I finally got elected to something last night: a seat on TriLUG‘s steering committee. It’s the third time I’ve run for a position in this great group and this time I got it.
I’m grateful to have been asked to help lead it. TriLUG has always been a very important Linux resource. The caliber of people in the group is beyond compare. Perhaps its no surprise that TriLUG’s last two system administrators were snapped up by Google.
I hope to do accomplish some great things with TriLUG.
The Asterisk community has changed considerably within the past week. Some key developers have become frustrated at the lack of leadership shown by Digium. Specifically, some claim that Digium is dragging its feet on accepting patches and new code. These developers have since gone on to fork the Asterisk code into a new project called OpenPBX.
I read through a long thread discussing the split, a thread which quickly devolved into a flamefest. Still unclear for the need for the new project, I surfed over to the blog of the main developer in the OpenPBX project, Brian West (bkw). Brian sums up his frustration with Digium in his blog post, basically saying how it seemed Digium’s focus is not on improving the code.
I don’t know whether its true or not, but I don’t think any harm will come from a separate project. I’ve had interactions with Brian on IRC and have always found him to be very helpful and knowledgable. While some Asterisk users are unhappy with the split, I am not betting against Brian and the OpenPBX crew. A little focus can go a long, long way.
When deep in the middle of another project a while ago, a thought popped into my head. It’s actually taken up until now to properly put it into words.
The essense of it is this:
“If you want to work together, stop dividing yourselves!”
How appropos.
Us versus them. Left-wing versus right-wing. Pro versus anti. All of this dividing only sets us back.
No one get anywhere if only one side of the boat is rowing.
Once again yesterday, I caught sight of a marvelous fawn on my way home from work. The fawn lives in the grassy area between the Beltline, Jones Franklin Road, and the northbound ramp onto the Beltline. I’m not sure how it manages to live there, being surrounded by traffic. Somehow it does, though. Although Lake Johnson is nearby, there’s a guardrail and a steep drop-off between it and the deer.
I have seen it three times now, the first time about two months ago. I’ve never seen any adult deer around it, which makes me wonder if its been orphaned.
One day when I was turning onto the Beltline, I passed a Raleigh animal control officer stopped on the ramp. I’ve wondered since then if the deer’s number was up. Yesterday’s sighting has put my mind at ease. It’s not the perfect home for a deer, but it’s apparently good enough.
If you drive by the area, keep a lookout for the spotted fawn.
After Friday morning’s tragic fire that killed two N.C. State students, I promptly checked both our smoke alarms to make sure they work.
When was the last time you tested your smoke alarms?
The elections were yesterday. Saying no one cared would be close to accurate: less than five percent of voters bothered to vote. When Kelly and I voted at 8:30 yesterday morning, a mere 39 people had been there before.
This just goes to show that MT.Net needs more readers, of course. Because y’all voted, didn’t you? You did, right?
Meeker wins reelection. Kekas, Stephenson and Craven take seats on the Council. Other members won their seats back in July when no one chose to run against them. It seems to me that voter apathy is at an all-time high.
Perhaps I’ll reconsider toying with the thought of running for office some day. It doesn’t look like anyone but me would care.
Everybody knows this stuff goes on. Can it now be proved?
There’s an election tomorrow. Don’t forget to vote.
This time around, I’m voting against road bonds. Too much sprawl and too much tax. The guys at Below The Beltline have shown me the light.
In the garage I’ve got four bales of hay and five boxes of IP phones. Can you tell I’m from North Carolina?
It turns out that the remnants of Hurricane Tammy were just what I was looking for to help relieve the drought. Chez Turner got about three inches of rain over the last four days.
On Friday, I pulled a receipt out of my raincoat that was dated June. It made me think: had it really been that long since we got a good drenching?
By conincidence of scheduling, we had our long-time grading problem fixed on Thursday. Water had a history of ponding up in the corner of our yard, but no longer. A new drainpipe, a few dump truck loads of dirt, and a bit of grading moved the water correctly from one end of our yard to the other. Kelly and I gleefully waded out in Friday night’s rain to watch the water drain. The things that pass for entertainment nowadays, huh?
Now to seed our newly-reclaimed yard and put even more water on it until our grass is back to normal.
