As I’ve already written, in mid-August I road tripped with my aunt and mother up the east coast from central Florida to Philadelphia. They left on Wednesday, leaving me on my own until that evening when I had to drop the MDX off at the shop to get the windshield replaced due to a very unfortunate incursion with a rock while driving down the highway when MJ was in town back in July. I had dinner with a friend who picked me up there. Thankfully the windshield replacement went without a hitch and was completed by Thursday afternoon, so I was able to craft my work schedule that day to start early, get the car mid-day and be home to work until I had my next house guests, my Aunt Meg and cousin Melissa! The timing worked out well, they were driving up to New England from the Carolinas so I invited them to spend the night on their way up as a nice midway drive resting spot.
We had dinner at the nearby Toscana 52 Italian restaurant before settling in for the night. I saw them off the next morning before starting my Friday morning of work. That evening my friend Danita came over to spend the night, a weekend trip to New York City together, which I wrote about here, beckoned!
Monday arrived much too quickly. The day was spent once again working from the townhouse, which is working out really well. My office may be where we are storing piles of boxes, totes and furniture (most of which will end up in California), but in the midst of all that I have a really comfortable setup with everything I need to be productive. I just plug in my work laptop and go. Unfortunately during this trip I learned that the personal laptop that I keep there as my desktop has finally failed. The blink codes indicate that it’s the CPU or motherboard, which essentially means the laptop has reached the end. I’ll have to bring out a replacement next time I come into town.
However, Monday was eventful for another reason, it was August 21st, total solar eclipse day! I had piles of friends who braved the crowds to experience the totality zone, but in Philadelphia we just had a partial eclipse. During much of it we had cloud cover, but after the high point the clouds parted and I was able to get some nice glimpses through my pinhole camera box as I sat on the back porch. While sitting out there I flash backed to being 12 years old after school and doing the same thing. I have always enjoyed a good eclipse.
Monday evening I drove out to PLUG West to give an Introduction to DC/OS presentation (slides). Surprisingly, up until this point most of my DC/OS presentations had been more goal-oriented, so I really enjoyed doing a more holistic presentation about the “datacenter operating system” space, getting able to dive into more of the infrastructure geek bits of how DC/OS works as a platform on top of Linux for my fellow Linux-loving attendees present that evening. I also still know a number of folks who have attended PLUG meetings over the years, so it was nice to catch up and meet some new folks as a number of us adjourned to a nearby restaurant for a late dinner.
My next two evenings gave me time to catch up with friends over dinners, Tuesday night I had dinner with my friend Crissi. It had been a little while since just the two of us caught up in person, so it was really nice to get that time. Thursday I met up with my friend David to see RiffTrax Live: Doctor Who – The Five Doctors. I’d really been looking forward to this, and almost bought tickets for the actual live event in Nashville when they went on sale in the spring. This was actually a replay from the previous week, but as a Fathom Event in a theater, it’s hard to tell the difference. It was totally worth seeing. I don’t remember if I’d actually seen The Five Doctors before, I have seen a lot of old episodes but this movie is a bit ridiculous, even by old Doctor Who standards. A replacement of the first doctor (who had died a decade earlier), a cameo of the fourth doctor taken from footage shot for another production, and plot holes and continuity problems rounded out the basics of what made it so amusing. The Rifftrax of it was hilarious, even if they frequently took the opportunity to make fun of us old school Whovians.
On Friday morning MJ got into town! He flew in to visit for a few days, attend FOSSCON and so we could depart together on our trip to Ireland Monday night after work.
It’s hard to believe I was in Philadelphia for almost two weeks during this trip. With every visit the townhouse feels more like a home, I can relax and really feel comfortable there. Not sure yet when we’ll be back, but the end of year holidays are always a good opportunity since we have some off from work.