Christmas tree

Posted on December 6, 2005 by kenvandine

So Ashlyn is old enough to understand Christmas more, and is pretty into the decorations and Santa this year. She had a blast helping us pick out our tree at Jordan Lake Christmas Tree farm. Last night she helped me hang some lights out side and setup our decorative train in the front yard… she had a great time “helping daddy”. Tonight she got to stay up late, 10pm helping to decorate the tree. She hung most of the lower ornaments and put the star on top. Then enjoyed a nice cup of hot cocoa with mommy and daddy before going to bed. Christmas is going to be so much fun this year.

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the great group-dist remix

Posted on December 6, 2005 by kenvandine

So I gave up on our (Foresight) group structure last week and rebuilt it from scratch based on the latest rPL group-dist. We had shadowed it long ago… like the first week shadows worked 🙂 And since then the groups have changed allot, and we had organized it before rPL had a finalized structure. Now with package selection in anaconda there seemed to be some problems, it would install about half the troves (not even conary was installed). This new structure also includes all the fancy compat32 stuff we need to really build a real x86_64 release. So, that should be much easier now 🙂

The new version got a bump to 0.9.2, and I think it is about ready for prime time. There is one minor bug that is breaking the installer, which has now been fixed in tip (the mercurial version of cvs HEAD). So now we just have to wait for a conary release… which we are due for 😉

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NCMLS and the Tree Lighting

Posted on November 19, 2005 by kenvandine

Had a great day! Visited the NC Museum of Life & Science in Durham. Ashlyn was old enough to do some of the activities and had a blast. The butterflies are always an attraction, but i have to say it was wierd to walk into a room that felt so tropical in November 🙂

Afterwards, we mosied over to Southpoint for the tree lighting. It seems a bit early for christmas stuff, but seeing Ashlyn light up like that was quite exciting. While waiting for the show, we spent some time in the Kids stadium… what a zoo and where were all the parents??? So many kids didn’t seem like anyone was watching them. There were actually kids standing on top of some of the toys and kicking all the other kids in the head. The cops came in and ran them off… no parents in sight.

The show was good, but it was hard to see in the crowd with two kids. Ashlyn was so excited that Santa was coming to light the tree and she also got to do some dancing. What a cutie! Let the holidays begin, I guess 🙂

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Atari

Posted on November 19, 2005 by kenvandine

I finally got around to hooking up my Atari 2600 2.0 that I got back in September. It is pretty cool… The games are even simpler than I remembered them. Even pong… which I played for like an hour last night 🙂

On a almost related note… our old TV is about had it. The tuner in it is about had it. It has been getting bad for a while now. All the lower channels are pure static and as they go up they get better. The cable is fine, MythTV records great. It isn’t a huge deal since we don’t watch TV live often, thanks to MythTV. Either way… it is probably time to buy a new one 🙁

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Sleep FULL night and an old friend

Posted on November 17, 2005 by kenvandine

Wow…. I slept all night last night… The kids didn’t wake us once. So, 11PM to 6AM is 7 hours… Oh what to do with myself after getting so much sleep?

This is only the second time since Drew was born that we weren’t woken at all. It would be great if we get a few more of these nights this weekend, we will be having a guest stay with us. I would hate for him to go thur the sleepless nights 🙂

This afternoon our old friend Slade is driving in from Ohio for a visit. We knew Slade from the On The Verge days, back in San Diego. We haven’t seen him in 2 years, I am quite excited to see him.

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New gig!

Posted on November 14, 2005 by kenvandine

I am excited to say I started a new gig today… and I am still very much getting my feet wet. Anyone have a guess where??? rPath!

I don’t suspect anyone is surprised to hear I believe in what rPath is working on. For me, rPath has the coolest technology I have seen. Also, don’t worry… I will not forget Foresight!

On that note, we are hiring! Software developers and technical writers. If you are interested, please submit us your resume here.

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Conary article on Linux.com

Posted on November 13, 2005 by kenvandine

Good article about package management on Linux.com. Highlights portage and conary. Also mentions Foresight 🙂

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LAMP

Posted on November 8, 2005 by kenvandine

I forgot to post about this when I did it… so this is playing catch up. When rBuilder Online went live, I created an appliance Web/DB distro, lamp.rpath.org. It is a Linux, Apache,{MySQL,PostgreSQL},{Perl,PHP,Python} appliance. Just the essentials, and with the cool “autoResolve” feature in conary groups I was able to build the ISOs for version 0.1 (we are at 0.3 now) in just 20 minutes.

I have since done a little tweaking and added a few useful tools. Also rebuilt PostgreSQL with some optimizations that makes our database at work lightening fast.

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Spence’s Farm

Posted on November 6, 2005 by kenvandine

Took the kids to Spence’s Farm today, what a nice day for it. Spence’s farm is a community supported educational farm in Chapel Hill. Ashlyn particularly loves seeing the horses, but really loves all the animals! If you have kids, I highly recommend a visit.

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State fair

Posted on October 23, 2005 by kenvandine

Spent the day at the NC State fair today… great day for it… but now we are all exhausted. Weather was perfect and not quite as crowded as last year. However, it was enough to make me want to scream while navigating the crowds with a double stroller.

Ashlyn was big enough this year to actually get into some of the rides. She rode a bunch of the midway rides, including a catepillar roller coaster that she just loved. Drew was great, he mostly slept in his stroller.

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