It's that time again...

Yup, I have another hoax/scam to watch out for. This one is more like the last one I wrote about in that it's a real thing you need to watch out for.

Apparently certain crooks will get your cell phone number and send it a message saying that your debit card is locked, and you need to call to unlock it. Please don't test it out to see if this is real or not (not smart), but call your bank to make sure your cards are all ok.

That's it for now!

Happy Holidays!

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image and info from lifehacker

Loning the Lone Star Trail

Halloween this year turned out to be a blast! It was on the same day it normally is every year, except it just took me awhile to get around to posting about it. I decided to go backpacking along the Lone Star Trail in Sam Houston National Forest! I finally got to test out my shiny new equipment (not actually shiny, just new-ish). 

This was my first solo backpacking adventure, so I wanted to make sure I didn't mess anything up or get lost or anything like that. I followed protocol on informing people where I'd be and when, and called the ranger office to get tips and advice (thank you Shelly). Good thing I did that too; it was hunting season, so I had to deck out in all orange.

I got all my gear packed up and water filled and rolled out early Saturday morning. I wasn't too sure what I'd be running into, but I tried to pick a lofty goal for mileage and hopefully in a good part. The goal: 13 miles along miles 45 and 58 of the LST (a little info here- the lone star trail is a 130 mile thru-hiking trail)

The trail was filled with lots of pine trees, aluminum tree tags to mark the way, and, best of all, silence. I forget how silent nature can be, and how beautiful it is. Despite not having a nice lake, valley, hills, mountain, water formation, or rock formation to look forward to having the opportunity to hike and be with the earth in its natural noise was perfect. There were the occasional squirrels romping and deers be frightened, and at night, it was silence mixed with a symphony of coyote calls on both sides of my camp.

It turns out after a day of hiking with a semi-heavy load (~30 lbs.), your body may get a little sore the next day. Getting started made me feel like an old man, but once my body got used to the weight again, I was off to head back to my car.

On the return trip, during the road hiking portions of the trail, I ran into a few other people driving and asking me if I was lost. I had to inform them that I was actually on a trail, but it just looks like a road to other people.

I made it back in one piece, and only wetted my appetite for my next outdoor adventure!

check out my Web Albums for more pictures

A real threat

Maybe you saw that I had written an earlier post on "Hoax Emails"? Well it's time another one! Except this one is a threat!

So I've never personally received this one, but know this one has a particularly high success rate at scamming people because of it's credibility. Maybe you've heard it...

It says that a friend of yours is out travelling in a foreign land and are mugged. From there, they have no way of getting money and need you and the rest of the victim's friends to wire it to them through "their" Western Union account. This new scam is smart enough to create an email address for you using your first and last name and maybe even birthday as numbers, and send it out to the hacked person's contacts based on social networks and their friends. Typically the victim gets hacked through what's called "clickjacking" (I think). So be wary of clicking on a stray add when on Facebook.

Pretty intense and crazy! If you happen to see this email notify your friend that sent you this. If you want to read more about where I heard it from, there's an article here (it's ok... that link is not a scam, I promise!)

Low-Tech Tuesdays

Happy December! It's the beginning of a new month, and with that I would like to bring up a challenge that I will be partaking in and if you think it's for you, give it a shot too. For each Tuesday that comes up, I will be challenging myself to have Tuesdays as low-tech as possible.

In a world where everyone is increasingly more connected to the internet and TV, it's nice to take a break from that, and be a little simpler and not flood our eyes with light from an LCD/LED screen (CRT's too, but you're probably good at taking breaks). The idea is to be simple.

What does that mean?

On Tuesdays, do not use extraneous technology that is not a basic functionality to living and carrying out everyday tasks.

Does watching TV help to keep you alive? Sane, maybe, but alive? Probably not.
Same with your computer (no internet, games, facebook (yes I realize that is on the internet...), youtube, etc).
Texting or phone calls should be only what's necessary, and stay off of it for other things (unless you need to use the calculator or are lost and need to use a compass-app (GPS would probably work well too, maybe even a phone call)).
At work, try to keep your use of technology to just work, and take breaks other ways than web-browsing.

What to do instead? Get outside. Read. Draw. Journal. Craft. Meditate. Ponder the state of yourself in the world. If you are having issues coming up with ideas, keep focused and sit around and think, something will hit you.

This is only for one day of the week for one month (so 4 days), so it's a small challenge. Good luck!