Advogato blog for taw

9 Dec 2003

Tue, 9 Dec 2003 01:49:34 GMT

I have not posted here in quite some time. I have recently written my own blogging software (in python of course) and am continuing this journal there.

I'm curious as to how long I will actually keep that one up to date. :)

Anyway, that journal is located at: http://www.pobox.com/~taw/journal-pub-taw/

I may continue to post here occassionally. Hmm... what I really need to do is cross pollenate the two. I will stick that thought on my todo list.

20 Jun 2003

Fri, 20 Jun 2003 19:17:07 GMT

In memoriam: Steve Taylor, Aug 7th, 1966 - Jun 17th 2003.
Red Hat will miss you.

27 Jan 2003

Mon, 27 Jan 2003 08:12:36 GMT

Home purchase in progress!

Monica and I searched forever. We are in the process of buying a house with six wooded acres and a gorgeous stream running right through the middle of the property.
The house is fairly spacious, but has only two bedrooms (we'll work on that). The original resident was himself a builder, so the construction is superior and has a lot of nice touches: hardwood/tile flooring, vaulted living-room ceiling with skylights, fireplace, kitchen with a Jenn-Air[tm] island, sunroom with hot-tub! and marble floors, a deck and a screened-in porch.
There are only three downsides: the neighborhood is so-so, it has only two bedrooms (affects resale), and the commute will be 45-50 minutes to work everyday. The neighborhood is rapidly growing so if we live there long enough, things should change. We can always add another bedroom in the future. The commute -- we'll learn to live with it and buy fuel-efficient vehicles.
Jester (the dog) is going to love running around in the woods. Well, I suppose I will love running around in the woods as well. Can't wait.
You can see some pix here.

14 Jan 2003

Tue, 14 Jan 2003 06:02:13 GMT

Just under a year since I have last posted. Much has happened in that time period. Since I can't really cover it all, I will just hit a few points.

Significant Events

I got married! 2002-02-17 I got married to my long-time sweety Monica. We did it (the only way to get married) on a whale-watching cruise in Maui. It was absolutely wonderful.

New addition to the family. Jester Warner. He just turned one on 2003-01-04 (my b-day as well). He's a handfull as my chewed up couch can attest.

ETSed (Estimated Time of Seperation) from the military. I.e., my obligation is over. I served 9.25 years (3.25 active duty Army, 6 years Army National Guard (Ohio and North Carolina)). My last day was 2002-11-20. I left as a Staff Sergeant and M1A1 Tank Commander. It's been fun, but... time to go.

Work

Plugging away on Red Hat Network. We serve quite a few servers now (not sure if I am permitted to disclose precisely how many). We are quite proud of our service. I personally have been focused on installers for the RHN Proxy Server and RHN Satellite Server; and other useful things. I've also been prepping gzipstream to be pushed to the python folks. We'll see if they accept it. It's useful; dunno if there is a better methodology for streaming gzip content though. We'll see.

Other

Looking at houses currently. We've looked at over 20+ houses. We found two we liked, but got beaten to the punch by other buyers. House hunting sucks, BTW! I really despise it. We'll find something eventually I suppose.

Currently on the reading list:

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville (1851) --- A truly fantastic book. As is true for many books from many years ago, the reading is a bit slow due to language differences, and Melville tends to run off on certain tangents. Great book though.

Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace by Lawrence Lessig (1999) --- Is there a more important partison to the free/open-source software world? I'm not sure there is. A deep thinking and generally brilliant person. I haven't gotten far yet, but wow.

17 Jan 2002

Thu, 17 Jan 2002 01:18:28 GMT

It has been some time since I last wrote. 2001-09-11 to be precise... the big, bad, evil day. A lot has happened since then, but, I will not elaborate much.
Work
Work is currently immensely busy with Red Hat Network and neat things to come. Gotta love it when a project gets bumped up in schedule. YEAH! GREAT! Sleep would be good. I don't have enough time to do much other than work... which is a shame.

National Guard
We've been busily prepping for and executing gunnery. We shot Tank Table IV, V, VI, and VII. Now for the real test: Tank Table VIII. This is the one that really tests a crew. I have a good crew but my command control of the tank are not at their best. You can tell I don't do this full time. :)

xboids
I included this here as a reminder that I have not pushed ahead with it. Red Hat Linux 8.0 (or whatever version it ends up being) will be coming out eventually and I want this screensaver to be in it!!! It may not be accepted unless I make it (a) faster, and (b) make those boids FLAP!

love
Monica and I are doing better than ever. She is as sick as a dog right now, but... She is now full-time as the Program Director for a Spa Health Clubs in Durham, NC. She has only worked there for a few months, but, they love her! She got her Certified Personal Trainer qualification, and has been helping people become healthier. She enjoys it. That is the most important thing.

family
My sister-in-law and brother just reproduced again. That makes 5 nieces I have now. My sister-in-law on Monica's side has one in the oven as well. Though we say we are rooting for a boy, I secretly don't want to break the streak. More girls! I love being an uncle.
I finally met more of Monica's family. That was nice. Her grandmother and 10 Uncles, etc. on her fathers side. Neat people; very Kentucky. ;)
Over the December holidays, I finally got to see my two grandmothers as well. I just don't get to see them often enough.

other
Monica and I are headed to Hawai'i in February. I cannot wait. It will be a blast. Plus I have a surprise for her there as well. More to follow...
I have a slew of projects in my head I want to do. Just no time. Here's a sampling:

buy a router and link my three computers together. Learn a bit of networking with Linux in the process.
get a cable modem and static IP.
set up a "family" + whatever website/webapplication, probably using Zope. Zope is cool.
code more speed into xboids, package it, and add flapping boids!
read read read
find time to relax (won't happen)
play more with PERL, C, C++, maybe even a bit of Java.
start working with Python v2.2.*.
get back into my workout routine. I hurt my back recently and it has been two months that I have not been working out much. For shame.
get back into contact with old friends.
get more sleep.

11 Sep 2001

Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:00:36 GMT

Tragedy

Today the World Trade Center in New York was leveled. The Pentagon (DC) was also attacked (airline wrecks in all). My brother works near the Pentagon (for the Pentagon) but is ok. Tragic... so tragic. I suspect religuous extremists of one sort or another. Yet another indication that, yes, religion kills.

10 Sep 2001

Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:55:27 GMT

Busy busy busy... does time ever slow down? It seems to only progress faster the older you get.

Work

I've been busily rewriting the rhn_reports code to work via the web. It will parser and report information about the RHN Server and Proxy once complete. I have been putting this off for some time. It needs to be done.
I've been trying to pace myself as that should improve efficiency. I have not been overly efficient with my time lately.

National Guard

I have finally found a new unit and have a tank of my own now (M1A1 main battle tank). I don't know the crew overly well yet, but from what I have seen, they are quite competitent, especially my gunner, SGT Pedneau. I have high hopes.
This month we have completed TCGST (Tank Crew Gunnery Skills Test) and are moving onto Tank Table IV next month (ie. practicing firing the tank at a range).
I enjoy the guard to a certain extent but it takes time that I just don't have. We'll see if I reenlist November 2002.

xboids

It's actually usable! I am using it as my screensaver. I nuked a HUGE memory leak recently cause by my own carelessness when attempting to track down bugs (ie. I was hacking all over the place looking for a math error that didn't exist). Anyway, it works and is pretty nifty. More to come, but I need to work on some big chunks before I submit it to JWZ and the xscreensaver project. Who knows, maybe I never will.
I really need to post the code somewhere.

other

I missed my Grandmother's birthday. I will surely burn in Hell for that one... or be reincarnated as a worm or some such if that is your leanings.
Monica's B-Day is coming up (23rd of Sept). I am almost in panic mode over this one. I am not ready.
We adopted a stay cat recently. It isn't allowed inside, but we have been leaving food and water out for it and something to sleep on. It seems to be warming up to us. We should probably take it to the vet sometime and get it checked out, spayed/neutered, etc. It is the "right thing to do."
K12 LTSP: Kerry Kim walked up to me the other day and offered to me the responsibility of presenting educational applications at a conference and to the governor of NC. Only a month to prepare on my own time. Ack! Well, I have had harder projects to prep for. :) Interest is really picking up on this project, esp. since Mathew Szulik mentioned K12 LTSP in his keynote at LinuxWorld recently.
We in the Unix(tm)/Linux(tm) world recently hit the epoch milestone, the new Billenium! Ie. 1 BILLION seconds since the epoch (circa 1970). As was mentioned on one of the news sites: "As of right now (01:46:40 UTC, September 9), Unix is 1 billion seconds old". And there was much rejoicing...

24 Aug 2001

Fri, 24 Aug 2001 00:49:12 GMT

Been awhile folks (as if someone is reading). I've (a) been busy, (b) been a bit burned out, and (c) been lazy.

Work

We had our big Red Hat Network release a little while ago. It went fairly smoothly. The tracebacks and feedback (in the negative) have been minimal. There was a bit of firefighting at first, but 90% of it was squashed in the first 12 hours.
Been working on this and that lately. Really. Testing, small improvements, and bugfixing. Wrote a automated report tool (cron job) to test the DB as the customer sees it (i.e syncronization issues). Worked on proxy stuff, and a bit of client work even.
Customer feedback has been very helpful, and we really do hope to improve the service.

Home

I have *not* spent enough time with my girlfriend, Monica. Hopefully, now that the greater majority of RHN is implemented (this version) and functioning, we can slow down to normal levels of activity --- non-withstanding side projects I am always involved in.
Stephanie, my niece had her 5th birthday last weekend. Wow. How fast time flies. She'll be a teenager in the blink of an eye. Her family (my brother's) just moved from Italy to DC, so now they are only 4.5-5.5 hours away (dependent upon traffic). This is the first time in 10+ years that my whole family has been within driving distance. It's nice.

Other

Side-projects have been diverting my attention lately.
xboids, the xscreensaver boids program has been rewritten something like 2 times. I am trying to refresh my C skills with it, whilst doing something cool. It is nearly complete in the sense I can submit it, but I want to improve it a bit more. Eventually I want to openGL the thing.
A bunch of us got together recently and discussed helping out the folks working on the K12LTSP project. From their press-release:
K12LTSP is an easy to install, Linux based terminal server package designed for schools. It comes ready to run with lots of programs for classroom use. It works with low maintenance, diskless workstations that are immune to viruses and mischievous student tampering. K12LTSP is based on RedHat 7.1 (www.redhat.com), StarOffice (tm) 5.2 from Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com/staroffice) and the Linux Terminal Server Project (www.ltsp.org).
So... being a Red Hat Network guy, I have been toying with their iso's and uploaded the headers into our network and have been testing some of our "software-to-come" with that. Looks doable. And neat.
Until next time...

GPG

Just updated my gpg/pgp public key (exp: 2010-08-18):
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2 Aug 2001

Thu, 2 Aug 2001 00:30:07 GMT

Work

Entering beta testing. Doing a lot of testing, waiting on others, etc... I'm looking forward to seeing how this product's pieces fall together.

Home

Had a wonderful weekend with my girlfriend and niece Bryn (3.5yrs). She's still a bit shy around me, but we had a great time, regardless. In case anyone was wondering, she is named for a character from the famous fantasy novel, "The Sword of Shannara".

Other

After spending a good deal of time just messing around, I finally got a good start on the boids program for the xscreensaver. One solid night of coding and... it works! Another night, and it works well! I figure, a bit more tweaking and it will be time to send it off in hopes of it being added to the general xscreensaver package.

I would love to keep expanding it, or split it into several projects. Maybe some interactive work, or, openGL or ...who knows --- it amuses me.

24 Jul 2001

Tue, 24 Jul 2001 00:34:21 GMT

Work

Kinda been plodding along, not accomplishing as much as I should. There is a lot that needs to be done and I have to catch up with what misa has been doing.
Fortunately, I got the preliminary reporting tools done. They software runs fairly quickly and is immediately useful.

This Past Weekend

Went to visit some friends of ours and played outside all weekend. No computer. Ok, I did read a bit of K&Rs The C Programming Language (I'm trying to brush up). But I didn't lay a single finger on a computer keyboard... no really!

Other

Worked a bit on xboids for the xscreensaver. Damn my C skills are not what they used to be. That's ok though; they'll come back.

My brother is back in the US (he and his family have lived outside the US since 1990? while serving in the Air Force). We've been playing phone tag. Can't wait to see him again.

Monica comes back tomorrow. I missed her tremendously, of course. She is bringing our niece Bryn back with her for a week. It should be... interesting... and fun! :) Nothing like a 3.5 year old to remind you how out of shape you are no matter how often you hit the gym.