Older blog entries for cla (starting at number 6)

Just discovered someone on Wiki who was a lecturer at my Alma Mater, having just graduated (PhD) from the Uni where I had my first job (the following year) and who knows mbp, who I know from the choir of the same Uni. Wow. Small world. Or maybe that's just Queensland. Glad I live in Melbourne now, 'cos it's not like everyone knows everyone here, right?!! (see PissTake)

Woke my cat (oops - my neighbour's cat - I'm not allowed one on my lease) accidentally by restarting a CD - Skunkhour's FEED. Brilliant - why aren't Australian bands like this anymore? (political, poetical and memorable). Now the cat is trying to get out through the (closed) window. arg. Sometimes I wish the neighbours hadn't stopped feeding their cat...

Apologies to purists who'd like to see something technical in each diary entry. Anyone got a good way to keep cat- hair out of the keyboard?

Just noticed I've been certified by two other people. Thanks guys. Does this mean I have 3 ppl willing to act as mentor now? 0;-)

Got into Wiki (for the first time) in a big way last night. Suddenly had a huuuge urge to find all hanging references and defineDEFINEDEFINE!!!!

But then I got over it.

Found another mob that need doc done for existing code. As I said earlier (or meant to) - I can do this. Will write if/when I have actually _done_ this (life continues APACE!)

Thanks mbp for not hating me for not returning calls and to jennv and dancer for not hating me for never being round when two weeks ago I was _always_ over.... My big news is that I've (re)started climbing, have been reviving old friendships and generally trying to get work done in and around all that. So you were both right - there is definitely a SilverLining.

I'm hoping to see you again soon.

Is it ok to mention names here??? Skud and bekj do, so I figured it'd be fine.... Pls let me know if it isn't!

The other purpose of this diary entry was to create and refer to a wiki entry. And I could and it was molto easy. Which you all knew already, right? Well, I gotta start somewhere and I'm as rusty as a-very-rusty-thing. Hmmmm... that's got me thinking of other wiki lookups to do. TinMan for instance... Someone _has_ to have done that already - I mean, I'm not the only FriendOfDorothy (FriendsOfDorothy ?) here!

Just looked them up and no, they don't exist. I'm not sure if this is because there is a lack-of-humour or if it's a very regional term, so I'm not adding it. Not until I've added something that's actually useful, anyway. I think I could become a WikiAddict. Which is also not defined but should be!

Erratum

As Pseudonym mentioned in the articles section, I did stuff up my wording:

Yep, I did mean a masters-only community when I said "a wizards-only community".

I am very aware that there are wizards amongst the Observers, Apprentices and Journeyers who class themselves (or are classed by others) that way because they are not prolific contributors to the open source community. Hmmm... that's one of the reasons I was expecting to stay an Observer longer than I did.

Social Creature Stuff...

Had a lovely birthday yesterday and a great party the night before. People turned up from half-an-hour-early-eeeeek!!! to after 1am (doors-close was 1:30). Geeks and kinksters got along fine. No one freaked out, no brains imploded (that I could tell) and everyone seemed to have a good time. The party finally wound up at about 5am with a geek zonked out on one couch and me on the other because an overly-inebriated kinkster had been sent to bed and there's only one bed at the moment :(
Saturday night's Spring Carnival party thingy was also great. Details may scare geeks but feel free to ask if you're interested...
Going climbing today with friends at a local indoor-climbing gym. Geeks should climb more... it uses just about every muscle and works out that "I'm gonna die!" feeling - excellent for maintaining perspective!!!

More proposals for work today. Wrote my first reply in the articles section. Wondering if the world will notice. Having my birthday party tonight. Absolutely no open source news so wondering if this post should be cancelled (like all others since 17 Sept!).

Played with a Debian distro today which had been put together by a friend. Has been a weekend for phone tag...

Play
Got "auctioned" at a party tonight - two hours of my company fetched over $3,000 play money - I don't think I've ever been valued that highly before! Nor did I expect to be the most expensive offered (by over $1k :)

Work
I've duplicated my working environment at home so I can work til odd hours (6am 0:) and not have to drive in to the office to reformat proposals/reports at the office.

Open Source
The new PC is now in use and is being populated by "useful stuff" as I go along. I've had a couple of ideas for new tools but haven't actually started coding any of them yet.
Realised that I'd forgotten to buy Office and think I'll stick to StarOffice under Solaris on my old box.

I'm now wondering if I'll be downgraded for having so much non- open-source, personal information in my diary. Should have RTF-FAQ-ed, shouldn't I?!!?

If nothing else, this diary is going to make me start coding simply to avoid the embarrassment of "haven't-done-any-code-yet" entries!!!

Am feeling more than a little surprised to find myself ranked as I don't consider myself much of a programmer. Have done (in the past) some ok papers for conferences. Thanks to Martin for the ranking - I'll try to live up to it.

I'm in a need-to-geek-out-more phase which is being answered by going lo-tek. Yep, bought my very own PC for the very first time. Am feeling that I've sold out to the dark side and that if I was any sort of real geek I'd have set up a firewall and a domestic LAN by now. Hmmmm..... my pre-9-weeks-ago lifestyle left very little room for that.

I've had an SS5 at home for years which I've been very proud of (for no real reason other than it's faster than the SS1+ was and looks rather cool) but am finding that the places I want to get (el-cheapo) Internet connection from (and no I'm not going cable yet and I don't want to discuss why!) only understand Windows. How embarrassing that I can't get Solaris asppp to talk to a generic ISP. Yet another reason to feel that I won't be up to scratch in this forum. So now I have a PC, there is no excuse for not getting online and getting active.

The thing that always bothered me about putting diary entries here is that I don't have anything interesting/cool/source to contribute and figured I'd just be wasting your time. But realistically, I'm only wasting your space - your time is controlled very finely by your own mouse following my words down the page - and realisticly, the only people likely to read this are those who already know me (Hello!!!) or those who've just heard of me and want a better definition of my peculiar brand of insanity, written in my own words.

Has anyone else noticed how fascinating cats find keyboards and mice? Or is my neighbour's cat (my lease doesn't allow cats so it's definitely not mine!) the only one? Perhaps this is why Jenn uses a trackball....