The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey May 5, 2013

LOPSA-East #FTW

I got back this morning at about 11:30 following a fantastic LOPSA-East conference. I entertained such subjects as Tom Limoncelli's Evil Genius 101, Kyle Fulton's Automation in the Cloud with Puppet, Shumon Huque's Using and Migrating to IPv6, and Matt Simmons's Intro to SSDs. The Friday night keynote was delivered by Marcus Ranum of varied and interesting fame - his talk was funny, accurate, and depressing as hell. Just sayin'. The New Brunswick Hyatt is venue for the conference, and it was excellent. The food was superb (in general, not just in the context of a tech conference), and the…

Brian Bilbrey April 28, 2013

Paint It Black

Well. not "black" as such, Rolling Stones songs notwithstanding. But I've managed to get finish (off-white, some walnut stain bodged onto the white for character, and dark teal) applied to all the bits of the cabinets. I've got a bit more "character" to apply to the face frames of the cabinets, then it's time for polyurethane. Another few days at least... It was a good five-day stint of woodworking and finishing, fun, really. I did take a break from that to shop, mow, and roast coffee (Nicaragua Finca Santa Helena Caturra, from Sweet Maria's, of course) today, too. * *…

Brian Bilbrey April 27, 2013

Half-week Off

I turned 10base52 (not 1, sigh) this week, on Wednesday. So I took that day, and the next two, off work so that I could spend some quality time in the woodshop. I finished building all of the cabinet doors and inter-shelving, installed the cabinet backs, and tested all the hardware: Then I pulled, bagged, and labeled all the hardware, and started applying finish to the small pieces: Today, those get a top-coat of polyurethane and a bit of distressing. And I'll start applying finish to the cabinet carcasses. At least that's the plan. But the yard needs some attention,…

Brian Bilbrey April 21, 2013

Spring games

Friday night surrounded by wind and rain, we played Scrabble. Turns out that there is a body part you can use to not just win, but dominate in this game: Fertilized and rained on, the lawns demand an aggressive mowing schedule. The good news is that following Friday's storms, the temps were down significantly, making the yardwork a lot less sweaty. I also made progress on the cabinet building in the woodshop, fabricating the perforated screen door for the computer cabinet. All of the components for the lower cabinet are now done. I need to build a couple of intermediate…

Brian Bilbrey April 16, 2013

Schneier on Boston

Bruce Schneier says exactly the right thing about the explosions in Boston: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On in that article in The Atlantic. Remind your representatives in government of this sentiment.