A well known security lock specialist and lock picking hobbyist Barry “The Key” Wels recently joined the blog community by starting his own blog.

Barry is a Netherlands native, where he is the national lockpicking champion. It takes him about 10 seconds to open the kind of lock you might use to secure your luggage.

Bigger locks might take Barry a minute or two. He’s a master at the art of lockpicking.

Lockpicking competitions are rare and often underground in the United States, but are common in Europe, where Wels is a frequent contender. He is also president of a lockpicking club with about 75 members that meet weekly to test their skills against new locks.

I first posted about Barry on May 14, 2005 where he demonstrated how easy it is to open a Kensington laptop lock using a roll of toilet paper, gaffer tape, and a pen. It’s pretty amazing and I’ve tried it myself and it does work with a little practice.

Barry is the founder and president of Toool, a lockpick sportgroup in the Netherlands. Toool stands for “The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers“.

Besides picking locks Toool members also study locks, sometimes finding huge and previously unpublished flaws.

Needless to say that the lock industry is not always too happy, although Toool feels they should be.

Lately, some smarter lock companies have started asking Toool what they think of a lock before commencing mass-production.

To find out more about Barry, check out his blog or the Toool website.

On June 30, 2006 I posted about spending time with family, friends and playing with my Radio Controlled Cars and of course I had my digital camera in hand to take a few pictures.

As seen in the pictures below, we went out to the Pasadena, California Rose Bowl parking lot for a nice wide open space to race the cars around without crashing into anything or anyone. Yes, it does happen. A couple years ago I broke my right front wheel off in the first 5 minutes of racing when I smashed into the curb on a small residential street, so now it’s all about huge parking lots.

In the first picture, you can see the Rose Bowl has a huge American Flag hanging below the sign to celebrate the 4th of July. America is celebrating 230 years of freedom and our independence:

In the next picture you can see my fast car. I think the top speed for it is around 45 miles per hour. It’s 4 wheel drive. Woot. The 10 turn electric motor really makes it fly. Gas powered or Nitro powered cars to me are a lot more maintenance:

Last but not least in the next picture you can see me off roading with my truck kicking up a nice dirt cloud. I was doing donuts and jumping rocks. It was a lot of fun. My truck could use a new motor for some needed increase in speed but for now the 15 turn motor works just fine:

As a side note, the weather in Pasadena was in the low 100’s. Yeah, it was very hot. The motors were running really hot so we had little fans to blow on them in between switching out battery packs.

Independence Day celebrates the birthday of the United States of America. Founded July 4th 1776, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America is celebrating it’s 230th birthday this year.

The 4th of July is a time for the Red White and Blue. A time for Picnics, Parades and Marching Bands. A time for Beaches, BBQs and “Bombs Bursting in Air”.

To celebrate the upcoming 4th of July, I’m out of town for the next few days spending time with family, friends and trying to stay away from the computer for a couple of days. I will be checking email at least once a day and maybe posting too. I’m actually posting this message from over 400+ miles away from my home. Yay laptops and technology.

Anyway, I hope my fellow Americans have a fun and safe 4th of July weekend. I’ll post more about my weekend plans later and now to go play with my RC truck and car…

I agree 100% with this girls shirt as seen below:

She may not be perfect but some parts of her are pretty awesome. I mean just look at the size of the bottle of Jack Daniels

Here are some words of wisdom I’d like to dedicate to someone who use to be a friend of mine:

“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.”

– Henry Rollins

These are good words of wisdom for anyone to think about. Henry Rollins, you are my hero!

If someone would have presented an XBOX 360 for me and my friends 20 years ago, I’m pretty sure we probably would have fainted.

When you compare similar games from the mid-eighties with today’s top notch video and computer games, the difference in graphics is quite amazing.

Here’s an interesting comparison of 5 games from the 80’s with todays killer games:

Double Dribble (Nintendo, 1987) vs. NBA Live’06 (XBOX 360, 2006)

Karate Champ (Nintendo, 1986) vs. DOA 4 (XBOX 360, 2006)

Tennis (Nintendo, 1983) vs. Top Spin 2 (XBOX 360, 2006)

Rad Racer (Nintendo, 1987) vs. PGR 3 (XBOX 360, 2005)

Punch Out (Nintendo, 1987) vs Fight Night round 3 (XBOX 360, 2006)

I still love the classics. Time to blow the dust off my Nintendo. Ah, 8 bit graphics. The good old days