o/` Stabbing Westward – Shame o/`

I guess this just wasnt meant to be my week to get much acomplished.

After writing that entry yesterday I went and took a shower. I got out of the shower, walked into my bedroom and saw a BIG spider. ACK! Ok.. I’m not as afraid of spiders as many people, usually I’ll be able to bring them outside and let them go, as long as they dont run too fast or try to jump on me. I left the spider alone and walked into my closet. Another one! AAH!! I was a little freaked out at this point. We spend quite a bit to live here, and keep the place very clean, and I can’t seem to figure out where they come from. Our working theory is that since the neighbors upstairs just moved, and new people moved in, all the spiders in the building have been disturbed and started coming down. Of course after being scared by two huge spiders I don’t think very clearly. I got dressed, brought both the spiders outside, and proceeded to move all the furnature in my bedroom and clean. I went over every INCH of that room with the vacuum, got all the tiny cobwebs out of corners, all dust out from behind the tv and out from under the bed, moved all my stuffed animals, washed my sheets and comforter. Yep, I was freaking out. About halfway through I realized how insane the whole adventure was %) But continued because I couldnt really do anything else since I already had everything moved. Besides, it’s not a bad time to do such a thing… the lan party is this weekend, and unlike last year, our bedroom will also be occupied by gamers!

Turns out we’re going to have at least a dozen people here (including ourselves), which is a lot for a one bedroom + small den apartment! Looks like we’re going to need to move the furnature in the livingroom, I don’t know where we are putting everything %) Our bed is a futon, so that can be set up as a couch for people to use the tv for movies and console games (Yeas is bringing MST3K movies, I have a ps2, n-tropy is bringing his xbox, woo!). One person is bringing a card table, and we’re going to Myk’s mother’s to pick up some folding chairs. It should be really fun %)

Last night we went out to the beer store. Picked up a case of Duvel.. 12 750ml bottles, woo! Plus we picked up some Lindenmens Peche (Peach Lambic!)… mmm!!! I’m so excited! Then we went to the grocery store, got tons of rolls for sandwiches, about 4 pounds of turkey and chicken cold cuts, 2 pounds of cheese slices! Pretzels, soda, eggs (for the morning)… and of course Fruity Drink Mix! Vodka + Strawberry Margarita Mix + Ice == yum and drunk! We are probably going to go get a small bottle of Vodka tomorrow %) Hmm… oh we still need to get corn on the cob too *writes that down* And games… I guess a couple people are bringing their ut2k3 disks so people can install it if they dont have it. I don’t know how much game playing I’m going to be doing, I tend to do more socializing (and drinking!) and less game playing at LAN parties that I host… which will be ok, since I know a couple people won’t be able to bring their computers… plus mine is fairly fast and people might want to use it instead of theirs if it’s just sitting here.

Yay LAN parties %)

And more good news! I have finalized a meeting location for the first Philly Chix meeting! It’s at a bookshop in philly called “The Last Word” .. I called the owner this morning and he was more than happy to accomidate us, even sounded excited! And he had no problems with us coming in and plugging in a computer if we need to :) So the first meeting for the chix will be June 11th at 8 pm! *is so excited* … of course that is also the day after I come home from my vacation in Maine, it’s going to be a crazy-busy week that week %) But that’s ok… the only issue I have now is where to put Myk! I have no idea how this bookshop is set up, and I have a feeling the only place in the store for people to hang out is in the back room where we will be, well of course it’s a women’s only thing, eek! Well it won
t be like a PLUG meeting, more like a couple grrls getting together to talk, so maybe he can just sit on a couch on the other side of the room with his laptop… oh his laptop!

Ok, so it’s not actually *his* laptop, it belongs to the company he works for… But he brought it home last night to check it out. It’s a 500 mhz Dell, with 128 mb ram… 13″ and it’s not very light %) but it’s nice! And has Mandrake installed on it. *Me wanty* hehehe… laptops are so nice, and my exposure to them is so limited, it was cool getting to look at one last night.

There was a thread on one of the linuxchix lists yesterday about wisdom teeth. Hmm, I don’t know where mine are. I remember when my friend Leslie got hers out, we went to Wendy’s and got frostys. But I’m nearly 22 and there are no signs of where mine could be. Sometimes I have tooth aches, but nothing that would have anything to do with wisdom teeth, I think I just might have a cavity %) But I cant find any place in my mouth where the wisdom teeth are hiding, nothing poking through my gums (not that there is room…). So I started asking people in irc about their teeth. It seems that some people are born without wisdom teeth! Other have them come in fine, many have to get them removed, and I even learned of two people whose werent able to come in, and just stayed “stuck” under their gums… not doing any harm by being there, and removing them would require some serious reconstructive surgery. In light of all this interesting information, I think I should go to the dentist. I havent been in a few years anyway, which is bad! But I fear what they will tell me! Anyway, it would be interesting to discover where my wisdom teef0rs are.

I couldn’t sleep very well last night. Ended up getting out of bed around 4:30. I hate this… Anyway, while I was in bed trying to fall asleep I was thinking of things, like how likely it is that I will get very upset with my father the weekend I’m in Maine and create a problem between us. It’s just that I’m so sick of how he treats me. So sick of saying “yes dad” and trying to impress him. I think the only thing that would make him happy is if I got a $50k/year job and went to school in the evening so someday I can make $500k/year. I am considering writing him a letter that he’ll get before I go up there explaining how I feel, so that he won’t start bothering me with topics that’ll just piss me off (“you should get married” “you should do something with your hair” “you should get a real job” “you should go to college” .. etc etc). *Sigh* I dunno…

Hmm… so I cleaned the apartment this morning. Oh joy… did some serious uber-cleaning so it’ll be spotless for the party. Even cleaned all the base boards, it all took a few hours. But it needed to be done, I havent done such a complete cleaning in a few months, and I know people are going to be all over the place at the party, especially on the floor if it’s anything like last year! Finally finished and got a shower by 1 pm… and of course I’ve been chatting and writing this since then, yay for me. Ok, done writing this now, it’s boring (for both you and me). *wanders off*

o/` Evanescence – Taking Over Me o/`

So did I get the work done yesterday that I wanted to? Sorta…

I got a couple emails written, one to my pen pal in England. She has been using her mother’s computer to email me instead of sending letters *shrugs* I HAD to email her back so she knew I got the email at least ;) Ended up being a quite long mail, since we havent had contact since before valentine’s day, and so much has happened since then. Then I emailed a friend of mine in Belgium, she’s really cool, I should be better about emailing her! We swap stories and interesting facts about each other’s countries %) It’s really amazing how different our countries are…

As for the #13thHour page… bleh, nothing really was done. Which is ashame because I really had every intention of working on it. I dunno what’s wrong, I just couldn’t focus again… grr!

We’re getting ready for the LAN party on sunday. It should be fun… not exactly sure who is showing up though. *shrugs* hopefully as fun as last year! I think we are going to skip the whole BBQ thing since we arent sure if the weather is going to clear up, I guess we’re going to do a cold cuts platter so we can have sandwiches… and chips, pretzels, hmmm, I need to make a list.

Today I really am going to get work done, for real! No IM’s to disturb me, no nagging emails that need my attention, hehe.. *wanders off to do some work*

o/` Eurythmics – Here Comes the Rain Again o/`

-$nick- Leia, do you know much about hackers?

This was the first question on my voyage to become cited in a research paper.

Now usually when people come with me asking questions about “hacking” I want to scream something like “JUST BECAUSE I USE LINUX DOESNT MEAN I KNOW HOW OR HAVE INTENTIONS OF HACKING” … because people seem to have this idea in their head that people who use a unix-type enviroment have green and black screens and spend all their time hacking (thank you matrix! hehe). Well I held off on this near reflex reaction because the guy mentioned that he was writing a research paper and just needed some help being pointed in the right direction. Namely, he wanted information on “some famous hacker” … well assuming Kevin Mitnick would have the most written (especially in ‘newbie friendly’ form) about I pointed him that way. He came back… “what does a sniffer do?” So I explained what port sniffers do, then went into how certain protocols (like ftp) are cleartext so a ‘sniffer’ can read everything, including the password… then explained what ssh is, and how it was encrypted… there is a bit more to it than I explained, but I was going for simple ;) For those of you not familiar with this, it’s all fairly basic. If you are going to run your own webserver that can touch the outside world it’s important to understand these things, you don’t want to be ‘hacked’ because someone sniffed your ftp password. So he thanked me for the help and wandered off. Later he came back, apparently just about to finish his research paper, and asked me what companies do to stop hackers, and what companies do to stop piracy. I assumed this again was just info needed to be pointed in the direction of a real source.. and actually joked “I can see the bibliography now ‘some girl in irc'” … well to my surprise he replied “I do have to site you somehow…” eek! Hehe… so I gave him my real name and the title Linux Systems Administrator… and now I’m cited in a research paper! Three times! Hehe…

Moving on… I recently have been thinking about how easy it is to become intimidating. Now I have always been a very shy person, scared of most everyone ;) so the thought of becoming somehow intimidating to other people is very strange to me. I’m quiet, I’m shy, I’m not some super genius, I work very hard for what I do and know… I’m just me! I don’t look down upon people who ask for help, I enjoy helping people, and delight in seeing their sucesses, and I’m patient enough to help people through troubles they run into. It’s weird when people say “Oh you’re the Lyz of princessleia.com!?” … and then somehow feel they need to make an impression on me. As a shy person I can understand that. I mean you should see how much work and time I put into even the most simple mailing list post just so I don’t look like a moron! And it really is all defensive, I’m never trying to actually impress people with knowledge, I honestly just don’t want them to write me off as stupid. I don’t know why I have a fear of everyone thinking I’m stupid… I think it’s just my own insecurity problems %) … so now with this PhillyChix thing, I have named myself “Co-Coordinator” … merely because I need something to put on my resume, but I guess that is a bit scary, hell I might be shy talking to the co-coordinator of a local lug! Very silly…

Yesterday a friend of mine started a “book club” … it’s just for a few of us locally, basically just to work out a system of sharing our books and then talking about them I guess. We’re all interested in scifi and fantasy mostly, so it’ll have a lot for me at least if I can borrow books from a friend instead of buying them or taking my chances that a library will have them. Sounds like a good idea… maybe it’ll even last, it’s difficult to do these things with friends because so many people always decide they don’t want to follow through…

I also got a bit of work done on the new #13thHour s
ection. It’s not online yet, but it’s a lot like PHP Nuke… different icons for different subjects, and stuff. The whole point of this project is knowing that I CAN do it, and of course learning more in the process. It’s going well… Hopefully I’ll have it finished by the weekend (if I’d stop wasting my time on things like journal entries, hehehe…).

I also need to get caught up on email … I’m afraid I’m very bad with email. I mean sure, if you email me with a question I’m right on top of it, but with people who I only am in contact with via email I tend to slack off… just because I’m rarely in the mood to write a 3 page email! Hehe… but yes *looks at the clock* I will write emails from now until 2 pm. from 2-6 I’ll work on the #13thHour page. *wanders off*

o/` Stabbing Westward – Waking Up Beside You o/`

Real hackers know how to RTFM.

My dad called me this morning. I am sure everyone is sick of hearing me complain about my father, so I won’t be offended (hell, I wont know) if you just decide to skip this entire paragraph. Now he was notified that I will be coming up soon, so this conversation was merely to criticize my life, not beg me to come to visit. First it was “so you are planning on doing an internship this summer..?” I explain to him about that. “So do you have a real job?” … a real job?! I again said I was up for consulting, and I know a few people who have circulated my name in their company for various tasks, so I might have something real in the near future… Then it’s “so what else are you doing” … I tell him I started a computer users group for women, he is competely uninterested. Now honestly, I have been very active lately! This is a lot of new stuff I hadn’t told him yet, and still his tone seemed to be still disappointed. Why? Because I didnt go to college? Because I didn’t take his advice and take a job as a secretary so I could “work my way up” in a company like it’s the 1970s?! So then, continuing his critique of me and my life he asks: “So how is your weight?” … The hell?! No wonder I have so many issues! Not only is he concerned about my work life, personal life, and social life… but he must also attack my appearance! Grr…

So my ticket is bought for my trip up to New England:

Flight: from Philadelphia, PA (PHL-Philadelphia Intl.) to Boston, MA (BOS-Logan Intl.)
Depart: 7-Jun-03 at 9:30 AM
Arrive: 7-Jun-03 at 10:45 AM

Flight: from Boston, MA (BOS-Logan Intl.) to Philadelphia, PA (PHL-Philadelphia Intl.)
Depart: 10-Jun-03 at 6:30 PM
Arrive: 10-Jun-03 at 8:01 PM

Yeah, to Boston. We planned badly, this ticket is about $150, while the one into Manchester, NH or Portland, ME would have been about $500… ugh. I am not looking forward to flying into Boston… I guess family will come pick me up at the airport, but still, it’s just another leg onto a 4 day trip, and it’s going to be tiring. I’m going to try to stick to the plans I have, probably email my sister Heather today sometime to see what her thoughts on my trip plans are…

I saw “Sleepless In Seattle” last night. It was on TBS or something… and it had been on my “I should see but don’t want to pay to rent it” list. Now how did it get on that list? It was a HORRIBLE movie! I don’t know why people ever say it’s good, there was nothing good about that movie. The acting was nothing spectacular, the plot, come on now! Ugh… 2 hours of my life that I will never get back… I watched it til the end because I thought there was a chance it would get better, or surprise me in some way… nope.

This morning I took some time to make up the new section on my site about linux applications I use:

Enjoy!

Now I’m going up… *looks at the clock* ugh… so much of my day was spent organizing this trip to New England… wasted my whole day %( Well I can get a couple things done if I stop writing in my web journal.. hehehe *wanders off*

o/` Aphex Twin – Cliffs o/`

01:00:02 -!- BirthdayBot [~Bot@X-36B339AD.clockbot.net] has joined #13thHour
01:00:05 -!- mode/#13thHour [+o BirthdayBot] by R2D2
01:00:12 -!- BirthdayBot changed the topic of #13thHour to: ` – . – ` – Happy Birthday Syntopicon!!! – ` – . – `
01:00:12 -!- BirthdayBot [~Bot@X-36B339AD.clockbot.net] has quit [Quit: BirthdayBot]

Woohoo! This is that perl birthday script I wrote a few months back… this was it’s first real test %)! And it works… I assumed it would, but pretty much forgot about it until I woke up this morning and saw that it had properly done it’s job. YAY!

Last night turned out to be really nice. Usually evenings with family suck… I mean sure they are possible to tolerate, but it’s rare that I actually can say I enjoyed myself. I didn’t really know anyone but Myk, his mother, and his mother’s boyfriend… but I wasn’t too shy, and I was able to talk to people like a normal person, and I think I made a good impression. It didn’t even bother me too much that I had to admit to being unemployed several times *shrugs*

So yesterday I got a call from the guy I made the seawinds realty website for. Apparently he “doesn’t have the time” for it right now, and asked me if I could take it down for a few months so he doesnt need to pay for it while. Now I am horribly disappointed by this, but since we never had an actual contract, and I never really set up any official rules as to any of this, I can’t tell him no, so I agreed. Oh well, I’ll know better next time I do a business deal, must have all rules outlined FIRST!

Now there is this girl on one of the lists I’m on… and it’s really sad and frustrating the way she acts. See, she came into an irc channel where I hang out and starts causing a scene… first she was trying to help someone, and they said “thanks anyway I can handle it later, I’m in a bit of a hurry” and she freaks out and is like “is my answer not valid? Why did you ask for help if you didnt want it?” (she DIDNT ask for help on the actual problem..) … and goes on like this for like 15 minutes until finally people just started ignoring her. This sort of thing has happened several times, in irc, on the list, and apparently in places I haven’t seen. Just recently she felt she was being discriminated against because she thinks that she was “not considered for ops in the channel because of past issues” Come on now… this is a group of very mature people, and she starts out complaining she doesnt have ops? It was certainly the LAST sort of argument I expected to see in that channel. Anyway, I guess she’s about 19… and has had this attitude about taking things so personally for YEARS. It’s actually kinda sad… I mean someone says something and it comes out wrong, they apoligize and move on right? Well she just wont let things go… her life must be miserable! Can you imagine taking everything so personally? Maybe she’ll grow out of it…

Speaking of lists… I was thinking about when to have the Philly Chix meetings, and I was like “oh right… how will I get to these?!” They will be in the city, so I could probably take the train in north wales, then take a trolly in the city. Of course Myk was like “hell no!” hehehehe… So he said he could probably drive me down for the meetings (and my friend Nita too if she wants to come). He was like “I can just wait outside, oh I know, I’ll be your bouncer!” hehe! I feel really bad about making him wait outside %( but I can’t drive into the city by myself (I’m not on the insurance, and I’m too freaking scared!)… and all lameness surrounding a key organizer not attending a meeting aside, I really want to go to the meetings!

Hmm… today I will probably read a lot. Don’t really have any plans to go out, which is ok… I want a boring old relaxing day %) Myk was working on getting oracle installed on clockbot (the computer, not clockbot.net). And he said he’d give me an oracle user account, YAY!!! So I will start to learn how to use o
racle %) Not that it is a whole lot different than the databases I am used to dealing with, but it’ll be cool to have experience with something a bit bigger and more widely used in corporations %)

Now I am probably going to go crawl back into bed because Myk is there and it is so snuggly and warm *wanders off*

o/` BOA – Deeply o/`

I should make a section on my website about the applications I use… I used to have one, but I’ve moved away from using many of the gui applications I gave props to. No more xchat, no more xmms… and I believe I said there that I used gnome-terminal. Anyway, I took that section down because it was so outdated and I didn’t feel like doing anything with it. Maybe I will do that on monday… Pages like that are cool ’cause they give people a whole new glimpse into what someone else’s desktop environment is like. Plus, I think what a person uses as far as software can reflect a lot on what type of person they are…

Yesterday evening the women in #linuxchix started talking about Belgian beers. Well of course this is a conversation I HAVE to jump into because of my love for them %) They eventually got to lambics… oh how I love lambics. And of course since it was a friday night I just couldnt help but ask Myk if we could head out to The Drafting Room for dinner. Myk agreed (come on, how could he resist? Hehe) but it was 6:30, hmm… the Spring House Location is about 3 miles from our apartment (dangerously close!), but it’s a friday at peak dinnertime… and we know from experience that the Spring House one is awful during busy times. So we opted to drive to the Exton Location… sure it was nearly an hour drive, but it’s worth it! We got a really cool waitress, and although we were stuck between a birthday party and a baby shower, it really was a nice evening. I started out with some of the Lindeman’s Framboise (raspberry lambic) from the tap, and we got an appetizer of Belgian Cheese Fondue… oh yum! The bread was a bit salty, and we didnt really want to complain but our wonderful attentive waitress somehow noticed that we werent completely pleased and brought out some unsalted bread for us %) It was really great. Then I got the Grilled Chicken Breast sandwich… it’s so good, has brie on it! I ordered a bottle of Lindeman’s Peche (peach lambic) … which isnt nearly as sweet as the other ones, which makes it my favorite for most occasions. Then came dessert. I was so full! But how can i resist chocolate cake labelled “chocolate indulgence”? So I got it with a capuccino. It was freaking huge! A couple of the women at the baby shower table noticed it and were like “Oh my goodness!” *insert other womanly chocolate envy comments here* hehehe… I ended up eating about half of it and taking the rest home. It was a very nice dinner %) We got home around 9:30.

Tonight we’re going to Myk’s mother’s house for her boyfriend’s birthday. It’s just a little surprise dinner, nothing big, and his mother is really nice… I don’t often feel uncomfortable around her, and I do think she likes me. It should be a nice evening.

I had a lot of really weird dreams last night. I guess I didn’t sleep well since I remember having so many weird dreams, it sucks… I wish I could sleep! I have tried so many things, and I was sleeping good for a few months, but it’s going back into sleeping badly -_-

Must resist having the chocolate cake in fridge for breakfast, hehehe.

Well I’m going to go take a shower and try to wake up… make some coffee so I start feeling like a normal human being. *zombies off*

o/` Nine Inch Nails – Underneath It All o/`

It’s finally raining.

For the past 10 days or so there have been clouds in the sky. Each time we walk outside it feels like it’s about to rain. I think this has had a very strang impact on how I’ve been feeling. I love rain! And I anticipate it. So when they say it’s going to rain and it doesnt it gives me this strange empty feeling.

The Stitch and Bitch get together is tonight. I realized this morning that I don’t want to go. It’s not because I’m depressed… I am really not. I think I just need to be in a certain mood to want to meet people and socialize. I mean going out to the movies, or to dinner, or something like that would be totally cool, but sitting around knitting and talking? I don’t think I’d enjoy myself, not right now. I do plan on going to the next one though!

So it looks like the plans for my trip to Maine are starting to solidify. I’m going to fly up to NH on the morning of June 7th (saturday) probably spend saturday in NH, sleep at an aunt’s house… drive to Maine on sunday, spend most the day with my dad, maybe meet up with my friend Leslie that evening/night, sleep probably with my sister Heather in South Portland, then head up to Winthrop where my mother lives on monday, spend that day with her, probably spend the night, then on tuesday drive back to New Hampshire, spend more time with family there before my flight back to Philly around 5 pm. I know everyone will be compleining that I didnt spend enough time with them, but I really cant spare any more than just those four days. We’re planning to have our first philly chix meeting on the thursday of that week, I wouldnt want to come home on wednesday and then have to get everything prepared for the meeting the next day, that would be a bit stressful -_- Yeah, so hopefully this little visit will shut my family up for at least another 6 months.

Again, I’m reluctant to leave Myk for a few days. It really is upsetting me more than I thought it would… I think I partially feel guilty, but I have a feeling that most of this vacation will be “duty” and not “fun” … but all the guilt aside, I really will miss him! I’ll have to make time to email him every day %) And I’ll probably wander into IRC a couple of times if I get bored…

Yeah.

I made oggs of all my NIN cds this morning while I was cleaning the apartment… fun stuff. I did it because I was so frustrated with how many of my NIN mp3s were corrupted for no reason…

Now I am going to go get some work done %) *wanders off*

o/` Ducktales Theme o/`

It looks like I’ll be going up to Maine the second week of June. I havent worked out all the details, when exactly I’ll go up there, or for how long. My grandparents have agreed to pay for a planeticket. Unfortunately since Myk just started this new job he is unable to come with me %( That was the biggest issue with making this choice, I mean for the past year and a half we havent been apart for more than 12 hours! I will be so lonely! And I felt sorta guilty planning a trip without him, ya know? But he said I should go. I’ll work out most of the details this evening so I can get a price on the ticket and such.

Yeah, this internship is going to be interesting.

-co-worker- So Myk, are you sure you want your girlfriend to be an intern here? you know we abuse them right?

Hehehee.. I’ve been a temp worker, so I know the kind of abuse they are talking about. Sure I’m a pretty weak person… but I think being in such a position will be beneficial to me. I need to be stronger, it’ll be a challenge to maintain a good additude under pressure and not much encouragement. I think I’ll get used to using my sarcasm and wit while working there ;) I should be ok… especially if I can prove to them that I’m not a complete moron… or equally stupid college student who knows nothing about the world. We’ll see how everything works out, it’ll all be good for me.

I spent all morning replying to emails, mailinglists and the like… wow, I’ve really found ways to take up my time in a day! And that’s not really a good thing, hehe. I will feel like I have lost so much when I do get a job…

PrincessLeia.com has really gotten some considerable traffic this week, it’s really cool. I was looking back through the access logs, and that’s when I realized something interesting. I have a sailor moon section on my site. At one time I was pretty into the whole sailor moon thing, I still have some of the cards from the CCG (collectable card game), and a couple DVDs… so at that time I made a section on my webpage about it. That was back when I had a spree.com webpage (they dont do hosting anymore)… and so after creating my .com I found the old page and decided to put it up on the site.. ’cause hey, I did put a lot of work into it, who knows! Little did I know how much traffic it would get! How strange! It’s one of the most heavily visited sections of my site…

Ok, I’m going to go get some work done. *wanders off*

o/` Enya – Evacuee o/`

Today was a very frustrating day.

No, not more stuff with PLUG. The flame died and considering the attention span of most of the guys on the list the ones who flamed wont remember it in a week. I have been doing a lot of work on the PhillyChix site though, working to make it a real community thing, going on feedback and such I’ve gotten from the other chix. I have a whole new respect for LUG coordinators that keep up to date with everything %)

The phone kept ringing.

5 calls this afternoon.. when I’m used to getting none. I wasnt in the best mood anyway, so getting a bunch of phone calls wasnt something I was happy about. One of them was FINALLY the guy i had been talking to about the business website I made… finally found out why I hadnt been paid yet. It was just an honest mistake, but I had started worrying because he wasnt returning my calls. Another was some recruiter that saw Myk’s resume, two calls were from the car insurance agency about “changes in the policy that they needed to advise the customers about” and then one call from my cousin asking about me coming up to visit family. UGH! Of course calls like this from family always upset me, especially if my sister had nagged me about the same thing earlier the day (via IM). Then of course Open Office was being a pain… I was trying to print on an envelop, and it wouldnt let me print sideways.. you know, so i could put the think in the printer! Hehe… after a bunch of frustration I decided to install abiword. Well I was unsure if abiword uses gnome stuff, ’cause at the moment (because of a frustrating issue with my sources.list which is my fault) gnome stuff on my system is broken… so I was afraid that i wouldnt be able to install abiword. Well of course the broken gnome thing was really bugging me anyway, so I thought “Maybe I should reinstall debian tonight” … so i started backing things up. Eventually I finished that and decided to try to install abiword just so i could get the envelop pritned. I was able to install it, got the printing done (abiword is very nice…). And of course we dont have any stamps. I think my problem is I just didnt get enough sleep last night %) I hate being crankie!

On the bright side, we went grocery shopping last night. I hate shopping, but the day after a shopping trip we have lots of yummie food! Hehe.. tonight we’re probably going to have boca burgers mmm. We got eggplant too, so i can make eggplant parmesean tomorrow! Oh I love food %) hehe. And more good news.. Myk’s boss knew that I was into computers, and asked Myk if I would be interested in a summer volunteer internship at their company. Volunteer as in, no pay. But what have I got to lose? This time spent unemployed has been to expand my skills and learn. I think I am ready to take a step to get at least some exposure to a real working environment. Plus, he said if I do good enough he might even hire me! AHH!! That’d be so cool. Of course at the same time I’m scared… I mean I’ve never done anything like this before. But Myk does know my capabilities, and he said he would have never recommended me for the job if he didn’t think I could do it. I should work on my self esteem and my morbid fear of failure %) Honestly.. best case scenario, i get a job with Digital Wave. Worst case? I admit defeat and go home, and I’ll be back where I started. There isn’t really a risk since in the beginning it is understood that it’s a trial thing.

Yeah, so I’m going to go make dinner now. *wanders off*

o/` Bel Canto – Blank Sheets o/`

15 seconds of infamy on the local LUG list.

As I mentioned in yesterday evening’s entry, I have started work on the Philly Chix website, for the Philadelphia chapter of linuxchix. Well it wasnt done. Far from it! It was (still is at the time of writing this) a rough outline. And I certainly did not intend to make it public this week, let alone last night. Well, Myk was so excited about the whole thing that he pasted it in the #plug channel. Which is ok… but then someone in the channel decided to take it to the plug list! Oh no!

The first couple posts were encouraging, then we got the “*groans*” that started a flame. These guys claimed that a female only group was unacceptable (as if it’s any of their business) … some even claimed that by creating a sub group we would fragment and destroy the existing PLUG. Now there are some things you must understand about the Philadelphia area groups before I continue.

1. The PLUG group always has at least 30 members per meeting, over 200 are active on the mailing list.

2. The highest female count at a meeting? I believe it was 4, and that includes me and a woman Myk invited from his workplace.

3. There is an established “sub-group” PADS – Philadelphia Area Debian Society.

4. There are women on the PLUG list, but for the most part they do not post.

Now, do you honestly think that creating a female only chapter will hurt PLUG? If anything (as Samantha, co-coordinator pointed out) we will be more of a recruiting force. Bringing women who might have been afraid to join PLUG in the past (because of it’s male-centric additude) might be encouraged to become part of it, knowing they would not end up being the “token female” or a woman for the geeks to leer at, because us other chix will be there! But we wanted our group to (like I said) be a comfortable environment for women who might be a bit shy sharing their thoughts, views, questions and solutions with men. And come on now, do creating a new and better mencal or a cross-stitch program for linux interest men THAT much? *grins*

Why do women still feel there is such a barrier? Because there is. Recently at a PLUG meeting a woman answered a question, and the person asking it ignored her and went to the next person, who said the same thing. He finally accepted the answer. Now why on earth would this happen? Am I wrong for assuming it was because she is a woman? Similar things have happened on the list with Samantha, her answers are often ignored, even when they are correct. So there really is nothing wrong with us wanting to have our own group… And honestly I did NOT believe this would cause issues with PLUG.

So hopefully this flame on PLUG will die down soon and they will realize that a women only linux group is going to do more to help PLUG’s attendance than hinder it. MEN! Hehehehe… You know, in the end I think they are just intimidated by us because they cant get laid %D

So now that the site is basically public anyway I will post the link here:

Heh, unfortunately the webpage is hosted on my home connection… an entire list full of PLUG members have been killing my connection all night! Hehe. At least I wasn’t slashdotted!

It’s strange “Making waves” in a community. Especially because Philadelphia is a big city, and PLUG is a big group… and I’m so quiet and shy! Feels kinda good though! We have new female members on the list because of this post… and come on, I am proud to have a lot of traffic to a site I designed and am especially proud of %) Even if it wasnt finished!!! At least it was presentable.

Wow, what a rant!

Um, Myk and I took a walk yesterday evening… it was really nice. I will miss the trail around this apartment complex when I move… we even saw a rabbit on our walk! So cutey.

We need to go grocery shopping… i took some things out of
the shelf on the door of the ‘fridge and put them in the main part so it would look like we had food, haha. Yeah, I’m about to go grab the last two slices of bread for my lunch %)

I guess that’s it for now, need to put some more work into the phillychix site… *wanders off*