Late in the summer season and after extensive lobbying from my lovely wife, we purchased a small above-ground swimming pool for our backyard. The idea was to provide a safe place for our daughter to enjoy water sports with her friends.

I suspect that everyone knows by now that the business traveling life isn’t glamorous. On a recent trip to San Juan, as the clouds rolled in for the daily afternoon deluge that is typical for a Puerto Rican summer, I realized that the only real beauty in air travel is watching the clouds as the plane descends into the greater Chicagoland area, and I’m almost home.

After a recent trip to southwestern Michigan I accidentally discovered three important facts: First, the lake my house is on actually has no bottom, which I found out when I slipped off the wet dock and sunk up to my wallet in oozing muck. The second discovery was that carrying my trusty old Nokia cell phone in my cargo pocket wasn’t a great idea, as the water and muck killed the device. And third, after obtaining a new phone from my provider, I found out that I didn’t like the new phone and I am still struggling with its features and functionality.

In church one Sunday, my mind wandered during the assistant pastor’s sermon on the Seven Deadly Sins. I realized a couple of key issues: first, that I might be guilty of sloth (whatever that is), and also that there are a number of mistakes that can be made in connecting IP devices to clients’ networks that can cause serious problems for their network communications. So let’s take a look at the Seven Deadly IP Programming and Installation Sins that can render our customers’ networks and/or our IP security devices hors de combat.

As I get older I seem to be spending more time and money at my various physicians’ offices, where I am regularly poked, prodded, and dosed with pills to either detect or prevent the health issues that plague the new millennium baby boomer.