What Is VPN And How Can I Use It To Watch The Olympics

The Olympics are here.  What an awesome time of year.  Personally, I have taken off of work just so I can watch the first week of the Olympics without worrying about losing my productivity at work.  What is not to like about the Olympics?  Well this is one of the last great world stages were nation states can compete against each other.  The other great stage is the World Cup.  Athletes are putting themselves on the stage to compete, win or lose, everyone that competesis awesome in my book.  Watching the Olympics, to date, has left a lot to be desired.  The main programming on cable TV is cherry picked to only show the USA audience “tape-delayed” media athletes.  Media athletes, while great athletes such as Michael Phelps, receive too much attention and its seems the same athletes are on the TV every 15 minutes.  The NBC stream requires a subscription to cable TV, the video is choppy, I have to sit through the same stupid Facebook health advertisement every minutes, and no commentators so it is hard to follow along with the action.  Case in point with Weightlifting I have to turn up volume to hear the in house commentator stating if this lift is for first place, second, world record or Olympic record, and WTF happened in the 77kg Snatches?  Or, if I wanted to watch a sport I know nothing of, such as badminton, I am lost in the action and do not know what is going on.

Do we have a choice to watch coverages say from the UK, yes we do!  We can use VPN.  VPN stands for Virtual Private Network.  Some of us may use this on a daily basis to remote into our office network when telecommuting.  Think of VPN has a tunnel that your data flows through between your computer and the network or computer that you are connecting to.  The benefits of VPN is that it almost anatomizes your traffic and provides protection for the data flowing from your computer to the VPN gateway. The downside to VPN is that the VPN gateway can perform a man-in-the-middle attack and capture all of your data as well as the location of your computer.   Just think of a VPN gateway as the connection point from your computer the VPN host.  The VPN host can be located anywhere in the world. The VPN host than can then decrypt your traffic and forward your traffic to the original destination.  So for example if you are connecting to bbc.com and the VPN host is located in England then bbc.com thinks you are visiting bbc.com from England and not America.

The BBC’s Olympic coverage is a lot better than NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.  Plus BBC is a great acronym, if you are aware.  But, BBC blocks traffic to their live Olympic coverage based on geo-location.  If you are browsing from an American network than you cannot access the BBC live Olympic coverage.  Both 70′s big and All Things Gym (ATG) have a great how-to connect to through VPN to watch the BBC and other European live Olympic coverage.  But, these solutions cost money to setup and view.  Another solution exists, but is only for “strong hackers”.  Unblock-us is a great solution that requires a little network and computer knowledge to setup.  I got mine working on my Ubuntu server but it took around an hour to play with.  It is easier to setup with Windows and Mac.  An added bonus if you work blocks streaming media you can use one of these solutions to watch the Olympics at work, but at your own risk of course.  Enjoy and let me know if you are using any other creative solutions besides tethering your phone.  Edit: I forgot to add this link from lifehacker.com.

Stand Up and Fight

It has been a while since I felt like writing.  I did not feel like writing because getting back from my injuries was very frustrating and took longer than my original plan.  But, good news, I am back!  For the past month I have been able to perform the Snatch and CJ, and last week I took part in my first competition.  For my first competition I was very hesitant on committing to signing up, but I am glad I did because it forced me to get my stuff together.  My numbers starting last month were 50 kg for the Snatch and 110 for the CJ.  I was really worried that I would be snatching at the competition 60 kg and only CJ’ing 120.  Each week I was getting stronger.  I hit 60 kg snatch 3 weeks out followed by 120 cj.  2 weeks out I hit 70 kg Snatch and again a 120 cj.  Two weeks out I started to make progress I got to 80 kg Snatch and 125 CJ.  The last week out is when I really took off I hit 95kg Snatch and 125 kg CJ.  I set my openers for the meet at 90/120 with my goal to go 6 for 6 with a 230 total 100/130.  One of the big reasons I contribute my quick rise back to my numbers was my persistent attach on my mobility.  I would spend 20 to 30 minutes a day working on mobility and it has paid off.  Also, with cleaning up my eating, focusing on sleep, and a more relaxed attitude, I feel has increased my recovery.

I went into competition day more relaxed than I have been at all my previous competitions and I was ready to rumble.  I took my time warming up in the snatch and all my lifts were feeling light and snappy.  Confidence was high by the time my name was called.  I went out and easily hit my opener.  It was a little too light and I had to make a minor adjustment in the bottom to secure the bar.  Next up, 95 kg and boom also easy.  My last lift in the Snatch I called for 100 kg.  I have not hit 100 kg in 4 months and only attempted it once before the meet with an epic clark.  I was determined to make the lift and it went up pretty easy.  I was super jacked after making the lift and I let the bar know I am back!

Next up with CJ’s.  Warming up I was feeling very good and the bar was extremely light especially on my jerk.  I hit all warmups and I was ready for my first attempt at 120 kg.  I smoked this attempt with vigour.  Next up 125 kg, and it was easier than 120 kg.  Last lift I called for 130 kg.  I have not hit this lift in the past 4 months and I was clarking this attempt the past two weeks before the competition.  I knew walking up to the bar that I was going to make the lift and in the video you might be able to catch my swagger.  This is the easiest 130 kg lift I have ever made.  I look back on the video and it looks like a warmup.  I was very pleased going 6 for 6.  I have never gone 6 for 6 in a meet and to hit my goal for the competition and do it in style was a great feeling.  I cannot thank enough my fellow WCCF teamates helping me out and providing motivation by hitting big lifts while I was on injured reserve and to my coach for having plenty of patience with me and giving me the cue to keep my shoulders of the bar.  This cue helped me move the bar more efficient and it is probably the biggest reason my lifts looked good for this competition.

In the video I am wearing the black singlet with red on the side.

To Holmgard and Beyond

Short post today for this memorial day weekend, today and Thursday evening I snatched pain free!  No pain in my left shoulder.  This is my first pain free snatch since December.  It is a glorious day to rejoice, and I am excited for the long and strenuous road ahead. Also, I trained convertible style for the first time today and it feels good and looks good.  This article by Ben Claridad can best explain this style of training.

For your time some great music and some eye candy for the ladies!

Armageddon It

The first time I saw the music video of Death Leppards’s Armageddon It I was 8 years old and I could not believe a one armed man was drumming.  Much later in life I found out the drummer, , was born with both arms and lost one arm in a car accident.  He still wanted to drum and had a special drum kit assembled for him with foot pedals to make drum sounds.  Pretty freaking cool.  Most websites designers and website architects build security into their websites after an attack has occurred or later on the life’s site as a feature to the site’s end users.  Much like Death Leppard’s one arm drummer it can be done, but his drum kit is expense to maintain, operate, and cannot perform as well as a two armed drummer.   Adding security to a website after the site’s release onto the internet is a similar problem to a one armed drummer, expensive to maintain, operate, and probably will not perform as well as the site without security.

First step that I recommend it to perform a security architecture review of chosen technologies.  This should occur before any code is written.  If this step occurs after technologies are chosen it can lead to expensive changes or wonky mitigation strategies.  An Architecture analysis is a security control that reviews the entire technology stack, considered for implementation, to determine security risk to implement.   The security architecture analysis will review the operating system, web server and application server software, APIs, and third party vendor tools for any known issues or security weaknesses.  These are documented and assigned a risk for each item which is reviewed with key stakeholders to change any technologies that are carry risk or accept the risk.

The second step that I recommend is to perform and create a threat model.  A threat model is a document that contains functional use cases, their associated abuse case(s), impact of successful abuse case, risk score, OWASP top 10 category,  security control, and gaps.  A use case is as simple as a user navigates to the add user page and creates a user.  Each use case will contain one or many abuse cases.  The goal of threat modeling is to understand the attack footprint and vectors of your website.  And, understand what security controls need to be in place to prevent successful abuse cases.   The threat model are the application’s application security requirements.

Now that you understand your site’s attack footprint and weaknesses it is time to design and build security controls to prevent worse case scenarios.   Many APIs and tools exist to help create security controls.  Since I have been into heavy java development I like to use and extend Spring Security API to create a PEP/PDP  pattern to implement my authentication and authorization framework.  To cover application Security threats I like to extend the ESAPI framework to meet my application security requirements found in my threat model.   In the future I plan to write post on each of these subjects because design, development, and deployment complexities are large and in charge.

Rounding out security controls is testing.  Testing is very important, time consuming, but important.  I am seeing a trend in the market of only using static code scanning analysis.  While I recommend having static scanning security code analysis as part of your testing arsenal it has its weaknesses.  Static scanning security code analysis only looks at source code as it lies.  It does not take into consideration how the code or system behaves.  Static scanning will only catch very low hanging fruit and will produce a lot of false positives.  Something that I am recommending is using tools in the IDE “what tool” to perform the static security code analysis.  Your threat model contains the abuse cases, and these abuse cases make perfect test cases during a manual penetration test or during QA testing cycle.  One last item of testing to consider is testing authentication and authorization policies.

Any of these steps can be performed at any time during an application’s maturity.  Implementing these controls later in an application’s life is much more expensive than implementing from the first day the application begins is life.   It is best to develop these security controls early during the life an application.  Security must be thought of as important as the functional requirements.  But, a balance must exist between functionality, performance, and security.  Similar to Chicago’s famous saying about voting, think of security early and often.

The Art of Travel

I have traveled for work for 4 and half years.  After traveling for 4 and half years I worked with a client in Chicago for 3 and half years and I only traveled twice a year.   I recently finished my project on my Chicago client and I have been on the road for the past six weeks.   I am not excited about traveling, but I tried to make the best of my situation.  For those of you that do not know I have to stay away from gluten for medical reasons and the past six weeks I have traveled I have come up with an interesting process that I believe will help others make the most out of traveling.

How does one travel and train on the road with a full time job?  It takes some planning and time management, usually two words that make folks run to the hills.  But with my experience and the information I am going to share blog post.  I think anyone can survive the road.

First, if you can avoid hitting to road for work by using technologies such as webcam virtual meetings I would recommend pursuing.  I think too much road travel is not good for individuals, but a little can be tolerated.  The first step I perform when I am traveling to a new city is to open my favorite browser and use internet search to find how far the hotel is away from a place to train and whole foods.  I am not the biggest fan of whole foods, but when you are on the road this grocery store is critical for finding high quality food that are nutritionally dense.

After researching the lay of  the land I recommend cooking on the day before travel your breakfast and lunch for the day of travel.  I usually cook ground beef, spices, and vegetables to eat before my flight and after I arrive at my client location.  But, I will leave it to the readers imagination to cook anything they are comfortable with.  As a traveler you are allowed to bring food through security as long as it is sealed and not of the liquid kind such as  a soup.  You cannot bring cans of tuna.  I know wtf, but TSA has removed my cans of tuna from traveling stating they do not know how much liquid is inside of each can.  The day of the flight I heat up my food and put it into a storage container and place it in my carry on.  I try to get to the airport with enough time that I can eat my food before the flight boards.  I also bring along any left over fruits or veggies that I can carry with me from my weekly CSA.  Fruits and veggies travel well.

Hopefully, your flight arrived safely and you arrived at your work destination.  Once at the work destination, I try to find the fridge and microwave situation.  Most modern day places of work have these two items, or at least I hope.  I will let all my coworkers know and understand my food restrictions the first time I meet my team.  Usually most will say that sucks and ask a bunch of questions.  Questions will cease after a couple of days.  After the first day of work I check into my hotel and I ask for a fridge for my room.  Hotels will provide a fridge with no extra charge.  After checking in I immediately go to whole foods to shop for groceries.

Whole foods has a great selection of items one can buy.  I stick to simple items such as canned tuna, kombucha, lara bars/kind bars,  salad bar/hot food bar, and fruits and veggies.  I will eat at whole foods every night if I do not go to dinner with my team.  But, won’t that get boring?  It can, but most whole foods have a huge selection of prepared foods and with each prepared foods they list all ingredients.  The listing of ingredients is import for me to determine if I can or can’t eat the food based on allergens.

I like to go out to eat with my team from time to time.  This is a good time to bond with your team as well a break from canned tuna and whole foods.  Before choosing a place to eat I research the web and the restaurant’s menu ahead of time.  Before I arrive at a place I know what I am going to order and what to ask to exclude.  Ask questions and let the wait staff know you have an allergen and most places are very accommodating.

I have covered the food, how about the hotel room and sleep?  Well, most hotels are beacons of light.  What I mean by “beacons of light” is that they are so dam bright inside, have hallway lights on 24/7, and usually have a very bright parking lot.  Lots of light enters the room from the outside.  Inside the hotel room it is even worse because every hotel room comes with an alarm clock, tv, fire alarm, a peep hole and a huge gap underneath the door to the hallway.  I bring a roll of black duck tape to mask all the lighted items.  I tape the peep hole, I tape the fire alarm, I tape the alarm clock and make sure I turn off the alarm clock, and I tape any other light emitting source.  I use my extra pillows to place at the bottom of the door to block the light from the hallway.  And, I make sure the currents are shut and I usually place a piece of furniture snugly against the current so the currents remain closed throughout the evening.  Instant black room, with some minor tweaks.

Congratulations you read “The Art of Travel” and hopefully you have the tools in your arsenal to not become a fat businessman.

As always carry on and do whatever you feel like.

 

Goonies never say die

This post is dedicated to anyone who has suffered an injury that prevented them performing the sport they love.  I could not find any good posts about folks training around or after an injury.  I can relate, I did not feel like post or even sharing my training with anybody because it is frustrating and embarrassing that you cannot perform basics movements.

Everyone at one point or another will suffer from an injury.  When I was 14 I tore my ACL playing soccer.  It took me a full painful year to get back into playing competitive soccer at a decent level, and probably two years until I was kicking ass again.  Returning from an injury is very tough mentally and physically.  I remember the first day I was cleared to play soccer after my ACL injury and how excited I was.  That excitement quickly turned into frustration when I realized that my skill, stamina, and speed were gone faster than Chunk eating ice cream in the Fatelli’s walk in freezer.  The most important memory that is burned into my brain from my early injury is that it takes patience and perseverance to return from an injury.

My recent injury is not even close to my early encounter with ACL repair when I was 14.  I blogged about my injury and training around my injury last month here.  While I was training around my injuries I got a lot of ground work on my pulls and power lifts.  I PR’ed my power clean at 115kg, and not a wide leg power clean catch that you see in the crazy high school/college football team weightlifting videos, but a nice catch 1/4 squat with tons of pulling power.  The bar felt light!

I am just getting over my overuse injuries to my knee and shoulder.  I squatted for the past two weeks pain free and continue to squat pain!  A small victory, but a good one.  My shoulder on the other hand is not 100%.  I have full range of motion, but during the catch of the snatch my shoulder still hurts.  Frustrating, is probably the nicest word I can think of.  I will continue to work mobility on my shoulder and test it out very conservatively with some snatch pull unders and light OHS.

My main priorities for the next 4 to 6 weeks are increasing my strength to the previous levels, timing of my lifts, over head strength, and speed under the bar.  Lots of stuff to work on, but my main focus is strength and everything else assistance.  I will be running a linear type programming on my lifts during this time training four days a week and adding weight to the bar each time until I stall.  I will start each training session with squatting for three days and the fourth day heavy deadlifts.

My main points to concentrate on when training post injury are:

• Conservative return – do not throw previous PRs onto the bar and begin lifting.  This will only lead to re-injury and more frustration.
• Small victories – each training session with no pain is a victory, every time I add more weight to the bar is a victory.  While these are very small they will add up over time.  Before I know it I will be back at my previous weights and exceeding them.
• Track your goals – make small term and long term goals returning from an injury and track progress day to day.  I have a pretty easy system that I use to keep track of my daily, weekly, monthly, and long term goals.  I plan on sharing my goal tracking and metrics system in a future post.

For those young kids reading this post I highly recommend watching “The Goonies”.

 

 

Training While Injured

The title says it all.  I have tendinitis in my left shoulder and right knee.  Both have been hurting for the past three months, but I choose to continue to train through the injuries to reach my short term goals I set for myself during my last training cycle.  I am still undecided if my decision to continue to train through the injuries was a good decision or a bad decision.  Only time will tell.  I did make some good gains during the last training cycle.  You can read about my latest progress here and here.  When I would catch a snatch or Jerk my shoulder capsule would hurt.  Anytime I was squatting or performing a full snatch or full clean my right knee would hurt.  No swelling on my shoulder but impaired range of motion.  As with the opposite with my knee has swelling and no impaired range of motion.  I have not gone heavy or squatted for about a week now and my injuries are starting to feel better.

How did I get through training with the pain?  I do not want to sound like a tough guy, but I took lots of Vitamin I before training and it would help dull the pain for most of the training.  Also, I was very focused on reaching all my short term goals last training cycle and focusing on the goals helped me through a lot of training sessions.  The Vitamin I did wonders, but after training my shoulder pain would wake me up in the middle of the night throbbing.  Do I recommend this?  Depends!  If you are training for health and lifestyle, I would say no, but if you are training for competition than I would say as long as you are not endangering further injury than proceed with caution.

What is a weightlifter to do now that two major joints are injured and require some rest to allow the tendinitis to reverse?  During the past two weeks I played around with different exercises to see what does and doesn’t hurt.   Here is a list of exercises that I came up with that do not hurt:

• Pulls
• Power Snatch
• Power Clean
• Deadlifts
• RDLs

While I am disappointed that I will not perform a full snatch, clean and jerk, or squat for a while this could be a blessing in disguise.  In the past five months I  have felt that my first pull is one of my big weaknesses as well as lots of raw strength.  I have a big second pull, but often when I miss a PRs or Max attempt it is because my first pull feels heavy, or the bar gets out in front which does not put me in a great position for my second pull.  So maybe my injuries are a blessing in disguise?  Well, from a mental approach perspective this is how I am going to think about my injury.  It sucks, but I am going to get very strong off the floor, which will translate to extra kilos on my lifts.

Coach Cori has whipped up a 6 week Linear Progression type cycle for me to get in good volume and intensity.   And, at the same time I will work on my mobility to clean up some issues with my t-spine, ankles, and hips!  My short term goal is to rid myself of this tendinitis and increase my strength off the floor.  I like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain!

What have others done to train around injuries?