The Whole Hacking Story

The terrorism began last Saturday morning. The day started off lovely enough. Biceps and I were enjoying the cool morning, windows down, radio pumping while we drove to a large, local church to deliver a watermelon bowling alley we had been hired to build over the weekend. Pretty normal stuff for us.

I received a notification on my phone that I had a new email. Opening it, the innocent looking email warned me that my homepage was all in Arabic. The emailer even mentioned one of my projects that they liked and they had a legitimate looking yahoo email address.

I opened my site, thinking surely this person was mistaken. They weren’t. Poop. Crap. Dang.

The background to my site immediately turned black. And, then I saw something rather similar to this at the top of the page.

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Striped colors decorated the fist in green, white and red. The hacker’s name was proudly scrolling across the tab bar and the top of the page. (I don’t want to give this moron any satisfaction, so I’m not going to tell you who it was.)

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Almost everything on the page was in Arabic-very similar to this. (But, joke is on you, you funny hackers-this is the Lord’s prayer in Arabic. Boo yeah.)

I scrolled down even further to read a few sentences in English, touting how horrible America is and how great Syria and Palestine are. (Since when did they become friends?)

The hacker made death threats to all U.S. citizens, collectively and individually. Turds.

I called, texted and emailed my wonderful web guy. Sorry, Cole. I might have been freaking out a little.

But, just a little.

My web guy had his hands full dealing with terrorism and a crashing server on one side and this on the other. I wonder which he would have preferred?

The rest of the weekend my site looked like this. What’s that? You don’t see anything. Yep, that about sums it up.

I would like to say that my immediate reaction was enjoying the forced blogging vacation and casting my cares on the Lord. The reality was-it took me about 5 hours to get to that point and actually believe it.

And a glass of red wine.

But, hey-that’s down from the 5,000 hours that I freaked out when my site took a nose dive in 2011 with absolutely no recovery option. So, I think I’m doing pretty good…

I contacted these guys, and I will admit, I felt a little Nancy Drew about the whole matter. Side note-did you know the FBI actually emails you back when you email them?
The FBI had real people that cared about this bizarre midwest blogging wife. They aren’t just some vest sporting, coffee drinking, cool sunglass wearing, entity driving around in a bad sedan and hanging out at the White House.

 

And that’s where I’ll leave you. My web guy jumped through several hoops and I am back up and running. The FBI has probably moved on to bigger fish.

But, if this joker gets caught, you will be the first(s) to know. Thanks for sticking this out and seeing me through this.

I am anti-terrorist.

Since my site was taken over by terrorist this weekend, I haven’t been able to post, look at comments, or enjoy blogging. I will fill you in on this more later. Right now, I am tired and need to attend to the few grays that have sprung up due to my site suddenly being a hostage to some Anti-American regime.

This is just a quick post to let all of you know where I stand on terrorism. Briefly stated-I am against it. In all of its forms, in all of its capacities, in all of its stupidities, I think terrorism stinks.

I am so thankful to live in the United States. I am thankful for all of the men and women that have given their lives so that I can be free.

And, I’m so thankful for all of the sweet facebook, twitter and text messages you guys sent to me while this was all hitting the proverbial fan.

Garden Critter Deterrent-Bunnies in particular

My garden is well underway. Weeks of planning, preparation and coddling have brought me to this point. My vegetables are in the beautiful black earth, soaking up the nutrients from my composter. The gathered rainwater is providing the moisture and my song is providing the incentive to grow.

However, there is a devil afoot.

Sure, he looks cute. Sure, he’s furry. Sure, I even talked about how wonderful it was to have a bunny in my backyard.

But did you know that bunnies also like to eat my plants-the ones that I’ve toiled over, loved on and kept safe from hail storms? Bunnies love to nibble-and I will admit, they look pretty darn cute doing so-but they are destroying my garden. Something must be done!

Enter Garlic Salt and Chili Pepper in mass quantities. Bunnies do not like sniffing these two substances. In fact, they tell the other bunnies to stay far away.

I sprinkle a little of each around the base of my plants and around the perimeter of my garden.

As the bunny checks the wind for potential vegetable and leafy prey, the garlic and chili pepper reach their delicate noses and they take off for greener, less spicy pastures.

I reapply the spices after a heavy rain.

I don’t mind sharing. But after three destroyed pepper plants attributed to this very cute little bunny, I chose to go the humane route and spice it up.

Let’s not talk about the alternative offered by Biceps.

Guess who’s back?

I have had so many wonderful emails, facebook messages, texts, etc. sent my way about our little Maxwell being sick. He has had us scared for quite some time. Even the doctors were scared. That’s never a good sign.

His white blood cell count was low and he had a 105 degree temperature (apparently, 101 is the normal temperature for a kitty). He was moaning, panting and dry heaving for days. We had to feed him watered down canned cat food with a syringe and he wasn’t stoked about that process. Nor was he stoked about the process of having his temperature taken.

I have the scratches to prove it.

After a visit to the vet on Saturday, an emergency visit at 2am Monday morning and a 9pm emergency visit that same Monday night, we thought we might lose him. There was absolutely no reason behind what was going on in his tiny, furry body.

We prayed. We pleaded. We asked our friends and family to pray.

My anxiety level rose to an unhealthy level and the Lord reminded me that anxiety is not of God. He brought to mind 1 Peter 5:7 which says, “Cast ALL your cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you.”

I resigned to trust Him, to let go of my control, to understand there was no understanding and to rest in my Savior’s arms.

Maxwell is home, resting. We are believing for a full recovery-he hasn’t been declared “healed” by the doctors, but I declare him healed in Jesus’ name. But even if he isn’t, I will trust in my God. (Daniel 3:17 & 18)