Posterity

I’m not sure whether the best inventions really come from when people are in the shower, but I certainly had a realization. In 50, 60, 70, or however many years down the road when I’m getting to that age I would need to think of either moving into an assisted living home (or just shrugging it off and skydiving instead) and when I might lose my mind or be forgetting what happened in the past, I will hopefully realize the beauty of what we call a blog in this day and age. I’ll be a little selfish here and say that this blog is for nobody as much as it is for me. The modern diary or written history, a blog serves to hold memories and document events, photographs, names, and other points of interest for the future and years to come. Whatever form the Internet is in in 70 years, I hope to be able to recall my writings and read what I thought of things in my youth :)

On that cheerful note, I attended the TJ 25th Celebration tonight which included presentations by Bettie Stegall, a video by Ed Montgomery (TJHSST Communications System Research Lab director), current and past Principals, and performances by several TJ student groups. I was able to meet up with some people I hadn’t seen in years including Molly P, Jacob W, and several faculty (Ms. Groves still remembered my name :) ) members. If I’m not able to make it to J-Day next Friday, I bid Mr. Washer adieu from FCPS IT, and hope he has a fantastic time getting back into playwriting and the theater.

"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”

--Don Williams, Jr.

Loading Summer: ||||||||||_| 90% Complete

Shamelessly stolen from a friend, the title fairly accurate summarizes my feelings right about now at this time of year. We’re all done with classes and all there is between me and the summer are two finals, one of which I’ve already started and am about 30% done with. I’m now just packing up everything I can’t take with me back to Virginia (I’m taking the train!) so I can shove it into storage tomorrow afternoon. This’ll be slightly annoying, as what I’m leaving up here includes all my bedding and related materials…I can manage it though – it still has nothing on sleeping on the ground in the Grand Canon :)

In three days I’ll be on my way back to NoVA, and soon after that I’ll be starting up my summer coop work in Springfield! This summer should prove to be interesting at the very least, but hopefully mostly a learning experience. I definitely want to try and delve into PERL so I have some experience between BASH and Java, and I’m hopefully going to learn how to use and manage a whole bunch of server-side items: UFW, JumpStart/AI servers, DNSSEC, Puppet, Ganeti, etc. The list is fairly lengthy, so that and work should keep me busy.

Onward we go! Lets have a great finish to the academic year and a wonderful summer.

Bunneh!

To counteract everything depressing going on around the world, here is a happy little bunny to keep your spirits up.

Chain of Command

How about the Systems Administrator that controls the system that controls the Red Button? :P

Springtime in Rochester

The Cosmos

I stumbled upon this video (I believe) via StumbleUpon that really nicely uses the recordings of Carl Sagan and adds imagery of the universe to it to make it breath-taking and beautiful. This really was what I needed on a down day – something to be inspired by and to be reminded that the future is yet untold, and it is up to us to determine how we will use our lives.

Carl Sagan: The Story of Everything [Carl Sagan Tribute Series, Part 11]

All parts of the series are equally beautiful, so I would highly recommend watching those as well.