iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/10/2026

Since it's cybersecurity awareness month, we're required to do our annual cybersecurity training again. This module and quiz question is particularly ironic to encounter this week. arstechnica.com/security/2026/10/th…

A quiz question from a SANS training module where the question is "What does HTTPS mean?" and the available answers are:
"The website cannot be infected by a third-party attacker's code."
"Data transmitted between the browser and web server is encrypted."
"The customer has been authorized to access sensitive data on the website."

There is then a button that says "Submit Answer" and another button that says "Finish Quiz"

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/10/2026

I am so tempted by this, but the price is a bit much for a popcorn bucket, even if it is awesome and collectible. The #Alamo is running 2 #Toho #Godzilla films over the next few weeks. One of them is Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, and you can add this […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A screenshot from the Alamo Drafthouse website showing a photo of a popcorn bucket that looks like Mechagodzilla's head. The heading below the photo says: "Mechagodzilla Popcorn Bucket". The description text is as follows:
"While supplies last, add the Alamo-exclusive Mechagodzilla Popcorn Bucket to your ticket. This 7” x 10” x 10.5” plastic popcorn vessel is ready to reign supreme on your shelf or face off against your Godzilla Popcorn Bucket. Pick yours up at the box office before your showtime. Any item not picked up within 30 days will be beheaded."

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/10/2026

If you believe the folklore about Wooly Bears (or whatever you call them) and their predictions for winter, I don't think this is a good sign.

A photo of a "Wooly Bear" on a concrete floor. The animal is completely black, with no brown stripe at all.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/09/2026

This little critter has been hanging out above our hummingbird feeder for the past couple of days, defending its territory from other hummingbirds in the area. It gets downright brutal whenever any other hummingbirds come near.

A hummingbird with green accents sits atop a metal post where a hummingbird feeder is hanging below

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Daughtry just took the stage at the Great Frederick Fair.

A photo of Chris Daughtry and his band on stage with fog surrounding them.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/07/2026

Here's a compressed version of the video I took of the damage this afternoon.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/07/2026

There's a DeLorean parked right in front of our local Starbucks this morning. We don't see too many of them, that's for sure. It definitely looks like it is a real DeLorean, and not a kit car built on top of something else. If it is a kit car, it's a really, really good job of it.

A photo of the rear of a DeLorean with the driver's side gull wing door open

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 07/07/2026

So far, this has been about the most evenly matched game I've seen in a very long time, and it's not just the appearance of matching up on the pitch, the stats bear it out.

A screenshot of stats for the Colombia Switzerland match.

Swiss have 2 shots on goal, 52% possession, 16 fouls, 2 yellows, and 4 offsides calls

Colombians have 3 shots on goal, 48% possession, 19 fouls, 2 yellows, and 4 offsides calls

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 14/04/2026

Just a reminder that, around here at least, we no longer have "spring" as a season. Instead, we just have alternating summer and winter during what used to be spring.

A screenshot of a weather forecast with the following temperatures:
Wednesday: high of 90, low of 64
Thursday: high of 89, low of 64
Friday: high of 79, low of 55
Saturday: high of 84, low of 58
Sunday: high of 61, low of 39
Monday: high of 55, low of 33

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026

@jcrabapple quite possibly my favorite typo I've seen in a very long time.

A screenshot from the article of the following text:
"This caused the satellite to enter a “cold state” with low power and no attitude control shortly after launch, resulting"

I believe the word "attitude" is supposed to be "altitude".

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/01/2026

About 5 hours later, and the accumulation has actually gone down a little bit. We're back down to about 6" of snow, since all the freezing rain has weighed it down. Luckily, the snow itself was extremely light and fine, so it's still not horrible, but it […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A photo of a backyard covered in snow. The snow is about 6" deep.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/01/2026

This is what we're looking at so far. I'm guessing we're up to about 8" of snow at this point. It sounds like we'll probably end up with about 12" total. For about the past hour or so, there's been freezing rain falling with it.

A photo of a backyard covered in snow. An old charcoal grill sits in the foreground with a shed further away and some chairs nearby, lying on the ground.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 24/01/2026

Looking at the weather map, it appears that nearly half of the Continental US is supposed to get walloped by this incoming winter storm. That's simply amazing.

A screenshot of a weather map of the Continental US where much of the country is shaded either pink or red, indicating severe or extreme winter weather. The westernmost portion of the shaded area is near Santa Fe, New Mexico and, in the West/Midwest, it covers most of the southern half of the country. As you look east, it is shaded from Georgia up to Maine.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/01/2026

"Donald Trump violated the Constitution..." In other news, water is wet.

A screenshot of a headline from Newsweek that says: "Donald Trump violated the Constitution, federal judge rules"

The headline is followed by a byline that reads:

"Story by Adeola Adeosun - 2h"

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 17/12/2025

Facebook finally served me an ad that's relevant to me. If you're interested, it looks like the shirt is $29.99 lunatique.net/products/a-skull-but-…

A screenshot of an ad from Facebook with a photo of a T-shirt with a skull on it, but the skull is made as a mosaic of cat faces. The caption at the top of the ad says "A skull, but it's cats. Wait, wut?"

The ad is for a site called lunatique.net.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 09/12/2025

The contrails in the sky in front of me right now are absolutely wild. Looks like the crack in time that featured during Matt Smith's time as Doctor Who.

A photo of the sky with a fence and some bare trees in the foreground, and some mountains in the background. The contrails from 2 jets appear to come together at a perfect angle approximately 30-40 degrees.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/12/2025

@jcrabapple Yeah, it's really making me reconsider where I want to stream my music from. It completely ruins my weekly "new arrivals" playlist. For instance, look at this screenshot and tell me which of these singles is actually by Nero (the British EDM […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A screenshot from the Tidal app interface showing singles associated with the group "Nero". Of the 24 covers shown in the screenshot, only 1 of them is actually by that group. The rest appear to be AI-generated singles.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/11/2025

Put up the Christmas tree this afternoon. Nemo seems to be enthralled by it.

A photo of an artificial Christmas tree standing in a corner. The tree is green with white lights and flocking, and stands 7.5 feet tall. Next to it is an ottoman with a blanket on it. A cat lays on the ottoman staring directly at the tree.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 25/10/2025

It took 4 and a half hours to put it together (after waiting a week for a missing piece to arrive), but we did get our new shed put together. It looks nice; hopefully it will hold up. Thankfully, we got the platform put together a few weeks ago, so we didn't have to do that today, too.

A photo of the front of a plastic shed with a wood look. The 2 doors on the front are a dark grey/brown, with a handle on the right door. The shed is about 7 foot by 7 foot square, and is about 8 feet tall in the front. It is sitting on top of an 8 by 8 wooden platform.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 05/10/2025

In case you're curious, this is what Jiffy Lube Live (our nearest major concert venue) sells as a "souvenir" cup. On the plus side, this cup full of soda cost half what it cost to buy a can of water.

A photo of a cheap plastic cup that's mostly frosted white with a small clear band at the top. Written vertically on the cup is the word "soda" in all caps in black.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2025

A snapshot of my "New Arrivals" playlist on Tidal this morning. What year is it? New music from Capital Cities, twenty one pilots, Sponge (though, after listening to this, I'm pretty sure this is another example of some random new artist grabbing an […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A screenshot from the Tidal desktop app showing a table with the following entries:

"So Be So Mine" by Capital Cities
"Garbage" by twenty one pilots
"TMS" by Sponge
"Terrified" by Daughtry
"One Foot in Front of the Other" by Passenger
"Beautiful Colors" by OneRepublic

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2025

Here are some photos of the finished product. The wooden base is anchored into the ground with a few pieces of rebar and a few steel spikes, then the shed is anchored to the platform with lag screws. Hopefully it won't go anywhere anytime soon.

A photo of the front of a tall vinyl shed on a wooden platform

A side view of a tall vinyl shed on a wooden platform

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2025

The other morning, I was the first one out of bed. While I was sitting around, I heard some loud squawking or quacking. I looked around and didn't see anything outside anywhere. I figured out that the sound must be coming from some kind of frog. After […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A photograph of 2 frogs. 1 is on the side of a porch light; the other is on the wall next to it.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 13/08/2025

The sun didn't really come out today, but it did at least stop raining long enough for us to take 2 walks on the beach. At the moment, tomorrow morning is supposed to be sunny, so, hopefully we'll be able to actually spend some time down there.

A photograph of a beach, with a handful of folks sitting in the sand with umbrellas or canopies.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/07/2025

I realize it's not that big of a deal, but, for the first time since our solar power came online in Nov of last year, we've generated more solar power than we've used from the electric company (over the life of the system). We've had plenty of days when […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A screenshot from the Enphase app showing that we've imported 10.7 mWh of power since our system went online, exported 10.7 mWh, produced 15.1 mWh, and "net exported" 33.6 kWh.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 26/05/2025

There is a family of foxes living on our neighbor's property. They wander all over the area, playing in various people's yards. While they're super cute and it's adorable to watch them play, I'm not super excited about them being so close by when our cat likes to roam around outside.

A photo of a baby fox sitting in the middle of a gravel road resting.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 22/05/2025

Are you absolutely kidding me? #Pinter (a homebrew beer system, kind of like SodaStream for beer) now has an exclusive #IronMaiden package with a Trooper-branded machine and an Iron Maiden "British Beer". I am so tempted, but I honestly think it would end […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A screenshot of a website showing a Pinter machine with "Trooper" printed on the handle and the Iron Maiden Trooper mascot on the barrel. A pint glass with the Trooper is sitting next to it.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 16/05/2025

We did it again! Somehow, we were able to pull off a last minute trivia victory last night at 50/50 to win our 4th game in a row. We did end up facing off against another team in a double-tiebreaker to get there, though.

A caption of 4 people standing under a banner that says "50/50 Taphouse". The woman in the front is holding a wooden trophy. All 4 people are holding up 4 fingers in the photo.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/04/2025

Tonight, I'll be guest-hosting trivia at Winchester Brew Works. It's "Game of Thrones" themed, so come out, test your knowledge, and laugh at how badly I mess up some of the pronunciations of people, places and things related to the show. Trivia starts at 6:30. #WinchesterVA #trivia

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/04/2025

After we finished trivia tonight and sat down at the bar, I looked across and saw this piece of artwork. Apparently the guy who created it didn't actually even realize he'd created art out of his used paper towel, but he definitely did.

A photograph of a paper towel crumpled up into the shape of a lying, horned animal. I thought it looked like a resting deer, but another person decided it looked like a dragon, which is also totally reasonable.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 01/04/2025

We (and by, "we", I actually mean our 2 friends, we were just there to watch them get all the answers) won Star Wars Trivia last night at Winchester Brew Works.

A photo of a couple standing by themselves on the left, 2 guys holding the "staff of knowledge" up in the air in the center, and 3 people bowing down to them on the right.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/03/2025

It's a beautiful evening tonight (actually could be a little cooler, but still nice), so we are roasting hot dogs outside over the fire with the grandkids for dinner tonight.

A woman and a young girl stand by a fire ring roasting hot dogs

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 28/03/2025

We finally have our first billing cycle where we generated more power from #solar than we consumed from the grid. Our electric bill this month is $6. I could get used to this.

A screenshot showing that we imported 1.3mWh of power, produced 2.3mWh of power, exported 1.8mWh of power, consumed 1.8mWh of power, and ended up with a net export of 542.8kWh of power during the billing cycle from Feb 20 to March 20, 2025.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 12/03/2025

For all this talk about AI replacing people, it is still incredibly stupid at times. I posted on Facebook about trivia happening tonight at 7 pm, and facebook's AI suggested I create an event for tomorrow at 5 pm.

A screenshot from Facebook of a post that reads, in part:

"Come join us at The Pub in Bunker Hill tonight for trivia, starting at 7 p.m."

Underneath the post, there is a suggestion from Facebook that I create an event:

"Tomorrow at 5 pm:

Curtiss' event"

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 04/03/2025

According to what I've heard, this place closed permanently late last week (they were apparently bought out by someone else, and will open under a new name and new ownership in a few months), but they sent out an email blast this morning advertising their […] [Original post on higheredweb.social]

A screenshot of an email from "Slices Pizza Bar" in Winchester, Virginia encouraging me to try their best sellers today.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2025

Not a terrible billing cycle for our electricity this time. It can and will get better as the days get longer and sunnier, but this isn't too shabby for January/February. Our power bill for this period ended up being $102.19

A screenshot showing that we imported 1.8 mWh of electricity from the grid, exported 1.0 mWh to the grid, produced a total of 1.5 mWh, consumed a total of 2.2 mWh and ended up importing a net total of 744.2 kWh between Jan 24 and Feb 19.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 06/02/2025

I expect better from you, #Jeopardy. Even if it is celebrity Jeopardy! 😂

A screenshot of an email with the subject of "Celebrities face of Tonight for a chance at $1,000,000 for charity!"

Obviously, it's supposed to say "face off" rather than "face of"

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/02/2025

This has been, so far, our best week with solar. I know it will get a whole lot better when summer comes, but, considering it's still winter, I'm not mad about this. We generated about half this week what we generated through the whole month of December.

A screenshot showing that we imported a total of 348 kWh of power, exported a total of 332.7 kWh, consumed a total of 457.3 kWh, produced a total of 442 kWh, and our net import was 15.3 kWh from Jan 27 through Feb 2.

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Curtiss Grymala (he/him/his) @cgrymala.higheredweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 27/01/2025

It's not much, but, I believe yesterday was the first day since our solar power went fully online that we actually produced more than we used. Here's hoping that will happen a whole lot more in the coming months.

A graph showing that, on Jan 26, 2025, we generated a total of 77.9kWh, used a total of 76.9kWh, imported a total of 64.4kWh, exported a total of 65.4kWh, and we had a net export of 1.0kWh for the day.

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