When It Rains It Pours

It's always good to be prepared. I try to be prepared for situations that may arise both in my professional and personal life. I look at potential threats and issues that may arise and see what I need to do to be prepared. That's part of any good security program. Having controls in place to prevent a breach or reduce it's impact are important in securing a network, web site or application. Doing preventive maintenance on your systems (patching, monitoring, etc) will help ensure that they are in shape to prevent holes that can be compromised.

Similarly at home I check for leaks around windows and doors. Change my HVAC filters, maintain my vehicles to ensure that they run properly. There are many, many things that need to be taken into consideration to ensure that you prevent problems and are prepared in case they occur.

On Friday I had an incident happen that I wasn't prepared for. I had left work about 2:45 in the afternoon to ensure that I missed the bulk of the terrible Atlanta Friday afternoon traffic. I'm traveling up the interstate when I hear a loud roar coming from my Jeep. I immediately turn of my radio and start checking for smoke or flying parts in my rear view mirror. I quickly pull to the side of the road and discover that I have a flat tire. So I get out my jack and lug wrench and start removing the flat tire. I get it off and grab the spare (one of those crappy temporary tires) and the first thing I notice is that it is also flat. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that by this time it is now raining VERY hard. So I'm getting soaked while changing one flat for another.

I go ahead and put the spare on and then walk back to the drivers side of the car to get in. I had forgotten that my windows was down so now my drivers seat is also soaked. I then call the Georgia Department of Transportation to inform them of my situation. One of the good things about living in Atlanta is that they have incident response trucks to assist stranded motorist.
After about a 45 minute wait my HERO (Highway Emergency Response Operations) arrives and puts air in my tire and I'm on my way home. Of course now I have to sit in traffic because by this time it's about 4:30.

So, what did I learn? It's the little things that can bite you. Not keeping an eye on the air pressure in my spare cost me time and a headache. What is there at work that is possible being overlooked that may come back to bite me in the butt? Unfortunately I don't know what it is right off but I'm going to start looking at those little things a little closer.