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I’ve been using a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine for about two weeks now as a remedy for sleep apnea and my initial review is mixed.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/zlxj_P3HuH4

The good news: When I have the mask on, I don’t snore. As a result, I’ve slept in the bed for 14 days straight without getting kicked to the couch for making a racket. The bad news: Keeping the mask on properly for the entire night is proving to be a real bitch.

A lot of people who have used a CPAP machine for years told me the machine has made a world of difference in their physical and mental health. A minority told me the machine has been a mixed bag or not helpful at all. I can’t say I feel like a new man, as some described themselves after using the device, but I think that’s because I’ve yet to get a full night’s sleep with the mask properly in place.

I tend to wake up between midnight and 2 a.m. because the head straps are tangled and air is escaping out the mask. Putting it back in place is a complicated task, especially in the dark.

I have an appointment with the sleep doctor this afternoon. I think I’ll make a play for a new mask with a less complicated head strap.

Stay tuned.

Yesterday we dropped our kids off at a new school for the first time. In June, I left a job I was at for five years and started a new one. We didn’t begin 2013 with these changes planned, but here we are.

Mood music:

Going to Akamai was a pretty easy move for me. I joined a team in which I’ve known the boss and several staffers for years. It was also a move that kept me in the security community. But I didn’t plan on a job change in January. Opportunities simply materialized.

The kids changing schools was a more difficult switch. The decision was hard for Erin and me to make, and we had the children’s emotional response to consider.

For  a family that has typically resisted change, it’s quite an adventure.

The kids seemed OK as we left the schoolyard and they entered their new building. But you could tell they were also somewhat dazed, unsure of their surroundings and all those new classmates. Erin and I lingered. We wanted to get back to work, but we wanted to make sure they were all right. This weekend they had two parties with classmates from the old school, which I’m sure made this harder.

I keep telling them it’s going to be great, because they’ll have all their Haverhill friends and will make new friends from different towns on top of that. I told them about my going to a regional high school and being scared out of my wits. But while I was something of an outcast in school, I still managed to make close friends from different, diverse cities, and that expanded my horizons.

The kids weren’t particularly receptive to that. They’ll eventually see what I mean. But not today.

It’s a funny thing about life: All that’s familiar can shift in an instant. But I long ago accepted that change is the law of life. Resist it and drown in the wake.

Sooner or later, our boys will accept that, too.

You see it in every office: People who become enemies because they can’t reconcile their conflicting agendas. I’ve allowed myself to get sucked into it more than once in the last two decades. But I eventually found another approach.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/56vLS_KPp9I

I used to let difficult colleagues get to me. If someone criticized my work or blocked my efforts, a spiral into long bouts of rage and depression came on, which usually gave way to illness. I clashed with one boss so badly that it drove me to the edge of a nervous breakdown. He may have been an asshole, but I lacked the tools to deal with someone like him.

Along the way, I’ve worked with other people who loathed co-workers. One such person would spend the first hour of the day detailing how this person and that person were out to destroy what our team was building. As she saw it, they were enemies, hell-bent on invading our little island and taking over with brutal efficiency. I never saw it that way, but it became increasingly difficult to keep the poison vibes from infecting me.

When your success or failure at work hinges on how well you meet the various goals bosses have set out for you, it’s easy to become that person. But over time, I’ve come to see that the people who seem to be against you aren’t usually acting out of malice. They’ve been handed their own list of goals and are just as worried about what will happen if they fail. They too have families to feed, college tuition to afford and debts to pay off. Some are also burdened with their own illnesses — physical, mental or both.

One eye-opener was in the last job, where one boss — a laid-back, friendly, kind soul — made an observation about difficult people that went something like this: “It’s all good. People with issues are always more interesting to me.” To him, dealing with difficult people was a worthy challenge, which might explain his decision to work with me. If you could work past the difficulties and turn adversaries into friends, you were onto something excellent.

With those words, I found my own approach changing. Instead of giving people with conflicting agendas the stink eye, I tried getting to know them. I sought out our common interests and used those to break the ice. Then we could get past our differences and find ways to compromise.

I’ve also worked hard to see the other person’s side of things: who their boss is, which goals they’re being judged by and where their goals can intersect with mine.

We’re all human. We all carry stress. No matter how much we love what we do, there’s still the occasional, nagging feeling that we might not succeed.

That uncertainty is a simple fact of life. Better to roll with it than drown in its depths.

People have been glued to their TVs this week watching all the news coverage about the birth of a new British royal. I wasn’t one of them, because frankly I couldn’t care less. I have camping to do, and then a business trip to prepare for.

At the same time, I can’t understand why so many people were complaining on the social networks about those who were hooked on the baby watch.

Mood music:

The common complaints went something like this:

• We’re Americans. Our ancestors fought for independence from Britain so we wouldn’t have to care about this shit anymore.
• A lot of serious, newsworthy events took place this week, including a huge prison break in Iraq in which some of the most bloodthirsty terrorists on Earth escaped.
• There’s too much to do in an average day to be distracted by something so trivial.

Fair enough. But shouldn’t we save our indignation for bigger fish? The thing is, there is a lot of seriousness going on out there. We continue to exist in an economy that’s anything but healthy. Violence among the youth is as bad as it’s ever been. Politicians keep letting us down. People keep getting cancer.

If a day or two of distraction over the British royalty helps people forget about all these troubles for a few hours, what’s wrong with that?

The birth of a baby is always a happy event in my book. And it’s fun to watch it happen when the parents are super-famous. In this case, the parents and baby live in a palace. That’s fun to watch, right? People love castles and enjoy stories about kings and queens. And they are doing no harm to those of us who don’t care quite so much.

If a royal baby watch makes you happy for a little while, I say have at it. All your troubles will still be there when you’re done, and maybe the spectacle will be enough of a breather to help you deal with what comes next.

To everyone else, get over it.

I’m Bill Brenner and I approved this message…

Why, you ask? Read the following:

The Bad Pill Kept Me From The Good Pill

The Migraine

What’s Crohn’s Disease Got to do With it?

A Boy’s Life on Prednisone: A Class Photo History

A Link Between Prednisone, Mental Illness

Due to a business trip this coming week, I’m taking a break from new posts. I’ll be writing up a storm in my Salted Hash security blog on CSOonline, so if you’re interested in the subject matter, drop on by.

Have a fantastic week.

–Bill

The author travels to Las Vegas on business, his addictive personality is put to the test and some good friends carry him through it mostly unscathed.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4xaEeuXlXyc3lzYoLYEsAV]

As locations go, Las Vegas is the absolute worst for a guy like me. I have a binge-eating disorder and the place is one massive buffet, which is like laying piles of coke and heroin on the table and inviting me to dig in nose-first. I went sober a couple years ago but there’s free booze everywhere. I quit smoking almost a year ago except for my e-cigs, but you can smoke indoors in Vegas, which makes the temptation to light up overwhelming.

Being on business helps, because during the day I’m too busy interviewing people and writing to worry about the temptations around me. But when the last blog post of the day is written, I start to twitch.

All things considered, I fucking hate Las Vegas. It’s the devil personified, the little bastard who squats on my shoulder all day and encourages me to throw away everything I’ve worked for. I like the endless sunshine and dry air, but the desert temperatures rule out walking around outside. So you’re trapped indoors, with all the booze, food and smoke, like a cockroach stuffed into one of those Roach Motel traps.

I was sloppy for sure. Since I don’t weigh out my food on these trips like I do at home, I’m fairly sure my portions were either under or over where they should be. Since I came back feeling like a bloated slug, I figure it was more of the latter.

But even a shitty place like Las Vegas can’t destroy me when good friends are around. And on this trip, I had no shortage of friends.

There was the guy at Security B-Sides who made sure there was food in the venue that I could eat. There were the folks who didn’t pressure me to light up at the cigar shop because they knew I quit, save for the e-cig, which I leaned on like a motherfucker. There was the friend who invited me to a private gathering and made sure there was plenty of sugar-free Red Bull on hand since I couldn’t drink the alcohol. There was the old friend who went to breakfast with me one morning and chose a place without a buffet, to my everlasting relief. And there were those who kept the interesting conversation going, which kept me from getting bored and, by extension, tempted.

I got through this trip mostly unscathed, thanks to them. And despite my distaste for Vegas, I have to say I enjoyed the hell out of being there. The work was fun. The friends were even more fun.

I was blessed out there. Thanks, guys and gals.

I’m back from Las Vegas and have stories to tell. But first, a reunion with the family at Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Until Monday…