Helping a friend install linux … win.

Helping a friend install linux, only to realize halfway through, after their old OS is destroyed, that the only copy is on a bad CD, with no other computer to burn a new copy? Not as fun.

There’s amazing ways to work yourself out of that hole, but … man. It sucks. And boy does it take time.

Last night was my family’s solstice celebration. It’s a tradition we’re slowly growing, replacing the Christmases of a family that has more connection to the seasons than the church with something a bit more connected.

We all got together for a pot luck last night. Pizza with pesto and cranberries, cheesy escarole and mushroom and pasta casserole, home made egg-nog, home made ravioli, a huge platter of fresh vegetables.

We light candles, light for the dark night.

We still have a left-over Christmas gift-giving tradition, though I think that’s half held together by my mother, who works in a thrift shop and gets everything half price.

It’s a quiet holiday, but I really like how my family celebrates.

My sister leaves on Boxing Day for Denver, six months in paramedic school. I’m going to miss her.

My mother dropped by the office today on her way home from lunch to tell me that at the thrift shop (where she works) a black pleated skirt had come in, possibly my size. I’d left a note there a while back saying I was looking for one, but it wasn’t the normal shop manager who called me, but my mother. About a skirt.

It’s a big deal. It’s the first time she’s really acknowledged my preferences in clothing. I think she’s coming around.

PLoS Medicine: What Are the Benefits and Risks of Fitting Patients with Radiofrequency Identification Devices

• Quiche
• Soufflé gone quichey, “Soufliche”
• Corn casserole
• Scalloped potatoes
• Polenta larghata with tomatoes, portobello mushrooms and mozarella on top
• Sweet potato pie
• Pumpkin pie
• Cous-cous with cranberries in it
• Cranberry sauce
• Wine
• English muffins (Home made)
• Curry

I’d forgotten that I’d ever seen the concept of Soft Security spelled out until chris2 reminded me.

NaNoWriMo is 2/3 over today. Good luck, all!

• move database services to the new cluster machine, in a VM
• rebuild the database to passwd-file converter, to be triggerable whenever a user is added to the database
• set up passwd-file replication (rdist?)
• finish user management in the control panel system
• Start clustered web services finally

There’s some fun stuff.

Day 16: 1660 words

• edit my novel
• play with parser combinators more
• re-learn objective C
• package the latest GNUStep for PLD, and see if I can’t make the packaging more gnustep-theory-friendly
• Find a ruby grammar and make a trivial ruby pseudo-interpreter in ObjC
• investigate StepTalk more
• play with GNUstep GUI programming internals more clearly.
• See if Gobject and libObjC are even close, and see about merging the runtimes.

Day 13: 1615.

Day 14: Zilch.

Day 15: 1589, plus adding 509 revising Day 10 a bit to make it more intimate.

Day 7: 1277

Day 8: 1641

Day 9: 1038

Day 10: 1989

Day 11: 1109. Part 1, Part 2

Day 12: 818

Thanks a bunch, myriad_rainbows.

Ten things that make me happy?

1. Crossing 10k in NaNo.
2. FAke chicken noodle soup
3. Cajun salmon and eggplant sandwiches
4. Wireless in Linux working a lot better
5. baileyjordan
6. serishema
7. shawnaree
8. elliotpp‘s “Oh hai, I fixed ur voting systems” T-shirt
9. yayforqueers.net
10. Cheese

Dyslexic student expelled over toy gnu.

Thanks to my friend Kyle for pointing this one out – Wyoming Elementary School Eliminates Homework.

Potato-dill soup

sauté one shallot in butter, add ½ cup chopped parsely. Cook for a few minutes. Add water, 1½ cups of cubed potato and a tablespoon or two of dried dill. Boil until the potatoes are soft.

Add a teaspoon or a bit more of salt, a quarter cup of nutritional yeast.

I think it’d go great with steamed salmon. I’ll have to try that next time.