So, I’m moving my blog yet again. I liked the candlemonkey domain, but for some reason, that particular blog has been strangely attractive to hackers almost from the day I installed wordpress. I’ve since changed the passwords and user names … heck, I even moved it to a totally different webhosting account. But it looks like they found me anyway.

I’ve noticed about a month ago in my google webmasters tools account that quite a few of links pointing at my site were for porn keywords. I thought it was kind of odd, but since I know I don’t have porn on that site, I didn’t think too much more of it. Then even more recently, I started getting many more comments and user registrations for nonsensical names, and russian .ru addresses. Then finally this morning, I got this comment from a guy calling himself “blackhat millionaire”:

Comment:
Glad I just found your wordpress blog through Google.

Found just what I was looking for, thanks =)

Btw, wat plugins are you using??

The thing is, it was a comment on a page that I didn’t write, and couldn’t find from my admin panel … one where the url is something like http://domainname.com/?attachement ID-

Obviously someone has access to something in my database that they shouldn’t.

Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to know what to look for … and even if I was, I’m not sure I’d have time to fix it.

So, here we are back at SuccessWithTodd.com

I have a few more things to clean up, but within the next 2 or 3 days, wordpress will be wiped out, the database deleted, and a single web page put up at candlemonkey.

For those of you who have followed me on my several moves over the past few months, I appreciate you, and hope this latest adventure doesn’t cause you any inconvenience.

Catch up with you again soon,
Todd

A couple of months back, I wrote that the Air Force decided we needed to leave Hawaii. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I found out that our new home, as of April 2009, will be Fort Hood Texas.

I’m not sure you could call us “excited” about it … but, in the grand scheme of things, there are definitely plenty of worse places they could have decided I needed to be. At least it’s warm most of the year in that part of Texas. And as a self-confessed “weather geek”, I think I’ve just about convinced my step-son Johnathan that tornado chasing will be just about the funnest way possible to spend a spring day.

We should be getting there right in the beginning of April. I’ll be part of the 3rd Weather Squadron. Not sure yet what exactly my job will be … but something tells me I should probably plan on spending next Christmas in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Oh well, this will most likely be my last assignment (I hit 19 years next month), so might as well make an adventure out of it.

One last thing …

I know that a few military people occasionally read this blog. If any of you know of anybody who owns a nice 4+ bedroom house in the Ft. Hood area, who might be interested in renting to a responsible senior NCO, starting in the early April timeframe, please have them drop me a line.

Thanks in advance … catch up with you again soon,
Todd

This weekend I had the opportunity to get out with my workmates at Bellows. We all met in the late morning for nice BBQ, and to enjoy a few Hawaiian Beach activities. Of course I brought my camera along (taking pictures is by far my favorite beach activity).

I took quite a few pictures, and I’m still in the process of editing them, but the one above of a couple of friends kayaking is one of my favorites so far. Since it’s been a while since I’ve posted a Hawaii Picture of the Day, I figured it might be nice to share.

I hope you enjoy … Aloha til next time.

Todd

mmmmm … this hand tastes good.

Even babies can have important thoughts.

Oh yea, I like to smile.

I like it when mommy holds me … who’s the princess?

That’s all for now … more to come in the near future.

Keep havin FuN!
Todd

You gotta love living in Hawaii. I was down at Hickam yesterday evening. While I was waiting for Justin to finish up skateboarding, I snuck down to the beach to get a few pictures of the sunset.

This picture of the sun setting over my house at Iroquois Point, with a plane coming in for a landing is my favorite one so far. I still have quite a few to do post processing on, so don’t be surprised if you see another scene or two from this shoot in the future.

Aloha til next time,
Todd

The September Candle of the Month is Holiday Memories

Well, fortunately for me, it’s ends today.

I got my absentee ballot in the mail, made my votes, and sent it right back off.

Now I hope to tune out a little bit … and get back to focusing on some of the other important things in my life … including this blog!

No matter what your political leanings, I hope all of you also avail yourselves of the right, and responsibility, to cast your own vote on election day.

Keep havin Fun!
Todd

I am essentially a moderate Independent when it comes to politics.

For the upcoming Presidential election, I will admit, I’ve been leaning towards voting for Barack Obama in November. However, I do like John McCain. I think he’s a good, honorable man. And I really wasn’t that concerned either way about who wins the election.

Until last Friday …

With the pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, John McCain lost for good, any chance he had of winning my vote.

Like many in media, and around the country, I do have some questions about Gov. Palin. However, even if she turns out to be the “perfect” candidate, I feel that they way in which she was chosen tells me some very important things about John McCain’s decision making style.

For months now, the McCain campaign has spent millions of dollars on ads reminding us of what a dangerous world we live in. I don’t disagree at all … they’re right.

… and precisely because of that, I can honestly say that I just wouldn’t feel comfortable with a President who’s going to make “snap” decisions, without ensuring that he has all the relevant information first.

Just my opinion of course.

Keep havin FuN!
Todd

p.s. as I said, I don’t intend to bore you with politics here on this blog. However, if you’re like me, an you have an opinion about things in the news, I did start a new blog http://Debatemonkey.com … feel free to stop by and opine … whether you agree or disagree with me

Time again for another Hawaii Picture of the Day. Fortunately, my backyard always provides good picture taking opportunities … and last night was no exception.

This is a silhouette of a palm tree, with the purple sky of a setting sun in the background.

Just another beautiful vision from paradise.

Aloha til next time …
Todd

1st installment of what I hope will be a long-running series …

If you’re anything like me, you probably have literally hundreds of blog posts in your feed reader still waiting to be scanned through. When I find a blog I like, it’s usually not a hard decision to subscribe via RSS.

But just because I’ve subscribed, doesn’t necessarily make me a “regular reader”.

That being said, every morning when I get up, I check google reader before I go to work. There are a couple of blogs, that I definitely go read right away if I see they have new posts.

Following is a small sample of from my list of

Must Read Blogs

• Tellin It Like It Is - Lin Burress has been one of my better blogging friends for several months now. Hers is always one of the first blogs I read, and one of the few I try to comment on regularly. She writes about Relationships, Marriage and Parenting. And as you can probably guess from the title of her blog, she definitely “tells it like it is”.
• Seth’s Blog - Ok, I know many of you are probably already well aware of Seth Godin. This isn’t the only “A list” blog I subscribe to, but it one of only two that I’m going to link to here … because I do try to read it every day. For anybody who wants to learn how to be a better marketer, this should be on your list too. I had planned to link to a few posts, but honestly I can’t choose. I’d say just head on over and subscribe … if you’re not already.
• Zen Habits - This is the other “A-List” blog that I would definitely recommend reading every day. And just like Seth’s blog above, I’m not going to try to pick out just 2 or 3 of Leo’s posts … they are All worth reading. But just to give you an idea, here’s a recent posts that I enjoyed: 7 Little Habits that can Change Your Life , and if you’ve never been to Zen Habits before, there is a post from July that serves as a guided tour to Zen Habits
• Belief Busters - I’ve followed John Milton Fogg for a lot of years now. I was a member of his Greatest Networker Community back when it was just an email list. If there’s one thing you can say about JMF, it’s that he always seems to be giving more than he expects in return. This post from last week is a great example: 67 Self-Help Success classics FREE. Head on over and sign up for the BeliefBusters report … you’ll be glad you did.
• FiveThirtyEight.com - In addition to all the other things I’m interested in, I’m a bit of a political junkie (although I don’t really write about it on this blog). Five Thirty Eight is by far my favorite political blog. The premise is that 538 is the number of delegates needed to win the Presidency in the electoral college. The site/blog is mainly about interpreting polls, based on a complex, and continually updated computer model. In addition to the polling information, they also offer some relatively balanced commentary, although for the most part, they seem to be a little tilted towards Obama (which doesn’t really bother me).

Well, it looks like my list is getting a little long, so I think I’m going to cut it off here. Obviously, there are also a few marketing related blogs on my daily reading list. I’ll make a new post about those resources next Sunday.

Until then … keep havin FuN!
Todd

I got my camera out, and went for a little walk yesterday evening. One of the images I captured is today’s Picture of the Day.

We’ve got quite a few of these white cattle egrets in our neighborhood. They mostly forage around the ground looking for worms and insects. But since they’re birds, they do also fly … which is really what I want to get pictures of …

So, armed with my trust Canon 20D and Sigma 50-500mm lens I sat out in the field amongst the birds for about an hour, right before sunset. The shot above was my favorite of the day. This guy was flying towards the setting sun, which gave pretty nice lighting effect.

For any fellow photography buffs, here are my camera setting from the shot: 500m F5.6 1/1250s ISO200 AutoFocus was AIfocus.

I hope enjoy the picture. Catch you again tomorrow.

Todd

I figured it was about time to get back to posting my Hawaii Picture of the Day here on this blog. Fortunately, yesterday provided the perfect inspiration.

Sitting out on the back porch, we could look up over the palm trees and see a nice full rainbow off in the distance over the mountains. I already had the 28-75mm lens on my camera, and since I was already outside, didn’t want to have to go get my bag for a wider angle lens … so, the picture itself became a “half-rainbow“.

I hope you enjoy.

Aloha til next time,
Todd