My Dear Employer is looking for a Linux-based software tool for auto-provisioning our x86 hardware systems (mostly HP and IBM blades) with Linux and Solaris. Naturally, they're not looking to spend money.

One on my team suggested Cobbler (https://fedorahosted.org/cobbler/) but has no experience with it. Any opinions on Cobbler or other packages?

The skies are clear again today. Thanks to a late night snow plow run, we have a single lane up our street on which to escape if needed. Parking is still at a premium since no one can park on the street, but our neighbourhood is generally managing.

kent4str and I went out foraging earlier today with visits to Home Depot and Giant Foods. We also made stops at Radio Shack and CVS in search of "D" batteries but none were to be found, apparently since last Friday. Oh, well... our existing ones will be good for a while.

We bought some minor hardware for some household projects (remounting a mirror on the bathroom door, fixing the light fixture in the office, etc.) as well as replenishing the food stocks (primarily Coke Classic).

As expected, the roads weren't great. We stuck to the major commuter routes but the right-hand lane of most were still buried in snowbanks, restricting the flow of traffic. We had to wait 10+ minutes to make a left-hand turn at one intersection because the turn lane was buried and thus no car could activate the sensors for the left-hand turn signal. The entire line of us theoretically broke the law by turning left against the signal but we did it only when we were sure the path was completely clear --the county can spank me later. Most parking lots were half buried in snow too. I'm still amazed how many people couldn't be bothered to clean the snow off the hood of their car or the passenger side of the windshield, let alone the roof; the same drivers also apparently didn't mind talking on the telephone while driving. Morons.

The true joy is yet to come: we have another storm system moving in which may drop another foot of snow on us between noon Tuesday and 7pm Wednesday. You can imagine how thrilled we are by this development.

Additional note: my dental cleaning for tomorrow morning has been rescheduled because the hygienist won't be available. One can only imagine the sorrow I feel currently.

I've been officially asked to be a staff caller at DC Lambda Squares' fall fly-in, Harvest Festival Hoedown, Nov 12-14, 2010!

I've called regularly for a number of clubs in the greater DC area as well as in guest spots at regional fly-ins & conventions but this is the first time I will be a paid staffer for a fly-in weekend.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled at this development. Whee!

I posted a while ago about my 43rd birthday celebration last January 31. (Click here if you missed it.) Today, Cal & Eric emailed me photos from their camera so I offer them here to complete my emotional trauma. :-)

( Click for the photos. )

The electricity just came back on at 3pm today. We're crossing our fingers it stays on but in the interim, we're running the furnace and charging the small appliances. There's still no sign of a snow plow so we're still trapped in our neighbourhood, but now that we're warm, we're fine with that.

While we have power, I'm uploading some photos taken earlier today:

( Click for photos... )

We still don't have power and there have been no signs of snow plows so we can't leave our neighborhood even though we've dug out our cars.

It was chilly inside the house last night since outdoor temperatures dropped to the single digits. I'm surprised though that the in-house temperature has only dropped to about 54 degrees F. The house is apparently better insulated than we thought: the only residual heat sources are the three of us, heat from cooking and heat leaking from the gas water heater in the basement.

The lack of power has been a severe inconvenience but we're doing pretty well, all things considered. Yeah, ice-cold toilet seats are no fun at all but we'll manage.

Local government offices, schools and most businesses are still closed. All buses and surface mass transit are shut down, as are all above-ground stretches & stations of the Metro subway system.

A good news update: we've finished digging out our sidewalk and that of our elderly neighbours, Isaac & Goldie. Ironically, Isaac is in Florida visiting friends right now, returning Wednesday. Goldie indicated she's doing fine though, doing many of the same things we're doing to keep warm & comfortable.

I've charged my laptop, blackberry and cuyahogarvr's cell phone with the power inverter and my Civic so we're able to keep in touch with the outside world. A battery powered radio is keeping us entertained and informed with the greater recovery process.

We lost electricity at our home around 1:30pm today. So far, it's getting cool indoors but we're doing OK. We can still cook thanks as we have a gas range and we have plenty of hot water since our gas heater uses a pilot light rather than an electric sparker.

Our DSL is down but my wireless broadband and laptop are working well. I'm going to minimize usage to save the battery as long as possible but we could use the inverter to recharge them from one of the cards as needed.

cuyahogarvr and I have dug out my car as it was nearest the street. However, since the street has not yet been plowed and the snow is deep enough to nearly reach the hood of my car, we're not going anywhere.

At the moment, we have no idea how long it will be before our power is restored or our street plowed but we'll be fine. Heaven knows we have plenty of food and supplies. Our only worry is the lack of heat but we'll bundle up and tough it out as long as needed.

I'm a little concerned about our elderly neighbours on one side of the house and the neighbour with a heart condition on the other side. At least the elderly neighbours are in touch with our across-the-street neighbours so we know they'll be OK until we get a chance to dig out their walkways and driveway tomorrow.

Regionally, more than 100,000 customers in our county are without power, twice that number across the region. The Dulles, Washington National and Baltimore-Washington airports are all closed today and tomorrow. The Metro subway system is closing early --11pm instead of 3am-- for lack of passengers and because of the possibility of staff being trapped away from home. Nearly every major rood and highway has traffic issues, including a complete blockage of I95 southbound near Baltimore-Washington airport. Power failures have taken out traffic lights making life even more exciting for drivers. Schools are closed, naturally; they might open in time for Tuesday but don't bet money on that. One skating arena, a Dulles-area hangar and a north-west DC have had roof collapses from the weight of snow.

Dulles, VA, reported 32.1" of snow; I think we got something less than that but not by much. According to the weather reports, DC had more snow in the past 24 hours than in the prior three years.

The skies are clear currently but the temperature will drop to the single digits. Tomorrow will bring more clear skies but we're supposed to get more snow and wintery mix next Tuesday.

The snow began falling gently around 10am Friday. We had blizzard warnings from 10pm Friday to 10am Saturday: high winds with blowing snow. As I write this, it's 11:30am on Saturday, the snow is still coming down and will until about 10pm tonight. Oy.

No plow has been down our street, which is not a surprise: ours is definitely a secondary or tertiary street and should not be a priority for the county.


The huge magnolia tree in our front yard is officially not happy. The broad leaves catch a great deal of snow and the warmer air in the early part of the snow storm made it stick to everything. Huge branches are sagging low to the ground and a half-dozen have snapped off completely. In this photo, branches that offer a six foot clearance above our front walkway have sagged to ground level. Not good.


Our biggest worry is that the branches will weigh down on the telephone and power lines to both our home and our elderly neighbour's. We went out last night at midnight to clear the snow from the branches nearest the wires and repeated that again this morning. I have no idea if it will really help, but there's little else we can do. Here's cuyahogarvr working to clear the branches of snow as best we can:


This white fluffy nightmare is supposed to continue for about 10 more hours. We've kept shovelling out the walkway, sidewalk and driveway but it's an uphill battle: it fills in again nearly as fast as we can clear them.

So much for a weekend of relaxing.

I clicked the "submit" button for my tax filings last Saturday. Today, the state of Maryland deposited $82 in my account. Yay!

My eyes are on you now, federal Dept of the Treasury. Don't keep me waiting!

We had more snow here in Washington DC last night. It wasn't as severe as the prior two significant snowfalls --and will likely be nothing like what we're expecting for this Saturday-- but it is lovely to look at.

My birthday was officially Saturday but because of other previously scheduled events, we decided to punt the celebrations to Sunday.

The celebrations themselves were fairly simple & low-key: Jeff had recommended a particular restaurant some time ago and cuyahogarvr and kent4str jumped on the idea as a place for a birthday dinner so we wined & dined at the Peking Gourmet Inn.

We arrived relatively early so we waiting & mingled near the entrance while waiting for Cal & Eric to arrive. Through the door, I could see a handful of large mylar birthday balloons entering the restaurant: my first thought was, I hope that's not Cal & Eric... I'd die of embarrassment. Yup, it was indeed Cal & Eric and the balloons were for me. Doh!



Jeff ordered a Cosmo, 'cause that's what Jeff does:


The restaurant is best known for their Peking Duck so we had to indulge. I've never had this before --it's usually a pricy dish and usually requires a small crowd to consume it all. I wish I had thought to photograph the presented duck itself or the carving of it at our table; heaven knows there was plenty of opportunity since duck were --please pardon the expression-- flying out of the kitchen: I could have snapped a series of shots of any of the servings around me. cuyahogarvr insisted instead of getting this photo, bless his heart:


And there were presents! Jeff gave me two Cadbury Aero chocolate bars, commonplace in Canada but difficult to locate in the US. Cal & Eric gave me a calendar of, well, an adult nature; working from does allow me the option of putting up in my office though. :-) Previously, cuyahogarvr and kent4str gave me two dress shirts, a new pair of jeans and a star finder to accompany my telescope.

Of course, we also had the traditional fortune cookies. You may add "...in bed" or "...between the sheets" to these as you please:
"Life is too short to waste time hating anyone."
"Look up in the sky tonight. Have a moment for yourself."

After dinner, Jeff, cuyahogarvr, kent4str and I went to the Frozen Custard Bar for dessert. Mmmm...


It's been a great weekend and I'm very grateful to everyone who sent their birthday wishes in e-mail, snail mail, via FaceBook and in person. Thank you so much!

We can clean up nice when we absolutely have to!

After dinner tonight, a bunch of us went out for ice cream. The following was on display:



Thank you for your what?

I was calling for the Zig Zaggers tonight, a northern Virginia A2 square dance club. I've had prior gigs with them both as a dancer and as a caller; they'd best be described as light A2 rather than the more cerebral A2 of, say, the Phantom 8s, a neighbouring club.

Typically, we have a square of dancers with a few spares. Tonight, we had two full squares with a few extra dancers, a record turn-out for my gigs with them. (At the risk of being tacky, I would mention that since the caller is paid by the door proceeds, a higher turn-out translates into a larger calling fee. No one will ever get rich as a square dance caller but the extra bonus once in a while is a nice pat on the back.)

The first two tips weren't the greatest. The dancers clearly needed some warm-up time and it didn't help that I was using written material and therefore had to split my attention between the floor and my notes. Not good for any of us. From the third tip onwards, however, I switched to exclusively sight-calling & resolving, putting away my prepared material.

And it worked. In fact, it worked really well: never having to take my eyes off the floor meant I could spot problems instantly. Not being tied to written material meant I could instantly adjust the pace & difficulty of the sequence. I do this for Mainstream and Plus but I've always been hesitant to attempt exclusively sight-calling an Advanced floor, largely because I have so few opportunities to practice.

I did have a couple of crutches, admittedly. I kept a list of the A1 and A2 calls on my table so if I felt I was being too repetitious, I would randomly drop my finger on the list to select a feature call or two for the next figure. I also had a prepared sheet of clever get-outs if I could see a zero box or a zero line coming up with a call or two so I could offer a periodic "ah ha!" moment to the dancers.

In all, I had a good time and I think the dancers did too.

And cuyahogarvr and kent4str brought a cake for a small birthday celebration in my honour. I have no idea where in the car it was hidden or how they snuck it past me, but there it was, bless 'em both.

Tomorrow is the Mike Jacobs memorial service, dance and dinner. It will be an all-day affair for us as we're bringing sound equipment, will be helping with set-up and are assisting the DC Lambda Squares with refreshments. More news later.

Q: Why don't more Canadians engage in group sex?
A: Because it takes too long to write all those thank-you cards.

We spent the early part of the afternoon in Dulles, VA, attending the annual RV expo. We aren't shopping for a new trailer or motor home --in this economy? who can afford one?-- but we were interested in supplies, accessories and general ideas for our existing trailer.

Sadly, supplies and accessories were utterly non-existent. Outside of the vehicles themselves, the only other vendors were campgrounds, storage facilities and one insurance company. Bummer.

I'm fascinated by the way different companies exploit available space inside trailers, maximizing space and functionality while keeping weight and costs under control. Some succeed while others... well, what were they thinking?

For example...

Most trailers have an externally-attachable two-burner stove. It clips into provided side rails and attaches to the trailer's internal natural gas lines. It allows one to grill outdoors to enjoy good weather and scenic venues; as an added bonus, it also doesn't contribute to heating the interior of the vehicle in the worst of a hot summer day. Out trailer has such an external stove but we've never used it: we have a much larger barbecue on our deck since we're cooking for a small crowd and since our deck is flush with the trailer's floor level, the attached stove would be at knee level, hardly convenient.

At least three models we looked at took this to an extreme. The photo below is not only of an outside grill, but an outside faucet & sink, fridge, microwave oven, shelves & storage, counter space and a spice rack. Yes, it's a trailer with two full kitchens. WTF?!


I have never seen so many trailers of such a height before. Eight foot ceilings and higher were on offer, including several deluxe models with ceiling fans and electric fireplaces. Admittedly, those top-of-the-line models were clearly made for childless couples as they sacrificed all sleeping spaces except the master bed (king-sized, naturally), using the space for large shared living areas. Two models had kitchen islands.

This one (below) came with its own clothes washer & dryer, all for the low price of $350,000 USD. I don't want to own one, I'd just like to afford to buy one. I only wish I was less in awe of the shear excess of it all to inquire about the gas mileage although I'm sure they'd say something akin to if you have to ask you can't afford it.


Several of the deluxe motor homes have extended rear cabins in which one may house an extra vehicle. Yup, a garage inside your mobile home, suitable for a golf cart, motor cycles, all terrain vehicles or scooters. I suppose it might be attractive for those who use motorized wheelchairs although I'd have to wonder how one gets into & out of the motor home itself if one has severe mobility issues. Naturally, there were ATV, golf cart and ATV sales on site as well. We picked out this model for kent4str:

A few months ago, my wedding band (see userpic) lost a stone. Fearing the loss of more stones and having other more pressing uses for our available funds, I deferred getting the ring repaired.

We also wanted to get a similar ring for cuyahogarvr but haven't found one of the same style. Having one made to order was always an option, but again there were always more pressing demands on the checking account.

While the checking account is still a little strained, an opportunity to tackle both projects has come up which has been too good to pass up: Jewelry by Poncé.

Poncé has been a regular vendor at Mid-Atlantic Leather the past 23 years. We chatted with him yesterday and he indicated he could repair my ring with trivial ease. He could then make a wax cast of my ring to create a suitably sized duplicate for cuyahogarvr although the current high price of gold is going to make that a somewhat expensive proposition (but he's worth it).

Today at noon, we dropped off my ring, officially submitted our order and made a $300 deposit. In three weeks, all three of us will have identical rings... yay!

I've hardly danced a single step of square dancing since last December. In a way, it's a good thing: a break to refresh is always good. My problematic right knee has been pain-free for a month so I hope that the rest has done it some good as well.

Tonight, I'm heading to justetthon's C1 event in College Park, MD.

The DC Lambda Squares began a new Saturday Plus class, January 9 to February 6, Butch Adams calling. I'd like to help but this is a spectacularly bad month for extra activities: every weekend is booked until mid-February.

The Chesapeake Squares has a weekend Mainstream boot camp this coming weekend with callerdayle. I can't help with that either: it's Mid-Atlantic Leather weekend and I have some extra work-related night shifts.

DCLS is hosting a community dance on Saturday, January 23, Jeremy Butler calling. I'd love to attend but we'll be visiting friends in North Carolina that weekend. Since the DCLS calling equipment is stored chez nous, I'd better check with the powers-that-be to see if we need to pass it along to someone else for that Saturday.

callerdayle is also teaching a C1 boot camp event the first weekend of February. I'd love to help, but we're already booked for the annual reunion weekend with the Roseland Resort campers, this year in Morgantown, WV.

In the second weekend of February, DC Lambda Squares is hosting ACDC 2010, our annual advanced & challenge festival. We have Anne Uebelacker, Sandie Bryant, John Marshall and Ross Howell calling. I still have to round up one more sound system as a backup and confirm we have 50/50 tickets on-hand but we're otherwise in good shape for that. With a little luck, I'll get a lot of dancing squeezed in between staffing shifts.

And, of course, we have the memorial for Mike Jacobs on January 30. I'm calling for the Zig Zaggers the night before, on Jan 29; since the memorial is only a few miles from our house, we're planning to make ourselves available to help set up in advance (I believe DCLS is providing refreshments), help direct out-of-town traffic, etc.. We're also trying to locate a nearby restaurant/bar/lounge for an after-event get-together of callers who don't need to rush immediately home.

I was tentatively approached to teach an Advanced square dance class on Wednesdays beginning some time soon. The organizer though has learned that another caller (Gary Felton) may already be planning such a class very near us that same night. If this is indeed confirmed, we'll probably direct our would-be student dancers to his group to ensure the success of his class. I'd like to teach an Advanced class some day but I'm not going to undercut another caller to do it.

Did I mention this is a busy couple of months? And March and April are looking pretty busy too. Wow.

Our household furnace, kitchen stove, clothes dryer and water heater all use natural gas. Naturally, our consumption spikes during the winter then plummets to trivial levels in summer. To make our own finances easier, we take advantage of our utility's monthly averaged billing: they debit our household checking account the same dollar amount each month based on last year's consumption. Any surplus or deficit is settled annually at the end of January so we can begin a new cycle in February, making minor adjustments to the monthly dollar amount for the coming as needed to reflect changes in usage.

Our catch-up bill this month: $16.67. Out of a total annual usage of $1,264.67 for 905 therms consumed, that's a 1.3% error. Not bad!

In other interesting statistics, only 66% of our gas bill is actually natural gas. 30% is delivery & distribution, 4% misc taxes.