my life, as far as i know.

who needs pizza crust dipping sauces when you have some spare goat’s milk butter, salt, pepper, and oregano?

looking at the calendar, december is already fairly booked.

1st weekend - family plans, hayward camera show
2nd week - birthday
2nd weekend - seeing the nutcracker in sf
3rd weekend - ski trip*
4th weekend - christmas
5th weekend - nye party at b’s

there are already two days this week with after-hours plans.

* i’m invited to go on a ski trip. it is nearly too late to rsvp at this point. if i went, i’d be packing some cameras and film and going out shooting during the day, since i don’t ski. i may just stay in the bay area and do my own thing.

even before it’s here, december is almost gone.

this is the “chill out bend” from samovar tea lounge here in the city. it looks good. it smells good. and boy, does it taste good.

it really does help you chill.

a nice quiet end to a crazy day.

boman came over early and we got lots of tasks done. my beloved powerbook came back today from repair (it was sent out on tuesday). i re-upgraded it. we did shopping for tonight. we got boman’s domain and email moved over to my servers today. boman repaired one of my wine glasses, the ones with the pewter bases. i also unloaded images from my cell phone - 30 new pics.

tonight we had a dessert night. in attendance: don, ashia, boman, ryan, patrick, myself. don and ashia brought the desserts — apple cobbler (or was it apple crisp?) and a fanstastic vanilla creme brulee. i brought the wine — a bottle of grasers’s 1994 gicoma (one bottle is already bad, the next bottle was good) to get us going. dessert was served with annapolis’s 2002 zin port. we finished with an inniskillin ice wine. ryan, patrick, and boman brought their sunny dispositions, which completed our awesome little gathering. thanks to all those in attendance!

tomorrow i am getting my haircut finally, after missing my appointment last weekend.

i have an extra day this weekend as well. if i have any say about it, i will research on household chemical disposal and get some film development done. i have some 8×10s i have been wanting to process.

over the past several days i’ve been building 2 machines that will be the new offramp. here’s a list of what it takes to host everything:

- 3 graphics libraries
- 2 web servers (apache, thttpd)
- email services (postfix, clamav, amavisd, spamassassin, pop/imap)
- 2 dns servers
- perl (and nearly 30 CPAN modules)
- php (which stands for “PHP: Hypertext Processor” according to php.net)
- database server (mysql)
- time synchronization (ntp)
- scripts to backup user files, email, and data
- notes for my helpers (for reference)
- audit and/or change dns on all hosted domains
- notification (warning)
- firewall software

on sunday i’m off to shut everything down, install the new machines, and configure things one by one (i have a running checklist) until i’m done. i can’t forget to bring an extra shirt - it is very cold in the colo :)

if children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
if children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
if children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
if children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
if children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
if children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
if children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
if children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
if children live with tolerance, they learn patience.

– dorothy law nolte

with the help of advice from andy (a friend and fellow systems admin) i’ve decided to make all my ong changes all at once. i’m going to take everything down, install the new hardware, and get everything set up. the result will be more speed, more machines in less space, and faster service. it should be nice.

spam is getting worse. it’s so bad i have to take drastic measures to do any more to fight it. and i’m so tired of fighting it. days like today, i really wonder how much longer i’ll even be using email. the more i fight it, the more spam i get.

spam is one reason people are leaving small email providers like me. each day i feel less important in this regard.

the construction at home will never end. we will forever be walking under scaffolding, trying not to touch the walls, and steering around supplies, wood, and paint cans.

hollywood is tired. the industry should produce direct to dvd and leave the silver screens to real cinema. why are so many people paying $11 and waiting in line for an hour to watch a rehash of an old movie?

people who constantly complain about the united states are not leaving the country as they vow to do ever election year. thus, the country is getting worse with the whining and the election of presidents of whom less than half of citizens want in office.

at work, not enough people are talking to each other, or frequently enough. i generally don’t listen to my voicemail because the messages contain no information (”call me back,” “in response to the email i just sent you,” etc.)

..

everything’s been wearing me down so much. work. technology. family. home.

on a brighter note, i’ve been listening to moxy fruvous nearly nonstop since last week.

today we saw batboy the musical! it was pretty well done. it was put on by ray of light in the vic’ theatre in the mission district.

a few blocks’ walk to 3rd and 22nd to the bus stop, the 22 takes us right there to 16th and mission. piece of cake.

boman says the graeser 1994 gicoma cab is on its last legs. i have at least a half cased of the damned stuff. it’s sooooooo good. what a shame, i have to increase my consumption of one of my favourite wines. it is kinda sad knowing this will be the end for such a nice wine.

today i took ryan with me on a drive. usually when i go on drives, things turn out awesome. things like exploring a russian settlement, seeing the petrified forrest, finding interesting photo ops (wow!), meeting a vitner (and getting a fresh bottle of wine!), attend a bikers’ rally, spend some good time thinking,

today we went to the star on the map above. a town named copperopolis. that’s right. a 21.5 square miles large town of aabout 2,300. it was a short stop on our way to angel’s camp, a larger and really interesting town. it was super busy, lots of people out and cars lining both sides of the street. we tried to have lunch at a small deli, but they were closing. they recommended a restaurant named murphy’s but we made a mistake and wandered to the town of murphys, 8 miles away. we had a super lunch at murphys grill, hamburgers and great garlic fries.

we decided to track back and stop at a small apple farm store on the side of the road. we had some fantastic hot spiced cider. we brought home a half-gallon jug of it — wish we had opted for the larger jug!!

down the street was moaning caverns, the largest single space cavern in the state of california. i actually shot a roll of 120 film inside the cavern with my rolleicord. i pushed a roll of delta 3200 to ISO 8000. i hope it turns out! the cavern is fantastic. they offer rapelling and spelunking — we may invite some of our friends to go crawl through the 165 foot deep caverns with us next time!

on our way back into the bay area, we stopped by for the hour-long-wait to get into le cheval without reservations. of course it’s worth the wait :) after a long day in the car and hiking up a 100 foot spiral staircase then a 65 foot narrow, steep staircase, a nice glass of vietnamese iced coffee never tasted so good.

after so many awesome experiences, i should hop in the car more often. it’s been a total hit every time. by myself or with a pal. all it takes a full tank of gas, a day’s worth of time, and a compass direction to head.

remember when i was complaining about seeing 10,000 attempts a day to a single user account? lately the same pattern has jumped to 20,000-30,000 attempts a day.

yes, one day averaged once every 2.6 seconds around the clock.

2005-10-27: 27,657
2005-10-28: 25,836
2005-10-29: 25,373
2005-10-30: 33,735
2005-10-31: 20,176
2005-11-01: 23,949
2005-11-02: 27,876

these immediately get rejected, so it’s not like they’re going anywhere. but why?

today, 2005-11-02, the attempts came from 1,270 unique ip addresses.

why?