Enjoyed the conference. Went to 2 tutes - Randal Schwartz makes complicated concepts easy and I thoroughly recommend his tute "Perl References, Objects & Modules".
Met Tom Limoncelli, who's recently written a book on Sys Admin concepts. I'm told it's very good but haven't read it yet - am hoping to win it in a current comp. Can't buy it for a while yet because we apparently sold all copies available in Melbourne during the conference. Please let me know if that's incorrect.
Elizabeth Zwicky gave an interesting tute on troubleshooting, which I also recommend. I'm hoping she'll be at next year's conference in Hobart.
Ob-opensource
As usual, there isn't any. This is really just a way of keeping folks up to date with me. Assuming people still read this page.
Volunteered as an editor for SAGEwire which is still in beta. Am not prepared to be an author, so you don't see much of me there.
Did some work on the SAGE-AU library project. Not exactly opensource but kinda close. We're putting together a bibliography of all SAGE-AU writings - conference papers, newsletters, Sage Advice, etc.
That was odd!
About a year after Ashka died, I decided I could handle having a cat in the house again, so Sus and I headed off to the RSPCA (local animal shelter) and met a lovely grey tabby who was very friendly. We trundled off to the adoption counter with the cat's number, but couldn't adopt because it was too late in the day. On a whim, Sus leant over to see the cat's name. You'll never guess - Ashka. And he was about a year old, which means he was born just about when Ashka-the-black died. That was a bit freaky.
So that we don't have Ashka I and Ashka II, I decided early on to call them Ashka-The-Black - my beautiful black-and-white stray, who adopted me when I was particularly lonely - and Ashka-The-Grey - who was surrendered to the shelter because his owner was going into hospital for an extended period. Ashka-The-Grey is a far calmer and less demanding cat. A lovely, friendly, be-in-the-middle-of-things, sit-beside-not-sit-on, gentle cat.
And odder still...
So when Ashka-The-Grey started limping, I took him to the vet at the RSPCA. A couple of visits later (they hadn't found what was wrong), a nice lady vet was telling me:
She may have arthritis
me:He.
She.
He. Ashka is a neutered male.
Not from where I'm standing
So I got her to show me and you know, she was right. Our neutered male cat is actually a female cat.
That explains the lack of a masterly gerrrowwwelll and the gentle calmness perhaps. (Ashka-The-Black was a late-neutered Tom and he looked, sounded and acted like it)
So I started worrying about that weight she's been putting on recently.
Is it the result of cat treats?
Or kittens?!!!!!
Another visit and an even nicer gentleman vet told me not only that Ashka is not pregnant (phew!) but that she had slipping patelas (one on each hind leg) and needed an operation. So in she went last week and we now have an oddly-shaved and rather bored grrlcat who is confined to a single room - which has had all high things removed, so there is no jumping or landing on those newly-fixed-up legs. Other than boredom, she's fine.
The New Job
And I can't sign off without mentioning the new job. It's mostly described in my updated bio. I'm in a larger team, looking after the same systems plus a few hundred more. Working directly for the bank now, which has its advantages.