Slashdot

Man - I take two days off to spend a long weekend getting caught up on house repairs and other projects. What a disaster!

#1 - our poor lab has been on a long chain for about a year. I've got a radio/underground fence but haven't gotten around to installing it. Well I have about 1200' of fence (we have 8 acres) though only about 300' is buried (the rest is under leaves) Well I had hoped to do it before any poison ivy, etc, sprouted and I didnt' see any, but I must have hit a root. Ugh - My left eyelid is covered in it, the back of my ear, my left temple, bridge of my nose, left wrist, and 'elsewhere' OK - What a fun weekend - then it rains! GRRRR

So I try to attack some other projects like replacing our agign water pipes - had truoble getting pipes through the basement walls. SO that went undone - so many projects so little time.

So 2 vacation days plus a weekend and I still didn't get much finished and I'm itching like crazy :) Sigh

Wow - pretty sad that my last entry was 9/11 Ugh - So much has happened - the new job is rocking and it isn't so new anymore!

Too much to do - not enough time. Got the family site going with Postnuke - pretty cool (http://thebaptistes.net/) Now I'm workin to move all my websites (and those of lots of friends, non profits, etc) off our old server (K62-300) to a new 1GHz Athlon - well, its not so new - its been here for almost a year doing only MySQL for the sites on teh K6-2. All along I've meant to move the web sites to teh Athlon - let the K6-2 do email, CVS, etc. Damn I need 100 hour days.

Oh well, figured I'd get a short entry in - I need to post more often (or put a blogge ron my server - yeah like I have time to post every day LOL)

They say during tragic events, you can always remember what you were doing when you found out. JFK's assasination, the Challenger explosion, etc. Today is one of those days... I know I will remember - I'm setling into a new job (finally) and was just about to interview someone for another job here. Amazed at how all the major news websites were crushed by the load and how CNN went to a nice simple text format ala 1995 to reduce band - it was refreshing (under tragic circumstances)

The press will sensationalize this of course, but I believe this will be a day where we'll look back and realize 'things changed' The funny part is I don't think anyone knows HOW things will change. We know this will have a huge effect on Americans. But there is no telling HOW they will react beyond the initial outrage and sorrow. What will people call for? How will it effect what WERE the big news items: the faltering economy, missle defense, the balanced budget, etc. There is NO telling. Attacks on America, a declaration fo war on America is not a partisan event. WHile soem zealots on both sides will resond it expected fashion, the effect on everyday Amercians will be based less on political beliefs and more on patriotism. At least that's my hope.

Personally, I think we need to strike hard and fast. All thsoe terrorist cells we track and wish we could prosecute - screw it - flatten them. Countries that continue to stand in the way of apprehendign known terrorists who may have had an indirect involvement - they either shape up or hurt. We'll be called bullies, etc - too bad. For too long we've stood by allowing groups to build their courage and finally pull off the big one. This poster sums it up well. Its time to show all those terrorist groups even thining about doing this - there WILL be consequences, evne if you weren't directly responsible. Maybe next time you think twice. As one slashdot poster said - 'Lets glaze the motherf**kers'

I sit here in an office, in front of a laptop with radio broadcasts streaming in and tons of 'Cannot find server' pages as I try to gather info. I appreciate the way the Internet has allowed us to stay so informed. Kudos to Taco for filling a need (a site that responded) and to JonKatz for a moving writeup but in the end...

I just want to go home and hug my kids.

God Bless America...

Well, its official - the dotted line has been signed - I start my new job on Tuesday. Its gonna be a blast. But man is it gonna be strange going back to 9-5 after 'working' at home for 2 years in boxers and old T shirts LOL. But it'll be good to be back in the thick of things. Gotta wear a tie, bt it could be worse!

Its gonna be a challenge. I'm now the Director of IT at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. Its a small engineering school, but the new Dean is driving forward to improve the quantity and size of the school. Lots of needs for clusters (imagine a Beowulf.... never mind) and all sorts of other high end IT technology which will be cool. Each department has IT guys but from a school level, its a greenfield and theres a new building in teh works - should be cool. But I'm gonna start out small. Wanna get my hands on a couple 1124's and start deploying some school wide services. Going to be interesting! I'll keep you all posted!

So I noticed on Mozilla.org they are pushing an add-on called Multi-zilla which allows you to have all your browser views appear in one window and you switch between them using tabs. You can still open up new windows too - and those can have tabs in them too. VERY cool idea and it's all done using Javascript and XUL/RDF, etc. Pretty slick. And so far it seems very stable - install the latest nightly (1.049 right now) on top of 0.9.3 - very cool interface - one I hope gets included by default (since it hangs in teh background unless you specifically create the tabs in a context menu choice or keystroke) Try it out today!