I was asked the other day if I’m still using the Cr-48 that I’ve now had for over a month. I sure am, it’s been interesting seeing where it’s landing in my mobile computing environment. Since it’s just a web browser + basic shell for ssh I’ve been primarily using it for writing blog entries and emails (fewer distractions), watching online videos and catching up on RSS feeds. My netbook is used when I need more desktop stuff – getting images off my camera and editing them, non-Google docs file manipulation, offline movies and music (samba share) and when I do want IRC to be a primary focus on my attention. I mentioned in my last post that I hated the trackpad, but it’s grown on me, I don’t have as much trouble with copy/paste now that I got the hang of it and I’m starting to get used to all the hotkeys (home and end do exist! It’s just a keyboard combo not marked on the hardware).
Wednesday night I hosted Ubuntu Hour and Debian dinner. We had 5 people show up at each with an overlap of 2 (so for both events, a total of 8 people). These have been going quite well, and it’s been interesting watching how the makeup of the crowd each time I do these determines the course of conversation and which distro we largely focus on. I’ll be hosting another dual event night the second Wednesday in May.
MJ has been gone since Wednesday morning for a week-long trip back to Philadelphia, I had to skip this jaunt back east but I’m hoping to come along during a trip in October. It’s always so lonely here when he travels, but Friday I received a box that contained the fluffy narwhal I mentioned in my last post and the squishiest Android! It’s slightly less lonely with Androids, narwhals and gnus to cuddle.
Yesterday I headed over to the San Francisco Zoo. The main reason for this trip down to the zoo was to see the new baby koala (zooborns.com also has some great pictures) who went on display on Thursday. There was also an irrational human need to go down to the beach which had been closed the previous day for the tsunami watch (fortunately all we got was an 8 inch storm surge during low tide, there are some great pictures of the little wave coming into the bay here and a video).
The trip to the zoo was one of the best! I arrived just before 11AM so I was able to see the zookeepers prep and put the mother an baby into their exhibit – this means they were awake and moving around! Usually when I see the koalas they are sleeping. Most of my pictures didn’t come out, but this one of the baby clutching her mother wasn’t bad:
A koala on the open, tree side of the koala area was also awake and climbing through trees:
After all the squeeing was done (and giving my business card to a fellow with a huge camera, here’s hoping he remembers to send me a link to his photos!) I headed over to see if I could get a better look at the baby anteater… and I did! The last time I went to the zoo the baby was on its mother’s back and she wasn’t exactly showing off her infant. This time the mother was sleeping on the bottom of her carrier and the baby was happily sitting on her and grooming and doing other anteater things. It was so adorable.
The third critter I wanted to visit was the zoo’s new hippo! The last time I went to the zoo we arrived too late and he had already left his enclosure for the day. This time he was happily swimming and rolling around in his pool and I got to see him in his full hippo glory.
Did I mention the weather? It was gorgeous out yesterday.
Today is less gorgeous, but I am packing up to head down to BerkeleyLUG for some pizza and Linux talk.
Finally, I was contacted last week by an organizer of the SDForum Tech Womens Program to be a part of a panel on Women of Open Source on March 31st. While I’ve tired of the unicorn talks, an opportunity to present the virtues of Open Source to fellow techie women whose involvement is currently limited (or non-existent) is something I’m delighted to be a part of. I’m really looking forward to this.