The journey continues...

Brian Bilbrey November 1, 2018

1 November 2018

Nope, this time I didn't forget. I just planned on waiting until I got back from Nashville. This was a 4 day trip to attend LISA 18, the USENIX Large Infrastructure Systems Administration conference. I think, though, that they dropped the long form a couple of years back. I hadn't attended since it was last local, in 2015. This trip was great. The event itself is shorter, just three days of blended talks and short trainings, as opposed to the prior 6 day run. Looking back, I actually miss the dedicated training days, and the much more extensive training available…

Brian Bilbrey October 22, 2018

22 Octogre 2018

It was Thursdays that Arthur Dent could never get the hang of. For me? Mondays. We slept in Sunday morning, a bit, and it pushed the whole day. Oh, well. Got lots done over the weekend. The last of the parts arrived Friday, and I repaired my snow blower, thus staving of the return of Snowmageddon this winter. While I roasted some SO coffee beans from Burundi, I cleaned up the workshop and gave myself a haircut. I also made a delicious batch of chili with hot italian sausage, ground turkey, fire roasted tomatoes, kidney and black beans, and the…

Brian Bilbrey October 17, 2018

17 Octogre 2018

Y'all: VOTE! Where registration is still open, do that. Then vote! Where registration is closed, many states offer on-site registration in concert with early voting, so check it out, carve out some time, and do that. Failing everything else, if you're unregistered, at least find out where your correct voting location is, and totter down there with ID and do a provisional ballot. Important to be at the right polling place, though. I haven't forgotten, I've just been busy. Especially Sunday, which had an evening full of song and a bit of dance at Cabaret Night at the Annapolis Shakespeare…

Brian Bilbrey October 8, 2018

8 Octogre 2018

A day late and a dollar short. Well, one of those, anyway. Yesterday was a half-day at work, updating firmware versions and upgrading hypervisor versions on the fleet at $FIRM HQ. When I say half-day, I mean in the CEO-sense: 12+ hours... long day. But it all got done, and everything was still working when the ball dropped. That's not always guaranteed when working with systems that get rebooted and/or power cycled with no regularity at all. And BIOS updates are a feature in one of the special circles of Hell. Since I was planning on a long Sunday, I…

Brian Bilbrey September 30, 2018

30 September 2018

This has been a busy, busy weekend. Two words: Capclave, Theatre. First up: Capclave. This is a lovely small literary SF/F/H/etc. conference run and sponsored by the WSFA (Washington Science Fiction Association). They're a wonderful, motivated, well-organized group who've been putting on Capclave annually for a long time - Hat's off to the team and organizers! The Guests of Honor (usually GoH) this year were Alyssa Wong and Nancy Kress. I was, frankly, embarrassed to know not very much about the work of either, for very different reasons. Alyssa writes superb, award-winning short stories, most of which may be considered…