suck it, TIME
Sigh.
Happy Birthday, Baby
Not puttin’ you in a corner, never fear. Yeah, my lovely had a nice birthday yesterday. She enjoyed a Downton Abby marathon, and we went out to supper with two other couples, each with a birthday celebration going in this week(end?). Good meal at Four Seasons Grille in Gambrills, just up the slightly frozen road from us a double handful of miles.
Not much else to report. I should do taxes tomorrow, which is bound to be a cheerless and disappointing task. Why tomorrow? So that I can shell out some more dead Presidents to fund the current President’s predilection for non-legislative action. Sigh.
* * *
Our condolences to the families, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:
- Pfc. Joshua A. Gray, 21, of Van Lear, Kentucky, died Feb. 10, in Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, from a non-combat related incident.
- Spc. Christopher A. Landis, 27, of Independence, Kentucky, died Feb. 10, on Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, from wounds received when the enemy attacked his dismounted patrol with a rocket propelled grenade in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan.
- Spc. John A. Pelham, 22, of Portland, Oregon, died Feb. 12, in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he was struck by enemy small arms fire.
- Sgt. First Class Roberto C. Skelt, 41, of York, Florida, died Feb. 12, in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when he was struck by enemy small arms fire.
Really, Valve?
You folks at Valve crack me up. I’m waiting for Half Life 3. I’m waiting for Portal 3. I’m waiting for Obduction (oh, wait, I’m getting that through the Kickstarter) … and y’all ask me if I approve of greenlighting Krita for sale on Steam? [[ Krita is drawing and image manipulation software, and it’s pretty damn cool ]] But I already have Krita on my Linux install. Oh … buying the free (as in GPL, eh) software just supports the development. Why did I have to dig for that information, Krita-people? Or was it Valve that made that information go way to the bottom on their page for your project.
Hear me. I’m waiting for Half Life 3. I’m waiting for Portal 3. If you want to sell me stuff, then work on those games. If you don’t … oh, well.
Not very funny
While I’ve generally been a bit of a class clown, I’ve never thought of myself as funny. In a way, the snappy comeback and the right quote at the right time have always just been another way of masking my intrinsic discomfort around (other) people. I *can* put on a happy face and make my way through the world. I don’t think I’m very good at it, though, so I’m always striving a bit.
This whinging is apropos of our on-going spate of social engagements. We went to a cabaret last weekend, neighbors were here for supper the weekend before, we were out to supper with different neighbors last night, and out yet again next weekend with some friends of Marcia’s. That’s something akin to three years of non-anti-social behavior, compressed into four weeks for me. Still, let me note that I have been having a nice time, but I could do with a little less. I’m just happy to crouch in the corner of my front porch, ready to shout at the kids when they walk on our lawn. Yes, “curmudgeon” is also a masque, eh?
* * *
The weekend: Mostly work, both days, excepting the dinner out last night. We watched the third episode of Sherlock series two this afternoon – now THAT’S entertainment! Miss me? Heh.
* * *
No reported casualties by DoD, for the second week in a row. That’s a good thing. Now let’s get them all home.
Sportsball: meh ; PSH: sigh.
We had no obligation to watch the sportsball game today, so haven’t. I’m given to understand based on brief comments in Twitter that the contest wasn’t really a contest, eh? Meh. For y’all? I hope you enjoyed watching the game, if you did. Sometimes the commercials are fun, but it’s not enough to bring me to the set.
RIP, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Addiction sucks, and it took him from us untimely. For those of us left behind, take this lesson: the disease but sleeps. Be vigilant.
This weekend, I got some house cleaning done, and washed all the salt off of the car. Last evening we went down to VA to see Linda, Mary and others performing in a Cabaret at the Workhouse Theatre in Lorton. Good fun and wonderful singing voices!
* * *
DoD has announced no new casualties in the preceding week. I’m glad of that.
Cold Sunday
Still haven’t got above freezing, snow and ice everywhere around yet. Other than that, and a nice supper in with neighbors last night, nothing too exciting going on. Unwound today playing Bioshock. Fun.
Oh, yeah. We watched Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing this week. Loved. It. Loved it! You should watch it, too.
* * *
Our condolences to the family and friends of Chief Warrant Officer Edward Balli, 42, of Monterey, California. He died on Jan. 20, in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, of wounds from small arms fire when he was attacked by insurgents.
Not as much fun…
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.
* * *
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.
Back in the Groove
First full week of 2014 put to bed, although I took Tuesday off to ferry Marcia to an appointment. All is well. Chores all weekend, and obligations tonight, so I’m posting a bit early today. I didn’t have any more time for Puppet this week, but someone recommended I try ALL of the CM products out there before settling on one. Lovely. I’ll just order an “Extra 24 Hours in Each Day” subscription from Amazon. That’ll do the trick.
Y’all have a good week!
* * *
DoD has reported no deaths in the last week, which is better than I expected.
Pro Puppet, Second Edition, Grumble.
Well. I’m now plowing through Pro Puppet, Second Edition, in a continuing effort to be useful in integrating configuration management into my environments at work and here at home. But the publisher website doesn’t have features promised by the book, the publisher website doesn’t seem to accept and post the errata I’ve discovered, and now the Puppet Labs blog post about the book has marked my comment on their post as “Spam”. Um, really? Here’s the comment I tried to post to the blog:
Bought the book. Quite useful, about a quarter of the way through, but…
There are still some serious editing issues, code inconsistencies, and outright errors and oversights. While I’m learning *more* than I expected by fixing problems in the examples in the book, I’m sad that the examples appear not to have actually been tested (or copied from known working configurations).Hint 2 – ALWAYS say what file the code snippet goes into. Very frustrating.
Hint 3 – The book says that all of the code from the book is available on the Apress site. Not yet, it isn’t. Can someone get Apress on the ball about this, please?
Hint 4 – I’ve put in two or three errata entries on the Apress site so far, battling the bloody captcha. None have been reposted, and I’m tired of doing so when I must manually transcribe (I can’t copy out of the Kindle browser reader directly). No feedback, not posted … not sure why I should continue trying.
Like I said, good book, seems to be good coverage, but ragged in places and not as well supported by the publisher as I’d expect, given the amount of money I shelled out.
Best,
Brian
That doesn’t seem too spammy to me. But then, I wrote it. Oh, well.
* * *
Oh, yeah. Home today: I had some stuff to do with Marcia this morning, and I took the rest of the day off … because I can. Ciao!
Pre-cooling
While the West is unseasonably warm and horribly dry, we’re hovering around normal on precipitation here in this back yard – .28″ measured for 2014 to date. But the temps we’ve got coming are something else again. Today was a summer-ish 38° F, with some rain to knock down most of the snow, more’s the pity. It was pretty outside, but not so much, now. Day after tomorrow, we should be around 0-2° F over night, with a high around 12° or so. That’s cold, baby! And dicey driving on roads slick with snow-melt that stopped melting. After that, oddly, we’ll be back up into the 40’s for a few days.
* * *
I’ve been working on a small project. Here’s a piece of it in progress:
Working with wood
It’s nothing to do with a Buffy remake, if that’s what you’re thinking.
* * *
Coffee – For these two weeks, we’re drinking a Guatemala Huehuetenango – Tono Sanchez. It’s roasted to City+, about halfway between first and second crack. Delicious!
* * *
Our condolences to the family, friends, and units of these fallen warriors:
- Sgt. Jacob M. Hess, 22, of Spokane, Washington, died on Jan. 1, 2014, while supporting combat operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
- Sgt. First Class William K. Lacey, 38, of Laurel, Florida, died on Jan. 4, 2014, in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when the enemy attacked his unit with rocket propelled grenades.