cowsay for some extra fun, https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/fun-with-bash-scripts-randquote-v1-1/.  For an encore I provided instructions on installing BASH v4 and GNUsed on MacOS X  so Mac users could also enjoy a random quote every time they launched their terminal.app.

So let’s bring the OS X version of randquote.sh up to date, since the previous instructions only covered Linux users.  Please make sure you already have Randquote v1.0, BASHv4 and GNUsed already installed and working.  If you do not please follow the steps outlined here, https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/os-x-installing-gnu-sed/.

We will need to install and test cowsay ( I am installing via homebrew, if using another method, you may skip this step.). 

Launch your terminal.app, and using a privileged account, Home brew does not work from root, or using sudo.

# brew install cowsay

Once this is finished we can test cowsay, use either of the 2 methods (I think method 2 is more fun.)

 $ man cowsay

If cowsay is successfully installed, you should now see the man page displayed.

Let’s now go ahead and throw something at cowsay, and see what happens

$ cowsay “For more GREAT blog articles, go to Brent’s World www.catracing.org”

If cowsay is successfully installed, you should now see the following displayed.

Now that we know cowsay is installed and working, can go make modifications to bring randquote.sh up to v1.1 on your Mac.

Add the following under the original copyright message, and above the note for MacOS X, <CR> denotes a carriage return, if you are cheating by using copy and paste, you will need to remove them.  If you are hand typing the script, simple skip over them.

#
# RandQuote v1.1 (C)22NOV2015 by Brent Hendricks
# Added the ability to display quotes through cowsay.
# cowsay is written by Tomy Monroe (tomy@nog.net)
<CR>

Below the MacOS X note, and above the ## Get Terminal Width comment add the following.  Functions must be written before the main routine of your script.

COWSAY=0
<CR>
## Get Options
<CR>
while getopts “c” OPTION
do
          case $OPTION in
          c)
          COWSAY=1
          ;;
          esac
done
<CR>

Next we will cursor down to the ## Read Quote from Quote file, and add the following.

After gsed -n “${RECORD},+5p” $QUOTATIONS > $TEMP_QUOTATION

Highlight and copy the following, gsed -e :a -e “s/^.\{1,${TERMWIDE}\}$/ &/;ta” -e ‘s/\( *\)\1/\1/’ $TEMP_$

Delete  the line and add the following.

<CR>
if [ $COWSAY -eq 0 ]
then
Paste the line you cut from above. ‘gsed -e :a -e “s/^.\{1,${TERMWIDE}\}$/ &/;ta” -e ‘s/\( *\)\1/\1/’ $TEMP_$’
else
cat ${TEMP_QUOTATION} | cowsay
fi

The rest of the file remains untouched.  The entire listing should look like this.

1 #!/bin/bash4
2
3 # BASH script to display RANDOM QUOTE and center text depending on terminal width.
4 # BASH script and quotation taken from CNET Amiga 2 AREXX PFILE
5 # AMIGA Version Copyright 1992 Jim Selleck and Beverly James Products
6
7 # BASH Script and blog article (C)24MAY2015 By Brent Hendricks
8 # Scirpt and Quotes are public domain, the accompanying BLOG may only be used with permission.
9 # Contact brent.hendricks@catracing.org if you wish to republish the article.
10 # Please visit Brent’s World @ www.catracing.org\hendrb
11 #
12 # RandQuote v1.1 (C)22NOV2015 by Brent Hendricks
13 # Added the ability to display quotes through cowsay.
14 # cowsay is writen by Tomy Monroe (tomy@nog.net)
15
16 # NOTE: In order to make this script function properly with LINUX a compatibility
17 # checking routine was added. If you are using OSX you MUST download and install GNUsed
18 # The easiest way to do this is to install HOMEBREW.
19 # HOMEBREW can be installed by going to www.brew.sh
20 # Once installed use $brew install gnu-sed
21 # This script will automatically use GNU-sed (gsed)
22 # if using OSX.
23
24 COWSAY=0
25
26 ## Get Options
27
28 while getopts “c” OPTION
29 do
30 case $OPTION in
31 c)
32 COWSAY=1
33 ;;
34 esac
35 done
36
37 ## Get Terminal Width
38 TERMWIDE=”$(tput cols)”
39 ((TERMWIDE = TERMWIDE -3 ))
40
41 ## Set file path
42 QUOTATIONS=~/shell_scripts/logon/randquote/quotations
43 TEMP_QUOTATION=~/shell_scripts/logon/randquote/temp_quotation
44
45 ## get number of quoatations
46 QUOTES=”$(cat $QUOTATIONS | wc -l)”
47 ((QUOTES = QUOTES / 5))
48
49 ## Pick A Record
50 RECORD=$((RANDOM % $QUOTES *5))
51
52 ## Read Quote from QUOTATIONS file
53 gsed -n “${RECORD},+5p” $QUOTATIONS > $TEMP_QUOTATION
54
55 if [ $COWSAY -eq 0 ]
56 then
57 gsed -e :a -e “s/^.\{1,${TERMWIDE}\}$/ &/;ta” -e ‘s/\( *\)\1/\1/’ $TEMP_QUOTATION
58 else
59 cat ${TEMP_QUOTATION} | cowsay
60 fi
61 ## Remove $TEMP_QUOTATION scractch file
62 # rm -f “${TEMP_QUOTATION}”
63 exit 0

Save the file, and let’s go ahead and test our modifications to make sure everything works.

 

First let’s see if we can output the quotation through cowsay.  At your shell prompt, type.

$ ./randquote.sh –c

If everything is working as advertised, you should see the following output.

Just to be on the safe side, let us also test the nomal output without the –c option. At your shell prompt enter the following.

$ ./randquote.sh

If everything is working correctly, we will now replace randquote 1.0 with v1.1.  At your shell prompt type.

$ cp ./randquote.sh ~/shell_scripts/logon/randquote

That is all there is to it!  I hope you enjoyed this weeks MacOS X Technical Blog, and come back next week for more great articles!  If you wish to be notified when new content is posted, you may become a registered user by clicking here.

San Diego Restaurant Review – Natis Mexican Restaurant

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San Diego Restaurant Review – Nati’s Mexican Restaurant

 One of the things I was definitely looking forward to on this visit back to San Diego, was our pilgrimage to Nati’s Mexican Restaurant.  Nati’s has been an institution in our family for as long as I can remember.  For many years we would eat here as a family every Saturday morning!  You could say we would latterly cut our teeth on a plate of beans and rice.

The food is plentiful, inexpensive, and flavorful.  The wait staff attentive and friendly.  Several of the staff have even become family friends over the years! 

If you will be sitting inside, simply walk up to the register and inform the cashier the number of people in your party, if you choose to sit outside, you may just take an empty table, If they are busy you may want to go inside just to let them know you arrived.).  The initial plate setting will consist of their chips and salsa, and a side of spicy carrots, with jalapenos. 

Natis chips and salsa.

Take your time and peruse the menu, and specials. 

Natis has a good selection of appetizers, we have ordered the crispy cheese quesadilla (Pictured above).Soft quesadillas are also available.

I usually always get the combination plate #2 which consists of 2 Cheese Enchiladas, a ground beef taco, with beans and rice.  I also order a bean and cheese burrito “with sauce”.  On the side.  Other favorites is the Chile Reno (Which also comes in a combination plate.”

Here is the “Number 2” with the bean and cheese burrito on the side.

 

Mi Jung ordered the combination plate #8, which is a meat burrito, meat enchilada, cheese enchilada, with beans and rice.  Mi Jung said the meat burrito and cheese and onion enchilada were great, but the meat enchilada was too dry.

Mi Jung ordered the Apple Burrito for desert but was disappointed when she discovered that it pretty much was an apple turnover relabeled as a burrito.  On her previous visit 5 years ago, she really enjoyed the deep-friend ice cream and definitely recommends that to our readers.

A note to Koreans visiting Natis and other American restaurants, desert orders are usually taken after the dishes are cleared, and unless specifically directed to at the time of the order, appetizers, the main course, and desert are served separately. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a look at Natis Outside, Inside-Front, and Inside-Backroom seating.

Natis Menus

 

 

After dinner, especially at sunset, you may want to take a walk along the beach or the famous Ocean Beach Pier, they have a parking attendant on duty, and you may want to ask if you can leave the car parked on the property before leaving the lot.  I will not be responsible for your car being towed.  As a courtesy to other diners, I would recommend against this if they are super busy!

Update – Sadly Nati’s closed its doors in 2018!

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There Is No Place Like Home – Day 2 (Jet Lag Is A Dog!)

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There Is No Place Like Home – Day 2
Still Getting Over Jetlag

Day 2 in San Diego arrived and we found ourselves waking up around 430am, so we walked to the Starbucks located on Mission BLVD, across the street from the Giant Dipper coaster.  I had bought Mi Jung a $50 gift card which she promptly put to good use,  As we never seemed to be able to sleep in past 6am in San Diego.  Starbucks became sort of a morning ritual for us.

 

 

There were a few people out sharing the beach with us this morning. 

Here are a couple of people surf casting.

Another fellow out playing with his metal detector.

 

Mi Jung was really looking forward to getting a chance to swim in the ocean (which we were able to do the following day , since she has so far only been able to swim in a swimming pool.  I was also able to take a couple of really good portraits of my mother and niece with the Canon 50mm f1.2L, which is an awesome lens for portrait work.  I love the soft bokeh it produces wide open at f1.2, and it is my most used prime lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After going back to the resort and resting, it was time to meet my parents, my brother Drew and his Wife Brooke, and uncle Tom at Natis Mexican Restaurant in Ocean Beach (II will be publishing a restaurant review later this week),  This restaurant is a Hendricks family tradition, due to the fact that for as long as I can remember we went out to breakfast there every Saturday morning.

 

After dinner, we walked down to the Ocean Beach Pier to watch the sunset.

Here I am, your happy blogger, thanking you for continuing to visit Brent’s World, and keep coming back for more great content!

Next weekend we will explore the historic Balboa Park, and Sunday Mass at Mission San Juan Capistrano!.

Don’t miss out of new content, register today by clicking HERE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travel Exclusive – There’s No Place Like Home!

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There’s No Place Like Home
Visit To San Diego

  If the regular visitors to my blog have been wondering about the lack of activity the last couple of weeks, this has been due to the fact that I have been in San Diego.   My mom recently celebrated her 77th birthday and I wanted to be in town to celebrate.

  Sorry that I do not have many pictures of the egress, as it is usually a logistical undertaking in itself trying to get ourselves and all our bags to the airport.  So this post is primarily the introduction of the following articles and a narrative of our trip the US.  It is rather strange that these articles will mostly be to help Korea’s and other foreigners who are thinking about visiting the US, instead of for expats and people thinking about visiting Korea.

  I booked our tickets on Korean Air flight 15 in economy class and we were scheduled to depart Incheon at 11:30am.  We got into a taxi at 0810 to check it at Seoul Station.  I have mentioned in previous blogs that I just love the Airport Railway Express (AREXX).  We arrived at the airport at approx. 830 to begin check in.  Not sure what was going on this morning as we were informed by a very harried ticket agent that we were cutting our check in time really close, and next time to arrive earlier.  Which I did not understand, since the normal minimal check in time for an international flight is normally between 2 – 3 hours.  Mi Jung said the reason that was given was that they needed more time to get our bags to the airport.  Not sure how true this is.  As this is my third time using the City check in / ARREX, and the first time this was mentioned. 

  My bag was of course selected for special screening as my shaving cream can looked like an aerosol can.  This is not really a big deal, the security screeners are polite and proficient.  It did have the added bennifit of being an overly air conditioned room, as it was so warm and humid the day we left, I was sweating like a pig at the ticket counter!  With my shaving kit examined, it was time to continue the check-in process, clear immigration and head out to the airport,  some other words of advice.  If you have a frequent flier profile with Korean Air (Or other airlines), make sure your name on record is complete, correct, and transfers properly to your reservation.  I failed to notice that my middle name did not get transferred to the reservation and was also informed by the check in agent that I might have problems in Los Angeles for the return flight, again this is not something I have had an issue with, so it was a surprise when it came up!

 

  We boarded our flight for our 11 and half hour crossing of the pacific.  I was shocked just how much economy class has changed over the years!  Man those seats have gotten smaller, and it wasn’t so much that we did not have leg room, but the seats have gotten so narrow that your just crammed between two people!  The other thing that I noticed was that there was a line for the lavatory the entire flight!  There were 2 lavatories forward of economy class, and 6 aft.  I remember on the 747s there were 6 lavatories in between each section.  It definitely is sad to see the more comfortable wide bodies such as the 747 go out of favor for the more economical though cramped twin engine wide bodies like the 777-300 that we were on.

   We landed in LAX at around 0710.  Mi Jung and I had to split up going through immigration as she had to go through the ESTA line.  For the Koreans reading this traveling on a tourist VISA, please note that even though South Korea is VISA Waiver country, you still need to complete the ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) form and pay the application fee of $14.  The application may be completed, submitted, and paid for online at https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ . It takes about 24 – 48 hours to receive approval.  Going through immigrations and customs in LAX is normally a nightmare which takes about 90 minutes to 2 hours to get through.  I do not know if it was because we arrived on one of the first flights in the morning, or if LAX has finally gotten their act together, but the process was surprisingly efficient and painless!  It look us about 30 minutes to get through and we met again at the baggage claim with no problems.  Due to getting separated in Seattle, I printed a diagram of the arrival hall, and laid out a contingency plan that if we get separated at any point of the arrival process to just get your bags, and head out to the meeting place.  If you are traveling with a group this is something you might want to consider doing.  If you are traveling with your family, the head of the family handles all of the documents and the family goes up together.

  The next phase of the arrival was to take the FlyAway bus to AMTRAKs Union Station and take the Pacific Surfliner to San Diego’s Santa Fe Station.  Tickets for the FlyAway bus are $9.75 per person and can be purchased and printed in advance.  Otherwise you board the bus at LAX, and pay when you arrive at Union Station.  Click HERE to purchase the tickets online.  (http://www.lawa.org/FlyAway/content.aspx?id=15305).  Simply follow the airport signs for ground transportation once exiting customs, cross the center island and you will see the signs for the FlyAway bus.  NOTE:  Make sure you are boarding the correct FlyAway, as other AMTRAK/MetroLink stations are serviced.  Other buses may drive past the stop, or they may only be dropping off!  Do NOT be alarmed, the bus for Union Station will arrive eventually.

  We arrived at Union Station and had a 2 hour wait to board our train.  We booked business class seats, and were expecting to be able to sleep for our 3 hour trip to San Diego.  I am normally a fan of Amtrak, and have always enjoyed the service on the Pacific Surfliner.  This trip however was less then enjoyable!  Prepare yourself for one of those funny travel anecdotes you have come to expect from the travel blogs on Brent’s World.  I do not know if there was a sudden planetary alignment shift, or if it was just karma.  When we touched down in LA, I commented to Mi Jung, “The conditions may have been cramped, but at least we didn’t have any screaming babies.”  When will I learn to just keep my mouth shut?  The entire trip from Union Station to San Diego, we had to contend with a group of obnoxious screaming, cackling 4 year olds, who ran up and down the isles the entire trip.  I have never been one to complain about babies, and children in premium class on transportation, and I do not know if it was my jet lag addled brain, but I just wanted to SCREAM!  To add insult to injury, I chose seats right under the PA speaker, and our conductor wanted to talk the ENTIRE trip south.  Mi Jung and I should have just given up and moved back to economy class.  Amtrak did not win any points with me on this trip!

  We arrived at Santa Fe station and was surprisingly met by my mom!!  Oh what a great feeling to get hugged on the platform!  This was definitely a moment I would have loved to have had my camera out, but again impossible on the platform.

  We already had arrangements to be met by my biological mother Kathy, and had no way of contacting her to tell her that my mom had decided to surprise us,  so we promised to stop by the house later that evening if we were still conscious and headed off for a quick lunch at Gaglione Bros. sandwiches and to pick up our rental car. 

  Another helpful note: We rented from Enterprise Car Rental on Pacific Highway (thinking this would be close to the Amtrak Station.).  What we did not know is that there is  a new car rental center right across the street from San Diego International Airport that would have been better for returning the car when it was time to fly out. 

  Thanks for reading our departure stories, I will be adding more blogs, with restaurant reviews from San Diego soon. So stay tuned!

Movie Review – The Miracle In Cell No. 7

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Movie Review
The Miracle In Cell No. 7

OK Cinephiles, it is time to review another film!  This month I have chosen an older Korean film that was released in 2013.  Directed by Lee Hwan-kyun and staring Seung-ryong Ryu (War Of The Arrows), who plays Yong-Goo a developmentally challenged adult who is found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder and rape of the young daughter of the commissioner of the Korean National Police while trying to find a highly coveted Sailor Moon backpack for his 6 year old daughter Ye-Seung (Played by So Won Kal).. 

Upon arriving in prission he is hated and abused by his cell mates, but after observing  Yong-Goo’s gentle and innocently helpful personality. which  includes saving the life of a fellow cellmate, and the prison warden, they begin to see that he is most likely innocent.  

As payback for for saving the life of his cellmate, His fellow prisoners sneak Ye-Seung into the cell to cheer up Yong-Goo, however there is a problem getting her out on time, and they eventually get caught and Ye-Seung is sent away, and becomes so depressed at being separated from her father she refuses to eat and must be hospitalized

The warden begins to questions whether Yong-Goo (who has the intelligence of a 6 year old) could have written the confession he signed during police interrogation, and tries to have the investigation reopened.  He meanwhile visits Ye-Seung in the hospital, and she asks the warden if he can arrest her too.  Also indebted to Yong-Goo for saving his life, he risks his career and those of his fellow guards by bringing her to the prison.  Over the following months Ye-Seung helps the other cellmates by teaching one to read, and stealing a fellow students cell phone so another cellmate may call his pregnant wife.  

Despite the wardens continued efforts to prove Yong-Goos innocence it is soon apparent that; due to the fact the victim was the daughter of the police commissioner the verdict and death sentence will stand.  It isn’t until Ye-Seung is grown and has become a lawyer many years later that she is able to get the Korean courts to overturn the conviction.

I really enjoyed the The Miracle In Cell No 7, and while the premise of the movie is implausible, it helps make the films message that much more emotionally jarring and disorienting.  Adding to the disorientation is that the film was billed as a comedy, and you are repeatly slapped in the face when presented with the fact that behind the childish antics of Yong-Gu and Ye-Seung, you are really watching an indictment of the Korean criminal justice system, the media for trying a suspect on TV for ratings, and of the class structure in modern day Korea.   It makes you ask yourself if an advanced society with a modern and supposedly fair and impartial judicial system can handle the responsibility necessary to carry out the ultimate punishment of death.  The film had more of impact on me then Dead Man Walking, or The Green Mile. 

I also thought it interesting that Hwan-kyung Lee decided to disguise the film as a comedy, it had the feeling of being more in the style of a Chinese film, in the sense that it uses metaphors to indirectly criticism the government, which I find a little odd for a country that openly flaunts it’s democracy and freedom of speech.

I highly recommend The Miracle In Cell No 7!  Just be sure to sit down with a box of Kleenex in addition to your pop corn!  I would also recommend screening the film before allowing young children to watch it,  as the movies more serious scenes may be inappropriate.

TRAILER:

The Miracle In Cell No. 7 can be purchased from Amazon by clicking on the link below. (NOTE:  Brent’s World in NOT Monetized.) I do not make any money from the links posted on this site.

https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Cell-No-Ryoo-Seung-Ryong/dp/B079NCNKD1/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Miracle+in+Cell+no+7&qid=1558538731&s=gateway&sr=8-1

It is also available in DVD and Blu-Ray

Unfortunately this film is NOT available on the Apple Music Store.

You may also pay to watch the full movie on youtube. For w1,200 (Can someone please comment if the content is also available in the US?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQXptQR2ml8

Quickie – Mac OSX – Securing sshd_config

Brent's World Posted on by

Mac OS X Quickie
Securing sshd_config

 

Overview – While transferring the configuration files from my Late 2012 Mac Mini to my new Mac Pro, I noticed a pretty glaring security issue with the configuration file for the SSH daemon.  SSH, or secure shell, is a means of remotely accessing your server or workstations shell, through a terminal. It is similar to telnet, with the added benefit of being encrypted.  Telnet sends all traffic including username and passwords over the network in clear text. 

 

By default the configuration file is readable by all users.  So anyone who gains access to the system, can look at this configuration file to determine if there are any vulnerabilities caused by misconfiguration of the ssh daemon. While this is easily rectified, it is a glaring security hole that left me a little surprised.. Here are the POSIX permissions from a Centos 7.0 server.

Do you see the difference?

Mac OS X by default gives the read permission to the <other> group, allowing any user the ability to view the /etc/ssh/ssd_config.  We are going to fix this, and I advise you to do the same on any Mac server or desktop computer with SSH enabled.

Launch your terminal application, either from Go > Utilities > Terminal.app, or Shift-Command U > Terminal App. With a privileged account, type the following.

$ sudo chmod o-r /etc/ssh/sshd_config

If successful, you will be returned to the terminal prompt and you can verify the changes by performing a long directory listing.

$ ls –l

You should now see the following.

 

You can further test by switching to a non privileged account and trying to read the file.

$ cat /etc/ssh/sshd_config

You should see the following message.
cat: /etc/ssh/sshd_config: Permission denied

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Technical – 2013 6-Core Mac Pro

Brent's World Posted on by

macOS Technical

Upgrade to 2016 Tech Bumped Mac Pro

 

  If you read the Op-Ed piece I wrote back in November of 2016, after deciding not to repair my late 2008 model Mac Pro and switch to a Windows 7 desktop “Is The Mac The Amiga Of Today – Part II”  You might have thought I had left the Apple ecosystem for good.  

The reasons that I had decided to try a PC.

  • Apples poor decision to abandon Aperture, my photo management application of choice and it’s poor replacement ‘Photos’.
  • Slow updates to the Macintosh hardware line.
  • UI Changes within OS X that I found needless and cumbersome.
  • Needlessly removing support for Late 2008 Mac Pro in OS X Sierra.
  • Replacing ports on Macbook Pro with all USB-C, and removing MAG SAFE power connector.

 

I “upgraded” to a Dell Optiplex 9020 running Windows 7 Ultimate, and even tried a couple of tablets, the Dell Venue running Windows 8.1, and the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10.  I had issues with both products.  I will not get into why Windows 8 sucked, as this still born Microsoft product has been beaten to death over the years. 

The Dell Venue was just a terrible cheaply made product!  The hardware never worked properly, and the power adapter would only actually charge the tablets when the planets were properly aligned.  The Surface Pro 3 did fare better, though I also thad problems with the adaptor and had to replace it. Updating Windows 10 also caused the built in web cam to stop working twice!  Requiring complete reinstalls of the OS.  It does not say great things about your products, if your drivers do not work with your own hardware.

Now I had planned on eventually upgrading  to Windows 10, but kept putting it off due to security concerns, I really did not relish the thought of Microsoft collecting usage data, including keystroke logging being collected. Apple collects telemetry and error log reporting as well, but at least I can opt out!  So I decided to give OS X Sierra a “fair” shot for a couple of months, and then possibly choose to go back to the Mac. 

Actually I lie!,  the comparison would not really be fair, as the Mac I was going to base my decision on, was the Mac Mini!  While the processor and RAM specs were similar, the Optiplex had the benefit of a discrete video card, which allowed Lightroom to take advantage of hardware acceleration.  Even with these performance caveats stacked against the Mini I was really impressed with how the Mini performed for my blog work, and other daily tasks.

Except for a slight lag loading photo’s in Lightroom, the system was very usable and for the majority of people out there the system would be more than adequate for day to day use.  Certainly within the realm of intended purpose of the Mac Mini. 

The other issues I had with OS X Sierra I discovered work arounds after abit of research.  Issues such as being able to minimize of maximize windows (without toggling full screen) by double clicking on the windows title, disabling gatekeeper, and other little odds and ends.  I also discovered the wonders of the Homebrew repository, and was able to install BASH v4, an updated version of Nano, and my favorite top utility ‘htop’.  I was having too much fun using a Mac again!

The only problem I had with the Mac mini when working with  multiple virtual machines, the 16GB RAM limite and the slower disk performance of FW800.  Due to the fact I was running dual displays and the only Thuderbolt port was taken up by the second display, there was no room to update.  I realized what I was going to need a new Mac.  The only problem was that Apple definitely limited my choices. 

After owning a Tangerine iMac back in 98 (Which at the time was a great computer), until the analog board went out after a couple of years, and the replacement boards never worked right.  I swore I would never again own an all in one computer again!  Not from any manufacture!  That left only one choice, a new Mac Pro.  I waited to see what Apple was going to do with the Mac line after the 2017 WWDC. 

I am excited that it looks like they will be continuing the Mac Pro line.  It is a GREAT workstation.  I also knew I could not wait a year for the new modular Mac Pro to be delivered.  So I decided to plunk the cash down on a new Tech Bumped 2016 Trashcan Mac Pro instead.  Thinking when the new Mac Pro is released I can always sell it.

Here are the specs of my Mac Pro

Mac Pro (Late 2013)
3.5 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon E5
32GB 1866 MHz DDR3 Ram
512GB SSD
Dual AMD FirePro D700 6GB Video RAM
After using the Mac Pro for a month, what do I think about it?

It is blazing fast, where the Mac Mini took a minute and 4 second to boot, the Pro spring to life in 19 seconds!  Lightroom smokes along with virtualy no lag in loading photos and rendering slide shows is noticeably faster.  As I have mentioned in the past I do not do allot of work with video, so I will have to come up with a reason to try out Final Cut Pro!

Where the Pro really shines for me right now is when running virtual machines.  As I can now run 3 fully featured VMs with 8 GBs of RAM allocated to them and still have 8 GBs free on the host OS, so there is very little performance degradation.  So be expecting more Windows and OS X tutorials in the future!

What additions or upgrades do I have planned?

Once the dust settles, and the hole in my wallet gets alittle smaller, I do have a couple of upgrades already planned for the Pro.

  • Thunderbolt RAID2 chassis
  • External Blu-Ray Burner
  • Upgrade the internal SSD from 512GB to 1TB

 

Mac Pro (From The Front)

Mac Pro (From The Back)

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Inside joke started on Facebook with my 2008 Mac Pro.

Is the current MacPro for everyone?  NO!  Especially since Apple has announced the new iMac Pro.  There are serious form factor issues as I have already openly stated on my blog.. However currently The Mac Pro is the most powerful offering from Apple, and it is doing what I need it to do until the new Pro desktop is released.

Hard at work on the blog using my new Mac Pro.

Thank you for visiting Brent’s World, and American Expat Living and Working In Korea!  I hope you enjoyed this weeks technical blog, and will continue to return for more exciting articles!  If you with to be notified by email when new content is posted, please register by clicking HERE!