Category Archives: Beware of Leopard

The League of Professional Systems Administrators (LOPSA) puts on an east coast conference each Spring. We just finished up LOPSA East 2014 last night. An excellent two days of technical training, invited talks, and superb keynote speakers. I’d say that in terms of technical conferences, it’s the best value for money around. You’ll be hearing a lot more about that from me for the next couple of years. Why? It appears that I have volunteered to shadow the Program Chair next year, and be the Program Chair for LOPSA East 2016. Woo hoo! I’ll have a better write-up on this year’s event in a couple of days, when I’ve caught up on my sleep.

Today I drove home, unpacked, started the laundry, and went out to do the shopping. Back from that, I mowed the lawns front and back … then vegetated for the balance of the day. Tomorrow I’ll retrieve Lexi from boarding at the veterinarian, and we’ll wait for Marcia to come home from Michigan later this week. Plenty of stuff to keep busy with around here, as I’m taking this whole week off from work.

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

• Pfc. Christian J. Chandler, 20, of Trenton, Texas, died April 28 in Baraki Barak District, Logar province, Afghanistan, when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.
• Sgt. Shawn M. Farrell II, 24, of Accord, New York, died April 28, in Nejrab District, Kapisa province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.

Then why post, might you ask? Well you might. But sometimes, “nothing” is good. For instance, I’ve nothing to report from DoD for the week past. That’s good – no reported casualties.

There’s been no frost, so none of the veggies I’ve planted are dead. That’s good. Also, I made the lawns flat this weekend, and got a bit of work done at the office on the virtualization infrastructure … neither of which is “nothing”. But lawns are boring, and by policy I can’t discuss details of work. So … pretty much nothing to see there.

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Someone wants lots of flashing lights near schools for child safety. Sigh. Virtually everyone I grew up with was safe, and we didn’t have much in the way of flashing lights, or school buses with 10 mile visibility exclusion zones. Much better to do two things: one – teach kids to pay attention again. Two – kill a kid on purpose or by accident: Death penalty, fast lane. Result: safety and road courtesy. Seriously. It wouldn’t take too many public executions, well publicised with cheering parents all round to bring most drivers to their senses. The rest would end up victims of Papa Darwin.

This is nothing new from me. I’ve been a crusty, get-off-my-lawn type since I was 4 years old. Enough nothing. Ciao!

Frankly, I don’t know what happened on Sunday. It wasn’t a particularly stressful day, I got some stuff done, but not much. Not much at all since I managed also to forget to post, and continue forgetting until Marcia reminded me just now. What’s been going on? Today:

Yeah, more snow

You wouldn’t guess it was Spring already, eh? In other news, I’ve been a much better boy when it comes to sticking to the exercise routine this year. I picked up in earnest in early February and have been improving as I went along. Today, along with sit-ups and a few push-ups, I managed this on the elliptical:

Today’s elliptical workout

So I’ve got that going for me.

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Good news, no new casualties reported by DoD (none announced since March 3). Ciao!

The second week of the year, sadly, was not so much fun (though overall successful and much more eventful).

I flew out to Columbus on business last Sunday night, and concluded the work in time to be home on Tuesday evening. Wednesday morning, I got out of bed and spontaneously “decided” that emptying my stomach was going to be the previously unplanned activity of the day. Although that was a solo event, the aches, fever, and general lack of ability to focus lasted pretty much through yesterday. So I lost a week to Ohio, and to the flu. But all is good now.

I see from the news that I won’t have to watch the StupidBowl this year. Sad for Tom and his team, but I get an entire Sunday back in my life.

Tomorrow is a holiday for my ${FIRM}, so I’m going to be doing some house cleaning and a bit of project work down in the woodshop.

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Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:

• Sgt. Daniel T. Lee, 28, of Crossville, Tennessee, died Jan. 15, in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire during combat operations.
• Chief Warrant Officer Andrew L. McAdams, 27, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, died Jan. 10, at Bagram Airfield, in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when the aircraft he was aboard crashed.
• Sgt. Drew M. Scobie, 25, of Kailua, Hawaii, died Jan. 10, at Bagram Airfield, in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when the aircraft he was aboard crashed.
• Spc. Andrew H. Sipple, 22, of Cary, North Carolina, died Jan. 17, in Kandahar City, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, from a non-combat related incident.