Poland for the month of June?
Maybe...
more on that soon.
:)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
again, way overdue...
overdue, but still geeking out. :)
Wow, where has the time gone?
Finally the weather has been improving and I've been able to finally get out on the bike for some extended rides including taking it to work. Must get out there more on it! Nothing new to report on the bike other than I had a new chain/sprocket combo installed. The new chain is certainly a lot quieter, when I bought the bike the previous owner mentioned several times that the chain needed cleaning and lubing. I suspect it hadn't been done in a while and that he wasn't using a proper chain lube. After I cleaned it the thing started making what could be best described as a 'zipper' sound that lessened over time with the application of more chain lube, but as soon as the chain was cleaned, sound was back.
In more geeky pursuits I recently built a MythTV box using Ubuntu Edgy as the distro. What can I say but I love it. I can record shows, and watch them without commercials and on bold my/bold schedule. I can even stream the show back to my laptop all via the wireless network. It's also doubling as a media center for our music, as we also recently picked up a Squeezebox by SlimDevices. Woah, very cool stuff. Both Q and I are huge music fans and are always picking up new cd's, checking out new bands, etc. The Squeezebox allows us to digitize and playback our music from one location, setup custom playlists, play internet radio(as well as access my online Sirius radio account) it routes the sound through my receiver and features audiophile quality sound. I compared it with my CD player playing a CD that I'd ripped onto the media system and the difference in sound was almost un-noticeable. It wasn't worse or better, just a little different and both were exceptional sounding.
Q and I are still playing house and it's going very well. We both enjoy having the other around and are pretty compatible living together.
Alright, I started the above about three weeks ago. damn again where does time go.
At the moment I'm about 30,000 feet above the arctic circle in Alaska. Way cool! I recently picked up a contract that took me to a mine site in the arctic to do a network analysis and documentation.
The trip has been incredible, I hope I get the chance later in the summer to come back and implement the changes I'll be recommending. My presentation to the General Manager and IT manager on site went well and they were both very happy with the work I'd done. I had the advantage of coming in with a fresh set of eyes and uninterrupted time to focus on the task where their staff are just way too busy with the day-to-day running of the place to tackle a job such as this..
All in all I think it was a job well done. Initially when I was heading up here I was more than a little worried about the scope of the job and if I'd be up to completing it in the time allocated. Part of my concern was the trip up here took a full two days when I thought it'd only take one. However, due to the staff being on site for and living there, they routinely work 12 hour days. I was able to easily fall into the schedule and get caught up, but it was still down to the wire today. I even was able to tour all the operations around the site, from the internal workings of the mill(crushing, grinding purifying of the ore) to the shipping and excavation of it. Plus due to needing to document all aspects of the site, a trip to the Port site about 50 miles or so away on the Chukchi sea! The ore is stored there in massive storage houses while they wait for the sea ice to break up and allow the barges to arrive for their very short 100 day shipping window.
Until now, I'd never been in Alaska, I have to say I'm a wee bit enamoured of it. I definitely want to come back and experience it in different seasons including the winter. The scenery has been incredible. Didn't get a chance to see a lot of wildlife, but I did see a herd of caribou that were in early stages of a colour change from the winter white to summer brown. I managed to get a few shots on camera using the 200mm lens, it turned out pretty good I think.
For a couple of years I've been thinking of purchasing a full DSLR camera and when I knew I was going on this trip, I figured now was the time. :) I picked up a Nikon D40 with two lenses, the basic 18mm-55mm kit lens and a 55mm-200mm zoom with vibration reduction.
So far I've been extremely pleased with the camera. It's performed flawlessly and I'm figuring out the various settings and how to use them properly. I'm still going to take a course though, I'd love to be able to use the camera to it's fullest abilities.
hmmm, we just reduced power and are descending a bit, time to stop writing and put this away for now.
and two weeks later, I'm finally posting this.. sheesh!
Wow, where has the time gone?
Finally the weather has been improving and I've been able to finally get out on the bike for some extended rides including taking it to work. Must get out there more on it! Nothing new to report on the bike other than I had a new chain/sprocket combo installed. The new chain is certainly a lot quieter, when I bought the bike the previous owner mentioned several times that the chain needed cleaning and lubing. I suspect it hadn't been done in a while and that he wasn't using a proper chain lube. After I cleaned it the thing started making what could be best described as a 'zipper' sound that lessened over time with the application of more chain lube, but as soon as the chain was cleaned, sound was back.
In more geeky pursuits I recently built a MythTV box using Ubuntu Edgy as the distro. What can I say but I love it. I can record shows, and watch them without commercials and on bold my/bold schedule. I can even stream the show back to my laptop all via the wireless network. It's also doubling as a media center for our music, as we also recently picked up a Squeezebox by SlimDevices. Woah, very cool stuff. Both Q and I are huge music fans and are always picking up new cd's, checking out new bands, etc. The Squeezebox allows us to digitize and playback our music from one location, setup custom playlists, play internet radio(as well as access my online Sirius radio account) it routes the sound through my receiver and features audiophile quality sound. I compared it with my CD player playing a CD that I'd ripped onto the media system and the difference in sound was almost un-noticeable. It wasn't worse or better, just a little different and both were exceptional sounding.
Q and I are still playing house and it's going very well. We both enjoy having the other around and are pretty compatible living together.
Alright, I started the above about three weeks ago. damn again where does time go.
At the moment I'm about 30,000 feet above the arctic circle in Alaska. Way cool! I recently picked up a contract that took me to a mine site in the arctic to do a network analysis and documentation.
The trip has been incredible, I hope I get the chance later in the summer to come back and implement the changes I'll be recommending. My presentation to the General Manager and IT manager on site went well and they were both very happy with the work I'd done. I had the advantage of coming in with a fresh set of eyes and uninterrupted time to focus on the task where their staff are just way too busy with the day-to-day running of the place to tackle a job such as this..
All in all I think it was a job well done. Initially when I was heading up here I was more than a little worried about the scope of the job and if I'd be up to completing it in the time allocated. Part of my concern was the trip up here took a full two days when I thought it'd only take one. However, due to the staff being on site for and living there, they routinely work 12 hour days. I was able to easily fall into the schedule and get caught up, but it was still down to the wire today. I even was able to tour all the operations around the site, from the internal workings of the mill(crushing, grinding purifying of the ore) to the shipping and excavation of it. Plus due to needing to document all aspects of the site, a trip to the Port site about 50 miles or so away on the Chukchi sea! The ore is stored there in massive storage houses while they wait for the sea ice to break up and allow the barges to arrive for their very short 100 day shipping window.
Until now, I'd never been in Alaska, I have to say I'm a wee bit enamoured of it. I definitely want to come back and experience it in different seasons including the winter. The scenery has been incredible. Didn't get a chance to see a lot of wildlife, but I did see a herd of caribou that were in early stages of a colour change from the winter white to summer brown. I managed to get a few shots on camera using the 200mm lens, it turned out pretty good I think.
For a couple of years I've been thinking of purchasing a full DSLR camera and when I knew I was going on this trip, I figured now was the time. :) I picked up a Nikon D40 with two lenses, the basic 18mm-55mm kit lens and a 55mm-200mm zoom with vibration reduction.
So far I've been extremely pleased with the camera. It's performed flawlessly and I'm figuring out the various settings and how to use them properly. I'm still going to take a course though, I'd love to be able to use the camera to it's fullest abilities.
hmmm, we just reduced power and are descending a bit, time to stop writing and put this away for now.
and two weeks later, I'm finally posting this.. sheesh!
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