Special love out to all my sysadmin buds... 11-year-old takes school network by the horns He's like the Doogie Howser of sysadmin! My fave is definitely the quote: "Penn's parents both believe that technical people must have 'integrity and character,' and should use their skills for beneficial, not malicious purposes." Yeah, baybee! (Shoutout to Ms. funcrunch for the link.)  

Why don't I remember who half of these people are? Total comments: 4613 1 hopita 1543 2 ratphooey 461 3 _aqualung_ 319 4 Anonymous 173 5 lilostitch 116 6 rawdolphin 104 7 suewan 102 8 germane 95 9 caelidh 89 10 anarqueso 83 11 bishopjoey...

1. Peach and onion milkshake ( pics as well as dinner courtesy of funcrunch , whom I had the pleasure of shooting repeatedly ^^; incidentally, that picset has some cute pics of me w/ Ryan) Not as good as a minion shake, but still good enough to make me wriggle happily. Our waitress was uber sweet. The bartender lady who served it to me was I think scared by my tastes, and declined to have...

My Christmas present this year was a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50 digital camera. It's the next best thing to a DSLR. Thanks to lrc   for recommending it, with corroboration from  funcrunch  and cerulean_me . Today I took it to Rengstorff Park (near my house in Mountain View) and snapped some shots of trees and squirrels.

At funcrunch 's prodding, my flickr account is the obvious ellarsee or the somewhat less mnemonic http://www.flickr.com/people/99496143@N00/

Stopped by Gazzaley lab yesterday. Talked with the postdocs there - very friendly - but didn't get Gazzaley himself. Did however get tipped off (by said postdocs) to a party someone was throwing to show off their molecular imaging software, which was neat (and good free food! PHD Comic is so true). Will evidently need to email rather than call and set up an appointment. Ahwell. Also finished reading...

I did a bunch of reading and ended up going for the pentax 31mm f1.8 limited. I just ordered it from Abe's of Maine for $849, plus I sprang for the 2nd day air shipping. My rationalizations: When the rebate expires the price goes up $100. With the falling dollar, the price will continue going up. Comparing it with the Sigmas the Pentax reviews varied from "great" to "the only lens I really need"...

I played a little bit with funcrunch 's Canon 40D Saturday evening. It was a lot nicer than the Rebel XT, and the lens even felt pretty nice. However, that was a $1500 body, and a $1000 lens. Between the Nikon D40 and the Canon Rebel, I really liked the D40 with the 18-135 lens the best. I don't know how much of it is from wanting Nikon gear for 35 years, though I'm not as thrilled by my...

Last weekend Joedecker did an afternoon/evening photography class with me, funcrunch the_ogre zahraa and gerardp . I haven't had a chance to do a good job of sorting things out, and haven't done muc, if any, post processing beyond cropping. However, these are the ones I had Joe give me feedback on. http://red4est.com/lrc/pix/new/joeclass071104shared/ ...

This past weekend Jeff and I went to Santa Cruz, where I was planning to attend a UC systemwide computing services conference from Sunday evening through Tuesday afternoon. I had never been to Santa Cruz, so we drove down together Saturday morning to do some sightseeing ahead of time. We went to the boardwalk, rode a few rides, ate hot dogs, and walked on the beach. That evening we picked up some...