1381017534
Good night, demonslayers.

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1381006292
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Test blog

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1381005175
Corning is a quaint little town. Looking forward to exploring.

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1380987012
test
test

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Why does tomorrow have to be Monday?
Today I decided to be awesome. My friends decided to be awesome too. It was awesome.

We packed up and drove down to Westfield and ran the CJRRC Hangover 5K. It was supposed to be held January 1, but was rescheduled multiple times due to the weather.

I ran a PR today finishing in 19:22. I was 4th in my age group and 15th over all.

My friends ran the race too, all except one who has a broken toe. Everyone was happy with their time and met their goals for the day, ranging from sub-25 to "eh, taking it easy, seeing how it goes..."

After the race we went cycling. This was my first bike ride outside. I've been working with an indoor trainer for the last few weeks and this was the first time I had been on a bicycle, outside, actually moving, in about 16 or 17 years. My friends have been cycling longer and more recently than I have, so today's 17 mile ride was rather easy for them.

I was freaking out quite a bit, but they calmed me down, gave me pointers, and just helped me out in general.

As we rode, I got more comfortable with the bike and I realized comparing this bicycle to my last bicycle is like comparing my DeLorean to my old Mercury Sable. It takes a while to get used to the differences, but once you do it handles far better and offers more control.

[/running] [permanent link]

Look How Far We've Come
Just under 3 years ago, I started training. That first 5K took about 53 minutes and change. My first race was the 2008 Lincoln Tunnel Challenge, about 6 weeks after I first stepped on the treadmill. My time in that 5K was 35:51, about 11:32 per mile.

Yesterday I ran the NYRR Gridiron 4 Mile. I finished in 25:47 (6:26 pace), a full ten minutes faster than that first 3.1 miles.

Last month, I ran the Fred Lebow Classic 5 Mile race in Central Park. I finished that race in 33:09 (6:37 pace), over two minutes faster than that first 5K race.

I hope this achievement will serve as a testament to the fact that with determination and hard work, anything is possible.

[/running] [permanent link]

1454815466
Beautiful https://www.instagram.com/p/BBeDsOSrXEk/

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1453995544
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hY1eagq88

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Megapath sucks
Speakeasy was by far the best ISP I ever dealt with. Freindly, and above all, knowledgeable. Since they have been purchased by Megapath then merged into Global Capacity, their tech support has been, frankly a bunch of idiots. Furthermore, their website routinely has "Service failed" errors that prevent you from logging in, changing passwords, and viewing account information.

Today, after being unable to log in to the website due to "service failed" the tech support rep on the phoned didn't understand what a subnet mask or gateway address were. Eventually I just got her to read me "all three IP addresses" on the screen in front of her.

But at this point my only other option is Verizon. So I'm sticking with Megapath.

[/musings] [permanent link]

If my calculations are correct...
Over the course of the last two years and four months, I've changed considerably both mentally and physically. I lost 108lbs and then put on 6 while marathon training. This 6lbs was purely lean mass (muscle, bone density) and I'm now at about 6% body fat.

Running is known to increase bone density, and the various forms of exercise I use in my training increased my muscle mass as well throughout this transformation. I've been curious to know just how much fat I lost.

If my calculations are correct, throughout this process I lost 123.96 pounds of fat and gained 21.96 pounds of bone and muscle resulting in my current net loss of 102lbs.

Why is this filed under the Running section? Because running was what enabled this transformation to happen.

[/running] [permanent link]

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta..
After I finished my run tonight, still in my soaked running gear, I walked directly to local grocery store for chocolate syrup and had the following conversation with the woman at the check out counter.

her: Over ice cream or chocolate milk.
me: Chocolate milk.
her: Nothing hits the spot like a cold glass of chocolate milk.
me: Especially after a long run.
her: How far did you run tonight?
me: Half marathon. My third in three days.
her: God bless you. God bless you.

Then, as I walked away she said, "Nice legs."
"Thanks. I've worked hard for those."

[/running] [permanent link]

1265591788
Game's over! The Who just won!

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Best Buy Capitalizes on Actor's Death
I stumbled upon this information today. The Best Buy in Mission Valley San Diego attempted to cash in on Heath Ledger's death mere hours after his passing. You can read all about it here.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Best Buy Charges Customers for Exchanges
This weekend I witnessed a friend try to exchange an item at Best Buy. He had mistakenly purchased the full-screen version and wanted to exchange it for the wide-screen version. While he did not have his receipt, it still had the Best Buy sticker on the shrink wrap as well as the $19.99 price tag.

The signs on the shelf indicated that the wide-screen version was also $19.99 and as of January 22, both versions are $19.99 on the Best Buy website.

My friend waited online patiently for about 15 minutes to make his exchange. He handed the Blue Shirt both the full-screen version he had purchased and the wide-screen copy he picked up before going to the customer service line. The Blue Shirt asked if he had paid cash or credit and when my friend said credit, the Blue Shirt asked for his card.

The Blue Shirt swiped the card and pushed a bunch of buttons then told my friend he'd have to pay $5.35 ($5 plus 7% sales tax) due to a "difference in price."

When we questioned this "difference in price" we were told, "Wide-screen always costs more than full-screen."

I am boycotting Best Buy and I urge others to do the same. This company has a long history of using underhanded tactics to increase profitability at the expense of its employees and its customers.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Google blocks browsers
Netmeister has an interesting blurb about experience with Google blocking various UserAgents.

From the posting:

For example, perl's LWP::UserAgent sets the agent string per default to
"libwww-perl/#.#". Google apparently doesn't like that and will not
return results to you. Setting it to something like "Mozilla/5.0 (X11;
U; NetBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3)" would work.

Interestingly, they appear to whitelist agents, rather than blacklisting
them.

What was that about not being evil?

[/musings] [permanent link]

19 days 23 hours...
Just under 20 days remain until the start of the Philadelphia Marathon. Last week I ran 60 miles and felt pretty good; my hamstring and iliotibial band are healing nicely.

I've gotten some advice from some people who have run Philly before and I'm thankful for that. Among other things, they stressed the importance of tapering. It's going to be difficult to run less when I feel so good.

[/running] [permanent link]

Volunteers Needed
The Lincoln Park Triathlon needs volunteers. If you'd like to help out, please visit www.lincolnparktriathlon.com/volunteers for more information.

This event isn't possible without the help of volunteers. If you or anyone you know would be interested in helping, please contact us.

[/musings] [permanent link]

2010 New Jersey Marathon
I was registered for today's NJ Marathon in Long Branch. I lost a few weeks in training due to some IT-band issues, and earlier this week was stricken with a bout of bronchitis.

I got down there today, and 30 minutes before the race start I did a quick quarter mile and decided I wasn't over the bronchitis enough to run a marathon today. It was difficult for me to be there as the race started, watching my chance at reaching my goals disappear. As the morning went on and clouds disappeared and the temperature rose, my thoughts changed.

Not running today was probably the best and hardest decision I've made in a while. Often the right choices in life are not the easiest to choose, no matter the circumstances.

[/running] [permanent link]

:)
It's amazing how a simple email containing only a smiley emoticon can brighten one's day.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Running...
On Saturday I ran in the Beavertown 5K Fall Classic. The run took place in near my home, so I ran the two miles to the registration location. About a half hour after I signed in, the 5K started. Once I finished, I ran the I ran the (roughly) two and a half miles back home.

I did much better than in my previous 5K runs this year. I took almost 12 and half minutes off my time from the Lincoln Tunnel 5K, and over 4 minutes from my previous best.

I think a lot of the improvement in the shorter distances can be attributed to the fact that I've been training on longer distances lately. In the past two months I've been running about eight to ten miles each day.

A few weeks ago I ran my first half marathon distance. About 10 days ago I ran 20 miles, and took 15 minutes off my time in the half marathon. I promptly fell apart after that and my pace slowed dramatically.

Yesterday I attempted another 20 miles and did not fall apart completely after the first 13. I made it to the 15 mile mark before I had any problems. I managed to finish the run and take a half hour off my previous time.

[/running] [permanent link]

If all goes according to plan...
This time tomorrow, my car should be on its way to Texas.

[/dmc] [permanent link]

Don't be evil?
There's a story over on slashdot about the International Olympic Committee demanding YouTube (owned by Google) remove a video of a Free Tibet protest. Of course YouTube (owned by Google) removed the video immediately.

The video of the protest was filmed in New York, because the protest was in New York near the Chinese Consulate. Last time I checked, which granted was a while ago, New York was in the United States. Also the last time I checked, we had the right to free speech in this country.

Maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe I'm just dumb. To me, this sounds like the IOC and Google denying the protesters their freedom of speech.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Cuban Pete's
Last night I went to dinner with some friends. After debating for a while, we finally decided on Cuban Pete's on Bloomfield Ave. in Montclair.

We arrived and the restaurant was a little crowded, but the three of us were seated in the outdoor dining area rather quickly. The weather at the time was nice, with clear skies and a comfortable temperature in the mid- to upper-seventies; beautiful Autumn weather.

We looked over the menus and made our decisions and then waited. And waited. And waited a little more. Eventually our waiter, Miguel, came over to the table and took our order. My one friend attempted to order the breaded steak. Miguel quickly said, "You don't want that. It's not very good." My friend took his advise and ordered something else instead. After Miguel took our order he quickly came back with our drinks.

We then waited. And waited. And waited some more. After about 25 minutes, the tapas we had ordered as appetizers finally came out. We split orders of chicken empanadas, beef empanadas, fish fritatas, and goat cheese fritters. All of these were quite tasty in my opinion and only to make us hungrier. At this point we had arrived at the restaurant a little over an hour prior.

As we waited for our entrees, the sun set and the air became rather cold for August. Eventually our food arrived. We were all very hungry at this point and starting to run short on time as well.

The food was all quite good. One friend had a Cuban burger made from beef and pork served with potato sticks. He said he liked the burger a lot, but the roll left a lot to be desired. My other friend and I both ordered the marinated skirt steak. The steaks were served with rice, black beans, and fried plantains. All of the side dishes were good. I was less than thrilled with the plantains, but then again, I've never really liked plantains. My friend liked her plantains even less than I did. The steak was quite good and the best I've had in a very long time; however, it was the first steak I've had in several months.

As we were finishing our meals, it began to rain. Apparently some clouds rolled in as the sun was setting. We quickly finished the last few bites and we ran inside. We got our bill from Miguel, paid, and headed back to the car while the rain was still just a drizzle.

Overall, I enjoyed the evening. The food was good. Miguel was friendly. The service was a little slow. We were there for a good two hours, an hour and a half of that waiting for our meals. On yelp.com there's more details of other people's experiences at Cuban Pete's; a lot of them more opinionated than mine. Some people loved it, others hated it. I thought it was okay. I'd like to go there again, when I have three or four hours to sit and wait for food. I've heard good things about the paella there and I'd like to try it.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Not a Paper Cup
I recently ordered the Not a Paper Cup from ThinkGeek. It looks like a paper coffee cup but is made of ceramic. The lid is silicone instead #6 plastic. It should be awesome. It's not.

Advertised as 12 ounces, it actually only holds 8 ounces. Right there, it's at most 66% as awesome as it should be. As one friend put it, "That is significantly less awesome."

Now that I've used it I'll say that it's about 0% awesome and 90% suck with 10% fail.

The silicone lid tastes, well, like silicone. It adds this horrible flavor to every sip. I like my coffee to have a strong coffee flavor, not a strong coffee plus silicone flavor. Maybe that's just me...

The double walled construction of the cup, in theory would add an insulating layer to keep the coffee warm longer than a regular paper cup. This was not the case and in a test yesterday, I found that the standard paper cup kept the coffee warm for about an hour and a half longer than the Not a Paper Cup.

In summary:

• Holds 8 ounces instead of 12 (as advertised).
• Silicone lid adds odd and horrible taste to coffee.
• Doesn't keep the coffee hot as long as regular paper cups.


Don't buy one. If some one gifts it to you, well then that person must hate you or not understand coffee.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Coogan's 5K - Update
Officially I ran my best 5K to date. I finished in 19:41 averaging 6:20 per mile.

It was a rather hilly course, starting at 173rd and running up to the Cloisters. After circling the museum, the same route was taken back to 173rd.

On Saturday I said I was going to PR. I was told that was a bit a of a lofty goal given how hilly the course was. Sunday morning I woke up with a bit of discomfort after gorging on sushi the night before and thought I might not do well.

As I stood in the corral, those feelings changed. I knew I was going to PR. And I did.

[/running] [permanent link]

Beavertown Fall Classic 5K
Saturday morning was the third(?) annual Beavertown 5K. I had been training with a group of people for the two months leading up to the race. We registered as a team for the event, the Beavertown Runners.

I set out with the goal of finally breaking 20 minutes. With Philly so close I decided the PR wasn't worth risking an injury and I'd slow down if something felt off.

I didn't slow down. I finished in 6th place overall with a new PR of 19:51. The team rankings were determined by each team's top 3 finishers and, in our category, the Beavertown Runners took first.

[/running] [permanent link]

It's been a while...
It's been a while since I've had a substantial update here. I've been busy living life leaving little time to be writing about it; at least writing about it here.

Work has been quite busy for a while now. Lots of projects, lots of deadlines, lots of extra hours. But there hasn't been any "mandatory seven day work weeks" like I had at that one job, and there isn't that expectation of "you can work from home so you are always expected to be working" I had at the last job. Plus, the work is a lot more interesting than anything I've done in years.

Bernstein was right: money doesn't motivate me, interesting problems and the ability to tinker do.

Yesterday the DeLorean rolled over to 16,000 miles. That's still about 1,000 miles a year I'm putting on it. I'd like to keep the mileage low, but she's just so much fun to drive. I've been asked by people at work to bring Aisling next week for Bring Your Child to Work Day. Apparently a lot of my co-workers have told their kids about the car and they want to see it.

I ran my 29th half-marathon this past weekend. I'd like to get up to 32 this year. I'm also signed up for my 13th marathon this Autumn. I'm considering running number 14 a few weeks later.

In addition to all of that taking up my time, I've also been volunteering with the Youth Ministry at a church in my diocese. That's been quite an amazing adventure. It's had a profound impact on my life and has certainly helped at least a few teens. It's been an honor to do the Lord's work. Maybe someday I'll publish some of the talks I've given. The In His Image talk seems to have resonated with a lot of people, certainly more so than some of the other talks.

I guess that sums things up for now.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Acceptance, or lack thereof...
A few days ago I picked up some dumbbells that had been left out, they were 40lbs each and I lifted them with one hand each. Three years ago the most I could lift, with both arms combined and "lifting with the legs," was 43lbs (the weight of my computer).

Last month, I ran a 5K in 19:08. Yesterday during a speed workout I ran my two fastest 100m ever, 17.9 seconds and 17.87 seconds. Today I ran a 10K at a 6:24 pace, finishing in under 40 minutes. I've set a new PR in every distance I've raced this year except the half marathon, and that race I set a new record for myself on that particular course.

I've put lost 126 pounds of fat and gained 36 pounds of bone and muscle. My body keeps getting stronger and faster.

And I still can't accept my body for what it is....

[/musings/self] [permanent link]

Scotland 10K 2011
This morning I ran the NYRR Scotland 10K for the third year in a row. The first time it was cold and raining, and I had food poisoning from eating at the Macaroni Grill the night before. (The Giraffes had a team dinner the night before and 40% of us got sick.) I ran that race at a slower pace than the 15K race a few weeks prior.

Last year, the morning of the race was unseasonably hot and I was dealing with an ITBS flare-up. I ran that one almost as slowly as the previous year.

All of the other 10K's I've run were always sub-par compared to my 5K and 15K times. I had never felt like I had a good 10K race. I always felt like I let myself down; like I should be doing better.

Until today...

Today's Scotland 10K was the first time I had a good run at this distance. When I set out this morning, my goal was a 6:56 pace, one second per mile better than my PR. Central Park was a bit chilly at about 52 degrees with an overcast sky.

My team made our plans for meeting afterward and we took our places in the corrals. The gun went off and I started running. As soon as I crossed the starting line I decided I wanted to see how fast I could do this, how fast I could run a 10K. I wanted to see if I could break 40.

So I ran fast and hard, watching my pace a little too closely at times. After the first mile I was warm and debating whether or not to take off the arm warmers. I decided to wait until later in the race, as one side of the park is usually warmer than the other. At about 2.5 miles I had a weird cramping feeling in the ball of my right foot, but within a few hundred meters the high kicked in and the pain went away. At the halfway point I knew I'd be close to a 40 minute finish if I kept up the pace.

I kept up the pace until the last mile, then I sped up. I was close to the goal. I was going to make it or die trying. Well, probably not die. More likely vomit or pull a muscle or re-injure the IT-band. But not one of those problems happened. What did happen was I crossed the finish line less than 40 minutes from the time I crossed the starting line.

For the first time, I had felt good during and after a 10K. I ran the race I wanted and the race I needed. I accomplished what I set out to do and it felt awesome.

The official results posted a few hours later put me at 39:46, a 6:24/mile pace. This is a faster pace than my current 5 mile and 4 mile PRs. I ran at a 67.5% AG performance rating and finished 318 of 8491.

I'm pretty pleased with myself...

[/running] [permanent link]

Don't be evil?
There's a story over on slashdot about the International Olympic Committee demanding YouTube (owned by Google) remove a video of a Free Tibet protest. Of course YouTube (owned by Google) removed the video immediately.

The video of the protest was filmed in New York, because the protest was in New York near the Chinese Consulate. Last time I checked, which granted was a while ago, New York was in the United States. Also the last time I checked, we had the right to free speech in this country.

Maybe I'm ignorant. Maybe I'm just dumb. To me, this sounds like the IOC and Google denying the protesters their freedom of speech.

[/musings] [permanent link]

Cuban Pete's
Last night I went to dinner with some friends. After debating for a while, we finally decided on Cuban Pete's on Bloomfield Ave. in Montclair.

We arrived and the restaurant was a little crowded, but the three of us were seated in the outdoor dining area rather quickly. The weather at the time was nice, with clear skies and a comfortable temperature in the mid- to upper-seventies; beautiful Autumn weather.

We looked over the menus and made our decisions and then waited. And waited. And waited a little more. Eventually our waiter, Miguel, came over to the table and took our order. My one friend attempted to order the breaded steak. Miguel quickly said, "You don't want that. It's not very good." My friend took his advise and ordered something else instead. After Miguel took our order he quickly came back with our drinks.

We then waited. And waited. And waited some more. After about 25 minutes, the tapas we had ordered as appetizers finally came out. We split orders of chicken empanadas, beef empanadas, fish fritatas, and goat cheese fritters. All of these were quite tasty in my opinion and only to make us hungrier. At this point we had arrived at the restaurant a little over an hour prior.

As we waited for our entrees, the sun set and the air became rather cold for August. Eventually our food arrived. We were all very hungry at this point and starting to run short on time as well.

The food was all quite good. One friend had a Cuban burger made from beef and pork served with potato sticks. He said he liked the burger a lot, but the roll left a lot to be desired. My other friend and I both ordered the marinated skirt steak. The steaks were served with rice, black beans, and fried plantains. All of the side dishes were good. I was less than thrilled with the plantains, but then again, I've never really liked plantains. My friend liked her plantains even less than I did. The steak was quite good and the best I've had in a very long time; however, it was the first steak I've had in several months.

As we were finishing our meals, it began to rain. Apparently some clouds rolled in as the sun was setting. We quickly finished the last few bites and we ran inside. We got our bill from Miguel, paid, and headed back to the car while the rain was still just a drizzle.

Overall, I enjoyed the evening. The food was good. Miguel was friendly. The service was a little slow. We were there for a good two hours, an hour and a half of that waiting for our meals. On yelp.com there's more details of other people's experiences at Cuban Pete's; a lot of them more opinionated than mine. Some people loved it, others hated it. I thought it was okay. I'd like to go there again, when I have three or four hours to sit and wait for food. I've heard good things about the paella there and I'd like to try it.

[/musings] [permanent link]

[mini-rant]
I hate bash. I hate it. I hate how it bastardized bourne by adding half-assed implementations of features from ksh and tcsh.

[/unix] [permanent link]

This ends tonight...

[/musings/self] [permanent link]

Sometimes...
Sometimes it's dificult to find a reason to continue.

[/musings/self] [permanent link]

What Year is This?!
So this was my Saturday night....

[/musings] [permanent link]

Run as One 4M
This was an awesome day!

Last week's Scotland 10K went horribly wrong due to a bit of poisoning at the hands of Macaroni Grill (40% of our team got sick!).

Today, however, was awesome!

Today's course was the same as the Run for the Parks which was my personal record... Until today! I finished in 26:55, shaving 26 seconds off my previous best.

My new best pace is 6:43/mile with an AG performance of 62.6%.

After the race we ran into Mr. G! We talked to him and he said he'd talk about the race (and mention our team) on the radio tomorrow morning! (How cool is that?!)

This evening I registered for my volunteer duties with the NYRR, which will complete my qualification for the NYC 2010 marathon. After that I registered for Philadelphia 2009 which will be my first marathon.

Today was pretty good.

[/running] [permanent link]

Best Buy Charges Customers for Exchanges
This weekend I witnessed a friend try to exchange an item at Best Buy. He had mistakenly purchased the full-screen version and wanted to exchange it for the wide-screen version. While he did not have his receipt, it still had the Best Buy sticker on the shrink wrap as well as the $19.99 price tag.

The signs on the shelf indicated that the wide-screen version was also $19.99 and as of January 22, both versions are $19.99 on the Best Buy website.

My friend waited online patiently for about 15 minutes to make his exchange. He handed the Blue Shirt both the full-screen version he had purchased and the wide-screen copy he picked up before going to the customer service line. The Blue Shirt asked if he had paid cash or credit and when my friend said credit, the Blue Shirt asked for his card.

The Blue Shirt swiped the card and pushed a bunch of buttons then told my friend he'd have to pay $5.35 ($5 plus 7% sales tax) due to a "difference in price."

When we questioned this "difference in price" we were told, "Wide-screen always costs more than full-screen."

I am boycotting Best Buy and I urge others to do the same. This company has a long history of using underhanded tactics to increase profitability at the expense of its employees and its customers.

[/musings] [permanent link]

FreeBSD 7 SATA Weirdness
Over the weekend I installed the x86-64 build of FreeBSD 7 on my workstation, dib. I haven't had time yet to configure everything to my liking yet, but almost everything works.

The one really annoying issue centers around a SATA DVD burner. When this device is attached to the primary SATA controller (ICH7), the system refuses to boot from the hard drive. It reports that no system disk has been found. I've tried all of the SATA settings options in the BIOS and none work.

If I connect the SATA burner to the secondary Marvell "RAID" controller the system boots from the hard drive without issue. In Windows, this requires another driver (which for some reason installed a copy of apache along with it). Under FreeBSD 7; however, this second controller seems to be currently unsupported, leaving me with only the IDE burner available.

I may spend the $20 and get another IDE burner and just forget about the SATA issue, but I really would like to know what the problem is. If any one has any idea why the system would fail to boot from a SATA hard drive when a SATA optical drive is attached, please email me and give me some insight into this issue. Maybe the Unix category wasn't the best for this. I spent more time discussing the hardware/BIOS weirdness than the installation or configuration of FreeBSD7. In fact, FreeBSD 7 isn't a very good title for this either. I'm going to change that.

[/unix] [permanent link]

Why does tomorrow have to be Monday?
Today I decided to be awesome. My friends decided to be awesome too. It was awesome.

We packed up and drove down to Westfield and ran the CJRRC Hangover 5K. It was supposed to be held January 1, but was rescheduled multiple times due to the weather.

I ran a PR today finishing in 19:22. I was 4th in my age group and 15th over all.

My friends ran the race too, all except one who has a broken toe. Everyone was happy with their time and met their goals for the day, ranging from sub-25 to "eh, taking it easy, seeing how it goes..."

After the race we went cycling. This was my first bike ride outside. I've been working with an indoor trainer for the last few weeks and this was the first time I had been on a bicycle, outside, actually moving, in about 16 or 17 years. My friends have been cycling longer and more recently than I have, so today's 17 mile ride was rather easy for them.

I was freaking out quite a bit, but they calmed me down, gave me pointers, and just helped me out in general.

As we rode, I got more comfortable with the bike and I realized comparing this bicycle to my last bicycle is like comparing my DeLorean to my old Mercury Sable. It takes a while to get used to the differences, but once you do it handles far better and offers more control.

[/running] [permanent link]

Mailman
The other night I installed mailman on my server. I integrated it into the apache configuration and restarted that. The mailman web interface became available as expected.

I used the web interface to subscribe to the one list I had set up and I received an email asking me to confirm my subscription. I went to the included link, and all seemed to be good.

Another person joined the list successfully, then sent an email to the list. This email never arrived in her inbox. She told me about it, and I checked only to find I did not have a copy either. I sent a mail to the list and promptly received a message saying that [listname] was not a valid recipient at the domain.

That's when I realized I had forgotten to tell the mail server (postfix) about mailman. I had told apache about mailman, and mailman about postfix, but not postfix about mailman.

I used mailman to create an alias database for its single list, then updated postfix's configuration to use that as one of its alias maps. All seems to be working now.

In conclusion, I learned two things. One is always test your configuration before telling people it's ready. The other is, "I'm an idiot."

[/unix] [permanent link]

Happy Birthday

Last night I went to see The Birthday Massacre in Hackensack. The show was at the School of Rock which is a rather small, intimate venue.

The first act was September Mourning. I thought they were pretty good. I got to speak to Emily and Chris from the band later in the evening and they seemed like pretty cool people.

Dommin was the next band up. The singer's got a pretty good voice and the bassist was really good. They played a cover of Depeche Mode's "People are People" and it was pretty good.

I was a little less than impressed with I Am Ghost. They weren't bad, but I couldn't get into them.

Early in the evening, before Dommin's set I went to the merchandise table and picked up two new shirts. Now I have TBM shirts that fit! I also picked up a copy of the new live album Show and Tell. Zimmy couldn't make it this tour, but Michelle, the girl who took his place, was just as awesome as he was.

The Birthday Massacre was great. They played a good mix from their albums including songs from their three albums and the Looking Glass EP.

If you care (or even if you don't), their set list follows:

• Red Stars
• Goodnight
• Falling Down
• Play Dead
• Weekend
• Shiver
• To Die For
• Lovers End
• Remember Me
• Video Kid
• Violet
• Looking Glass
• I Think We're Alone Now
• Walking With Strangers
• Blue
• Happy Birthday

They didn't play my favorite song, "Broken," but I was not disappointed in the set at all.

After the show they came out to meet the fans. I was able to get their new live album signed by Falcore, Oen, Rainbow, and Chibi. The latter three also autographed the photos I had taken with them last year and they were pretty nice about it.

Not that anyone really cares, but these are the photos my friend took. If you view the full version, be warned that I'm in the photos too.

M. Falcore	Chibi

[/tbm] [permanent link]

Happy Birthday

Last night I went to see The Birthday Massacre in Hackensack. The show was at the School of Rock which is a rather small, intimate venue.

The first act was September Mourning. I thought they were pretty good. I got to speak to Emily and Chris from the band later in the evening and they seemed like pretty cool people.

Dommin was the next band up. The singer's got a pretty good voice and the bassist was really good. They played a cover of Depeche Mode's "People are People" and it was pretty good.

I was a little less than impressed with I Am Ghost. They weren't bad, but I couldn't get into them.

Early in the evening, before Dommin's set I went to the merchandise table and picked up two new shirts. Now I have TBM shirts that fit! I also picked up a copy of the new live album Show and Tell. Zimmy couldn't make it this tour, but Michelle, the girl who took his place, was just as awesome as he was.

The Birthday Massacre was great. They played a good mix from their albums including songs from their three albums and the Looking Glass EP.

If you care (or even if you don't), their set list follows:

• Red Stars
• Goodnight
• Falling Down
• Play Dead
• Weekend
• Shiver
• To Die For
• Lovers End
• Remember Me
• Video Kid
• Violet
• Looking Glass
• I Think We're Alone Now
• Walking With Strangers
• Blue
• Happy Birthday

They didn't play my favorite song, "Broken," but I was not disappointed in the set at all.

After the show they came out to meet the fans. I was able to get their new live album signed by Falcore, Oen, Rainbow, and Chibi. The latter three also autographed the photos I had taken with them last year and they were pretty nice about it.

Not that anyone really cares, but these are the photos my friend took. If you view the full version, be warned that I'm in the photos too.

M. Falcore	Chibi

[/musings] [permanent link]

Lincoln Tunnel Challenge
Today was the 2009 Lincoln Tunnel Challenge 5K run to benefit the Special Olympics. Last year's was my first race. It took me 35:51 to complete it last year ( an 11:32/mile pace). Today I went in with something to prove to myself. I came out of the tunnel with a new PR of 20:16 (6:31 pace).

[/running] [permanent link]

On Content "Management" Systems
Wordpress is the new Typo3.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

[/musings] [permanent link]

5K Run for Charity
I have entered the 2008 Lincoln Tunnel Challenge to help raise money for the Special Olympics. I would appreciate it if every one could make a donation, no matter the amount.

You can make a donation by visiting http://www.kintera.org/faf/r.asp?t=4&i=259467&u=259467-208197882&e=1594945751. Any and every donation is appreciated.

Thank you.

[/musings] [permanent link]

The DNC Hates Unix Users
Just confirming the Slashdot story (http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/08/25/229210.shtml):

We're sorry, but the Democratic Convention video web site isn't compatible with your operating system and/or browser. Please try again on a computer with the following: Compatible operating systems: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or a Mac with Tiger (OS 10.4) or Leopard (OS 10.5). Compatible browsers: Internet Explorer (version 6 or later), Firefox (version 2), or, if you are on a Mac, Safari (version 3.1) also works.

My User Agent string is currently "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.3) Gecko/20070527 Firefox/2.0.0.3"

So not only does the Vice Presidential nominee want to expand the powers of the DMCA, the entire party wants to prevent Unix users from obtaining information.

[/politics] [permanent link]

Problems with loader.conf

First the background. The story of how I got into this mess:

I'm trying to get ACPI working on my laptop under FreeBSD. Specifically, I'm trying to get Resume to work properly. Suspend works, and resume seems to partially work. The fans spin up, the keyboard's backlight comes back on, but no screen. And without video, it's a little hard to figure out what's going on.

ACPI works great on my server. It's running the same FreeBSD 9.1 x86-64 build that the laptop is, but the biggest difference is that it's an intel motherboard. The laptop is an Alienware, for our purposes, I might as well just call it a Dell.

I started comparing the ASL output from both machines and noticed some things. First, the Alienware's ACPI implementation looks for the OS to be various forms of Windows or "Linux." The intel ACPI implementation also looks for these Windows variants and "Linux" but it has an additional OS string. It has an entry for "FreeBSD."

I figured the easiest next step was to use iasl co compile the intel ASL source and load that DSDT onto the laptop.

I calculated the odds it would work vs the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid... and I went ahead and did it anyway...

I compiled the asl and I set /boot/loader.conf to override the DSDT with the intel one I had just compiled and I rebooted. At first everything was good. The machine went down, I got the boot loader, and the FreeBSD kernel started to load. Seconds into the kernel load, it rebooted itself. After the second time, I powered off and tried a cold boot. Same problem just as I had feared.

Now i was in a situation where I couldn't successfully boot because of an error in loader.conf I needed to find a way to edit it.

And here's the solution:

The FreeBSD bootloader, like many others, works in stages. At a certain point, it can be interrupted at which point it provides a set of simple yet powerful commands to control various aspects of the loading process. If you still have that default menu at load, I beleive the option to chose is 6. I disable that menu so during a brief countdown I hit escape before the boot loader turns control over to the kernel.

Once in the boot loader prompt, I entered the following commands:

unload
load kernel
boot

Pretty simple right? The unload command does what it says, it unloads the kernel and any modules loader.conf had pulled into memory. The load kernel command grabs the kernel and loads it into memory... but only the kernel thus ignoring the broken DSDT in loader.conf. And of course boot tells the boot loader to continue booting the system.

Once booted, I removed the bad DSDT from loader.conf.

[/unix] [permanent link]

The Big 4: Metallica Setlist

• Creeping Death
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• Fuel
• Ride the Lightning
• Fade to Black
• Cyanide
• All Nightmare Long
• Sad But True
• Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
• Orion
• One
• Master of Puppets
• Blackened
• Nothing Else Matters
• Enter Sandman
---
• Overkill (with Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer)
• Battery
• Seek and Destroy

[/musings] [permanent link]

The Big 4: Megadeth Setlist

• Trust
• Hangar 18
• She-Wolf
• Public Enemy #1
• Head Crusher
• A Tout Le Monde
• Sweating Bullets
• Symphony of Destruction
• Peace Sells
• Holy Wars... The Punishment Due

[/musings] [permanent link]

Duality
Given the infinitesimally small reader base of this weblog, and the fact that most, if not all, of those readers know me personally, there's a good chance that you know I've fairly recently gotten a pair of tattoos.

The first tattoo, on my right arm, is a "26.2" in a giraffe print. That number, of course, is the distance of a Marathon in miles. Approximately one tenth of one percent of the population has ever completed a Marathon. I am one of those individuals and it is because of the Giraffes, the running team my friends started and pulled me into, that I was able to accomplish this feat.

The second tattoo, on my left arm, is a 6x8 grid of binary digits which spell out my first initial and last name in ASCII. Beneath the binary grid is a "v3.1" in a more stylized font. I was named after my father who had been named after his father, making me the third, version 3.0 if you will. In the last few years I've "upgraded." I'm smaller, faster, stronger, kinder, more extroverted and more optimistic than I was, but I am not an entirely new person. Hence v3.1.

There's more to the meaning of these tattoos than the explanations above. They represent the duality of myself. One represents the decidedly geeky nature that has been a part of me for almost my entire life. The other represents a newer aspect of myself, the endurance athlete.

It has been difficult for me to resolve these aspects. You were a nerd or a jock. There was a perceived inherent conflict between the two. You could be one or the other, not both. I was a nerd. I was never a jock. Now I'm both.

And I can be both. There is no reason can't, because this is what I've become; this is what I am.

[/musings/self] [permanent link]