Secret Laboratory
Music, News, & Global Affairs
Web Site: http://www.intheveldhouse.blogspot.com
This past Friday, I walked into work with the usual expectation that I had absolutely no plans for the evening and next day. As a single lady in the city who has no one to report to but herself, I was pretty pleased when saw this as an opportunity to make a spontaneous trip...
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If you’ve been following this series documenting my venture out to the remote island of Terceira, which is part of the archipelago known as the Azores, you’ve read my recaps on my experiences with language barriers, the simple joys of travel, and volcanoes. The scenery was beautiful and the novelty of visiting this not-so-visited...
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I recently got back from a trip I took to see my friend Carly who lives in the Azores. She’s a good friend from college who I only get to see every couple years due to her habits of living thousands of miles away from home. Marrying into the Air Force certainly does have...
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I most recently got back from a trip I took to see my friend Carly, who lives in the Azores. She’s a good friend from college who I only get to see every couple years due to her habits of living thousands of miles away from home. Marrying into the Air Force certainly does...
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I most recently got back from a trip I took to see my friend, Carly who lives on the Azorian island of Terceira. She’s a good friend from college who I only get to see every couple years due to her habits of living thousands of miles away from home. Marrying into the Air...
Read More »
They say a good drummer is one who has a left hand that doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. The lack of distraction between the two lends itself for rhythms and beats to meld together in sometimes immensely complicated structures that add an extra kick (no pun intended) to a favorite song...
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So, I read a book. This is a big deal for me since I haven’t read a book in years. It’s unhealthy, I know. I’m also aware of the contradiction of someone who writes for an online magazine not living the reader’s lifestyle with literature constantly oozing from every pore possible. To write, one...
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Once again North Dakota is buzzing around the internet; both pleasantly surprising the east and west coasts and reminding them of the simple life that is found in “flyover country”. Marilyn Hagerty and her column The EatBeat of the Grand Forks Herald have created an internet sensation with her most recent piece on Grand...
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I had high expectations to write about the joys associated with my new iPhone this evening, but instead I hemmed and hawed about my endeavors in the online dating realm (if that’s what you want to call it) over at my blog http://intheveldhouse.blogspot.com/. Take a gander, if you’re curious about what kind of response...
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At the beginning of this month, I completed my 28th year of life. I also realized that this summer the class of 2002 is going to Facebook the shit out of each other in a vain attempt to organize get-togethers for high school reunions. Subtle jabs will be made at one another as we...
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A few weeks ago, singer Lana del Rey gave what has been described as a “terrible live performance” on Saturday Night Live. I didn’t get a chance to see the performance myself, since I’m still on my way to becoming a real live grown up with furniture sets and an impressive cable line up;...
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When I was a freshman in college, I learned that being from North Dakota was something people made fun of you for. Until that point, North Dakota was the only place I had lived, so all of the jokes about my “first experiences” with electricity and plumbing were new to me. North Dakotans don’t...
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A few months back I found myself lounging in a good friend’s south Minneapolis home, sipping on some wine and going over the mundane experiences that we had encountered on whatever mundane weekday it happened to be. I noticed that the music playing in the background was interesting. It was alternative yet not the...
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It’s that time of the year again where our lives suddenly become saturated with family members and spending money. We’re getting days off and traveling hundreds and maybe even thousands of miles to see loved ones and be reminded as to just how dysfunctional our families really are. We’re asking ourselves the question “This...
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I read Wuthering Heights and I don’t know why. I think it had to do with the opportunity I came across one day at the library when my memory was triggered by the “B” section of authors in the fiction area. I remember reading the gothic novel in high school and I remember hating it. It was...
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When I started my work with the Jungle Theater in Uptown Minneapolis back in the fall of 2006, I Am My Own Wife had just wrapped up with a very lauded response from some of Minneapolis’ most elite theatergoers. Unfortunately, I had just missed my opportunity to see the show myself since I had...
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For those of us here in Minnesota, winter is not quite over. May is half gone and a few hours ago, it was 40 degrees outside. I had the fireplace on and the space heater going. Then the sun came out, the temperature jumped about 30 degrees, and I had to open the windows.
These days we hear a lot of talk about Global Warming. Whether or not there is any truth to it remains to be seen—and frankly, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference either way. Climate change is real—warmer, colder, whatever—but it has nothing to do with us and we're never going to prevent it. And since we got a foot of snow last week and it's going to be 90 on Tuesday ... well ... I'm not sold on Global Warming. The weatherman can't even predict rain, let alone tell us whether or not we're facing an inferno and/or an ice age.
This weekend is the fishing opener. This means very little to me, as I never bother with a license anyway. It's also Mother's Day. Recently I've been bombarded by emails from an online florist, suggesting that I send Ex-wife #2 a beautiful bouquet.
Never in hell. Maybe if they had an option to have the arrangement stuffed with angry bees; but barring that ... no.
To hell with holidays and bees and everything else. For the last 24 hours, Terencio and I have been plotting the future of this magazine. He even wrote his column and published a couple of articles. The next order of business is for me to write something.
And I might. I have plenty to say—none of it important, of course—but a meandering essay with no direction whatsoever is probably the best way to ease back into my routine. Politics? Not to start. Not today.
And ... meh.
—John T. Schmitz
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Founder, Maple Hills Press
editor@secretlaboratory.org
"I wanted my own column in the sidebar ... but now I don't know what to do with it."
"But sure you do! You write in it! That is what most people who claim the moniker of writer would likely do."
"But what do I write?"
"The resolution to that parable, my friend, lies upon the path that you must seek."
"Who are you?! And where did you come from?!"
"I am...the part of you that is, and will be, in all that we are..."
Hello Lab!
The voices are becoming louder and the cries ever more commanding. I hear them and I am working the best I can to whip myself into some kind of respectable shape and take back my claim to authorship.
So, I have been signaled to action from the Lab's headquarters. There has been much waking from many deep slumbers and now the drowsiness is fading and the challenges of the day are dutifully materializing before my conscience in their daily summons to contest.
No fear, Secret Laboratory! Power down the Bat Beacon, John.
John. John? Wherefore art thou? Come quickly and hear ye: The Lab is scheduled to receive a bright and refreshing burst of content! I have plans for at least one new category: Network Security
In the recent weeks I have become familiar with penetration testing software such as Backtrack and Kali Linux. These are Linux based Operating Systems that are used by network security professionals for white hat constructive hacking; and network exploiting operators for black hat destructive hacking. Writers of Secret Laboratory are free to show interest in this new category if you so choose. I will be producing content regarding how to crack WEP/WPA/WPA2 wireless encryption and how to protect yourself from such attacks, for starters. It only gets interesting from there.
For those of you interested in preparing yourself for this new world of fun and adventure, I recommend you go ahead and get the tools: Kali Linux
It can be downloaded at - http://www.kali.org/downloads/
The Secret Laboratory is in the grueling process of churning old gears and installing new ones to bring life into our world of journalistic comedy and tragedy. Sink or swim, this boat is headed out to sea.
I'm headed off to write a column now that the voices in my head have stopped...
But I can't seem to find John.
John?
Oh shit. Really? He's in the bathroom? Again? Geez, I'm glad I didn't have whatever he did. Must have been the pills. I'm glad I only had the purple ones...
"Hey John! Can you reach the mini fridge from in there? I think I need another beer!"
—Terencio Safford
Editor, Secret Laboratory
terencio@secretlaboratory.org
