Journal of a Sysadmin

Grass Man!

The one thing I have never really liked about our house was the backyard. It was always so small and the deck looked kind of off, having a second level which was too small to really do much with. I’ve always wanted to do a brick patio but never did anything about it until now!

It started in August with, “oh that won’t cost too much” and ended with 4.5 yards of sand and gravel, 6 yards of black dirt, grass, and shale removed, 12 yards of trash from the deck removal gone, 1700 Holland pavers, 2 bags of masons sand and 38 rolls of sod, a sore back and extremely rough hands.

I have to finish sod one corner and one edge along the patio and then do the railing on the deck and frame in under the deck and side it somehow (still not sure what we’ll do that in). It is rewarding to go into the backyard now and see such a change, we can’t wait till next summer so we can use it.

Christmas Time is Here!

Christmas today was a blast.

Little J had so many presents I think he was overwhelmed. So much so he didn’t get to open all of them and there are still 3 wrapped and under the tree, he could be saving them for tomorrow =).

jhb loved what I got her, though I knew she would. Only problem is there’s a little hack you have to do to the iPod Touch in order to get it to work with Linux and that hack requires the use of iTunes.

Did you know, iTunes won’t work from within a xen VM? It can’t see the USB device I guess. It also won’t work from within wine (I tried both of these). It also will not work on a PowerPC Mac with Darwin, that’s too old. You need at least Tiger to run iTunes and Lepard won’t run on a 733MHz G4… It also will not work on Windows XP base install, which jhb found out about tonight before she was forced to install SP2, just to run iTunes…

Did you also know that we have a grand total of 3 copies of windows in our house. One which is for middle C’s computer, a copy of XP home. I have a copy of XP Pro which was a free (as in beer) copy distributed by M$ at a seminar I went to on storage but it is damaged to the point of being unusable at the moment. The third is for adelle, which is jhb’s old Dell Optiplex, the one she moved here with.

It’s a good thing she had that CD, but cause now (after about 15 hours) she is installing adelle and she will use that to load the 1.1.1 firmware and crack the Jail on the iPood, then upgrade it to 1.1.2 again and we’ll be able to copy data via wireless using gtkpod. Can’t wait to see that work, since it’s been all FREAKING day getting to this point…

Makes me want to *never* purchase anything running any proprietary software on it, evern. I mean why the hell can’t Jobs get them to write a Linux iTunes or at least release enough specs so that the community can flash their iPood without resorting to booting Tiger on a G4.

But jhb likes it, so I guess it’s worth it.

BTW, after the Sony root kit BS, I still haven’t bought much if anything in the way of Sony hardware. I unfortunately can’t see doing that with Mac right now even though they desperately needs their heads pulled out of their asses… Please someone at Apple, make them port some of that to Linux!

Hawai`i

Red earth on my runners.

Hawai`i smells on my shirts.

Sand on my sandals.

We landed yesterday after spending 23 days in my beautiful wifes home. My head is still filled with the feeling of the warmth and the humidity and the smells and the sounds. Now we have Longs Drugs and Times Supermarkets shopping bags in our house, cookies, macadamia nut treats, and gifts. I so wish I could have brought everything else too.

I’ve slept, finished unpacking, checked my mail and checked in with work, started some laundry and still I have a feeling tugging at my heart. I miss all of the `Ohana there, most of all Jaime and Jonah who are there until the end of February (luck and planning should have it that she’s on mat. leave until the end of June).

We arrived at night on December 20th, picked up the car then Puna and Papa lead the we to our first vacation hale, Schrader’s Windward Country Inn. If they have the space and you are there for either a short or long stay you should check this place out. It has decent sized beach house like units very close to the water, ours was actually on the water and the lani was situated so we could sit and have our breakfast and morning coffee looking out over the waves.

Our second hale was equally as beautiful with a view each morning of the mountains and a great quiet run right outside our door. Auntie Nancy’s Plantation Hale was just down the street from Puna and Papa’s house and is in a quiet neighborhood which is still close to the main highways and Temple Valley Mall.

On `Ohana, I have to say thank you to all of them. They have welcomed this socially awkward white guy (who miss pronounces most of the words in their language) and one of his sons with such open arms and kindness it is too wonderful for words. I love you all and will miss you all so much. The spirit of giving and love is so strong in all of your family, it is my privilege to be a part of it. Mahalo to all of you.

I won’t even pretend to remember all off the things we did but the ones I can remember are the most notable. We spent Christmas Day with Jaime’s family, New years eve at here grandparents for fireworks, New years day at her parents again with all of her family, and on the sixth of January Jonah was Baptized and we went out to celebrate that and Jaime’s birthday (25th I think she said).

We went to Diamond Head where Jaime hiked all the way up with Jonah in the sling, we saw Byodo In, Punchbowl, the lighthouse at Makapu`u (which we almost got to just after the light came on but had to turn back to prevent our car from possibly being held hostage by the state overnight), the USS Arizona Memorial, `Iolani Palace, Bishop Museum, The Polynesian Cultural Centre (PCC), Pali Lookout, Ala Moana (Shopping Centre), Hawaiian Waters water park, Sand Island Park, the Dole Plantation, North Shore (including Matsumoto’s for a shave ice of course), Haunama Bay, Swap Meet, and snorkeling on more than one occasion with Papa and Kimo.

That’s a big list. The snorkeling was the second last thing we did (last thing was a good bye dinner in Kaneohe) where Papa did catch a muhe`e (squid, but really an octopus) so that Connor could see what it was all about.

I think of all the things we did the most fun ones for me personally were spending time with family and friends. I know right now that it’s only a matter of time and I won’t be able to resist the want to never return.

For now we will live in a place where for about 3 months of the year it’s nice, 2 months it’s cool but pretty, and the rest of the year is frozen tundra. But at least we have snowboarding and mountains to make up for it.

What I did on my vacation.

So this week I took Friday off work with the sole purpose of renting a truck, hauling junk to the dump, and cleaning up our garage. I need room out there as I’m going to be building furniture for the baby, Jaime and me at least. So I built shelves and a bench then put everything away that I had room for.

Next, I need to haul away a few old computer bits and figure out what to do with the bikes. Right now they are really in the way.

I did (for the most part) photo document the garage changes so that I can see (and remember) what the whole thing looked like before and after.

Wonderful and Weird Weekend

Friday and Saturday were great, Sunday was good but kind of strange at the same time.

So, Friday being jhb’s birthday (and no, you don’t get to find out which one) I took her out to dinner at a restaurant that she wanted to go to and she got to order what ever she wanted. She did, and she loved it. We’re also making a rather largish purchase towards the end of the month so technically that’s mostly her present. I still wish it could be more…

Saturday the kids and I went to Sunshine and it was increadible. The snow was really nice most places and the only other thing we could have asked for was more sunshine. This is now the 5th official snow board day for me and I have really improved. Linking turns way better and more aggressively and *not* falling down all the time. Still need a bit more confidence there but I’m definately getting there. The kids are really getting better as well and they both are able to take most hills how. They still have to learn to link turns but that’s coming (they have actually figured out that they need to know how to link turns and have started trying to learn how). Soon(ish) they will get that one under their belt.

Sunday has been odd but good. Imagine arranging a date for your puppy then hanging around, talking to your sis and her family (and having brunch and dinner with them, thanks ‘ree) then going home because the date turned out more like that junior high school dance you attended in grade 9, you know where the girls and boys joked at first then ended up sitting at opposite sides of the gym? Ya that one, well puppies can do that too… The whole puppy dating scene in itself was just odd, but I did have a good visit with part of my family and so did jhb. All in all it was a great day and a wonderful weekend.

Now, I need sleep!

Short bike

Around a few blocks past my work (had to drop in), and home. All in all it was a nice ride although short and slowish.

Total Time 00:19:50
Total Distance 7.75 km
Average Cadence 86 rpm
Average Speed 23.4 km/h
Odo 1187 km (from 1177)
Max Cadence 113 rpm
Max Speed 39 km/h

When I arrived home, missy and I went for a 30 minute dog walk as well. It was a good day all said. I really need to start using my bike comp. every day when I ride to work. It would have easily added an extra 100km onto my odometer…

The booty list

So what did I get for christmas this year?

• Flow MK2 bindings. So far they rock
• Base layer warm undershirt
• Wind River fleece pull over to replace my aging purple fleece
• This beautiful and really really cool egg poacher (I love poached eggs on english muffins)
• A journal with runes and a dragon on the cover from the kids. This will only be used for the most imporant journal entries that we never want to lose
• Some herbal tea, pringles chips, and two bite brownies. Brownies and chips are already gone of course =)
• The day (or 1/2 of it at least) snowboarding at Nakiska
• Most importantly, a new little baby on the way

My christmas was so good I don’t remember ever having a better one.

Christmas day snowboarding

So, since we did the present thing on Christmas Eve and we had a single lift ticket for Nakiska that had to be used before the end of December (we bought it last year) I took my new bindings and my board out for a test run. The new bindings are Flow Mk2, which are these bindings with a large single tounge over your boot and the back folds out to allow you to put your boot in the binding. When you put your boot in, you fold the heel up and lock in a catch.

I was skeptical at first but compared to the Duke bindings I got with my board these things are awsome. They lock you onto the board and it feels just excellent to ride.

Nakiska was an ice rink first thing in the morning. It would have been much better to wait until 11am or so to start but I was there at 9 and did two runs before 10am. I had my edges tuned (they were really bad) and went up again. The tuning helped but when the sun started to soften the top that’s when it really started to get good. I did about 6 runs down North Axe and was finally really starting to get the idea of transitioning both sides while at speed. It was good, and I was having an incredible time.

Don’t know if that’s what did it but I ended up catching an edge. I went down and in doing so managed to pull a muscle in my lower abdomen (OUCH, I had no IDEA it could hurt that much!). After sitting there for 15 minutes, then asking someone to get a ski patrol down and letting them check me out it was about 45 minutes to even decide I could make it down the hill under my own steam.

I did, it was fine (they were worried about internal damage that could lead to bleeding, fortunately that wasn’t an issue). I drove home and have been taking it easy since then. I’m hoping it’ll be good by Thursday because I want to do Sunshine on Thursday all day. I was having such a blast yesterday before I got hurt I can’t wait (I want to run out to COP right now but Jaime gives me stink eye every time I mention doing anything =).

Thursday will have to be soon enough, and it looks like sunshine might be fresh snow by then too =)

WooHoo!

I almost forgot. I wanted to write down a few of the things I saw this day. I wanted to write them down because they seemed singular, although I know if I timed it right the same image would be there. It’s more then that, it represents single moments in time that will never come again.

• The cresent moon over Mount Baldy. On the way south on Hwy 40 you go around Mount Baldy. While on the north side of it driving south west the cresent moon was visable on the stepped part of the mountain to the west. The sky was blue and cloudy, it was about 8:45am.
• Wind and rain in the mountains while there was snow on the ground. I was riding up the silver chair and it started to rain a little. The air of course; crisp, cool, clean, smelling of evergreens and dampness. I love the mountains for that smell, it is easily as memorable as the smell of the ocean on the west coast.
• Feeling of floating over the snow the first time I figured out how to carve on my snowboard. My version of carving at this point of course is likely a jerky, clumsily executed pull back and forth of the board but, to me who had never experienced that before, it was so cool.
• Warm west wind blowing the trees around and the clouds past at 75km/h.
• The way people ask if you’re ok when you’re down, making sure that some one helps you if you need it. In so many ways, human kind can pull through their brutish, unfeeling, uncaring, jealous, sinical, obsesive distain for one another. If only our leaders could see this.

Just a few observations.

A Christmas Announcement

Christmas this year was wonderful. Christmas eve was for opening presents with the kids (they went up to their mothers house for christmas this year) and everyone was really happy with their presents. I got an egg poacher and bindings for my snowboard as well as some other things of course. Full details to follow later.

The best part about this year, and I haven’t really told that many people yet so this is my big announcement.

Jaime is going to have a baby in July (27th is the due date). We’re going to have a little bundle of joy and I couldn’t have a better gift this year then knowing that everyone is healthy and happy right now.

Jaime, I love you and I love that we’re having a baby.

A decent digital audio player, buy one!

This is a company we need to support.

Samsung (of all companies) is making a DMP (digital media player) that supports the open standard Ogg and is a USB mass storage device. Firmware still has to be done via a windows interface, for now…

We bought s YP-C1 for one of the kids and it seems to work really well with Linux.

Oh, and it doesn’t support the DRM stuff that other players are starting to support.