Disneyland 2024

Posted on October 20, 2024 by Carmelo

We spent a pretty awesome week over in California to have some fun in Disneyland. Jaime and I got there a little earlier than our friends so that we could spend our own time wandering the park and buying stuff that we wanted to get.

Our first day in Disneyland, we actually did everything that I wanted to do! We walked our feet off and hit up every ride and every store that we had on our “to do” list. So the rest of the time there was a bonus! Since long before our Disney World trip, over a year ago, I was researching some ADA stuff and found an Instagram channel called Magic With Thomas, who is a nice young man who has non-verbal autism, and we ran into him! That was so cool!

Here are some pictures from the day we arrived into California, we just ate and walked around Downtown Disney.

The following are from our actual first day in the Disneyland park.

We met our friends who drove up that same night of our first Disney day and had a coffee with them. We were all so excited about the next couple days.

The following are from our day in Disney California Adventure (DCA) where we got to dress up a little for the Oogie Boogie Bash. We walked the park, did some rides, and ate some foods! We also got some photos and did some trick or treating.

Our last park day was on a Friday and it was back to Disneyland to repeat day one but this time with our friends. My feet were so sore! We averaged about 12 miles a day, plus standing around which probably hurt more than the walking.

The second last day we were in California, some of us got a little sick and while we were supposed to go to the fashion district of LA for some fabrics, Jaime and I had a much welcomed lazy day where we sat in bed and rested our feet.

Definitely a super fun trip!

Posted in Security Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Disneyland 2024

Horror Fest

Posted on October 12, 2024 by Carmelo

I finally got to meet 2 more Hackers. Horror Fest was much smaller than I thought it would be. The whole con is tiny and the lines for photos didn’t even exist. I basically followed Renoly and Laurence right in and stood next to them, I thanked them for their inspiration, and we took our photo. The photographer made comments on the shirt I wore.

It was pretty nice though, when we walked in, our friends, Tom, Kim, Carmen and Jason met us at the door and we had a great little chat. We did some shopping in the vendor hall and because it was so small, we had to walk it 3-4 times.

Posted in Security Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Horror Fest

Nashville Work Trip

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Carmelo

A few months ago we planned to get our senior leadership team together for an onsite in Nashville. I flew out the night before and so did a couple of my peers. It was different than the our normal set up. We got to work closely together and we had a lot of good quality work!

While we did do a lot of hard work, we also did a lot of dinner meetings with vendors and local workers. HR came along and we got to build on our work relationships. It was cool.

Posted in Security Blog, Work | Tagged , | Comments Off on Nashville Work Trip

Damien’s 28th Birthday Weekend

Posted on September 8, 2024 by Carmelo

Starting on September 6th, after work, I met up with Damien and Preston for birthday dinner. It was pretty cool having some beers with these two guys and just chatting. We eventually started talking about video game consoles and I’ll take their advice!

I had a stupid filter on so its hard to see Preston and I just quickly snapped it without looking

There was a little anxiety that I wasn’t aware of the next day when we tried indoor skydiving! Let’s just say that Damien and I really enjoyed it and had a blast doing so!

Afterwards, we had the open afternoon so we ended up going to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and it was great!

The next day, we went to the lake, but unfortunately our boat didn’t start and we had to pack up and come back home. We did a fun pool day instead.

Posted in Event | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Damien’s 28th Birthday Weekend

Tucson Comic Con 2024

Posted on September 2, 2024 by Carmelo

First, I want to say today is my son’s 28th birthday!! My gosh, he’s getting older.

Okay, so on the 30th of this month, Jaime and I drove out to Tucson and did our usual check in at the hotel attached to the convention center. They moved the main entrance for the con to be right near the door of the hotel, so that was super convenient! After a quick unpacking, we went and toured the con and did some pre-shopping. We found Brian and Allysen fairly quickly. We hit as many vendors and saw as many friends we could and got pictures with them. After they closed down for the night, we had dinner in the bar and got to peep at Jimmy Hart and Doug Jones. Jimmy happened to be staying a couple doors over from us.

The next day, bright and early, our friends Angela, Jonathan, and Justin drove out and we all met in our room as we prepped for the day. We did our Cinderalla cosplay and again I had a lot of silly fun acting out. I channeled Kelly from the shoes meme, and Sheneneh Jenkins from the tv show, Martin. We got a lot of photos taken of us and some video too.

We joined the panel discussion with Doug Jones and of course, Angela and Jaime got a photo op with him and he invited us all to join it. What a nice man!

After closing out for the night and seeing everyone go home, Allysen/Brian and Jaime/I hung out in the lobby until we couldn’t stay up any later.

The next day, we simply just shopped and hung out. Behold! My stuff!

Qimir’s Armor
Snake Eye’s Arashikage sword

For dinner, we met up with Johanna and had Ethiopian food.

The next day, we checked out and met up with Sam and Marie from our Phoenix ukulele group before heading home.

Posted in Event, Vacation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Tucson Comic Con 2024

Dark Ones “Cleopatra’s Curse”

Posted on August 24, 2024 by Carmelo

About this time every year, we go to the Dark Ones party, its one of our friends birthday and its usually at his house. Its a good time and we enjoy hanging with friends and making new ones.

The theme this year was Egyptian and Jaime and I haven’t wore our Egyptian garb in a long time… One of our very first cosplays together!

After a bit, we ended up just hanging out in the pool for most of the night.

The next day, we went over to help clean up, it was nearly a whole day affair to put things away. I know we were appreciated to help do the clean up.

Posted in Event, Party | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Dark Ones “Cleopatra’s Curse”

Uncle Click

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Carmelo

I found my Uncle! Its been too many years!

After getting back with him, mom and I had a video conference with him.

Posted in life | Tagged , | Comments Off on Uncle Click

Courtney and Jolyn

Posted on August 4, 2024 by Carmelo

We got to hang out with our sisters, Courtney and Jolyn, and Courtney was visiting from Michigan! It was really nice to hang out and catch up!

Posted in life | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Courtney and Jolyn

Hackers Movie: Matthew Lillard

Posted on July 14, 2024 by Carmelo

In 1995, the movie Hackers, came out and I was already interested in computers and knew that I would make that my career when I got out of the Marine Corps. My computer interest turned into a job in information technology which has turned into a career in Cybersecurity. Yesterday I got to meet Cereal Killer, Matthew Lillard.

Hack the Planet!!!

Posted in Security Blog | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Hackers Movie: Matthew Lillard

Fourth of July Weekend Party

Posted on July 6, 2024 by Carmelo

With the fourth of July being on a Thursday, we postponed getting everyone to come over to celebrate for the weekend. We had a lot of fun and Jaime made some really delicious food.

We had some new friends come over and that was pretty nice. Slowly growing our group of friends and making sure everyone gets along ;)

Posted in Event, Party | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fourth of July Weekend Party