Friday, March 28, 2008

My week - productive

Monday was a big day for me. I got the file server online and one-sat my climbing project. The file server is for the law firm. I wanted to start working with Linux and the two solutions just fit together. Victory #1: learning how to configure Samba! It took me about 2 hours to learn about the details, but it works now. It authenticates and they can write/save things to a 300+GB networked hard drive. It didn't come back up the next morning, so I had to work with it a bit more. But I got the bugs out and it's operational as of Wednesday. Makes me happy. Now, I want to get it away from my work area. So, I'll grab a wireless card and move it into their main work area (or maybe their closet). I networked my USB external as a backup to the server for the time being. After I get that done, I'm gonna setup a workstation with Ubuntu on it for the paralegal to write briefs, do email, and the other easy stuff that she does so that she will start working with linux. I really want them to trend away from Microsoft. They have spent way too much money on software that they could have downloaded for free and had it work better than their methods now.

Then, I went climbing that night! Sean was not around so I just ran a few routes on top-rope. My current project is harder than most of my routes in the past. I've only climbed this hard a couple of times in my life and it's been at least 3 years. I want it. I've climbed one 5.12 in Denver. I worked one here in teh fort. And now, I have one that I can physically do. Last week, I worked it out and figured out most of the beta. I wanted the next goal - the "one-fall." It signifies that you are capable of cleaning the route, given that it is doable by a human. Victory #2: one fall on the orange 5.12. I'll throw this in too! Victory #3: leading the roof. I have a pretty big mental block about leading out the roof. It is very intimidating for me. That's why my hardest lead (5.11+ on the roof) was such a huge deal to me. I still remember hearing the final *snap* of the carabiner gate. What a relief! I collapsed off of the route with a loud shout. I had a beer that night!

I'm glad that Heather made me do it on Tuesday night. I felt good overall, but I needed some pushing into it. Sean was nice enough to belay me for it. I'm working with Heather on lead belaying so that I can get on the roof a lot more often. I want to climb Drop Zone this summer and I'll need some phenomenal footwork to do it.

Some links to encourage mom about the move to linux...
Grandma can use linux too!
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9889681-16.html
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9867494-16.html
http://www.linux.com/feature/125799

Friday, March 21, 2008

my favorite place in teh forts


I def have spent some time around that fire. (Mulligan's)

I is.... WAS a pu**y

For the past couple of years, I've really just chilled in the climbing area. As a result, I've grown soft and weak. In the past couple of weeks, I've tried to get back into it. I'm working my back and core again! Yay! Maybe in a month or two I'll get a six-pack! Working on some disgusting route is so much fun. I'm just happy that I can finally sell my pussy for a few more years and return to being a badass (or the "worst ass" according to Terry!).
What's even cooler for me is that my girlfriend is flashing 5.9s!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Going back home..... ish.

Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I went snowshoeing. It wasn't anything real crazy, but it was good to be out in nature. We bought a pass to RMNP a few weeks ago and decided that we needed to get up off of the plains of Colorado.
There is just something relieving for me to be out on the trail. That smell.... what a wonderful smell - the pines just below tree-line. I love that crisp, cool bite in the air as I break tree-line at dawn. My buddy Terry keeps after me, "So when are you going up Everest?" I always laugh, but he's inspiring me to check on vacations to Nepal and Tibet. Too bad this shit is going on.
Heather is also giving me some go with her stories from when she lived in China. Someday, I have to find a pub in southwestern China and get lit on bai-jo while losing my ass at backgammon! The thought of screaming over a board at a small asian (or european as this is not a new idea) who is screaming equally loud right back at me in Cantonese into the wee hours sounds like so much fun! Then again, I've topped out at 14k and change. Base camp at Everest is something like 20k and change. Meh, maybe I'll have to train for a couple of years. I really have no desire to climb it, but going to base camp would be cool. BC of Parbat and/or Lhotse would be equally if not even cooler! To sit below the last 8,000m peak and chill would be something tough to be topped! Something else that'd be cool - hangin out at the Rongbuk monastery with some of the monks! Wow, I should look into that in a couple of years.

Trivia for the day: What was the last 8,000 metre peak climbed? It was in 2001. Answer

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

haha, too funny

I was talking to a buddy's wife a couple weeks ago about my current affairs. She's a very established account auditor for a firm in Denver. I mentioned that I'm doing some work with a Linux server and she scowled. "Why would you do that? You don't have any way of doing [Microsoft] Word documents! You don't have compatibility with the internet!" I laughed and told her about Wine and Samba. I knew that Google was running on linux. However, I did NOT know that Yahoo! and Facebook ran on Linux servers!

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/03/10/microsofts-new-play-for-linux-lovers/

thank you very much!