Ennie Voting Badge

Why yes, yes I did.

One of the updates seemed to disable my ability to shutdown or reboot my Gentoo box from the System menu. The fix was to modify the file /etc/dbus-1/system.d/ConsoleKit.conf.

I had to add the line:

<allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Manager"
          send_member="GetSessions"/>

I added it just before the following line because organizationally it made sense to me, but it really shouldn’t matter as long as it’s within the <policy context=”default”> section.

<allow send_interface="org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit.Manager"
       send_member="GetSessionForCookie"/>

Had to reboot via a root login, and afterwards, everything seems to work as expected.

• removing some old blog posts
• removing twitter feed posts (I’m not feeling that public)
• picked a new theme to change things up
• reorganized categories and tags.

I’m considering shutting down my development page due to lack of interest and time on my part as well as some other changes.

It hasn’t been the healthiest quarter for our friends with a number of them suffering injuries and other rather severe maladies. My mother’s dementia has worsened to the point that I’m not sure she’s even seeing reality anymore and she can hardly walk. It looks like its time for her to retire to a home where she can get care that is geared towards her condition. I can tell it would be a serious relief to by brother and sister who are her primary care givers at the moment.

It’s been the busiest of holiday seasons we’ve ever had. I had planned for a rather leisurely vacation over our Christmas break of games (both computer and face to face). Alas, it fit no schedules so it was more of a eating, drinking, and socializing time period. I’ll have to try again next year…

As far as the year in review….If I could sum it up with a phrase, it would be that “it came in moaning and groaning and exits with a whimper.”

Looking forward, it appears that it will be a year of travel, Vickey has us scheduled to go to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom, Indianapolis, and a few other places besides some that she will be going on herself.

Today is the last day of 2009, it’s time to do resolutions with Vickey. For those of you who’ve suffered a tough year in 2009, may 2010 be a turn around to goodness and cheer, for those that 2009 was all goodness and cheer, may 2010 be even better.

This past quarter continued the trend of this tumultuous year. While no more pets were lost, there was a lot of turmoil at work and with friends lives. It was a cold wet summer (although I can’t complain about the cold part, it was kind of nice from my perspective.) It was also a year of pests, we had a yellow jacket infestation that ate through our ceiling in the living room, and a mouse at through our pool cover, generating an extra $250 cost. A mouse, maybe the same one, continued its invasion of Vickey’s car, and the woodchucks continue their destruction around the pool and garage. A small plumbing fix resulted in $1000 in plumbing work.

We went to Gencon 2009 for the full experience, Vickey GM’d two events and lots of games were looked at and many purchased, and many writing seminars were gone to. We had been thinking we wouldn’t go next year (our ten year anniversary) however, we decided that we would.

Vickey embarked on a freelance writing career and finished up a book for Talisman Studios. She used the Gencon trip to do some networking, hoping for some work from that.

Vickey also went to England for one month on a Rotary Club GSE sponsored trip. It was an interesting shift being a bachelor for a month. Many friends ensured I stayed entertained though, and it was a busy time.

1. Quit Adium
2. Start up a terminal
3. Type “cd Library/Application\ Support/Adium\ 2.0/Users/Default/”
4. Type “cp Logs/* ~/Dropbox/Logs”¹
5. Type “mv Logs Logs.orig”
6. Type “ln -s ~/Dropbox/Logs .”

Now, I have not tested what happens when you have two instances of Adium running at the same time, I suspect there will be issues when logged into the same IM accounts (for those that allow that), but I don’t seen a need to do that really…

We opened the pool where I learned that spending time in the fall pumping off the pool cover will save me having to buy 4000 gallons of water for $150. On the other hand, $150 is almost worth not having to worry about the darn cover. Few minor bumps in the pool opening with chemicals, pump leak and such. Luckily I was able to fix it myself.

Mowing has been an issue for me this year. The mower, a rider about 9-10 years old required some service for the first time. Gas lines, inspection, and front axle rods to the tune of about $230. Had to pay a service to mow my lawn while it was in the shop since it occurred right when I was about to do the first mowing. On the third mowing of the season, I ended up with a flat tire which needed a tube, minor issue, but delayed mowing again which causes extra work with lawn sweeping.

Assisted in setting up a garden area for Vickey this year, we skipped last year. Used landscaping fabric this time to cut down on weeding. Looking forward to home grown tomatoes.

Vickey decided to go freelance and quit her job. She was rewarded within the first couple of weeks with a contract with an RPG publishing company. Probably not serious money, but a foot in the door for future. Overall, her happiness level has gone way up and it’s totally worth the adjustment to the income. Granted, budgeting will be challenging for a while.

Vacations, we went to the Celtic Fling at the PA Ren Faire grounds in June. Heard some great music, had some good food, and Vickey’s father showed up to spend a few hours with us at the event. Found some new bands that I really liked. Realized that I have to rethink parts of my ren faire garb for comfort, especially in the heat.

Work has become a molten pile of bile with Cornell’s economic crisis. Layoffs loom for the next couple of years, and an IT reorg looks to make the job a whole lot of unfun. Just have to keep the head down and hope to get through it unless something spectacular shows up. Some goof in the central IT organization (CIT) lost 45000 social security numbers and other information (they don’t have to disclose what else they lost, so we don’t know.) Will probably be feeling the results of that for some time. Funny part was CIT’s insistence that the departments not keep sensitive data on laptops and such, typically, failing to follow their own rules.

Plans for the new quarter? Well, there are three trips to the Sterling Ren Faire in NY, GenCon in Indianapolis in August, and some social engagements keeping weekends full until September.

“Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways- Beer in one hand – Burger in the other – body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming – WOOHOO! What a Ride!”