It's been a month since I wrote anything here, so this is
going to be really long... In the mean time, I've managed
to be out of a job, working on GNOME stuff mostly, and some
biking. So, if anybody is looking for a sys admin, or maybe
even a build expert, let me know. I do actually have a
resume, but I was resting for a while, while I put it
together.
Biking
I actually got out to do some track races this week, and I
clearly haven't figured out the mental part of these yet.
Maybe in a few races I'll be able to get my act together,
and turn in some reasonable efforts. We'll see.
I was talking with somebody who's been out at the track with
us a couple of times, and he said he was out at the track
pretty much every day. He was talking to somebody he met
out there, who noticed that he was always riding the same
speed. They recomended that he talk to a coach, so that he
could actually improve his bike riding, since you can't do
that by riding the same speed all the time. I was thinking
about this, and it dawned on me that I'm pretty much riding
the same speed on all of my road rides. Sure, I speed up
and slow down a lot over the course of the ride, but my
average time for every ride is about the same. This was a
good thing when I was completely out of shape, and just
trying to get fit, but now that my lung capacity and muscles
have regenerated a bit (not back to peak, certainly, but
they're doing OK), I need to start training to get better.
I haven't figured out if I just need to get in touch with a
coach, or if I'd be better off joining a team, or what.
Work
Well, I was completely miserable there, although I'd sort of
liked some warning, rather than having to leave quite so
abruptly. At least I don't have to work with the guy who
was my boss anymore, as he was a horror to work with, let
alone under. Mostly, the parting was caused by my wanting
to improve things at the university, and the other people at
the university wanting to keep things more or less the same.
I don't really feel like writing more about it now (well, I
could, but there are other things I want to write about), so
I'll leave that for another day. It's hard to move on
though.
I do have a much nicer email address out of the deal...
gleblanc@linuxweasel.com. I should put a website up too...
Cool Software
When I got my domain online, I suckered TSCHAK (err, uhm,
no, I can't remember his real name, and I'm too lazy to
look/ask) into helping me get djbdns set up for DNS
services, and qmail/courerimap for email. They're pretty
slick, although some of the support libs are a bit stupid.
Qmail is bloody fast, running on my SPARCstation 20
(SM81/256MB). I bulloxed something up so that it wasn't
getting mail for a few hours, then when I fixed it, it got
flooded at nearly the bandwidth of my net connection, and it
never seemed to flinch. djbdns is so so so so so so much
nicer to admin than bind is, even if I use JRB's DNS
management tool (which still doesn't seem to write files
than bind can parse, but whatever). If you don't mind a
little bit more setup time (download, compile, install, for
two or three small packages, instead of download RPM,
install), in exchange for a SANE way to manage the DNS
records, djbdns is the way to go. I do need to get a
secondary server online, preferrably on another link. I
should look into that again, maybe Mr Bill can host it for
me. Hmm...
Hardware
A while back, right when I got my SGI Indy, I also got a
free 21" IBM Fixed Frequency monitor from a buddy at SGI (a
customer had used a bunch of old IBM Unix machines to trade
up to new SGIs). I've also got an Alpha machine downstairs.
Strangely enough I think that the Alpha may be able to
drive that IBM monitor, which is good, because I have NO
other monitors with BNC connectors on them (which is what my
existing cable for the Alpha is).
I need to pick up a bunch of smallish (<4GB) 50-pin SCSI
drives, so that I can get my farm of SPARCstation 2s online
again. I also need a decent backup solution... I've got a
DSS2 tape drive right now, which will do 2GB on a 90m
cartridge. My home directory is currently 6.2GB, which is
huge. Normally it's more like 2GB, but that still means it
fills up a tape. I'd have to swap tapes several times in
order to get the rest of the drives on this machine backed
up, not to mention the other machines around. I think that
I'm at about 10-12GB right now, certainly with the potential
to grow to a lot more than that. I'm thinking that a DLT
drive will be the best way to go, since they're fairly cheap
(I can get a drive for < $100 from ebay), and they're fast.
The only "concern" is the cost of media. It's pretty
expensive. I suppose I could look at getting a library,
maybe an Exabyte or something. Media should be dirt cheap,
and the capacity should be good. I wonder what the cost
would be. Hmm, should have thought of this before...
Other Stuff
Ack, one of those things that I hate about me is that I'm
really shy. I don't go up and talk to people on my own. I
have the hardest time with that. It can get really
frustrating. There's this young lady out at the track
(she's probably my age, maybe a year older). Anyway, she's
a national caliber bike rider, who also happens to be really
cute. We've chatted a little bit, and she smiles at me when
I sit there grinning like an idiot, but that's about as far
as I've managed to get. I completely missed a great
opportunity to secure her as a friend because I was too much
of a coward to offer her some help. ARGH! I hate that. I
think I'll go kick myself for a while, and try to get some
sleep. Later all.