Category: Fun stuff

Random fun things

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SELF 2013 EOF

Southeast Linxufest 2013 has come and gone, and once again I had a great time working the conference, seeing the exhibitors and catching a few talks.

Rolled into Charlotte Thursday afternoon and after a short wait for a previous event to clear out, we got to work getting everything set up. First all the gear had to be hauled down to the conference area, figure out what was in the boxes then set up the cameras, sound and projectors. That took the bulk of the evening. Ethernet and power cables were run to the rooms and tables.

The party on Saturday featured MC Frontalot, who I’d heard of but hadn’t heard any of his music until then. Everybody seemed to enjoy it and after his show a crowd quickly developed at the merch table so people coud buy stuff and get autographs/photos.

Most of my time was spent taking photos and running around helping out wherever I could. Couldn’t get to as many talks as I wanted, but I did manage to catch a few good talks on MySQL admin and node.js.

Just a little under 500 photos to weed through, process and then upload. Could take a while to get to.

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Southeast Linuxfest 2013

The 5th incarnation of Southeast Linuxfest is just a couple months away. It’s going to be in the same location as last year (Charlotte, NC) June 7-9.

As usual, SELF 2013 is free to attend, but there’s also the $65 supporter registration which gets you a sweet SELF shirt, lunch, a warm fuzzy feeling and the undying gratitude of the organizers.

Past Southeast Linuxfests have been a great time with lots of great talks, and one heck of a party. I don’t expect it to be any different this year.

In addition to the regular SELF talks and activities, there are a number of affiliated events happening alongside SELF:

For anybody interested in getting their amateur radio license, a testing session is also being planned.

Make your plans now to come to SELF 2013!

Southeast Linuxfest 2013
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Children’s Day

Connie introduced me to the idea of Children’s Day, a holiday her mom came up with for the kids. It sounded like a great idea: have a little holiday for the kids in between the birthdays and Christmas and decided she wanted to do it for the godchildren, so she set to planning.

We had Children’s day at the house last weekend and it was a lot of fun. I cooked up some hamburgers for the big kids, and hot dogs for the little kids. We had lunch and I got challenged by a 9 year old (“Mr. Eugene, you’re a pretty good cook. Almost as good as me!”). We might have to have a throw down at some point.

 Ellie tried to pull a fast one over us with hand washing.

“Did you wash your hands?”
“Yes”
“What colour was the soap”
“… (goes back to wash with soap)”
(long pause, bit of back and forth moving)
“Miss Connie, how do you turn on the water?”

After lunch we watched the kids run around searching for their presents. Almost from the start, it became a race to see who could find all their presents first. They were more interested in the clue for the next present than the one they just found, which made it all the more fun to watch. At one point, I saw Mark spike the wrapping paper from one of his presents onto the coffee table, like he just scored a touchdown.

After all the presents were found, the kids kind of settled down to check out their surprises. Ellie had me help her with colouring in one of the colouring books. Then Miss Connie brought down the big box of Legos, and we spent some time playing with that. It’s been a while since I played with Legos.

We helped the kids make banana splits for dessert, went outside to throw a ball around a few times (which inevitably turned into game of Monkey in the Middle) and even played fetch with Simba for a bit.

Eventually it was time to give the kids back so off they went back home, minus the Nerf gun.

I think all the kids (big and little and even the furry 4-legged ones) had a great time playing, except for the cat who didn’t seem to like all the activity very much. The only casualty was a crayon that Simba snuck off the coffee table and snarfed down before we caught him. I guess when you’re a Lab, everything smells like food.

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Hamfest-ing

Went to the Charleston Hamfest today and spent a few hours wandering around checking out all the things. It’s a smaller event than the Atlanta Hamfest I went to in June, but I still enjoyed it. The variety of things to see wasn’t as big, but it was still fun seeing everything and meeting up with fellow hams.

I had big plans to acquire a bunch of antenna making supplies, like coax, wire, feedlines, connectors and other things, but after looking around a bit I decided I needed more of a shopping list to know what to get. Instead, I ended up with a cap with my call sign and name embroidered on it, and a table mounted magnifying lamp for the workshop. A couple of pretty good acquisitions, I think.

I’ll have to put a shopping list together for Hamcation next weekend.