Chatonka

I’m typing this blog post in dvorak as I’ve decided to switch. I’ll post more later when I can actually type faster than ten words per minute.

Kubuntu 8.10 beta has been released (check http://www.kubuntu.org for details) and I’m really excited for this upcoming release of Intrepid. I’m using the beta on my laptop and everything is the smoothest it’s been yet with kde4 and even with my tablet (Lenovo X61t) hardware.

I’m always a lot stronger (muscle-wise at least) at the end of the summer compared to any other time of year. This August has been no different, and I’m really pleased that I can actually windsurf in higher winds without letting myself get blown off course. Thursday and Friday had excellent wind and I was able to get out on the lake both days. The wind was from the southwest, which is great because it means that it gets funneled down a channel before being released into the wide part of the lake where I surf. I’m able to start in the shadow of the wind to the side of the channel (pulling your sail up and starting to move is in my opinion the most difficult part) and then sail past the opening where all of the amazing wind is.
The starboard tack is favored with a wind like this, meaning i take a long time going back west and then get the really sweet tacks when I’m on a reach or even a broad reach back east. I found out during the past two days that my semi-starter windsurf board can actually plane, and it can do it well. I had one phenomenal tack where I was going at least as fast as I waterski, which would mean 30 miles per hour!

Alright, I’m cutting this short for now because I have to go and do some work and errands, but I do want to continue with the windsurfing theme.

Well, I’ve been able to narrow down the cause for the reboots (or at least one cause, I’m hoping that it’s the only thing wrong) to a specific folder in my data from the source drive. Weird. It’s time to look at some backups to see if it happens there. Otherwise, I’m not sure what could be the problem. Maybe bad sectors? (Time for a manual fsck and smart analysis) Or just a corrupted filesystem.

Anyways, it makes me feel somewhat better at least that the problem directory is only the album “Paper Walls” by Yellowcard.

I made sure that all of my Norway travel was correctly categorized and tagged. You can check out the Norway-specific parts of this blog by using this link: http://blog.chatonka.com/category/travel/norway-travel/

I’ve still got some final thoughts to put up, but that’ll have to wait for now.

I’ve been testing out rememberthemilk.com for the past few weeks and I love it. It’s very easy to use but lets me organize my tasks how I want to. I’m now curious about their API and I think that I will try and connect it to a simple KResource. KResources are for things like calendar, contacts, etc… you may be familiar with the KResource for a .ical or .vcf file as they are the default ones. By using a KResource I could continue to use the excellent Kontact for my PIM needs while syncing everything to rememberthemilk.com

So I’ve never really been happy with the semi-default image of a road and green trees that used to adorn the header of blog.chatonka.com. Today I decided to do something about it. I wanted to keep a minimalism appearance but still have a simple graphic present. What you see above this post is the result of that, and I’m pretty happy with it. The building blocks aren’t supposed to represent anything in particular, but I think that they fit.

Yay, the week is over! Quite possibly the most loaded week that I have ever worked through and it’s finally over =). I’m exhausted, I still have to pack but that’s alright.

I’ll post more about this WFR course after day one.

Last week it was -20 for a day or two. No wind, but still that’s exteremly cold. The extent of my outdoor experiences that day consisted of walking from school to the car, and one very short walk across the lake. I love how everything is so sharp and clear in the cold. I was pretty well bundled up, but my nose and cheeks still got very cold, cold enough to make me take a hot shower after returning inside.

Today it’s only -7, but the windchil is -30. I can’t believe it, just going out to the car was a challenge. Amazingly, yesterday was 44, which means that in just one day we had a 51 degree shift in temperature…. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that (other than when traveling) before. Tomorrow again is supposted to be quite warm, at least in the teens.

I had wanted to go skiing last Saturday, but when I saw the weather forcast, I decided that this wasn’t the right weekend. It’s still January after all, and we’ve got a few more months of winter. Luckly, the weather this weekend wasn’t all bad, and I’m now enjoying a Monday morning (woah, make that mid-afternoon!) snowfall. Beautiful small flakes dance around my window.