Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

So I’m installing Gentoo Linux on a box at the office. Thanks to the corporate firewalls, the emerge sync process is taking forever. Fargin proxies…
Why am I installing linux on a work box? First I get to do pretty much what I want in regards to computers at work. I try not to go overboard, but there I times I can’t resist the lure of using the power my office supplies. Second, it’s the future. Maybe not tomorrow, or next month, or even next year, but eventually Microsoft will fall. Let us not forget Ozymandias.
I want to be ahead of the curve on this one. And you can’t get far ahead of the curve if you aren’t willing to start walking. So I’ve started walking.

I posted on LA Blogs that we are still having the Weblogging Meetup.
You are invited. It’s Wednesday night at 7PM. The link above has the details.
I’m probably dragging my wife and kids along. Since it’s in the Vroman’s Bookstore, the kids will have food and books to look at, ensuring happiness.
So get off your lazy butt and go to the meetup. You don’t have any excuses…

I’ve been playing around with Web Album generators for a project I’ve been working on lately.
I made a couple of albums using pictures from Zoe’s soccer games. You can see photos from the first and second games of the season. The girls decided the name of the team would be the Black & Yellow Dolphins. Dolphins are quite popular with 6 year old girls. We count 4 dolphin teams in the under 8 group. Go figure.
Anita asked what a soccer parade is in comments below. The soccer parade is when the teams all parade by the stands with their special banner, players and coaches. Here’s the picture from the parade of a team coached by our neighbor across the street:

Make sense now? Funny coincidence that there was a story in the LA Times about soccer banners & parades this weekend. You can read the article here. You can use the login of cpunks/cpunks, if you don’t want to register.
Back to web albums… I’m looking for one with a few features. I’d like to be able to enter comments that get displayed and I’d also like to be able to add to the album on a continuing basis. Let me know if you have suggestions.
Lastly, it appears that groovymom has got her weblog groove on. Plz show her the love!

Well, I didn’t get the free time I was hoping for in this morning. Besides the mound of laundry I had to fold, Michele’s plane got in almost 45 minutes early, squeezing my free time even more.
Almost showertime for the girls. Hopefully tonight I’ll find some time to go through the last set of pictures off tha camera and get some soccer pictures posted.
Now on my want list is this and this. I yearn for a dual boot WinXP/Linux box. Fuck that boot manager shit. Hardware isolation baby!

It’s Sunday morning and hte house is quiet.
The kids are at my parents and Michele is winging her way home from Philly.
A few more things to clean up around here, and I am free to do what I want for a couple hours. I resolve to not spend it in front of the computer.

Just finished 3 & 1/2 hours of soccer parades & pictures. We get a brief rest until 2PM when Zoe’s game starts.
This big ball of fire in the sky was making me hot and getting in my eyes. I hope it goes away by 2. Or at elast some clouds….

It’s around 7:30 on Friday evening. We just got back from soccer practice and the girls are winding down from the post-practice snack. They are playing Elmo’s letter adventure on the Paystation.
I checked fileplanet, and sure enough, Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo is available. I’m d/ling it now. 21 minutes to go!
Michele’s out of town, so once I wash the girls and put them to bed, it’s gaming time. I think I’ll even drink a beer.
Time to get off my lazy ass and go start the shower.
A few items of note:
Please welcome in the weblog world, GroovyMom. Our good friend Colleen has joined the extrovert crowd. She hasn’t posted much, but I’m sure she’ll have a story or two to tell.
My mother is considering creating her own weblog. Anyone have suggestions for the name?

Since I now have access to cheap hosting and domain names cost me $8 I have way too much freedom to do silly things.
One of those silly things is create binaryblockssucks.com.
As you may know, Binaryblocks was a web hosting reseller that went out of business by not paying their bills. I had been using Binaryblocks, and had recommended it to friends and family. When they went out of business, they caused trouble & headache for me and thousands of others.
To give people a place to vent their anger and discuss solutions to problems, I created binaryblockssucks.com. I’ll post up a few documents later, but for now, I’ve installed a forum where people can post whatever they want.
On a side note, Michele headed out for a quilting expedition this morning at 4AM. She is going to be helping at a show and visiting her grandmother. Me and the girls are going to be having some fun until she returns on Sunday. We intend to leave clothes on the floor, play computer games, and not vacuum. Well, maybe I’ll vacuum just befroe she returns to avoid the wrath.

It appears we made it through the day without terror.
I feel lucky that while I am sad today, I was not directly linked to the horror a year ago. After watching a few hours of the interviews with family members I realized that I can’t even imagine what these people have gone through. Seeing a widowed husband talk about his young children and how they miss their mother was too much. I’m lucky I could turn off the TV. The victim’s families don’t have this luxury.
Life goes on and we pass this milestone. I can only hope that I don’t see somethign this terrible again in my lifetime.
The page I put up today is here.

If you can read this, you are reaching the new host.
Welcome back loyal readers!
The dust has almost settled and Cruft will be back in action soon enough.