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Linux Expo – San Francisco

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to do quick visit to the Linux Exposition in San Francisco. I typically ask for the day off and make it an all day event but not this year. I got the opportunity to watch a presentation by the Lucasfilm Director of IT Operations, Kevin Clark. 

It was presentation about the Lucasfilm Data Center, their implementation, challenges, etc. He also showed some special effects clips, it was very interesting.

For those that missed the presentation I found a small clip of his talk. (Edit: Full presentation is available now)

I also got the opportunity to pick this pretty cool poster (for the techie in me). Tux the Linux mascot as Darth Vader 🙂

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Help feed a hungry person… and learn a new word!

You too can help feed a hungry person, and learn something new by playing a word game.

The premise:

One word, four definitions…  select the correct one and the site donates 20 grains of rice to someone in need. Is this real? apparently so.

From the site:

WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance…

If you get a chance, you may want to visit the site and give it a try.

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2008 “Wings Over Wine Country” Air Show

For the last couple of years I have been wanting to attend the Wings Over Wine Country air show, and I must report that I missed it once again. The only reminder I had this year was a very very loud airplane noise a couple of days ago, so I went outside the house and wow a very large plane flying over our city, the same large plane that reminded me about the airshow last year — a C17 Airlifter.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a pilot but I was told that since I wore glasses I couldn’t be a pilot and that was the end of that dream. Back in those days a friend and I would spend hours at the airport (whenever we could) looking at the planes land and take off, and bugged my Dad one too many times to take me to the airport to see the Air France Concorde take off.

The arrival of the Concorde was also noisy and it would rattle the glass window of my room, I still remember seeing the Concorde fly over the horizon.  I also still have two photos somewhere (found them) of the Concorde  taken with a 🙂 110 Camera and a set of binoculars… that was a feat in itself (used the binoculars as a telefoto lol), amazing that I still have them after so many years. I will scan them later and post them here.

One of these days I may just go to the Pacific Coast Air Museum and perhaps sketch / take photos of some of the planes so I can bring back with me some of those youthful memories. If you live locally and would like to visit the museum one of these weekends for a mini-SketchCrawl let me know.

Video of Pacific Coast Air Museum

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Save Totoro Forest !!!

The Totoro Forest Project Benefit auction day is approaching, and everybody involved has been working hard to get everything ready.

I was recently asked to assist and for the past couple of weeks I have been helping Dice Tsutsumi, Enrico Casarosa and Andy Wang with some web maintenance duties, analytics / SEO. I also help them set up the new Totoro Forest Project blog, so I have been busy some of the evenings/weekends as well.

If you have not had a chance to visit the new Totoro Forest Project blog, you are missing quite a lot of cool information, they said they will be posting all kinds of interesting information as the date for benefit auction approaches.

Needless to say the techie side has taken over the artistic side (I have not sketched anything lately) and with Sketchcrawl 20th approaching (date to be determined), I know I need to get into shape. I have however been reading that book I mentioned a couple of posts ago and I can say it looks very good, now I just need to try the exercises.

I also took a few pictures I wanted to share with you, unfortunately my wife’s computer experienced a glitch and I had to deal with that (her computer is hooked up to the scanner, the printer and the digital camera), lucky person uh? 🙂  By the way if you have not had a chance please visit her blog, she is constantly posting all kinds of goodies as well that I am sure you would appreciate and she would also love to hear from you.

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Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

On my wall i have a note that reads “I lived as I dreamed.”

That little saying/message originated from the movie Neverwas, and every time I look at that note, It reminds me that some things we worry about are just not that important (some certainly are but not all), it also reminds me to keep my childhood dreams alive.

Related to the above I recently came across a talk from Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus Randy Pausch (RIP), which once again puts things into perspective. I hope you enjoy his talk.

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