Central Pennsylvania Linux Users Group Installfest/New User Meeting

Coming up this Saturday (5/19) at ITT Tech in Mechanicsburg from 10a-6p!

I'll be doing a short presentation on the different flavors of Ubuntu - Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu at noon.

Everyone is welcome... Bring food. :-)

More information is here.

Game Night!

Rummikub, Sequence and Yahtzee

Family game night! I love this. Riley, my eldest son, is here this weekend, which is always fun. We are playing board games, and at ten he is getting really fun with the games.

His tennis coach didn't show up for practice and game today. I filled in with another Dad. I have played competitively before and he had not even played so, I was the defacto coach. She hasn't been really teaching them much, more like getting them used to balls coming at them.

I don't think they have worked on grip or watching the ball everywhere it goes (although they are kids so that is a challenge) or even worked on stroke. So I didn't know what to try to do with them. Some of the kids have some real talent.

Regardless, it was a good time and I hurt right now... My hamstring is killing me.

Declan, our two year old, was red as an apple out there. I think it was the heat that did it more than the sun since he had sun block on. He fell asleep really early this evening, so I think the air and the sun (as well as the constant running around outside the courts) wore him out.

Approval may be aways off for the PA LoCo Team

Well, Jono has indicated that it may be difficult to get approval without a listserv in place. Worse news is that our request could be delayed for an unlimited amount of time.

We have some choices here. We can continue on and hope that everything that we have scheduled and done will qualify us, and per Jono that seems unlikely.

Or we can set up our own mailing list somewhere else.

Or we can sit and wait.

It's a bit of a setback, but it shouldn't stop the Pennsylvania LoCo team from moving forward with our plans and continue expanding our programs!

Here it goes.... This week we go for Approved Status

The Pennsylvania LoCo Team is going for approved status. I will contact Jono Bacon, the Community Manager at Canonical who will give us guidance as far as where we stand, and when we can expect to go in front of the Ubuntu Community Council to try for approval.

I think that we are looking good for approval. We have 39 direct members since our creation in March, many of which are active. We have a Feisty Release Party scheduled in Montrose for May 17th, will be working together with the Central Pennsylvania LUG for their InstallFest/New User Meeting on May 19th near Harrisburg, and there is an PA LoCo team Installfest slated for June 2nd in Philadelphia.

The PA LoCo website is up at www.meetlinux.com

Our IRC channel is on freenode #ubuntu-pennsylvania

Our wiki is at wiki.ubuntu.com/PennsylvaniaTeam

Finally, here's our team site on Launchpad

I feel good about this, and think that we are definitely on track to helping the Ubuntu Community gain market share.

Dell, Microsoft, and Novell, Oh My!

Here's an interesting article. The Ubuntu deal may have been announced first, but Dell seems to be investing deeper into Linux. On Sunday, Dell signed a deal with Microsoft and Novell to offer Enterprise Suse Linux on servers.

The full story by Elizabeth M. Gillespie of the Associated Press is here: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070507/dell_microsoft_novell.html?.v=8

While Ubuntu seems to be Dell's choice for the desktop market, Suse will take the server side.
I am curious to see how this shakes out. Comments are welcome here for this story!

Podcast for Ubuntu Weekly News (UWN)

See the following link for the UWN. I am hoping to put together a podcast for this. I will start playing with it this week.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/uwn

Technorati

Technorati Profile

Ubuntu and Dell... Dellbuntu?

Good news for the world of Linux and specifically Ubuntu. Dell will start selling computers with Ubuntu preinstalled.

Check out this article from ZDnet.

Now Linux may have more leverage with the hardware manufacturers for drivers... And going mainstream can only help Linux!

Ubuntu and the Pennsylvania LoCo Team

I've started the Pennsylvania LoCo Team to help promote the spread of Ubuntu!

As of March we've added 37 members and have already coordinated an Installfest in Philly, are supporting a speech to the Pennsylvania Computer Society in Philly, and participating in the Central PA Linux User Groups.

This is pretty exciting stuff and it will only gain momentum. Check us out at the website, the forum, the IRC freenode channel #ubuntu-pennsylvania, or the wiki.

LugRadio

I have been having a blast listening to these guys! Jono Bacon, Matthew Revell, Stuart Langridge, and Ade Bradshaw are the presenters of the podcast and all I can say is, wow!

First off a quick warning to the faint of heart. If off color language and content puts you off, then this is not the program for you!

Discussions range from open source projects through licensing and bodily functions through sexual practices and all points in between. Even though this has two Canonical employees on air, I think that it is pretty successful in not being an exclusive Ubuntu advocacy forum.

Don't get me wrong, Ubuntu is brought up regularly, however when there is something that any of the presenters find not up to snuff or inappropriate they do not hesitate to give Jono (one of the Canonical employees) a "good kicking."

Regardless of who is on the receiving end of a kicking, it seems that they give as good as they take! I haven't heard these guys do a podcast I didn't like yet.

On the negative they do focus a bit much on the technicalities of open source licensing for my taste. Perhaps its because I am relatively new to Linux?

Check these guys out at http://www.lugradio.org

Their podcast is listed in ITunes or you get get the RSS Podcast link off of their site.

That was a quickie. More coming soon!
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Once again I've lapsed....

Well, It's happened again!

I haven't posted in forever. Kids Job and home repairs strike again! We just had to replace our boiler (steam heat and hot water heater) just before Christmas. That was a great way to celebrate the holidays, let me tell ya!

Anyway, I've been messing about with Ubuntu and some other Linux distros. Look for more about that. I am thinking of doing a series of posts of the plusses and minuses of my experiences with Linux and Open Source, as well as a very interesting podcast to which I've become addicted.

There's a cliff hanger for you... What podcast could I possibly be on about? I'll leave a quick hint and fill in later... Jono Bacon.

That's it.... More tomorrow.

It's not even Thanksgiving, yet...

It's getting cooler out, and we are all spending a leisurely morning in the living room and sun room. We're feeling very cozy, and my wife and I were talking about Christmas and what gifts we still needed to buy.

A little smile suddenly appeared on my wife's face and she went racing over to the cds and dug through and grabbed some Christmas cds and popped them into the cd player.

We are sitting here with Christmas music playing, the kids playing, and even though it isn't even Thanksgiving and there isn't a scrap of Christmas decorations up, it really feels like Christmas.

There and back again... And Again...

Here's an interesting bit... I've gone back into radio. Yes, I left radio in the summer of '05, but I have been drawn back in, and I am thrilled!

I love putting together the ideas, working with the talent, and working with businesses to put together marketing campaigns that work.

There will be more news coming, you can count on that!

Squirrels... They're in the walls....

I've been hearing them in the early morning and just around dark.... The skittering of little feet as they make their way into the house to find a nice, safe place to curl up and sleep the night away.

This weekend it will stop. The vent that they are getting in through is going to be sealed with wire mesh. In the not so early morning, while they are out foraging, I will be secretly stapling the door closed behind them. No more rodents in the house!

My wife has been terrified of them since she had a run in with a dead squirrel at her apartment. Apparently, the varmint got stuck in the walls, dug his way through a wall and into her apartment, only to expire in a stack of nice clean towels.

Needless to say, she has not been fond of the squirrels since that moment.

Important Local Interest Issue...

I found out that I missed an opportunity to sign a petition to return a road from a one way road, back into a two way street. Franklin Street, in Lower Paxton Township, Colonial Park. It joins Route 22 and Locust Lane, and since it is one way, it has been pushing traffic onto a little alley that shouldn't see but 10 vehicles a day, and is currently seeing probably several hundred throughout a normal weekday.


There will be a rant posted on a different blog about this.... Lower Paxton Journal

Talk to you soon.

After a hiatus... I have returned....

I've returned...

I have suspected in recent weeks that squirrels have established a nest in our attic, and sure enough, yesterday I went up into the crawl space, and sure enough, they were there.

Mother squirrel bolted when I stuck my head into the attic, however she stopped in the hole that she had gnawed in the vent screen. Her tail was all that I could see. I saw a large pile of insulation that she had crafted her nest out of... I don't know how squirrels can do that with out getting itchy... It's a mystery of nature.

At that point I wasn't sure if she had a litter of... what would you call them? Squirrelettes? Pups? Anyway, I gently kicked some of the insulation away and sure enough there were at least three little ones in there... Their eyes were open, and they had their fur, but the tails weren't bushy yet. They wouldn't run, they just sat there and looked at me.

According to online sources, they are apparently 5 weeks old. At 10 weeks they are on their own and are kicked out of the nest.


My Plan of Attack

Squirrels are diurnal, so I will get up there in 5 weeks one early morning and scare off the mother if she is there (however she should be out and about gathering food) and repair that hole with a heavy wire mesh.

I'll report back how that worked...

New Baby, New House, New Job, New Blog, Same Man!

Here's some new stuff.

Check out my new blog, Lower Paxton Journal on Pennlive.com! This will be a local interest blog for Lower Paxton Twp and surrounding areas, geared to entertain, inform, and start good healthy dialogue on the Pennlive forums, as well as at the local Dunkin Donuts or Borders.

Other new things.... Baby is now walking and talking.... Well, not really, but he is growing really fast. I swear he will be a big ball with little arms and legs sticking out soon! He has passed three months now, and I simply cannot believe it has been that long. Time has been flying.

Also, we have moved to a new house.

Also, I have taken a new job.

Well, that's about enough major life changes for a few months span!

Let's explain how this all came about, shall we?

I had been going about my business, waiting for Declan to be born, and working hard to increase my straight commission income, knowing my wife would be off for maternity leave and that we would need the money.

Anyway, Declan was born on Easter, and shortly thereafter new neighbors moved in next door. More on the neighbors in a moment. I sent out emails to co-workers and former co-workers letting them know that Declan was born, and was healthy.

About a week after I wrote the emails, I received an email from my former boss and he said that there was a job opening, he thought that I would be perfect for it, and asked if I was interested in talking about the position.

Explaining that I was very happy where I was, I said, sure we could talk about it. Anyway, they offered the job to me with a nice steady larger paycheck (no more straight commission highs and lows) and gave me the opportunity to advance.

I took it.

I the meantime, the new neighbors moved in and the first night in the house there are six police cars and an ambulance over there. After several hours of yelling and swearing, the man called the police on his girlfriend. Not knowing the situation, I can not elaborate, but it was not a nice night, and it shook my wife around pretty good.

We started looking at houses the next day.

And then we found one. Put quickly, there was haggling, we didn't quite get the price we were looking for there, but did get close, so I can't complain.

We haven't sold our old house yet, so if you're looking for a nice duplex, make us an offer!

So there you have it... You're caught up to date with my life, and I hope it wasn't truncated too much, but otherwise it would have been a book (and you have to pay for those, by the way!).

There will be more stuff posted on a regular basis here, since my life is settling down a bit. There is now actually time to breath, next comes time to do fun stuff again. Maybe.

Thanks for reading, and stayed tuned!

Bret

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New Stuff Coming Soon!

Alot has been going on, and I will be posting soon. I apologize for everyone I have not replied to, but things have been flying fast and furious!

New Baby Has Arrived!

Here's a quick note to let everyone know that my son was born on Sunday. His name is Declan Parks Fledderjohn, he was born on Easter Sunday, March 27th at 7:33am. He weighed 7lb 2oz, and was 18.25 inches long. Declan is pronounced dek-lan.


He's a bit jaundiced right now, but besides that, both baby and mother are doing well.

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Grammar

Here's an article by Jesse Kornbluth on ten deadly sins of grammar. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and as a side note, mediabistro.com is a very valuable site for writers and other media professionals.

http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a4028.asp

Londonderry Township Rejects Rezoning Request

Here's my latest article from the Patriot-News.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1111141455253090.xml

My thoughts on agriculture, Londonderry Twp., and proposed developments will follow over the weekend.