Author: cosmo

Dare to be different.

— credit to Connor Sauve @ InterfaceLift

“Some say that power comes with responsibility, but this is incorrect. Freedom is responsibility, and if you fail to be responsible for your own freedom then those who claim ‘power’ will become responsible for your freedom, and both will be taken from you.”

— dyfet @ Slashdot

Thom reminded me that today is National Bike to Work Day, which I’d completely spaced. I normally work at home on Fridays, but due to some meeting circumstances it turns out I have to be in the office today.

So I slept in a bit, finished a few small projects, and hopped on my bike for the ride. What a great day for it: gorgeous sunny blue sky with a few fluffy clouds and a fabulous 70 degrees. A little breeze behind me made it perfect.

Courtesy of Craig. Hilarious.

I’m doing some server administration and realized that one of the servers I manage has been running for quite a while…

Hmm, 1172 days is about three years and three months. That’s pretty impressive– humming along 24/7 and still handling requests without even breaking a sweat. Go Linux!

Today was our last science enrichment class. Our topic was “propulsion” and we talked about how rockets work. Our experiments were a lot of fun.

First, balloon races where we show how the air (the propellant) pushes the balloon:

Then we couldn’t resist blowing up a few bottles of Diet Coke by dropping Mentos into them:

And finally each of the kids got to launch an air rocket that uses pressurized air to shoot about fifty feet into the air:

We had a lot of fun teaching the kids and getting them excited about science. Maybe one of these second-graders will end up being a world-famous biologist or astrophysicist!

My latest desktop wallpaper: the Horsehead Nebula. It’s cool to program atop that.

Mmm… bonbons.

I’ve had a hankerin’ for some homemade bonbons for a while, but they’re really tedious to make (compared to, say, chocolate-chip cookies). The other day I was at the grocery store and decided to pick up some Rice Krispies and Skippy, and finally commit to make them. And today I did. Kyra was a big help, although to be honest I think her motivation was more about licking the chocolate-covered spoon than actually doing any work.

Regardless, now I’ve got a couple containers full of them, and can enjoy them with my popcorn tonight when Laralee and I watch our next episode of Heroes.

The library is having their annual book sale, which is a great opportunity to look through thousands of books– most in very good condition– and buy them really cheap. Hardcovers sell for two dollars, paperbacks for fifty cents. So Laralee and I headed over there at the start of the sale and spent a couple of hours wading through boxes and tables stacked high with books.

Of course you can get any John Grisham book you’d ever want, or Michael Crichton, or Robert Ludlum, even Danielle Steele. There always seem to be piles upon piles of those authors. But you can also get obscure stuff; I found a copy of Godel Escher Bach which I first read back in the late 80’s, and I figured what the heck. (I’m reading it now but it doesn’t seem as interesting as I remembered. Oh well.)

Anyway, our bookshelves continue to expand beyond capacity; we’ve got two-deep paperbacks and stacks of recently-purchased books (from the book fair or Amazon gift cards) just waiting to be read. I think we’re covered for a while.

Alex was supposed to have a track meet last Friday but given the cold drizzle they cancelled the event and moved it to today. Good call– it was a beautiful 65-degree sunny day today.

He competed in three events and did really well in all of them…

Long jump:

400-meter run:

And the 100-meter hurdles:

Considering he was competing against sixth, seventh, and eighth graders and this was only his second meet, he did great. When he’s a little taller (and has longer legs) he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with.