So it was a great weekend of doing some Debian work, getting out and riding my mountain bike, and slogging through some intense yardwork. I was looking forward to writing about that in a witty and concise fashion. However, the ongoing saga of trying to have a normal experience in selling our house has required that I spend that writing time on another task. In light of that, I decided to post that writing task as a subtitute, with a picture included. For those who know about the saga of our real estate sign, this is the latest update.

Guys,
Hi, wanted to drop you a line regarding the last sign installation.
Since this sign has only been up for ~1 week or so, I thought you guys
might not have had a chance to see it yet. I have included a picture of
each side of the sign for you guys to check out. I have a couple of
questions about this sign once you have had a chance to look at the
pictures:

1.) Did this sign have a bad experience at a past assignment? It seems
to have been smeared with a great deal of mud.

2.) Did you guys know that the sign reads “Excusively Marketed” instead
of “Exclusively Marketed”?

3.) Do you guys feel satisfied with the appearance of this sign? From a
distance it looks like maybe it has some exquisite antique finish, but
then you get a bit closer and can tell it’s just smeared with mud.

The saga of the sign has become the stuff of legend. Also, by now
my neighbor’s grass is pretty damaged from the installation, removal,
and resintallation, as you can probably see at the bottom of the
pictures. Please don’t attempt to remediate this with any swift action;
each successive step has shown me that things can indeed get worse. Get
back to me on your impressions from the pictures and my questions above,
and we will figure out what will hopefully be the last thing we do with
the sign before hanging an “Under Contract” shingle on it.
Late for work, gotta run. During the 9:00 - 5:00 period, my desk
phone 555-555-5555 generally works better than my mobile number.

Sincerely,
–
Barry Hawkins

So it’ s been a 60-hour week on-site in Manhattan with the client, and I never got around to calling Mako to try and hook up. I had popped in at Vol de Nuit with a coworker and her friend to relax over a Belgian beer, when I noticed someone who looked familiar out of the corner of my eye as they walked past. It turned out to be Mako, hanging out with Miko, Micah, Biella, and Greg Pomerantz (apologies all around as this is a mixture of folks that I know either by name or IRC nick, and not always both). Clint was apparently there earlier, so my trend of being at the same place as Clint but missing him by less than an hour seems to continue. It was good to get to talk with some more Debian people in person; it’s always funny to learn who belongs to a particular nick. I had “hacim” pegged for a Persian guy. I complimented Miko on her haircut, only to learn that Mako was the stylist. That’ s right, in addition to developer, open source advocate, Debian and Ubuntu community builder, and renowned desktop wallpaper model, amateur stylist can now be added to his list of credits.

I am currently languishing in New York’s LaGuardia airport as the horrible subway delays this morning caused me to miss my original flight. Despite the insane work week and some hideous wireless connectivity and package upgrade issues, I managed to get pretty far on the next release of java-package; hoping to have it ready for upoad next week.

I wonder if the name of American concept restaurant chain Cracker Barrel Old Country Store was an intentional double entendre…

There is no doubt in my mind that the Open Source crowd, and particularly the Linux subset, has one of the highest percentages of males with ponytails. Having had my hair long enough for a ponytail for a few months now, and having observed many a long-haired fellow Free/Open Source Software enthusiast, I have collected this handy set of guidelines for having long hair as a guy, tailored for the male geek audience:

1. When it comes to shampoo, you get what you pay for.
2. Conditioner is your friend; cultivate that relationship.
3. Haircuts are still important; see guideline #1 for further direction.
4. Sheer length is not the ultimate goal, no matter what your buddies say.
5. Long hair does not imply maintenance-free hair, and often the opposite is true.

8^)