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Tanakh, Puppet, Python and many events, plus Valentine’s Day!

In my last post I mentioned that I was coming down with the flu and while mostly gone I still seem to have the lingering cough and some sniffles that tend to hang on weeks after the worst of it is over. That flu ended up knocking me out of the game for several days though, many unproductive nights and it wasn’t until this week that I was finally able to get back to the gym.

We’ve now gone to three Intro to Judaism classes and they’ve all been quite interesting. The classes aren’t just covering the 101 facts, but diving into a lot of Jewish thought around God and the responsibilities of humans in this world according to Judaism. As a non-believer I’ve felt somewhat awkward in some of these discussions, but I have been able to draw on my general scholarly knowledge of the Hebrew Bible to contribute meaningfully to the discussions in at least an academic way. Speaking of which, I finished going through my Torah Study Guide with the completion of Deuteronomy and ordered this copy of the Tanakh to continue studies, and so read the Book of Joshua earlier this week.

In other learning stuff, I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my Puppet development environment (learning a bit about Ruby along the way) and have fully committed to finally really learning Python. No more hacking randomly scripts and praying! I will know it properly! Dive into Python has been essential to this journey, it’s probably the best programming book I’ve ever read. I’m also super excited about so many of the features of Python and tools that have been built around it. Every week I have a new “I love virtualenv!” “I love the Python shell!” It also occurs to me that I haven’t done such a deep learning of a language since I dug into Perl over 7 years ago, I forgot how fun this learning process is. I’m sure it helps that Python is just all around cool itself and there is a massive community of cool people supporting it.

The Ubuntu Classroom has been quite active lately. I was quite pleased that my idea for the Quality Assurance Team to do a series of sessions come together logs and details available here. And on February 9th we pulled off yet another Ubuntu User Days, logs here, I did my standard Xubuntu section of the flavors class (logs here. In other Linuxy event news I was able to meet up with the DVLUG folks last Friday to talk about Ubuntu Women for their podcast. I also took time this week to host another Ubuntu Hour and Debian dinner evening, the Debian dinner in particular drawing out 8 people, including a Debian Developer from Wikimedia and Rick Moen of Bay Area Linux fame (I first encountered his work years ago in the Linux User Group HOWTO). As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m presenting on my Ghana work at BALUG on Tuesday. Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to run the Ubuntu Global Jam for San Francisco this year due to time constraints, but I do hope we’ll be having one downtown here on March 2nd. Finally, I have confirmed that I’ll be giving an “Ubuntu in the Cloud” talk next Friday at Ubucon at the Southern California Linux Expo! I’m very happy that I get to go again this year and this presentation will be a fun one to give.

This week I’ve done some remote working experiments. I work from home and now have a job which doesn’t tie me to a phone and so allows me the flexibility to work from anywhere with a good internet connection. I was doing code and config reviews from Ferry Building where I had lunch on Wednesday and got some of my best work done from the roof yesterday afternoon. It’s been a fun week!


Workin’ on the dock of the bay

Wedding stuff is still coming together. The invitations went out and we actually managed to get our registry with Macy’s done. We’re now rushing around to get the hotel rooms we’ll need squared away. We also really need to make solid plans for our honeymoon.

Last night MJ and I enjoyed Valentine’s Day dinner at the historic Palace Hotel Garden Court Restaurant. It was beautiful! He also gave me roses!

Tomorrow morning I’m flying to Las Vegas with a trio of friends to enjoy a weekend of shows, thrill rides and too much food! I’ll be back Monday night.

2 Comments

  • Dave Sevick

    Inspired by your faith and programming ventures, I have made a decision to learn LibreOfficeVersion 3.6.5.2 (Build ID: 5b93205) (4.0.0 is too new) on my Mac from beginning to end in a thorough study of what it can do do replace many of my “purchased apps” over the years.

    Thanks for the personal stories of your new life journey with MJ and Judaism. And the revolutionary world of Ubuntu that you Beth Lynn Eicher and the friendly Linux community have spoon fed to me over these last few years.

    Best wishes to you and MJ.

    Dave in Pittsburgh

  • Rick Moen

    Sorry to have missed your BALUG presentation about the Ghana project, Elizabeth. Thank you for the Ubuntu Hour, Bay Area Debian dinner, and other good work!

    (I had no idea you were becoming a yeshiva bucher. ;-> )

    Rick Moen
    rick@linuxmafia.com