Captain Daveman

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/MARS-lands-again-in-Austin-.html?soid=1104612157056&aid=YbHHgaDh9Ns

2011-02-26T20:06:00.000-06:00

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/MARS-lands-again-in-Austin-.html?soid=1104612157056&aid=YbHHgaDh9Ns

How addicted to Twitter are you?

2010-05-29T13:51:00.002-05:00

Created by Oatmeal

Shinju and Tatsu take an afternoon snack.

2010-04-16T22:34:00.001-05:00

IMAG0005
Originally uploaded by davdunc

You know you cannot resist them. They are perfect! I love my pups.
I am taking them to race on May 15 and 16 in McKinney, TX.

Shinju and Tatsu

2010-03-05T22:05:00.001-06:00

Shinju and Tatsu
Originally uploaded by davdunc

I could not ask for more beautiful boys. I have so much fun with them. They are Whippets and they are fiercely independent.

Friday's work schedule keeps training time short.

2010-03-05T21:56:00.000-06:00

this morning we worked for a short time, about 30 minutes, on "sit" and "stay". We did what Janice Patton calls half-push ups and then moved to stay in different positions. Neither of my dogs seems to grock the meaning of Down or sit, they just seem to do what comes to them first to do. The frenzy of hunger is about all they seem to have. After they calm down a little and they have a few successes, they start to look for my hand signals and they get those correct almost every time.

Puppy Dogs and Pine Needles.

2010-02-27T17:00:00.000-06:00

My dogs have been pretty hard on the yard. This year we were in a drought, so I wasn't watering the grass and I cut down some trees and exposed more of it to the sun. So the conditions plus the dogs ended up killing all of the St. Augustine in the yard. I didn't really consider that a disservice as that grass is not native and requires a lot of water to maintain. The result is a mud pit in the back yard.

I kept trying to put together elaborate configurations of edging and other barriers to keep the dirt from washing away from the house. This past Saturday, I thought to myself, "If you were in Tennessee right now, you would just go get some pine needles." We have a great little nursery here called "The Natural Gardener" that I consider my idea of porn. I hoped they would have some pine needles and they do. They sell them in micro-bales. I got 6 of them on Monday.

The first bale was taken as tariff by the Sheriff of the house. I put the others in the fenced in area that separates the dogs from the Datura. One of the bales I took to the area next to our back porch where the most water drains from the roof and I cut the strings that held the bale together. Instantly the first dog, Tatsu, appeared from my left and lept into the middle. Then Shinju, the solid white one, body slammed the bale from my right side. It took them about 10 minutes to transfer all of the outside toys into their little nest. It was adorable. I decided to give them one bale each day for the next four days.

So the next day, it started to snow. That is a serious rarity around here. We just don't see snow on the ground. I decided that I would put out all of the bales in the necessary arrangement so that that the dogs could spread the needles through the most muddy sections of the yard. They were successful, but (wow!!) were they muddy. The four-day plan was totally destroyed, but the one day plan resulted in a 60% reduction in the mud tracked into the house by my little mischief makers.
The yard is now a golden brown with some occasional patches of Bermuda grass. The boys sit in the deeper pockets of pine needles and tear up the pine cones they found inside the bales. I think that we all got what we wanted. The pine needles stay put in the rain and I don't have to lay them down too thick to get protection from the mud and erosion.

2010-02-13T19:01:00.001-06:00

Shinju is best in show.

2009-09-16T19:33:00.000-05:00

Shinju is best in show at the Hutto Show in Sept 09 at the UKC Hutto Sept 09
Conformation show!

Flickr

2009-02-22T11:19:00.001-06:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

nicu - a window to my sucky life: My Ass in Pantone Colors

2009-02-02T18:16:00.000-06:00

nicu - a window to my sucky life: My Ass in Pantone Colors
Sorry to hear that Pantone doesn't see a way to fit with OpenSource. That lowers them a rung on my ladder.
Fortunately for us they are not the last in the line of companies profiting from color standards, just the one we all have come to know. Maybe it is time to use the web color standards (RGBA) and not Pantone's for all of our work. Pantone devices can convert to these standards because it is important. Why not skip the middle man and just use the ISO standards? There is no reason for Pantone to work with Open Standards. There are already open standards for color.

I also found some links listed there and there was one linke for a collection of links to free color management. It looks like there are some good resources out there, the color chips just aren't free. That kind of makes sense now doesn't it?

Fernando's Cat

2009-01-23T09:46:00.000-06:00

I went over to Fern' s house last Friday to help him move a table. It is always good times when I hang out with him so I was looking forward to a little face time (we never see each other any more, except in passing).

So I am not all that familiar with his crib. I don't hang out at anyone's house that much any more -- married -- so I don't know his ways. What I do know is that he has two very happy, healthy cats. They are very friendly. . . or so I thought.
The calico cat _is_ friendly. The black and white tom . . . uh well, not so friendly. I didn't know that though, see? So when Mr. Tom Cat came and jumped up next to me I didn't think twice. I just petted him. He mewed such a sweet sound and gazed deep into my eyes.

Now, I am not into cats all that much, but this one was really enticing. The voice of a siren and the look of a saint. He was definitely my friend and . . . he . . . must smell the face! "What is it kittie?" I wondered in my mind as I drew nearer and another sweet mew came from his mouth. Oh sweet kitty!

My face was just four or five inches from the cat and he was mewing sweetly when Fernando realized what was happening and declared calmy, "duncan! step away from the cat! That cat will kill you!" It was an instantaneous transformation as he warned me.

A claw shot out to the left. The tone of the mew turned from sweet to deadly warning! I was moving back like a fox from the dogs when Fern snatched the cat and the danger was abated. That was close!

2008-09-24T14:28:00.000-05:00

I am so looking forward to attending this conference. I hope I get sponsorship This year.

Red Hat Satellite Server.

2008-06-17T08:26:00.000-05:00

I am working on installing (for testing purposes) the Red Hat Satellite server. It is the only piece of Red Hat software that is not GPL. I wish that they could find a way to seperate the database from the product. I move for porting to Red Hat DB.

2008-06-07T06:18:00.000-05:00

You must Obey!

What a great life it would be . . . though there would be just too much halitosis.

2008-05-08T22:00:00.001-05:00

I am reviewing for the EX442 and found another tidbit that I felt warranted some notice. A Red Hat Magazine article on tcp tuning. Now TCP-tuning is not a mystery, but the parameters are highly subjective. This article is merely an introduction to some of the values you can manipulate in /proc.

In Austin for SxSW

2008-03-12T05:02:00.000-05:00

No. I am in Austin every day. This week I am so jealous of the people who could find a way to take part in the SxSW interactive segment. I would have loved to have been there for the Keynotes at least.
I keep wondering to myself about how these people can be such prolific writers about the one subject or another, like Jane McGonigal writing about games. I just have the utmost respect for her ability to write about what might be happening in the world of gaming. Writing like that is bold and requires a great fortitude against the barrage of naysayers and negators.
I read about, and work with, Linux all day and yet I have nothing to say? Hardly. . . I have a lot I would like to get off my chest. Some of what I want to express is my frustration with the CTLUG right now. There are other things too. I would like to write about turning off the NMI watchdog in Linux and other things like that.
I think that I will work on that and leave this rant where it is.

Prerelease Version - Fedora Project

2008-02-24T09:46:00.000-06:00

Prerelease Version - Fedora Project

So I am starting down the slippery slope that is testing. I will be spending as much time on the alpha's as I possibly can. Though I am painfully behind in my kernel knowledge as it is.

2008-02-07T05:25:00.000-06:00

I am going to be an RHCA.

I will be working over the course of the next year to complete my Red Hat Certified Architect. I will post about the preparation I do and verify if it was enough. I mean beyond the years of practice I have had.

2008-02-03T07:24:00.000-06:00

An Effector in the Autonomic Control Loop

Reading the IBM Press book on Autonomic Computing. I really want to think of myself as an extension of this process. Even though I work in a call center, there is data to be collected and monitored. and being a part of the Autonomic process means containing these elements in a describable and agreed upon format to complete more automated tasks.

I suppose that as the number of cores increases, so will the amount of logging and analysis. In an effort to better equip myself to manage that kind of effort, I have decided to return to school. Starting off with some simple, remedial work in calculus, then moving on to something bigger and better in the world of engineering.

2008-01-11T06:25:00.000-06:00

Using GnuCash

I am really looking at creating a new way to interface with GnuCash. Currently, you have to open it to make a single entry. Well, I don't really have either the patience or the bandwidth to do that and continue working with my other applications.

This blog entry is being made with a simple application that will make the post for me. i don't have to make a trip to the site, login and continue with the entry. I don't really need a preview or a confirmation that it looks exactly as I expect it to. I just want to post to my own blog without worrying about it. Now, if I could only make entries to my checkbook as simply as this, I would be much happier.

I don't think that it should be another tool though. I think it should be a part of gnucash, just lightweight. I will work on the feature list. Maybe I will even post it here. If you have any ideas on this email me. I would be interested in hearing them. If you are already working on it. Let me know. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I just want to roll it.

2007-12-19T06:30:00.000-06:00

Free Your Media Blog

Cool blog for FLOSS Podcasting announced and covered by Linux Weekly News in their latest posts. It is really important to remember these tools and the people who make this easier for us.

Pop over to the cool blog and find out more.

2007-11-28T06:34:00.000-06:00

Added a listserv for the band.

Every time one of my band mates sends an email, they send it to a barrage of email addresses. It is very difficult for me to explain that this is a highly inefficient and exposed.

Geoff has complained multiple times that he does not know which email is the correct one for me. Is this the answer to that issue? I think so.

So let me ask this question. Why is a myspace bulletin more effective than a simple email with the names and addresses of all of the people you know? Well, the answer is really quite simple. You are no longer responsible for verifying the address of each user. The relationship is one in which the receiver is responsible for one and only one point of contact, his or her self.

MySpace makes the user responsible. We need to make each person responsible for their own email addresses.

2007-11-10T08:13:00.000-06:00

Saturday Morning is here and I am lonely.

I wish I was in Madrid with The Kids. I am really sad that I have been replaced, even if it is just for one show. There is really nothing better to let a person know that they are an expendable part of a team.

Looking forward to the release of Fedora 8

2007-11-04T07:38:00.000-06:00

Fedora 8 is out in just a few days. I am looking forward to wiping my laptop clean and installing the latest and buggiest. So many issues related to gnome will be cleared up for me with a reinstall. I wish that I could continue forward with the FLOSS software only load, but I want this to be my resource for all of my needs which includes mp3 and dvd, etc.

Saturday Morning Group

2007-10-29T11:07:00.000-05:00

I added a forum to my web space for the my friends who meet on Saturday mornings. Sadly, they are not participating. Personally, I find it more helpful than having a mailing list, but hey, they don't seem to think it works that way. Oh well, I will continue using it myself. The install is there and I have it there to reference for myself soooo that's good enough for me. :-)