September 2001 Archives

My thoughts have turned cosmic and nostalgic since the air is picking up the cold hint that speaks of winter. The termination dust has made the image that much more poignant.

As I was riding my bike down Chester Creek trail toward the western setting sun, I was filled with this sense of chasing the sun. Maybe if I could peddle fast enough I could stay in the warmth.

One of the interesting things about Alaska is the sheer abruptness of the season change. It's almost as if the leaves went from trees to ground in one gigantic belch.

I can't complain. This was really one of the best summers ever. I moved Sleepless Tech along. I'm in great shape. I have a car and a house to myself. Seems like nothing is missing. But I'm human. I'll find something wrong soon.

Watch for articles and pictures of me learning how to cross country ski. The snow won't be good for that for a while though. So, what to do in the interrim?

Today was Daddy's birthday. He's 53 and kicking. We took him out to Stuart Anderson's Cattle Company for a big fat juicy steak. As always at a cops dinner table, it was crass and raucous. You gotta love it. There's also some pictures of visible termination dust on the mountains and of a colorful and tasty stir fry I dreamed up...pics

Today was our open house at my work. We just moved into a newly rennovated space and this was our chance to show it off and to give thanks to those that contributed to the effort. Plus, dinner night! We went to Fletcher's in the Captain Cook. Then a small dance party thing at my house. I had way to much to drink and slept most of the next day. I really don't like to do that, but who knew what was really in a long island ice-t ;)...pics

Just some random pics from a day. My computer table at home. Rayme's new cow computer (Gateway)...pics

Had a nice lasagna dinner at Miah and Olivia's place. The lasagna was home made with vegetables from their garden. Saying it was delicious in this text just doesn't do it justice. It could cause world peace if she could make enough of it. Then, to top it, she made this Indian dessert called Jellabees. These things are pure crack candy. Get one if you can....pics

Well I want to try to convert some of my DocBook guides using XSL instead of DSSSL. I first tried sablotron sablotron written in C++. I really wanted to work since mostIt didn't work. I got error messages like Error [code:9] [URI:file:/usr/local/sgml/xsl/html/docbook.xsl] [line:2] [node:element ''] unexpected attribute 'exclude-result-prefixes'".

Went back to the drawing board and tried two cards with Xinerama and everything also worked fine, except I could not get the eccelerated drivers to work (both cards were Nvidia) - there must be a way but I didn't get it - So I went back to the dual head pro from Leadtek and tried again.... !!!! YES!!!... I was up and playing Unreal Tourney in two screens (not cloned like windows but stretched across both monitors ) I also was able to get QuakeIII to work, but not across the two for the right resolution should have been 2048x768 and it was coming up as 2045x 1536, but it still worked great at 1048x768 and ran with no probs. THIS IS great news I think!! Well hopefully you can post the pics I sent. Have a great weekend all! oboltyo -- Hey hey, its me again. Well after trying various dual cards, with monitors, and single cards with dual output - I was finally able to play Quake 3 and Unreal Tournement in Linux Mandrake with my two monitors. I like using my two cards at first - but could not get the ecceration to work ( of course this could be my fault - I would like to know if anyone has had success here) so I went back and put in my Leadtek dh pro and reset up the XF86Config-4, restarted and viola - all was well. When I tried unreal tourney I was able to play full screen across both monitors - this was a trip. In Quake3, however, the right resolution did not show up and I was able to play in a windowed screen - still pretty cool - and I am sure there must be a way to tell it to use the proper resolution. I played Quake 3 in wide screen mode and it worked very well. There is a jpg attached. - When I was using two cards with Xinerama both cards did work - and in Mandrake the simple command of XFdrake automatically set up the cards with both screens -very nice. Well thats all for now. Laters - oboltyo

Whoa! Somebody submitted news. I'm so proud. I have to post for shear novelty. I'll bet its in response to my write up of my Matrox dual-head saga. Just wanted to let you know that I am using a Leatech Geforce MX dh pro and the twin view works great !!!. I am using Mandrake 8.0, Nvidia drivers 1.0-1512, and XFree86 4.0.3. No probs here. Just edited the XF86Config and the XF86Config-4 and added the options for twinview: Option "NvAGP" "3" Option "TwinView" "true" Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-95" Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "50-160" Option "MetaModes" "1024x768, 1024x768, 800x600, 800x600, 640x480, 640x480" Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf" Option "ConnectedMonitor" "crt,crt" Option "Xinerama" "on" and did a restart. all is working well !!!

I'm falling asleep as I type DocBook XML 4.12 QuickStart Guide. That's right its an even numbered version. It's stable. I've even removed all of the harmless errors I was getting when compiling. Plus, the format now checks out with emacs xml-mode. Thus, you can use all the handy menus and syntax checkers to write your docs. I've actually been playing around with XML + XSL instead of DSSSL. The XML tranformations processor I tried first sabletron just doesn't seem to be able to do the DocBook style sheets. I'll try one of the more tried and tested java based processors next.

Well now my darn camera seems to work. Maybe its a short circuit. Maybe it was condensation. Maybe it just neeed the really hard smack I gave it. Either way, it will have to do for now as I just spent all my money on 256megs of RAM for Wally, 1 Gig of RAM for me, and 2 850mhz processors for my P6DGU. I'll be a happy man when they re-open the air travel and freight.

The world trade center in New York is gone! I'm not reporting this as news or anything. Anybody who hasn't read about is even less likely to make it to this site. The stupid antics of the human race saddens me. The US whole is calling for retribution, but who do we attack? No doubt we'll aim for a political or religious entity loosely coupled to the actual acts (e.g. a religion or country). Be prepared for a show of US military might fueled by media driven outrage. I wrote this poem sometime ago, but it fits today. Lying awake worrying for the world And so I face another fear. And so I live another drear. And down my cheek pristine clear, slips a single silent tear.

I've had this little fuji-film digital camera for a few years now. It has been robuster than I had hoped. I've biked it around in the rain, dropped it while rollerblading, and carted it around with my laptop. Then this saturday while have dinner (of all the unactve pass-times) the flash gave out. It still takes pictures, but a camera without a flash isn't all that useful. Now I have to buy a new one (ahhhh rebirth). Any suggestions. I'm looking at the Nikon Coolpix and the Kodak DX series.

A ga-ba-jillion people showed up for our Friday dinner night this week. Well not really, but 11 people is our highest number yet (Jim, Karol, John, Anya, Galina, Angel, Olivia, Deana, Wally, Miah, BJ, Rayme, and Hobbit) . Soon we'll be renting out banquet halls. We went to Bombay Deluxe; a delish Indian restauraunt...pics

No time for typey typey. One night with computers strewn, we opened a strange brew, and Wally went nuts with the new Hawaiin shirt from some wierd acquaintance in Hawaii. Ok so im no poet...pics

In the immortal words of Ice Cube "Today was a good day...". I'm in Bad nutritional form as I sit here at 10:00pm mowing cinammon pancakes with blueberry syrup. It was a beautiful sunny day right up to the point where I got off work (Gaea hates me). But we didn't let a little over cast stop us, plus you can see we like playing in the puddles. At the trail head we met some member of ABC (Arctic Bike Club). They asked if we were riding with them, but we didn't get started in time to catch where they turned off. Cool cats that group. They gave us a beer at the end of our mucky ride and from that moment on earned our eternal respect and admiration. So much so that we'll probably join. It's nice to lay in bed with all the USB gear and the laptop and punch this in. I think the pictures that take the cake today are the inventory mark on the US Army bridge and my awesome splash down pictures.... pics

Walter and I went out to breakfast with Miah and Olivia (Coffe Cats and Double Ds). Remember that yesterday I had my first in-the-field flat bike tire. I went to REI and got a pouch to carry a spare tube and a frame-mount pump. It's a little extra weight, but better than carrying a bike while wearing bike shoes. Then I rode to up and down O'Malley road.

How to make a Black & Tan:

I used Boddington's Pub Ale for the tan. Everybody agrees to use Guiness for the black. Start by filling a pint half way with the ale. Give your self a decent but not excessive head since we'll avoid the head with the Guiness. Next, turn a spoon up side down and put it up against the inside of the glass; being careful not to touch the head. Then, gently/slowly pour the Guiness such that flows down the up-turned spoon, down the glass, and on top of the Ale. The differences in specific gravity will keep the two seperated as long as you don't pour to quickly. The result? A nice layered creamy beer drink. Don't waste too much time admiring :)

... pics

Mark, Jason and I made this flick a while ago. The idea was to make a quake video that resembled the NBA "I love this game" commercials. At the time we were playing 4 hours of tourney quake a night. The recordings were done witha 500Mhz G3 Powerbook hooked to a Sony VTR-520 Handycam.

See it in

• quicktime (4.24mb)

This day was just jam packed with conflicting statements (kind of like that Afroman song but with no drugs). I was driving to work when I saw the "Arctic Air Conditioning Van". I almost rear ended somebody trying to snap that pic. Then I get to work and I see the Dell soft-touch keyboard with the Dell Touch 1.00 drivers on top topped with a No Touch post it note. Then finally I get all amped and dressed to go for a trail ride with John Field and I get a flat. I had to walk it most of the way home. I've had the bike for two years now and its the first innertube I've gone through. I should count myself lucky. I'll go get new tubes and a frame-mount pump tommorow ::sighs:: ... pics