Concepts in the Paradox

I met up with some LISA attendees I was talking with on IRC during what became a very boring and non-applicable talk on VMware ESX. It was almost a sales pitch in a way, which irritated me.

After the class, we went to a sushi place near Duponte Circle and ordered about $187 in sushi between the 4 of us. I must say, all of the sushi was very good, even though I had no idea what any of it was. My stomach was a little unhappy, but my tongue was overjoyed.

Being the pro-transit person I was, I asked how people got to the conference. The gal from San Jose of course flew, but one guy from Pittsburg took the train and another guy from North Carolina also took Amtrak, both first time train riders.  It would seem that they weren’t alone, at least two other people I talked to took Amtrak rides that were under 10 hours, $84 round trip.

Maybe Union Station was a big temptation, maybe parking and traffic were intimidating, or maybe people are just tired of dealing with the whole car and gas ordeal.   I will say that there is a change in the air.

Tomorrow are the technical sessions, where I get to learn random techie things in hour and a half spurts. Yay information!

Today’s LISA class involves VMware ESX server. It’s starting out slow like Sunday’s day-long class, but I’m hoping to walk away with more knowledge on good practices on deploying virtual machines. Some key things I’ve gained so far:

• SAN and LVM are the best way to seup partitions

• Configuring too many virtual CPUS causes contention if you don’t need that many VCPUs
• You can’t mix and match CPU types (Intel Vs. AMD)

Also, no power outlets in this room. I’m playing power vulture during the breaks. :\

I’m here in DC for LISA.

Yesterday’s class got better toward the end of the day, covering topics I was only weakly familiar with. LVS, OpenLDAP, PAM, and even OpenMP were covered. I even took notes!

Today’s morning session is THE LATEST HACKING TOOLS AND DEFENSES by David Rhoades, which has started out with a bang. I know none of his material, showing how far behind I am in computer security. For every question you ask, he throws a little monkey at you. As of the break, I am still monkey-less.

Also, VMware seems to be the hot testbed tool here.

For a long time I thought my geekery was simply based in the computer realm, but as it turns out, my geekery works in many different realms.

Normal geekery would be something like getting my Zaurus to boot a Cacko ROM. I have that working, but alas it locks up after I set the date. :(

Expanded geekery includes reading exceptionally dry books on why Free Parking is bad, and enjoying it.

Normal geekery is trying to get the voice activation on my A900 phone to work properly.

Expanded geekery is reading the San Francisco City Code, just because it seemed like something I should read (I’m not done yet).

Does this mean I should get a girlfriend?

I’ve returned to the city from a Thanksgiving with family in Carson City, where most of the family was able to gather for home cooked food, family amusement, and Black Friday shopping.

This time around I decided to take transit the entire way to Reno: The Zephyr. I must say that this is probably the most luxurious, though likely also the slowest, way to travel anywhere. I had a spacious seat, a table, non-obnoxious fellow passengers, and of course a bar. I took that opportunity to indulge in the various food and libations they offered for an expensive but still reasonable sum. Drinking on a train? Sure, I think that’s really what the train is about.

For $83, or $42 during non-holiday months, it took me about 8 hours inclusive (Bart + CC + Zephyr transfers) to get to Reno, then about 40 minutes in a car with the lovely Sarah to Carson City.

The train ride gave me a lot of time to think. I don’t mean the kind of brooding and deciding kind of little mind thinking, but just letting my big mind go about it’s business of thinking about what I should do next in life. At Thanksgiving I discussed and re-iterated my choice to get involved in city government, and after family time I discussed my ideas again over drinks with Tim. I think that I’m on the path to making some really good choices, in the aspiration of doing something amazing for myself and everyone else.

Valencia Gardens officially opened this week. I’d like to take a few moments to talk about why this is a bad thing for San Francisco’s ethnic Mission district.

It’s worth taking a look at a the Chron’s take on VG, as well as their photos. I’ll summarize their article with my own comments.

On Valencia/Gurrerro and 14th/15th street there used to be a block of projects built in 1943. They were torn down for many good reasons, namely poor design (central squares with no purpose), outdated plumbing, electrical, as well as rodent and gang infestation.

In 2005 the project was flattened, as all good government housing should be, and replaced with something only slightly better: suburban housing. $66m later, we have 230 units, complete with modern electrical, backyards, parking, and one way streets. The last two items making this a suburban sprawl in a 5-acre block of the Mission.

Suburb sprawl in the city? Read more »

My upstream provider, United Layer, has struck again, this time causing a 24 times spike in my daily traffic use for no logical reason, which of course I get charged for. Something about broadcast packets or some such. Anyway, I pay the big bucks for people to solve these problems for me.

Things may be up and down with the blogs, webhosts, photo server, and email until this very expensive problem is resolved. As the title says, please excuse the mess.

The past 3 days have been a little depressing being sick. First there is the lack of energy to do much of anything, though as usual I’m forcing myself along. It isn’t healthy, but it is my nature to keep going no matter what.

As usual, when I’m down, life kicks me in the ribs to remind me that no one gets a break. As an example of this, the DC power on my block went out. “DC power?” you ask, “Isn’t that from the 1900’s or something?” Indeed, it powers the elevator. I have a very old elevator. Damn you, PG&E.

I live on the 9th floor, so when the elevator breaks it is extremely annoying. Nine flights isn’t so bad going down, but going up really sucks. I can’t carry much because the passage way is so narrow, and I really don’t have the energy to do much of anything anyhow. In other words, I really need to take the trash out soon (no, it doesn’t smell, yet). Also, I need to do laundry too. Sigh.

My first kitty, who lived with my mom in Carson City for the past 18 years, had to be put down today. She wasn’t eating and had gotten really skinny.

I don’t even have a digital picture of her to post. :(

My mom still has 4 cats, but now she is one kitty less. *sigh*.

2h15m until ZG. I’m gonna need to start drinking before I even head out.

I left my cell phone at home — again. How am I supposed to function? What if I get a text message? What if someone tries to call me?! How will I check bus arrival times?!!

Wait, no one ever calls me. Maybe since I left it at home, I’ll suddenly be popular?