Kev

Have I mentioned I’m a Leafs fan that doesn’t mind seeing the Sens win? That’s fucked up. I love the Leafs. I hate Patte Quin and how he’s turned them into a bunch of whiners. Darcy Tucker’s really over-rated, and Domi sure can’t take what he dishes out anymore. I know he’s a great community and charitable guy, but jesus, just because someone runs you like you run everyone else doesn’t make them cheaters and dirty players. Get over it. Good game, and the Sens deserved the win.

I don’t know what crack all the refs in the league started smoking right before playoffs, but if you’re going to change the game that much between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs, you might want to mention it to everyone. If you’re going to call all the crap behind the play, how about calling everything in the play as well. We’d have a lot of four-on-four, but you wouldn’t feel so annoyed when six power-play goals are scored in one game.

Matt and I went to Brewsters for some trivia and some Golden Tee to relive life on Kilborne. When we lived a couple blocks apart we played trivia at Buffalo Charlie’s (gone now) at least once a week. I miss it. Matt’s pretty much everything you could ask for in a brother-in-law, except when he kicks my ass on the last hole of the game and wins it running away. Note to self: you can’t drive over the trees and the hill to make the green in real life, and you can’t do it in simulated life.

Well, I’m already crazy, but you know what I mean. I’ve finished the work I had to do, which was mostly getting some last-minute instructions regarding a customer communication and an updated migration plan out the door. The next three weeks are going to be difficult, so I’ll be leaving work on the table for the rest of my stay here. I’m also going to ignore my personal e-mail, and stay away from Matt and Angie’s network connection. It’s for the best.

I’m about 250 pages into Quicksilver, and I haven’t the foggiest what the point of the book is yet. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, and it could very well be that it’s just me, as I haven’t been able to concentrate long enough to read anything more than Foxtrot and Bloom County comics of late. It’s an interesting read so far on Stephenson’s take on how philosophy, religion, and science all blended together in the 17th century, and I’m sure eventually things will start to come together. I’m also getting interested in the period the book is set in – I get the feeling it was a horrible and fascinating time.

It’s been an effort to get to where I am, but the brain is starting to feel lubricated and I’m getting more interested the farther into the book I go. If I get through it (which I will), it will be the first book I’ve read start-to-finish since late last year, other than collections of comics. Have I mentioned I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything lately? I’ll take those 250 pages as a good sign, and keep focusing. Besides, I’ve got a four hour plane ride on Monday.

Ok, enough about that. Tonight is game one of the “Battle of Ontario”, and I’ve got to get a wedding present before it starts.

So I’ve made my way halfway across the country, and am in Calgary to visit with friends and fambly for five days. I don’t fly domestically very often, and when I do it’s usually with Mapleflot because I’m forced by company policy to use them (I guess the monopolies figure they have to support each other). This was the first opportunity to fly WestJet, and I have to say I was thrilled with the experience. Amazing people, direct flights, on-time everything, smiles galore, and a comfortable ride – all for $200 less than the big red machine. From now on I’ll be flying with these folks whenever possible.

It’s great to visit with my sister and brother-in-law, as everything is just like it’d be back home. There’s no pressure to do anything, we just hang out and catch up. I like that. Rachel will be joining us in a couple days for Kjell’s wedding, so tomorrow will be a wee bit of work to make up for the half-day lost today, and then I’ll probably sleep a lot and try to track down other folks to say “Howdy!”

It’s good to be here.

Surprise! There will be no migration this weekend. I have made a note to substitute “no, that’s not ok” everytime the folks I’m dealing with say “ok”. They are amazing, and do great work, but I think their management has trained them too well in the “customer is always right” department. We’re not. We’re a big bad company that is slow, stupid, and a couple years behind the times. Give it to me straight, don’t sugarcoat it, and tell me when things are not ok. I won’t crucify you for it, in fact I’ll thank you for sacing me from unpleasant surprises a few days later. That said, I don’t have to take my laptop and/or cel phone with me to Calgary, everyone gets the long weekend off, and I get a little more time to prep our customers and internal staff. It’s all good except for that little bit about the contract wall coming up. I still have wiggle room, and if it fucks up, I’m only out of a job.

Speaking of jobs, I really hope Mike knows what he’s (potentially) getting into, ’cause big software means big money, and all of the big software companies I know will clobber you if your ideals get in the way of their goals. Ya gotta do what’s right from the happiness perspective, and I hope where he lands gives him that. I empathise with him completely, and have very recently realized what kind of toll this stupid industry we’re in has done (I was just in denial for a looooooong time). Good luck man, and I hope it all works out.

So I’ve been at this working out and getting fit thing for a while now, and it’s time to see how things are going. I started this iteration of remaking myself in August last year, and I have to admit, I have blown by any milestones I thought I’d achieve. In August, I was 234lbs (I’m 5’11”, and 234lbs is big in my books), and had a body fat percentage of 32.1%. I couldn’t run more than a couple of minutes without getting tired (I could ride a stationary bike for a while, though), and I wasn’t playing any organized sports. You could just call me el-lardo.

In September, I ran into my friend Ann, who remembered I was interested in playing ultimate the previous summer. She invited me to join her team for phauleeg, and I accepted. I sucked wind in a big way the first couple times out, but had an amazing time. I decided it was time to do something about my sucking wind, as I’m 35, and it’s starting to get to that do-it-now-or-lose-it-forever point. To complement the Ultimate, I started running with a group through a clinic that Kjell gave me a gift certificate for, and signed up for a membership at Glebe Fitness. That was all in September.

Today I am very proud to say that I am 192lbs, and my body fat is down to 21%. The goal is 185lbs, and a body fat of around 18%, and I plan on being there by race weekend. I can squat 220lbs, bench 150lbs, and run 20km without stopping or dying. It’s an amazing feeling, and the workouts and runs have helped me through an exceptionally difficult period of my life (hence the extreme lack of updates over the last four months).

One of the keys to success has been the personal trainer I started to work with in January. This was the smartest thing I could have done (well, that Sylvie convinced me to do, anyways). She has taught me how to exercise properly, runs programs with goals, encourages/motivates me, and is one of the nicest folks I have ever had the pleasure to meet/shoot the shit with. I highly recommend her, and if you are in need of a trainer’s services, drop me a line and I’ll pass you her info.

I’m in good shape, I fit in a pair of size 34 jeans comfortably, and need a new wardrobe. Kick ass.

I’d apologize for the self-flagellation, but I worked damn hard for this, and am proud of how far I have come. Jenn has set a target of 1:45 for the half-marathon in May. I know I’m gonna beat it.

It’s snowing. It’s icy. Driving’s a mess. Someone up in the weather room ain’t paying attention, and I’m done with the whole “winter” thing. Knock it off already, it’s bad enough the only radio I can get has Stuntman Stu on it. Suck.

Did you know that

CFLAS

is not nearly the same as

CFLAGS

when building software? Did you also know that whitespace when specifying include or library directories will bite you in the ass sometimes? These two simple things can kill a day for you. Thankfully, while beating my head against that-which-should-have-been-obvious, I decided that postfix is way too basic for what I want it to do. I’m going with OpenLDAP for config and addressbook info, qmail with ldap support for the mta, courier-imap for the imap server, and SquirrelMail for the webmail client. I’ll also have a MySQL backend for useful things like individual user SpamAssassin settings. Still, I wasted some serious time in front of an xterm today. The scary part was I enjoyed it.

Maybe I should have wasted the day fighting ninjas like Walt, but I think there’ll be time for that in a couple weeks. Xbox Live goodness – mmmm…

Holy crap, deadsquid.com is over six years old! Funny, but for some reason, it feels like 12.

Cthulu – which is deadsquid.com – started off as an SGI Challenge S (it’s still around) with a 2GB drive and 256MB of memory running IRIX 5.3. It made it’s debut in Ottawa on Bell Canada’s first ADSL offering, which offered a static IP, 2Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up, all for $64.95CAD/month. That was in 1997, before Bell realized how much they could charge for such a service. They still haven’t figured it out.

Deadsquid.com was used as an Expert CTF Quake 2 server (I had to custom build the mods for IRIX – blecch), a webserver, a mail server using Netscape Messaging Server, and a mailing list for a bunch of us who used to work at Ingenia and needed a place to vent. Over the years the memory and disk was upgraded with 3rd party gear and the OS upgraded to IRIX 6.2 and then to 6.5. The cthulu hostname, webserver, and Expert CTF servers were moved to a Compaq 1850 running RedHat Linux 7.1 when I moved to NYC to take a job at Globix. The Challenge S was renamed “mail”, and resided in my apartment in New York and continued to run as deadsquid’s mail server until September 11th, 2001.

The apartment was rather close to the World Trade Center, so power and access to it was lost for about two weeks (although it did stay on until about 8pm on 9/11). Within a couple hours of the power going out, the mail server was migrated to the Compaq box, and deadsquid.com has been hosted there ever since.

The box is a dual P3-500 Compaq 1850 with 768MB of RAM, 2 x 9.1GB drives, and 3 x 18.2GB drives. Today it runs RedHat Linux 7.3, and I am really pissed off that RedHat discontinued supporting it. I paid for the software support, and refuse to shell out the ridiculous amounts of money they want for the Enterprise edition. It’s getting old, too, so it’ll be upgraded this summer. That said, it’s a solid performer, and has served us well.

deadsquid currently hosts around 150 mail accounts for folks I know and like, around 20 mailing lists, and 20-odd websites. It’s nice to see it’s used, and has been a pretty fun hobby.

I’m in the process of upgrading the mail system this weekend to postfix with an LDAP backend, and it’s a pain. The ancient Netscape software must be replaced though, so it’s a good way to spend a grey, wet, and chilly weekend.

Today’s run was a good one. We ran close to 15k (I thought it was 16, but was off by a wee bit :), and went through a good chunk of Ottawa’s more scenic parks and areas. We discovered the “Canada Pavillion” and, not being able to figure out what it was by looking at it, am glad that Accenture paid for a good chunk of the $2.6M the thing cost. What a fucking waste of space. In any event, good run, good pace, and a sub 1:40 time in the half seems possible now.

It’s from a couple days ago, but it summarizes my state of mind nicely. I hated it when I wrote it, but I kinda like it today.

Another one of my friends bites the dust. Sorry kjell-o, but the invites are no longer the only place the site is advertised. But verbage like that in the site and you know some dick is going to post a link somewhere. Congrats, and I’m glad Laura has decided she can handle a scotch-snarfing raggedy-ass bastid like yourself. I mean that in the the best possible way, of course.

And on another happy kind of news item, there’s two more feet that will be pitter-pattering around a friends place. I leave the intro up to Colin:

Introducing our next life event in the pink corner, weighing in at 8 lbs 5 oz, coming to us from the Civic Hospital and delivered by cesarean at 12:10 am, Feb 11th, please welcome Mmmmmmmmaureeeen Franceees O’Briiieeennnn!

photo gallery

P.S. Momma and baby are doing great.

Congrats guys! Glad everything went so swimmingly. Only three more to go, Colin!

A friend of mine recommended that I watch Cabin Fever, and I was a wee bit skeptical. I watched it yesterday, and all I can say is “watch this movie”. I didn’t really get a feel for it from the trailers when it came out in the theatres, and was sure it was going to be another cabin-of-teenagers-gets-drunk-and-have-sex-then-die kind of flick. It wasn’t. I won’t go into the details of the story, because that would spoil it.

It’s a great, gory, funny, and clever movie. Recommended, but eat a few hours before or after.