Work has been challenging. Well, not really challenging as such. There's a lot of stuff to do. Being at AOL meant that there was always a NOC to go and reset a machine or put a cd in a machine. Now, I get to drive out to the datacenter and do it myself. Sure, I remember doing this, but I haven't done it in years.

I'm essentially creating new policies and a new environment from scratch. We have a bunch of new Sun boxes (well, and Linux boxes) which are really at the point of needing installation. Then comes the question of configuration and user management. The problem is when you do that over, say, fifty machines, you have to adopt policies as a matter of doing it. Since there weren't policies before, creating them usually chafes a few people. I think that starts happening next week.

Hopefully I can abstract all this stuff into my jumpstart and kickstart servers. I'm also hoping to use Sun's LDAP server (was really unimpressed with OpenLDAP last time I tried to use it, it had a very difficult time using postgres).

Surprisingly, the amount of calls I've gotten from people looking for work has been intense. I've been contacted by lots of AOL recruiters, even. That'd sure be weird. Also, by an outfit in Hawaii that wants me to work on Mauna Kea (well, in Hilo actually, at the base station). That has me seriously interested, although a move from Virginia to Hawaii would be, well, extreme.

In other news, my cat is mostly recovered, and the other one has developed some bizarre skin problem. I get to take another cat to the vet. Getting real sick of this. Also, my rose finally succumbed to a massive aphid infestation. Real sad.

Thank you, Wikimedia, for the Christmas Card. It's a nice touch. I find myself wondering, at the end of the calendar year, whether my donations are tax deductible. And, since I still believe in the cause, I added articles and did some copyediting and stuff, rather than just pour money into Florida. Or wherever the wikimedia foundation lives these days.

Taking some time off work this year, interesting phenomenon of having to "burn" vacation or "lose" it because I can't accrue more than six weeks. This is problematic because my wife only has two weeks of vacation, while I will have six for the foreseeable future (including the "burning" of vacation days). Perhaps I need to take vacations by myself? That seems weird.