Monday, August 25, 2008

Back at my Desk

I’m finally home from a 3-city in 3 days tour covering Atlanta, New York, and Chicago. Beyond the excellent turn out for the WH/F5 lunch and learn presentations, I’m always fond of the extracurricular activity. Since I’m still injured, visiting new BJJ academies was out of the question, so instead I substituted the time with food. Fortunately I was able to do so with meals that fit within my high protein low-carb diet (208 lbs is the goal). 30lbs to go!

In Atlanta there was Fogo de Chão, a stellar upscale all-you-can-eat Brazilian BBQ restaurant, that served 15 types of fire-roasted meats brought to your table sizzling on skewers. Now that’s hard to beat. In New York we stopped by my all-time favorite steak place, Smith & Wollensky, for a Colorado bone-in ribeye. The waiter said it was the most flavorful meat in the world, I’m thinking he was right.

Chicago, I left the venue selection to the OWASP Chicago Chapter locals. But before that Cory Scott and Jason Witty invited me deliver an encore performance of “Get Rich or Die Trying” at the recommendation of Ed Bellis (Thank you). The cool thing about that particular talk is afterwards people always clue me into other business logic flaws they’ve encountered. It’s really good content to add, especially if it involves money. For me I was excited to see the presentations by Mike Zussman and Nate McFeters since I didn’t get to see either talk at Black Hat. 

Afterwards we went out for drinks with several people including Nate McFeters, Thomas Ptacek, Shrikant Raman, and a dozen others. The appetizers were decent, but I think the chose the place more for the beer than anything else. Chicago probably has one of the more friendly and vibrant chapters around. Anyway, it’s good to be back home. I got to do some modest BJJ training over the weekend, play in the GGAFL finals (we got spanked badly), and hit some rides with the kids at Great America. Now off to do the expense reports. Yay! ;)

9 comments:

Jarrod said...

You're not the only infosec professional into BJJ. Come down to Melbourne and we'll get you on the mat and afterwards, take you to an AFL match for a beer. :)

Jeremiah Grossman said...

Hi Jarrod, that is something I've come to find out over the years. I've counted no less than 50 infosec people all into BJJ/MMA. There's even a LinkedIn group for them :). And if I end up going to Australia anytime soon, I'll be posting it because I'm all about the extra curricular activities. :) Thanks much for the invite!

Rafal Los said...

Hey Jeremiah - good to have you out the other night... sorry you couldn't drink beers - but Rock Bottom Brewery has some of the finest in the area.

Next time, Gadget, next time.

Jeremiah Grossman said...

rafal, ya man, that was fun! And I still managed to get a free beer sampler didn't I? :)

Anonymous said...

Sorry I missed you guys for drinks. I made it back to the bar too late. I'll have to agree with you and give props to Chicago: great city, and a great owasp chapter.

Shoaib Yousuf said...

Jeremiah,

You had pretty busy and good time.

I agree with jarrod, come to Australia mate :)

You will definitely have a good time.

See you soon in future...

Jarrod said...

I'm looking for this LinkedIn group right now. Cheers. Hope to see you in AU some day.

HCE said...

FYI There is a spectacular upscale Brazilian BBQ joint here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Its on the 2nd floor of Al Faisaliyah Hotel (the shorter of the two tall buildings here). Its called Il Terazzo and expect to pay about 580 SAR for two people. Its outdoors, but the heat and dust is defeated with periodic spritzes from a huge misting system.

Its one of the few things that make life enjoyable here in Riyadh.

Jeremiah Grossman said...

If I ever find myself in SA, I'll be there! Thank you for the tip!