the bits

I realized recently that the last several updates have been restricted to “friends only”, so this is me updating the rest of you non-friends on the current state of things ;)

Firstly, I have a new girlfriend / roommate, Alison. She came up from San Diego to stay with me and look for work, etc. The short version is: things are really cool and comfortable, and I totally enjoy having her around :) Curious wanna-be onlookers should check out the austin pics for some visuals.

Among other interesting traits, she is a computer hardware fiend; I put this to the test today by allowing her to move my PC into a new case. This is something I’d been wanting to do since blackmagic hooked me up with an unused ColorCase (another in a long list of hardware items acquired from him… thanks! :), but I just knew that I’d screw it up somehow if I did it myself. Hell, I couldn’t even put this one together without help. I think that anything that runs windars (natively) hates me (and hey, I can’t blame it for returning the favor). In any case (or at least the ColorCase, heh), she got it going on the first try, which I thought was impressive :) Now ball is quieter, cooler, and generally happier. Anybody know how to make an XP machine boot directly into quake3?

The job scene is more or less the same… still doing contract work for apple, delivering their certification courses… and still delivering those courses for my company as well.

Weather has been quite nice lately… summers here are generally very pleasurable, in my somewhat short seattle experience, anyway…. I think this is my third summer here. All in all, life is good… there is a lot to be excited about, lately, and I’m doing my best to enjoy the times :)

• Splitting town tomorrow for Cupertino to deliver the Mac OS X Server Administration and Integration course for apple.
• Took the Mac OS X Administration and Integration certification test last week and killed it with a 97% (yay)
• Was invited to participate in a conference call regarding a new course they’re rolling out which focuses on troubleshooting Mac OS X – once I particpate, I should be certified to deliver this 3 day course
• pizza is good, too
• watched a bunch of Ali G last night over at blackmagic‘s casa with inflammatio and b0rked… good times indeed :)
• replaced my Dr. Bott 4 port USB KVM with an iogear gcs1714 that I bought from blackmagic. Works great! This one does the keyboard / mouse emulation, so I can boot a machine without having my console switched to it, and it still comes up thinking that it has video, etc…
• been messing around with the airport extreme snmp MIBs, trying to make sense out of some of the undocumented things (which is almost all of it… at least, undocumented by apple… it stands to reason that perhaps they’re not responsible for documenting other company’s technologies, but still.. can I get a link, a blurb… something! ;). I can reliably get ips / MAC addys of connected clients, and generally useful things such as byte / packet counts per interface, etc… but I also would like the wireless link testing stuff… i.e. signal strength per client, etc. NAT table entries would totally kick ass, but I don’t have my hopes up for that one
• enjoy the nice weather, fellow seatleites :)

– In Portland this week for another ACTC class (almost done, at this point)
– Had birthday funs with Verso and company, doing a couple of decidedly non-dre things. It was most unique, and she deserves props for ensuring that I had a good time :)
– Looking forward to getting back to Seattle to hang wit’ mah crew :)
– They signed me up for a difficult exam (ACSA client), to be taken Wednesday. Guess I need to study and stuff, since I need this in order to retain my instructor status for that course.
– Shpongle still owns me up daily
– Infected mushroom soon!!!
– I like food
– this city has big buildings
– bye

Finished the Client Management course. Passed the test. Had fun and learned a few tricks, though most of the material was rehash.

Got my first apple badge yesterday :) Totally stoked! I spent a good 10 minutes just walking around 1 Inifinte Loop through the buildings, checking out lobbies and smiling at people :) I don’t think I’ll bore everybody with all the gushy “I’ve been waiting for this for many years” crap… just know, friends, that it has made me very happy :)

Also got to spend some time with a friend ‘on the inside’… we had some beers and raged some quake3…

Now I head back home for a weekend, then it’s back on a Portland-bound train on Sunday for another ACTC course…

anyway…. time for a plane ride :)

I’m in cupertino again for a few days; this time it’s to get certified for a new course called Client Management. It’s a bit different than the other courses, as this one is classified as an ‘elective’. An elective is required along with the two full-week courses in order to achieve an ACSA certification (there aren’t any bona-fide ACSAs yet since this is the first delivery of this, the first elective). Today and tomorrow is the curriculum delivery for the trainers and also for some revenue customers; Thursday is sort of a de-brief / QA session for the trainers only.

Also, Apple asked me to come back in a few weeks to teach the OS X Server Admin & Integration course, which afaik isn’t quite finished yet. This will be only the second paying job I’ve done for Apple.

– I should get to pick up my apple contractor badge today. wee :)

– I’m feeling some dental pain coming on in my back lower left tooth. this sucks since I have neither dental insurance nor like $5000 laying around. not sure what I’ll do about this, but it’s not debilitating quite yet. anybody recommend any possible solutions?

Wednesday night I went to see Kid Koala, p-love, and DJ Jester play at the re-opening of a place called Medicine Hat. It was a really great show, and for anybody with a chance to see them in this current tour, I would totally recommend it.

It was so much not the standard DJ set. It was, in fact, a book launch! :)

Took a train from sea to pdx. ’twas a pleasant ride… maybe ~ 3 hours or so – they played ‘die another day’, the latest james bond movie, and I didn’t listen, and just about every time I looked up, it was either a vehicle going really fast, or an explosion, or a vehicle going really fast which then exploded.

I’m here this week to deliver apple’s newest training course, Mac OS X Administration and Integration, which is the first course in the ACSA track. Avid readers may recall that I participated in the alpha delivery of this course at apple back in November.

Things were a little sketchy this last week getting everything ready for the class. First of all, I didn’t even get the trainer’s guide until Monday (having not previously seen the material since the alpha), due to it being misplaced at our store. Then as the week wore on, I started stressin’ about the Windows 2000 Server component of this course, just because it’s Windows and I hadn’t yet had an opportunity to test it all myself. There are only two exercises that use the Windows machine, but it’s like the climax of the course (getting os x machines to auth against Active Directory). Finally, on Friday, myself and our lead tech AJ scrounged a PC together, got everything installed and configured, and I tested the exercises in the courseware (it all worked as it should ;).

It’s a small class… we usually have a 3 or 4 person lower limit, but we’re running it this time with only two students. It is a brand new course, and it’s still profitable for us to run it (something like $2495 per seat, yo), plus we wanna get the word of mouth started (yeah, starting at 2 is a slow start, but it’s still a start).

This courseware is definitely much more interesting than the ACTC stuff, as it’s targeted at a higher end audience. In ACTC, almost everything is done via GUI; in this class, it’s only about 30 – 40% GUI. Among the Apple Certified Trainers that I have met, I’m one of the most unix savvy, so I hope to be delivering this class often, both for my company and for apple.

First I have to pass the certification exam for this course though :) See, having participated in the alpha, I am granted a temporary 30 day certification to deliver the course, starting at the date the courseware goes final (I believe feb 28). We just barely made it inside the 30 day limit… I don’t anticipate any problems with the exam or anything, but it’s a necessary step towards my ACSA certification (which will include two other tests for courses which aren’t finished yet), and is required in order for me to deliver the course on behalf of Apple.

*yawn*… well that’s about it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot: I’m officially an Apple contractor now :) I was recently informed that I can pick up my badge whenever I’m ready… (which will be next time I’m in cupertino). Woop! Woop!

now i’ll slide off to sleep, probably watching something other than the war on cnn.

is it possible to prevent violence with violence?

in a perfect world, there would be no need for violence. does an imperfect world necessitate violence?

if this movement against iraq is really the right thing to do, why isn’t the rest of the world behind us? the fact that the UK and spain are the chief allies here does indeed contribute to the feeling of imperialism…

if it’s not the right thing to do, then why do 2/3 of americans support bush?

how absurd is it to use the american public at large as a moral compas?

if the US does not take action, would somebody else?

is there even a need to take action?

exactly how much of this is related to the man George W Bush?

I actually don’t know. I’ve been reading a bit more lately, but I still feel like there’s no way I could ever posses enough information to make what I would consider to be a solid and defenseable decision on the matter. As I talk to both proponents and opponents, I understand and relate to most of the arguments… I have gone back and forth enough times that I’ve stopped trying to have an opinion about it, which is kinda pathetic considering that this is fairly important stuff.

It’s also hard for me to seperate my feelings for Bush from the actual issues at hand, in part because I can’t shake (or positively confirm) the idea that he is part of the problem.

blar.

I guess the one thing I like about the current homeland status is the textual descriptor…

Those Saints!

It’s a reason track, see… which I think has enough entertainment value for the public at large, so… there :)

I am also very tired.

Had a great time last night with blackmagic, inflammatio, and b0rked… it was lots of fun, sort of a ‘back to basics’ night :) I was a bit wobbly this morning, but the instability has finally given way to hungar! Fortunately the kraft dinner is complete :)

Anyway, thanks for more good times :) Also, it bears repeating that: Having Weekends Off Rocks.