When I got home last night Michael had a laptop on his desk. He’s always bringing laptops home from work to work on, so I didn’t think much of it, but asked about it all the same.

“It’s yours.”
“Mine?!”
“The last of your Christmas presents!”

YAY!!! %D!!

He’d mentioned an old Dell laptop they had at work about a month ago, said he was going to ask his boss to sell it to him so I could have a laptop. But I hadn’t heard anything since. Apparently he was finally able to convince his boss to sell it.

It’s a Dell Inspiron 7500, 600mhz, 128 megs of ram, I’ll have to look up the rest of the specs when I get home, I just haven’t had time. I have been looking at used laptops for a long time, I would have been perfectly happy with my 333mhz Compaq forever if it hadn’t died. All I wanted was something portable that worked in Linux, this machine is faster than any of the ones I was looking at getting.

I started the Ubuntu install around 6PM, got through the CD part, rebooted and let it install the rest of the way while we were at the MontcoLUG meeting. When we came home around 11PM I was welcomed to the Ubuntu GUI login screen! I logged on and at first glance things seemed to be alright, unfortunately I needed to get to bed and couldn’t tinker and test things. Some searches online lead me to believe there shouldn’t be any problems with the basics, Ubuntu Breezy at least supports everything out of the box (Hoary is on it now). The wireless card is really the only thing that might give me trouble, and there is always ndiswrapper if nothing else works.

It’s such torture to be at work when my new laptop is begging for attention!

Finally, the MontcoLUG meeting.[lj-cut]

We had 7 people, met at a house in Telford, which turned out to be on my way home from work, I pass by it every day. I’d say it went very well. Spent a little while just talking, joined our host’s family in their dining room for a pizza dinner (and some delicious homemade chicken soup).

Clockwise from top left: Lyz Krumbach, Michael Joseph, Marty Squicciarini, Tom Lowery, Lee Marzke, Jesus Arocho, Michael Bevilacqua

After dinner I did a presentation on “Text-based communication in Linux” (links related to the talk here). Then we spent the rest of the evening just chatting about Linux, “wiring the house” and the techological advances in sewing machines (which was quite an interesting and surprisingly long discussion). As with the last meeting, the conversation had a life of it’s own, and I would like to think we all came away from the meeting with something. I also got to unload most of my Ubuntu CDs, and a bunch of books received from publishers.

As the evening wound down, Jesus brought out a bottle of red wine to share. Apparently he and his wife make their own wine! Excellent! Since starting the homebrewing of beer we’ve thought about venturing into wine-making, but until last night I wasn’t convinced it’d be worth it. Jesus and his wife sure can make red wine, not too bitter, not too sweet, nice alcohol content. It was good.

People started yawning shortly before 11 and we wrapped things up. Good stuff.[/lj-cut]

Last night we decided to check another local brewpub off our list and head out to Rock Bottom in King of Prussia with Bob. In Lew Bryson’s book, he defends the fact that it’s in a mall (one of the biggest malls on the east coast!), and so we were hopeful that it would still turn out to be a good place.

I don’t like malls. I don’t like driving around big ones because there are so many people. But I would give this an honest chance.

I think it was around 5:30 that we arrived, had a 15 minute wait (not bad for a Saturday night, we expected worse). Once seated we got a really nice waitress who was honestly excited about the brewery part of the place, she was more knowledgeable than most waitresses we get, it was a pleasant surprise and all the wait-staff seemed to be that way. She got a good tip.

The food was good, entree portions were big. Michael’s dish came with their signature white cheddar mashed potatoes, which I didn’t mind stealing a few fork-fulls of. I got a yummie chicken sandwich. Bob ordered meatloaf, which he seemed to enjoy, he’s the only one who finished everything on his plate. For dessert I ordered the carrot cake that was “made with a whisper of Pale Ale” – yowza! This was some amazing, moist carrot cake, and the slice they gave me was HUGE.

Now, the beer!

I ordered their brewmaster’s special, which was a spicy winter ale based on their amber ale. Honestly? It tasted like an amber ale + a spice cookie. It was good, but probably would have gone better with my carrot cake dessert than with my meal. Then I had their Prussia Pale Ale, which was a pretty average pale ale, I enjoyed it.

The verdict? It was good, but not so outstanding that it’s worth the KoP traffic specifically to get there. I won’t hesitate to go back if I happen to be at the mall, or am meeting friends and KoP is the central location we decide upon (which happens sometimes). I’m glad to know that it’s there.

Michael and I went grocery shopping last night and while checking out the fruits I came across something called a Grapple. “Looks like an apple. Tastes like a grape.”

Why wouldn’t I just eat a grape?

Still, I couldn’t resist. How is this done? Some sort of genetic engineering? I must know! So I picked up a 4 pack and hit the website when I got home.

Unfortunately the truth isn’t as exciting as genetic engineering. On the site they explain how a grapple is made.

“Grapple brand apples begin as a Washington Extra Fancy Fuji Apple. Of all apples this is the one that takes on the grape flavor best. This Patent Pending process is complex and the ingredient mix primarily includes concentrated grape flavor and pure water.
…
There is nothing but flavor being infused into the Fuji apple. The apple takes on no additional sugars or calories. They are not genetically altered in any way.
The apple is as healthy as ever but now has the new exciting grape flavor.”

So they “infuse” a perfectly good apple with fake grape stuff. That’s weird.

They smell like grape juice, nothing like actual grapes. The smell is a bit over-powering, the entire kitchen smells like grape and now my whole cubicle from a single one sitting here. If you smell the apple closely you can still smell appleness through the grapeness.

And the taste? It actually tastes a lot like a normal apple. There is a hint of fake grapeness, mostly in the aftertaste.

I’m not impressed.

My Aunt Elaine and Uncle Chris gave us a Barnes & Noble gift card for Christmas. I decided to use this to purchase The Question of God DVD, since I really enjoyed watching it on PBS.

Of course it costs $24.98. You need to spend $25, not including tax, to get free shipping. I’m sure this is done on purpose. The shipping was only $3, but I wasn’t going to just throw that $3 away! So I went searching through their site for cheap stuff. It’s not easy, but I finally managed to stumble upon their Books – Only $1.99 section. I went ahead and spent $3.

So I come home today to 2 Barnes and Noble packages.

Two? Why on earth did they ship them separately?

Then I open them.

Not only did they ship in two separate boxes (a whole box for a dozen cat stickers? egads!) – these are just the first two. The Question of God DVD was held up “1-5 days”! EJKLSJLDFDSSS!

I’m not complaining exactly. I just thought it was funny.

A few months back I purchased Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher of the Carnegie Mellon Project on Gender and Computer Science.

This book had been described to me as “Required reading for women in IT.”

It’s not. [lj-cut]

It’s a wonderful book detailing the work at Carnegie Mellon and institutions around the country to boost the number of women in Computer-related education programs. It does a great job of outlining the problems many women face when confronting computer science in primary schools and universities. It provides solutions for encouraging women in these places promotes a culture different than the typical “white male hacker” image that is so often broadcasted.

I think this is a book that needed to be written. If the view toward women in IT is going to change, a fine place to start is on an institutional level where progress can be monitored and methods for attracting and keeping women in IT programs tweaked in a controlled environment.

This book is required reading for anyone working to create a computer-related education program that attracts women.

But required reading for women who are already working in IT? The book was not written to address the real issues women who have or are trying to build a career in IT face. There are only two reasons I can think of that someone would think it was required reading:

1. All women in IT feel like they’re “the only one”

I would find it difficult to believe that a woman heavily involved in IT would not have encountered any of the many online groups composed of women and involved with encouragement and mentoring if it’s something they were concerned about. There is LinuxChix, WorldWIT, various open source sub-projects that target women (Debian Women, KDE Women…), GenderChangers, just to name a few.

And if anything, this book made me feel more isolated. I fall into many computer nerd stereotypes, I have many of the same hobbies as my male counterparts. The book does not focus on girls like me who just love computers but instead it tends to focus on the generic pool of intelligent women who could do CompSci but instead go into other field.

2. All women in IT are involved with and concerned about women’s issues

Again, not true. Not every women involved in IT is working to break down the gender barriers. Not that they’re opposed to it, but they’re just like any other geek who loves computers, just because they’re a woman doesn’t mean they have to be a feminist.

In fact, I would consider myself someone “involved with and concerned about women’s issues” in IT, and reading the entire book was a bit much. I would have been happy with an article :)[lj-cut]

Back on October 19th I wrote an entry with the subject Returning to Healthy Habits. There was tons of good advice in the comments. The entry has been very helpful getting me on the right track and knowing what bad habits I need to target and deal with.

Now that the holidays are over I think it’s up for an update on how I’m doing.[lj-cut]

The good news is that I have been very restrained when it comes to the sugary snacks at work, which I’m quite proud of because there were so many around the office during the holidays (and the holidays won’t end! There are still new boxes of chocolates and candies every day!). I haven’t been buying soda at all at work, just drinking water, tea and coffee. There has been no prolonged stress or depression that makes me want to run to food for comfort. And Michael has been cooking so we’ve been having more healthy meals and fewer “I’m too tired lets go out/get take out” evenings. Best of all, because of these changes my stomach hasn’t been bothering me lately and I haven’t put on any more weight in these past 3 months.

The bad news? Pennsylvania Breweries 3rd Edition, By Lew Bryson, need I say more? The holidays – I might have been well-behaved at work, but I seriously indulged when we went on vacation. I’m still tired a lot, I think this is also a carry over from the vacation, it’s easy to get used to being lazy. I haven’t developed any exercise routine, and since it’s winter now I haven’t been able to take walks at lunchtime, so I’m less active than I was when I wrote that entry on October 19th! I also have no good snacking/meal/grazing routine in place yet. I started bringing fruit to work, this went well for a few weeks, but then I just wasn’t eating it, and didn’t resume the practice after I came back from vacation.

So here’s the plan:

Establish snacking/meal/grazing routine – review suggestions from October entry, experiment a bit.

Stop being so lazy and start doing some sort of exercise. I’ll start simple with situps and pushups and hit up on his offer to let me borrow his DDR mat to see how I like it.

Keep all drinking to weekends – the brewery exploring thing is very fun, I am not going to commit to giving it up. But I can quell the temptation to have a yummie ale or a glass of wine with dinner on a Tuesday.

We’ll see how I’m doing in another 3 months.[/lj-cut]

4:20 – Wake up with bloody nose, creates headache
5:20 – Cat wakes me up to feed him, I take advil
6:00 – Alarm goes off and Michael gets up
6:50 – Michael comes in room and asks if I’m OK, “I’m fine, bloody nose make head ache”
7:25 – Normal time for me to leave for work, instead I’m calling my boss saying I’ll be late
8:30 – Head still pounding, take advil, go back to bed
9:25 – Head not feeling quite so bad, shower
10:00 – Leave home for work
10:30 – Get to work over 2 hours late
11:30 – Boss returns from meeting and tells me about how she was in bed all day Saturday with a cold (“oh really, you too?”)

What a delightful way to begin my week.

At least I feel better now.

Movie night went well, the usual crowd was there, the guacamole I made went over very well – it was gone before I knew it!

2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
1 1/2 Tablespoons white onion, chopped
1 large or 2 small Jalapeno peppers, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
2 large, ripe avacados (about 1 1/4 pounds)
1 lime
1/2 cup chopped tomatos

Using the food processor, mix cilantro, onion, chilies and salt until they form a paste.
Cut avocados in half, remove pits, and scoop out flesh into food processor.
Cut limes in half, squeeze juice into food processor.
Mix/chop with food processor until it looks like guacamole!
Put guacamole into bowl and add chopped tomatos with spoon.

Yum yum. As usual we also ordered pizza and picked up a 6-pack of Yuegling Black & Tan, which I was skeptical of but it turned out to be a pretty good beer. Bob brought Firefly so we spent the evening watching that. Shortly after midnight Bob had to head out, we spent the rest of the night (until almost 4am!) just talking.

I was sick yesterday. Coughing, congested, stomach hurting, sore and tired. I slept in until 11:30, got up and had a sandwich, went back to bed and slept until 4:30. This is most unusual for me. When I finally got up and took a shower I felt better, and since Michael had spent the day cleaning while I was in bed we decided to go out to dinner.

We went to dinner at Sly Fox in Royersford. I skipped on the beer, Michael got the very hoppy Odessy Imperial IPA and actually said “This borders on being too hoppy” – which is something I never thought I’d hear him say ;) So not to miss out on beer consumption just because I wasn’t feeling 100% I ordered a growler of their Route 113 IPA to take home.

Behold, the cutest growler ever:

I still felt tired last night, ended up not getting anything useful done on my computer and went downstairs around 10 to watch The Great Escape (1963) on WLVT. I’d never seen it before, good movie. I was most pleased with the fact that they didn’t feel the need to always show the gruesome scenes of people being killed. Of course it’s a war movie, but so much of what I see produced these days goes for a shock factor and it’s rather tasteless and desensitizing. Of course you could argue that all war movies should be tasteless and desensitizing because wars themselves are, but I wouldn’t agree with you %)

Today I am feeling much better, going to try and do all that stuff I said I was supposed to do yesterday.

It’s been a fairly unremarkable week, but I will make an attempt to remark on it.

Recovering from vacation is tough %) My sleep schedule didn’t get as messed up as it usually gets on week-long vacations, but I do feel it. Mmm coffee.

I did some organizing for the upcoming MontcoLUG meeting, we’re going to try and hold it at the home of one of the LUG members and see how that goes. I am cautious about holding such things at personal residences as I know that can be a deterrent to attendence, but I figured it was worth a shot. I’ve met this guy who is hosting and am pretty sure he’s not a serial killer.

Evenings have been spent catching up on house stuff and things. Work has been busy and exhausting but good.

Tonight Michael is going to the men’s sweat in Malvern and I’m going to have some friends over. I purchased the ingredients for the guacamole we had at Morgana’s and I’ll be making that up with the shiney new food processor. Bob said he might swing by with beer and Firefly episodes, which would be nice.

And a side note about the guacamole – I learned this week that Coriander and Cilantro are the same plant (see here). I knew what the Coriander plant looked like when I went to the grocery store, bought Cilantro and got home to look at the recipe to find it wanted “Fresh Coriander” – damn, I got the wrong thing! I intended to go to another grocery store during lunch today to see if I could find some Coriander, and hit the internet beforehand to double-check what it looked like and the google images search led me to my discovery. Gosh, I’m such a cooking n00b.

Saturday I hope to finish catching up with everything on my plate. I need to do the budget for 2006, file away the 2005 stuff, update my resume, work on a proposal for some possible contract work… Next week should be much calmer *knocks on wood*

I came to an interesting realization when I was up in Maine for a vacation: I don’t love Maine as much as I thought I did.

I love the ocean, the mountains, the general laid-back feel of the place. I’m quite proud of being a Mainer. But every time I go back I can’t help feeling some of the bad vibes that were created up there when I was growing up. The responsibilities I had when living with my parents, the rough time I had through high school. I was sick a lot when I lived in Maine, I was constantly stressed out, I was painfully unpopular. Almost every time I see a familiar place in Maine I’m not filled with happy nostalgia, I start putting up defenses. My “hometown” doesn’t feel like Home at all, it’s a place that feels bad and must be avoided lest I encounter someone I knew from my life back then.

I’ve certainly changed a lot since I left Maine. When I lived in Maine I was a loner, enjoying reading and walks alone in the park and on the beach above all other things. For the longest time I believed I’d be happy to live out my life in a cabin in Maine full of books and cats, as one of those crazy spinster cat ladies. After all, I knew from High School that I’m not fun or smart or interesting, so screw the world, I’ll be fine by myself.

Of course, as we all learn, High School is nothing like the real world, so as soon as I left Maine my world view was turned on it’s head and it turns out I’m all those things I “knew” I wasn’t.

And now? At this point in my life I would probably be miserable in that cat and book cabin. I actually like living near a city where I can always find new people to hang out with, things to do, and groups to get involved with. When I return to familiar places in Maine all I can think about is how tiny it is, how few people there are. Where is the fun in that?

That said, I wouldn’t object to moving to a more secluded place someday, I can see myself growing out of this social butterfly stage and wanting quiet again. But I’m now quite sure it won’t be Maine that I go back to.