Summer winding down

There’s barely a week left in the kids’ summer vacation. The mornings and evenings are considerably darker than they were just a month ago. Though it is still quite hot, I can feel the summer slipping away and fall approaching.

I look towards this fall with a bit more curiosity than those before. Not sure why, really. There’s no specific event that attracts me, I guess it’s just the concept of a season where it’s actually pleasant to be outside. It’s true that I’m starting a new job soon, and while that certainly is exciting there’s more to the season I guess.

Maybe we will get a hurricane or tropical storm or two. And I’m looking forward to how the kids adapt to their new classes. Regardless of what takes place, I’m looking to close out our year on the best note possible. I don’t exactly know what that entails but I look forward to finding out.

Default dns names

Once upon a time I knew how to configure BIND to send a canned reply for lookups to undefined IP addresses. Thus, a lookup of 192.168.1.16, if not assigned to a hostname, would return as “dhcp-16.example.com.”

Now I can’t remember what BIND option actually did this. Any other sysadmin geeks out there know how to do this?

Update: Found it! It’s the $GENERATE feature. Cool!

Smiling in passport photos

Don't dare smile

I just had two sets of passport photos taken, one at work and one at the local Costco. Both photographers told me not to smile in my photographs: that they could get rejected by the State Department’s passport processing if I were smiling. I thought that was ridiculous but to hear it from two photographers made me wonder.

Checking the Internets, I see there are differing opinions on whether this is a legitimate requirement. A few web forums say smiling is (and is not) allowed. The U.S. Consular Services in Canada office (where one would expect to find the official word) says you may smile if you wish.this is because smiling breaks the facial recognition software. Now, I would think any facial recognition software that can be defeated by the bad guy smiling isn’t worth much. I chalk it up to more security theater.

Interestingly, the Costo guy asked if my photograph was for a U.S. passport or a Canadian one. Apparently you can still smile in your Canadian passport photographs. No wonder Canadian travelers get better welcomes than Americans.

Sound Choice in the news again

I was delighted to read the story in today’s Charlotte Observer about Kurt Slep and Sound Choice, fighting back against illegal copying of their karaoke music. The company took a beating when unscrupulous karaoke jockeys (“KJ’s”) downloaded their music rather than paying for it.

While I was sad to hear how devastating music piracy has been to Sound Choice, I was glad to read about the history of the company, including the time in 1985 when I was one of its first employees.

Kurt, give me a call if you need a vocalist!

East Raleigh Community Day

I am back from a fun but busy day at the East Raleigh Community Day. I was the master of ceremonies for the four-hour event, and also ran between booths to fetch supplies when needed.

It was fun, there was a good turnout from the neighborhood, and lots of kids got school supplies. That’s a good day in my book!

You can see pictures on Flickr here.

Changing directions again

… well, not exactly changing directions so much as returning to the direction I’ve traveled before. Today I put in my notice at one of America’s great places to work. I have landed a sales engineering position at a growing software company. In a lot of ways it’s pretty much my dream job: I get to do what I love to do best, the folks at the company are all really cool, and I can really make an impact right from the start. I had been looking for the right position and it looks like it found me.

Sales engineering takes a combination of technical and people skills. While it’s easy to find people who excel in either category, it’s not often you find someone who excel in both. I’ve been using my technical skills at my current job but almost none of my people skills. This gives me a chance to perform while still being a geek. I love it.
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Railhawks

We went last night to watch a game between our local professional soccer team, the Carolina Railhawks, and the Rochester Rhinos. They were having a ceremony at halftime to honor the athletes from each CASL team who were recognized for their outstanding sportsmanship. I am quite proud that our daughter Hallie was among those good sports.

We got lost on the way to the stadium, arrived late, and endured an especially sweaty night, but the family enjoyed the game in spite of the Railhawks losing 0-2. I hope we will see another game soon, even if Hallie isn’t being honored!