Life gets interesting when you are juggling a bunch of things and events just happen around you in a random fashion.

• Writing training material for the LPI 101 exam preparation and presenting it on Monday nights.
• There are at least 5 local usergroups that I am a member of which I go to meetings during the month and a few international ones that I try to attend the IRC chats for
• There is the day job which keeps me busy writing papers and documentation as well as trying to squeeze in new methodologies and testing
• Rebuild of my home environment (which always take a back burner), although I managed to upgrade my two macs last week, so I can get some videos finished and the audio sessions from BSDCan finished. The web server is being replaced next with a machine that is no faster, but it has the benefit of HotSwap SCSI disks.
• Six technical magazines/month to read, as well as the one or two O’Reilly books I manage to get every month.
• Reading for pleasure, latest was Kim Stanley Robinson’s “50 Degrees Below” - part 2 of a climate change trilogy - there are five or six novels/month
• A wedding to attend this month
• Just got my deck completed, now it needs treatment/stain and furniture (10 years in the making) and worth every penny paid to get it done. (I’m a hopeless carpenter)
• Filling out proposals (read government grids) for contract work
• Locating and reading documentation of performing TRAs and SOSs in an approved manner for the RCMP/Federal Government (that’s where the money is right now)
• Arguing with Adobe about my invalid serial number (8 days and counting)
• Contemplating volunteering for a few things with the local computer charity (have to consider my time)
• Quality time with my family (has to take priority)
• Plan, design and mock up the plan for my home office and my wife’s project room (lots of room in the basement, just need to get a few walls and a nice floor in place and lots of power) also need to figure out where the computer racks will reside.
• Gut basement again (get rid of 50% of what is down there). I figure a 15 cubic meter dumpster will do it (better that the 25 cubic meters last time).

Now I need to look at September…

Topics:

• We will be (hopefully) following up with Bruce on his postfix install (you blogging that yet Bruce?)
• There will be an LPI Exam seating in October (details Thursday night)
• CMS Systems (specifically this website)
  • Features
  • Spam
  • User Registration
• ISP Providers and static addresses
• SpamAssassin Configuration

Lots of topics, not a lot of details yet. The SpamAssassin will be have some real info, the others are discussion topics.

Well, last night was our July meeting - average turnout I would guess, all of 5 people. I suspect this may start changing if I ever get around to promoting on a somewhat larger scale.

We had a bit of a mixed bag tonight:

• Photo show of Scotland
• Announcement of an upcoming seminar series from the HTCIA (Ottawa Chapter)
• Discussion of the postfix session from two meetings ago
• LPI exams for October
• A slide show of some “motivational posters”

There was also a minor challenge issued to the attendees by Brenda to blog something even if it’s just a “Hi, this is my first blog, be kind” type of thing.

Hey Self!

Next time you upgrade the modules on the website, try a few things out. The unresponsive FCKeditor should have been a signal that something was wrong.

OK, I know this seems a little schizo, but sometimes it takes a 2x4 (or larger) to get me to see the light. I need to remember that just because the system can tell me about updates to modules AND can install them for me automagically, it doesn’t mean they get configured properly.

Well, that’s what we hope. There wasn’t much to follow up with from the last meeting, so this time I’m announcing an event targeted for September of 2007. It should be very interesting and hopefully will be of use for any or all of you in your professional capacity.

See you there.