We went to the West Farm Corn Maze this afternoon with a friend and her kids.
West Farm corn maze
It was my first time doing a corn maze, and it was pretty fun. It was a good day for a corn maze weather-wise too: sunny, but not boiling hot and with a bit of a breeze to cool things off.
It’s a great place for the family with corn sand boxes (filled with corn kernels instead of sand), a little hay bale maze, big climbing area, petting zoo, pumpkin painting, and of course the corn maze. There was the big maze, and also a little maze for the kids.
West Farm goat
The maze itself isn’t too hard to navigate with the map, but if you do manage to get lost, there are volunteers (corn cops) in the maze who can help you out. There were 12 check points at various places in the maze that can also help you get reoriented on the map.
Corn maze entrance
Maze checkpoint
In the maze
Base of a corn stalk
In the maze
After the maze was lunch and then a hay wagon ride. Nice relaxing ride that went around the corn maze, through some woods and by a little pond with some turtles lounging in the sun.
Hay wagon ride
Hay wagon ride through the woods
Hay wagon ride through the woods
Hay wagon ride past the pond
Fun time, and lots of people who looked like they were having fun there.
Had another fantastic time at Southeast Linuxfest 2017 last weekend. There was a pretty decent sized crowd (not sure about numbers yet) with a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones too.
As usual I was taking a lot of pictures and being the unofficial official SELF photography guy. I was able to get in to some pretty good talks.
New this year was the Networking boot camp that was really good. Sat in a couple of those sessions. I also went to some of the Zero to DBA sessions to find out about some of the new features coming in MySQL 8.
One interesting talk given by an engineer at Western Digital was called Rethinking RAID. He did some interesting benchmarking on how long it takes to rebuild a RAID using the big terabyte disks now available. A RAID10 using 10TB disks might sound pretty cool, but if one of the disks craps out, it’s going to take a loooooooong time to rebuild the RAID.
Back again this year was the craft beer share, and thanks to last minute sponsor Logtrust, the Saturday party was open to everyone. Craft beers all around! There was also a BYOC LAN party during the Saturday party this year too.
Saturday’s musical entertainmentLAN partiers
The amateur radio licensing test session at SELF saw 28 people sign up to take the test. Don’t recall the numbers, but half left with either a new amateur radio license or an upgrade.
The LockFALE guys were back again this year with their table full of locks. This year I spent some time hanging out there and had them show me how to pick a lock. It’s surprisingly easy to do with a little time and patience.
LockFALE showing people how to pick locksLockFALE showing people how to pick locks
Once again, another great time was had at Southeast Linuxfest. One of the things I love about SELF is that I always come away with something new to learn and explore, and this year was no exception.
Southeast Linuxfest 2018 will be #10, so it should be a pretty good one. I hear there are some big things in store for it. Hard to believe it’s already been 10 years since I first got involved with SELF. Can’t wait for next year.
Percona was a big sponsor
You’ll find my collection of photos from SELF 2017 over in this photo album.
Take a laser and shine it through the center of the maple leaf on one of the polymer Canadian bills. You’ll see a projection of the bill’s denomination.
Unless you’ve been living in a seriously deep hole under a big rock, you know that there’s going to be a solar eclipse coming up this August. It’s the first one that will be crossing the entire US in quite a while. All of North America will be able to see at least a partial eclipse, and a good chunk of the US will get to see 90% or more of the sun in eclipse.
The US path of the August 21 total solar eclipse starts in Oregon at around 1600UTC (10:00 AM PDT) and ends in South Carolina a little after 2000UTC (4:00 PM EDT).
Back at the old house, we were just at the right edge of the path of totality. Our new house is much closer to the middle of the path (about 22 km from the center as the crow flies) and will be a much better place to watch the eclipse from. In addition, aside from houses, we have an almost unobstructed view of the entire sky from the house and a great big field to hang out in at the end of the street (if the yard gets too crowded).
2017 Eclipse path through the Charleston SC area
See that path of totality? We’re practically right in the middle of it.
The last solar eclipse I was able to watch was back when I was in elementary school. I remember all the windows of the school had been covered up with paper, and nobody was allowed to go outside during the eclipse. Welding shades were taped to the windows of several doors so that kids could look up at the sun to see the eclipse.
The plan for this eclipse is to acquire a few #14 welding shades and make at least a couple of pinhole cameras for friends and neighbours to view the eclipse with.
Hopefully the weather will be good. August is starting to get into the peak of the hurricane season. Don’t want one of those coming by at the wrong time and messing things up.
The last time we were at KSC (back in 2012), the exhibit building was still under construction. Didn’t get to make it back for the exhibit opening, so we made sure to include it as part of the itinerary for our cruise last week.
The exhibit building is easy to find. Just look for the great big orange fuel tank of the shuttle booster rocket (it’s a full sized replica).
Replica of the space shuttle booster
The exhibit starts with a short film about the history of the space shuttle program, after which the big door opens and you see the Shuttle Atlantis in all its glory.
The Shuttle exhibit is pretty well done with lots of interactive displays, simulators and a “Meet a specialist” program where you can talk with people who worked on the shuttles.
Space shuttle Atlantis
Atlantis cargo bay
Space shuttle Atlantis
Space shuttle Atlantis
Space shuttle Atlantis
Shuttle Atlantis fish eye panorama
Having grown up during the space shuttle era, I never imagined that I’d actually get to see it up close. There are a few places where you can reach out and almost touch the shuttle. You can even read the numbers on the heat shield tiles and see the texture of the heat shield blankets. So awesome.
Also part of the exhibit is a tribute for the crew of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. A very moving display with personal items that belonged to each crew member. Also part of the display is a body panel from Challenger and the cockpit windows from Columbia.
Left side body panel from the Shuttle Challenger
Challenger/Columbia memorial
Recovered cockpit window from the Shuttle Columbia
You can’t help but spend a few quiet moments here.
