2 Bit Hacker

This year for our big vacation, Meg and I decided to go to San Diego for Comic-Con International, a four-day extravaganza of popular culture. Comic books, television, movies, and various other arts gather together to take over San Diego with dozens of panels and a gigantic vendor hall.

We set out on Thursday morning, catching a ride from Jason down to Boston’s Logan Airport to catch our early morning flight to San Diego. Since we were leaving home around two in the morning, we decided not to sleep beforehand. This turned out not to be the greatest idea, as we didn’t get a lot of sleep on the flight, and were dead tired by the end of the day. We still got a pretty full day in though. Once we landed and got our rental car, we found our hotel, a decent little place in San Ysidro. Then we went up to Qualcomm Stadium to take the trolly downtown for the con. We picked up our registration badges, made a feeble attempt at the vendor hall, then decided to grab some lunch. We took the trolly a few blocks north from the con and found Kansas City Barbeque which was okay. We then stumbled back to the hotel and collapsed.

The next morning we had to move to the hotel we booked for the rest of the weekend, the Sheraton Suites San Diego at Symphony Hall, which was considerably nicer than the place we stayed the night before, and was one of the hotels on the con shuttle routes. We dropped our bags and headed back to the vendor hall where we picked up some stuff from The Behemoth (makers of Castle Crashers) and Meg got a Firefly shirt from a pretty cool artist booth. After wandering around for a bit in the hall, we decided to head upstairs and ended up in one of the panel rooms and got to see comic legend Stan Lee give a talk on some of his experiences in the industry. It was pretty incredible to see him in person, and he gave a great presentation. After the session we decided to head back to the hotel, dump our stuff and find some food. I found a nice little hole-in-the-wall Mexican place, Maria’s Mexican Cocina, which turned out to be great. Over dinner, we decided we should return the car, as we didn’t need it with the shuttles, then crashed back at the hotel.

On Saturday, Meg decided she needed to get the Doctor Who bags that BBC America were giving away at their vendor booth, so we got up early and stood in line to get into the vendor hall as soon as it opened. We rushed to the BBCA booth just to find out they weren’t giving out the bags yet, so we continued around the hall for a while. There were a ton of exhibitors, including some giant booths for Aliens, the new Tron movie, The Expendables, LEGO, Warner Brothers, and of course Marvel and DC Comics. As we were winding our way back out, we happened to be at the BBCA booth just as they started giving away the bags and Meg managed to score one for herself and one for our friend Cole, who is a giant DW fan.

We grabbed lunch at an Irish pub near the hotel, Stout Public House, which was delicious, then went back to stake a claim in the session hall in anticipation of the Mythbusters panel later that day. Leading up to the main event were panels for Warehouse 13 and Eureka, which were both entertaining. Meg hadn’t seen Eureka before, and we’d only seen a few episodes of W13, but still really enjoyed the sessions. Then there was a preview of a new show, Nikita, loosely based on the French film of the same name and other derivative works of the film. It was okay, but I didn’t feel it really felt like something new, more just a rehash. I guess we’ll see how it does when it hits the air later this year. Human Target followed, a show that neither of us had seen, but it looked fairly entertaining, so we may check it out. Then came the panel we were waiting for, Mythbusters.

Apparently this was the first convention where the entire cast appeared together, so that was kindof cool. We had actually had a hard time taking photos of Adam, as he rarely stopped moving for more than a few seconds. Jamie on the other hand was the master of the two word answer, one of them generally being “umm”. It was a very entertaining panel, though I would have liked someone to have asked them if they ever felt they had too many explosions.

On the last day of the convention, we again wandered over early to try to get into the Castle panel. When we saw the line for it, Meg wanted to give up and just wander around again, but I convinced her to wait it out, which payed off. While we were waiting in line, we met a girl who had travelled over from Australia for the con. She’s a huge Harry Potter fan, and had tattoos of a golden snitch along with the Hogwart’s house crests down her spine. She’s also how we found out about the pen stabbing incident in one of the larger sessions the previous day. As we were heading into the Castle session they were handing out shwag boxes containing water bottles. Turns out some of them had passes for a special autograph session with the cast, and Meg had handed one of the boxes with a pass to the girl we met in line on the way in. Meg was a little annoyed that she had been so close to meeting one of her idols, but was happy that it went to someone who would appreciate it. Again it was a great panel, Fillion was hilarious, reading a passage from the book supposedly written by his character from the show. In general he was hamming it up the whole time and Meg could barely contain her drooling.

After Castle there was a panel for Merlin we decided to stay for, mostly for Anthony Stewart Head, who Meg liked from his role in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Afterward we decided to hit the vendors again, but the hall was so jam-packed with people that we could barely move. Apparently I was several feet from Danny DeVito at one point, but missed it due to being preoccupied trying to shovel people out of my path.

After calling it quits on the con, we met up with my friend Matt. He’s been living out in San Diego for a few years now, attending UCSD. He took up to El Zarape for dinner, where I had some delicious Mahi Mahi tacos, then off to see some of the sights in the area. We got to see a children’s beach that had been taken over by seals, then a rock outcropping covered in sea lions. We wandered around a beach for a bit, and the UCSD campus, seeing their impressive library and some of their outdoor art installations. Also an odd amount of nocturnal wildlife, including a number of rabbits, a raccoon, and a guy sleeping on a lawn. Eventually we called it a night, and settled back into the hotel for our last night in SD.

Overall we had a great time. It was an awesome 4 days, but exhausting as well. We’d like to go again, but probably not for a few years. We did learn a few lessons for next time though.

1. Bring a backpack stocked with water and snacks. Buying supplies at the con is way too expensive.
2. If we want to see anything in the large halls (H or 20), we need to be up way too early to get in line.
3. Buy anything we really want from the vendors before Sunday. Sure, the deals are to be had on Sunday, but you have to beat a path through the crowds with a cricket bat.
4. Skip the rental car, public transit is more than adequate for the convention.
5. Plan a longer trip so there’s time to relax before heading back to work.

Good morning, Internet! I’ve got the day off from work to prepare for our trip to San Diego, and while I’m waiting for laundry to cycle I thought I’d post a little update.

Life in the house is going well. We’re mostly unpacked now and have most of the rooms mostly in order. We turned on of the bedrooms into a craft room to hold Meg’s yarn and my computer stuff, at least until I can get the basement set up the way I want with a server closet and workbench. Then I’ll be moving most of my computer stuff down there, and probably just have a workstation up here. I think our next steps will be getting some more furniture so the place doesn’t feel so empty. It’s time to finally get some real bedroom furniture, as we currently just have a mattress on the floor and the room looks really bare.

Work is good, I’ve been doing some IPv6 deployment, and it’s nice to finally see that getting some traction in the real world. Also been playing around with netdot, mostly for it’s IPAM features. A little hairy to get installed on FreeBSD, but once you get it on there, it seems to work out pretty well.

Meg and I are going to be heading out to San Diego tonight for Comic-Con this weekend. It’s out big vacation for the year and we’re really excited about it. Bunch of big names will be there, including Stan Lee and Ray Bradbury. Hoping to get some autographs and generally have a good time. Also, Geek Chic will be there, so we’re going to be checking out their Emissary table. We’re thinking about getting one for the dining room, but I want to see one in person before dropping that kind of money on furniture.

Time to go move laundry around. I’m sure we’ll be posting plenty of pictures from this weekend, and I’ll try to remember to post about it when we get back.

So, after talking about it for a few years now, I have a house. Well, technically Meg and I have a house. And it’s awesome.

We bought a new construction two story colonial in a small development. It’s just over 2,000 square feet, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 2 car garage on about a 1/4 acre. Hardwood floors on most of the downstairs, carpet upstairs for the bedroom. Small deck off the back.

Moved in last month and have been slowly settling in. We still have a lot of boxes in the garage to go through, but we’re making progress on that, as well as buying all the little things we’re finding we need, like shades and curtains and a fridge and a lawnmower. There’s an unused space in the garage under the stairs that I’m hoping to rig up for my router and home storage server and such. Big Dave has offered to help me pull Ethernet wiring to the bedrooms and living room, so that’ll be cool.

I’ll have to get some good pictures to post, the only ones I have at the moment are from the construction. I’m hoping to get a bit better about writing on here as well. My personal goal is to do at least one thing worth writing about each weekend, even if it’s just some small improvement to the house.

So, hopefully more posts to come in the near future, along with a house warming party sometime in the next few months.

Been thinking a bit lately about buying a house. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I think I’m in a much better place financially than I was the past couple of time. The original plan was to try and find a place to move to when my lease was up on my current apartment, early next year, but I’ve been looking at this Federal Housing Tax Credit and thinking that I should jump on that if I can.

On the plus side, I might be able to get that 10%-up-to-$8k tax credit if I can get things all set before December 1st. On the down side, I’ll have less cash available for a down payment, and I’ll have to pay the lease break fee to get out of my current place.

Hmm…

Yup, made it another year without kicking the bucket, 28 in a row now, a new personal best. Not a lot of fanfare this year, which was kind of nice.

The last weekend of June, my dad and stepmother came out for a visit. We wandered up to Freeport and Portsmouth for a day. The weather was actually nice for most of the time they were out here. It was good to see them again, and I’m thinking of making a trip out to visit them in the not-to-distant future.

For the long weekend, I traveled down to Hyde Park, NY with my mom, niece, and nephew to meet up with my aunt and uncle to visit my cousin who is attending the CIA. We dined at the school’s Escoffier Restaurant, which was quite good. I’m somewhat kicking myself for forgetting my camera that night, as I would have liked to have taken some shots of the school’s interior. I will have to visit again.

We spent most of the 3rd visiting some of the historical sites in Hyde Park, including the FDR Presidential Library and Top Cottage. I was mostly surprised by the simplicity of Top Cottage. It’s not really a terribly remarkable building, simple but well built. It’s odd to think of a US President entertaining foreign dignitaries there. I did end up taking a number of pictures throughout the day, which I’ve posted in my gallery.

In the evening we attended a demolition derby at the Duchess County Fairgrounds in nearby Rhinebeck, NY. Very entertaining, though somewhat marred by pain from a wisdom tooth that’s being extracted soon. I expect it was the highlight of the trip for my nephew, who didn’t seem all that impressed by the historical sites earlier in the day.

Overall a very good birthday and 4th of July. Somehow I managed to avoid all the fireworks, and ended up not having any kind of party. I’d still like to have some people over to my place at some point, but I’m not sure when.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday over on Twitter and Facebook!

Back at work after Memorial Day weekend, it’s beautiful out and I want to get out of here, so I’m killing some time by doing a quick general life update.

The holiday weekend was good. On Saturday I went to a cookout at the house of one of my coworkers. It was a good time, though I ended up having to leaver earlier than I would have liked in order to get Jason back in town in time for a family event.

Sunday had a new first for me, a family event at my home! In the past my apartments have always been too small or too unpresentable to have people over, so it was nice to finally have my mom, one of my stepbrothers and his family over for a cookout. The weather was great, and it seems like everyone had a good time. Bailey was a little freaked out about all the people, but was okay with the kids.

Life in generally has been going pretty well. I hit 30k miles on the Prius last week and purchased a new set of tires, Goodyear Assurance Fuel Max. We’ll see if they actually make any difference on the fuel mileage. I’m still on track to hit my savings goal to hopefully get a house next year. Also decided to switch banks. I don’t really have any complaints with TD Bank, but their online services have somewhat stagnated. A lot of places now let you set up e-mail or SMS alarms on limits or events, and they’ve shown no improvement to their services in the past 4 years or so. Opened up a couple of new accounts at Bellwether and will probably be transitioning over there in the next month.

With the nicer weather, I’ve been giving more thought to taking a real vacation this summer, but I have no idea what to do. I was thinking it would be cool to get a few people together to rent a house somewhere for a week. Not sure who would be interested or where to go, but I think it’d be fun.

In the process of making some changes to my home network in an effort to reduce the amount of power I use for always-on equipment in the apartment. Or at least that’s what I tell people, actually I’m just in it for the gadgets.

Current network is my cable modem, connected to my home storage server/router, which is then connected to a WRT54g which is just being used as a switch and 802.11b/g access point. From there we have my desktop PC, and an Ethernet over powerline bridge to my entertainment center with the XBox 360 and the TiVo HD.

So the plan is to rip out the storage server (a Dell Dimension E521) and the WRT54g, replacing them with an Apple Airport Extreme with an external drive array. This also upgrades my wireless to 802.11n and my wired stuff to gigabit. Eventually, it’ll look something like this:

I picked up the Airport Extreme last night, planning to install it this weekend to take over routing and wireless. I figure I’ll keep the storage server around until I figure out what I want to do for an external drive array off the Airport. I’d like to get a drobo, but they’re still somewhat pricey to me. It is the simplest to maintain solution though.

I’d also like to keep a FreeBSD box on my network so I have something I can shell in to. Somewhat looking at the MSI Wind PC as a low power BSD box. I could mount storage from the Airport and just boot from a CF card (which the Wind PC supports, apparently) to keep power consumption down.

Of course, all of this means spending more money and adding to my pile of computer stuff I don’t use, which already contains a mini-ITX motherboard that I could use for a low-power BSD box, though it would mean buying a power supply and IDE/CF adapter, which would probably add up to most of the cost of the Wind PC and be less powerful. So I’m not sure which path I’m going to take.

I should probably just be happy with what I have and save my money, but what fun is that?