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GRAFFITI -- November 12, 2007 thru November 18, 2007 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable.     About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.

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November 12, 2007

1414 - Good afternoon. Yeah, I *knew* it was Veteran's Day yesterday, but I was focussed on our current casualties. I meant no slight to our former service members. My dad was in the Korean conflict. Thanks, Dad! Given the longevity in my family, it's probably not all that many generations back when I had ancestors fighting in the Peloponesian War. Today is the Federal holiday for Veteran's Day, and I've got the day off. So I'm only doing a small bit of remote work, mostly follow up on last night's work.

Today's queue included a new humidifier and some apples left off the shopping list for pies later this week (both done), formatting Jerry's CMR Mailbag (done) and stopping by to say hello, here. I still want to make the pie crust dough, and format Jerry's Column segment for posting tomorrow. Plus there's reading, bills, trash, backups. Days off are a real joy, heh. Ciao!

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November 13, 2007

2157 - Good evening. Offsite backup rotation is done. I've pulled down the new Beta of VMware Server 2.0, their free (as in beer) product for virtualization on either Linux or Windows host operating systems. I, of course, won't be able to tell you whether it's any good or not, whether it's faster or more capable than the 1.0 version, because the terms I agree to, to download it, forbid that. So, draconian terms? I guess that the fear of someone saying something bad (lawyeritis) overpowers the power of positive word of mouth (vendor relationship management). So I'll try to make use of their new free product. If I stop doing so, I may say so. Who knows why that might be, after all. But if I keep using it, you'll never know, because me liking a thing might be someone else's performance metric. Feh!

I was just making my semi-annual perambulation through John Walker's site, when I came across his endorsement for Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. That sure looks like fun, especially in the illustrated hardbound edition. I have already de-requested my big holiday present, but this looks like a nice inexpensive alternative, don't you think? (Since this is meant to help Marcia, nobody else should pay attention to that last sentence.) Yeah, in the day of iPod Touch, RSS feeds, and eBook readers by the baker's dozen, I'm a positive luddite when it comes to reading. I *really* like the feel of a dead tree in hand. I read much more effectively on paper than on screen. For editing and writing and such, electronic is fine. But to enjoy and absorb, paper beats all, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Not much else to report. I'm making progress on a couple of fronts at work, and want to do more, and better. So I have some reading still to do tonight. Be well.

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November 14, 2007

Mmmmmm. Apple pie!

2124 - Good evening. A busy evening making apple pie - they look really good, don't they? The crusts were a little uneven, and a real bear to roll out - lots of cracking - but I got them all patched up, and then I started on the apples. About two dozen apples were harmed in the making of these pies, and I feel no guilt at all. Quarter, core, peel and shred: that took a long time. Apples, half-and-half, a bit of flour for binder, lemon rind, and cinnamon in the pie filling, dotted with butter and freshly microplaned nutmeg to top. Looks like triple-yum to me. I'm taking them to the holiday potluck at work tomorrow.

Now, I have more to do - copies of bills to get together for a submission for flex spending reimbursement, and assorted other tasks. I don't know when this thing called "free time" happens. I think someone took it out back and shot it. Ciao!

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November 15, 2007

2130 - Good evening. Sweet idea: Ubuntu JeOS, for "Just Enough OS" - a virtualization-tuned minimal version of Ubuntu designed to run in Virtual Machines. I can't tell you which virtualization environment I was unable to run it in, but I don't hold that against Beta software. I'll try JeOS in Parallels shortly, once I bail out of the connection to work that I've got running to monitor backups tonight.

The potluck went well - most of one of the pies was eaten, and there's plenty for snacking on tomorrow. And snack I shall. /me waves buh-bye.

1012 - Just moments later, I remembered that some OS/VM combinations really like using the virtual BusLogic interface for SCSI disks, instead of the default virtual LSI Logic controller. So it's running and I'm logged in. There are a couple of things I'm unhappy about, but it's not worth going there, I'm sure that these things will work themselves out over the next 6 months. First thing worth noticing: a default install of Ubuntu JeOS takes up 477 MB. That's still not trivial.

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November 16, 2007

1920 - Good evening. Almost done with the work week. There's a couple of hours of infrarestructuring at the office tomorrow night, but other than that, welcome to the weekend. From Doc, a link to an amazing short film of flying squirrels, errrr, humans. Remind me not to try that at home, kids ... but whooooooo! Nothing else really to report. I worked on computers today (same as always). Happy Friday.

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November 17, 2007

1824 - Good evening. We made our run to the Amish market this morning, picking up a variety of commestibles for the shopping storm that's coming. Yeah, when the professional shoppers are out, it's too dangerous to take to the roads. After that, I took a lazy day on purpose, television and gaming. I got out of Nova Prospekt and into Entanglement, playing Half Life 2. I've never played it that far before. I reached a place where I keep dying in a firefight, and stopped for the time being, after three hours of gameplay. In a little while I'll go to the office to work on some network reconfiguration. See y'all, tomorrow.

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November 18, 2007

Fall browns

Fall colors in our back yard

1640 - Good afternoon. We shopped, and I did the (probably second-to-last) yard shearing of the year. I'd really expected this to be the last, but we haven't had a good string of consecutive freezes yet, and there's still quite a lot of leaves left up, to crap up the yard again. One good thing, with the recent rains, the leaves *did* stay on, and gain some color, instead of just falling off as the trees died. At left is the best fall color in our own back yard. At right is the worst. That one just turns brown, and holds onto each leaf for dear life. By spring they're mostly gone, just as the new ones start to bud. Anyway, I edged and mowed and picked up dog crap and edged and mowed. There went most of the afternoon.

Finally, I grilled some hot dogs for Marcia, filling in her re-heat menu for the week, and snapped those pictures before I lost the sun for the day. That puts paid to the chores for the day, and just leaves duty...

Our losses are higher this week, but each one of our men and women are priceless to us. That they answer our nation's call to service and that their duty in our service cost them their lives deserves nothing but our highest respect. My condolences to the families and units of our fallen heros.

• Capt. Matthew C. Ferrara, 24, of Torrance, Calif., who died Nov. 9 in Aranus, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his patrol was attacked by direct fire from enemy forces.
• Sgt. Jeffery S. Mersman, 23, of Parker, Kan., who died Nov. 10 in Aranus, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his patrol was attacked by direct fire from enemy forces on Nov 9.
• Cpl. Sean K. A. Langevin, 23, of Walnut Creek, Calif., who died Nov. 9 in Aranus, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his patrol was attacked by direct fire from enemy forces.
• Cpl. Lester G. Roque, 23, of Torrance, Calif., who died Nov. 10 in Aranus, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his patrol was attacked by direct fire from enemy forces on Nov 9.
• Spc. Joseph M. Lancour, 21, of Swartz Creek, Mich., who died Nov. 10 in Aranus, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his patrol was attacked by direct fire from enemy forces on Nov 9.
• Spc. Jermaine D. Franklin, 22, of Arlington, Texas, died Nov. 9, in Jisr Naft, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.
• Staff Sgt. Patrick F. Kutschbach, 25, of McKees Rocks, Pa., died Nov. 10 in Bagram, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered in Tagab, Afghanistan, when his vehicle was struck by a rocket propelled grenade and small arms fire.
• Sgt. Phillip A. Bocks, 28, of Troy, Mich., died Nov. 9 while conducting combat operations in Aranus, Afghanistan.
• Sgt. Joseph M. Vanek, 22, of Elmhurst, Ill., died Nov. 12 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using small arms fire.
• Sgt. Christopher R. Kruse, 23, of Emporia, Kan., died Nov. 13 in Mukhisa, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated during dismounted combat operations.
• Cpl. Peter W. Schmidt, 30, of Eureka, Calif., died Nov. 13 in Mukhisa, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated during dismounted combat operations.
• Pfc. Casey P. Mason, 22, of Lake, Mich., died Nov.13 in Mosul, Iraq of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using small arms fire.
• Sgt. Derek R. Banks, 24, of Newport News, Va., died Nov. 14 in San Antonio of wounds suffered Oct. 25 in Baghdad, Iraq, when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device.
• Capt. David A. Boris, 30, of Pennsylvania, died Nov. 12 in Bermel, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when the vehicle he was in was struck by an improvised explosive device.
• Spc. Adrian E. Hike, 26, of Callender, Iowa, died Nov. 12 in Bermel, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when the vehicle he was in was struck by an improvised explosive device.
• Spc. Ashley Sietsema, 20, of Melrose Park, Ill., died Nov. 12 in Kuwait City, Kuwait, of injuries suffered in a vehicle accident.
• 2nd Lt. Stuart F. Liles, 26, of Hot Springs, Ark., died Nov. 13 in Bagram, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident.
• Sgt. Kenneth R. Booker, 25, of Vevay, Ind., died Nov. 14, in Mukhisa, Iraq, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Sgt. Mason L. Lewis, 26, of Gloucester, Va., died in Baghdad on Nov. 16, as a result of a non-combat related training accident.
• Sgt. Steven C. Ganczewski, 22, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., died Nov. 16, in Balad, Iraq, wounds suffered from a combat-related incident.

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

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