Chaos Server

Expert means that you know more than anyone you need to talk to about the subject. - Timothy Ferriss In the before time, the long, long ago, my website was statically put together on my computer and then uploaded to Lycos for hosting. To make my life easier I moved it the main story handling to blogger and all the hosting over to GoDaddy. As part of the transition I knew there would be a loss of some functionality, but that generally everything would be easier, faster and all around better. One of the losses in the transition was the "random photo" widget I had running in the header of my website. When I clicked "published" in my old system, it would run a perl file that would find all pictures and build a giant static javascript file that could randomly select and load one. With the most, all of my photos are now hosted in Picasa and I can't do that. So I just let it go. Or so I thought. But one particular friend (hi Timmy!) told me that I was not allo...

Where you are is not really different than any other place you could be. - Dennis Kas Over the past few years I've basically had all the time I once spent reading be slowly replaced with other activities.  For a long time I was always reading three books at a time.  One book in my backpack for use on the train to work, on flights, at coffee shops, etc.  One book next to my bed to read for a little while before going to sleep.  One book on my Palm Pilot that I could read when in didn't have the others around: waiting for meetings, standing in line for something, etc. For the past many years I've always had my iPhone on me and I've slowly migrated away from having a written book towards having podcasts and audiobooks.  I veraciously consume these while I'm cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, commuting in my car and copy-pasting spreadsheets at work.  Over this Christmas, I'm on vacation with Mrs.Chaos' family and have been spending nearly all my time talki...

Sharing tea with a fascinating stranger is one of life's true delights. - Iroh (Avatar) We tend to have two big parties every year. The first party is my birthday, obviously a tradition that I have held for many decades. The other big party is the annual graham cracker shack party which originated with Mrs.Chaos. This year we were a little worried because we invited more than fifty people and we were sure we had enough space for everyone to work! A total of twenty-three people showed up throughout the evening and it was fantastic. It was also the most diverse group of friends we've gathered that included my usual suspects, people from swing dancing and people from the book club we joined half way through the year (did I mention we're in a book club now?). Some year we should start presenting awards for things like: most professional looking, most creative, most geeky, etc. Not this year. A few standouts: 1) The Farm. Obviously planned, Meghan brought colored fro...

Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen. - Conan O'Brien Another year is coming to an end. What amazing year. This is the first year end video where I actually have videos taken during the year I want to include. This technology thing is crazy! Download Video: MP4

There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless - boys and women - and I am neither one. - Someone Silly So ends the season of no-shave-november.  Though I've grown a beard before, I've never participated in the month.  One of my friends start the month by shaving his face and head and made me jealous.  I reminded Mrs.Chaos that when we first met I was sporting a fancy beard which made me look older and wiser and she agreed to let me go the month without shaving (much). It was not as easy as it might have been.  It turns out that Mrs.Chaos didn't like the scratch of the beard and so mid-month it turned into "No Shave / No Kiss" November for me.  It was an unintended consequence and it took a lot of extra mid-month negotiation with my wife about letting me finish. It's now over, I have returned to being clean shaven, and so ends what is likely to be the last no-shave November I will ever have the pleasure of participating in. I have tri...

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice. - Meister Eckhart Mrs.Chaos and I have are sharing our family traditions during the holiday season. Our system, pioneered by her family, is to have one year with an in-laws Thanksgiving and an outlaws Christmas followed by the next year with the outlaws Thanksgiving and the in-laws Christmas. This year is my family's turn for the Thanksgiving and then her family's turn for Christmas. The two families have a very different feel for the holiday season. Her family tradition has everyone gather together at her parent's house and just casually relax and hang out for the season. There are games played, television watched, movies seen, meals shared, ATVs ridden, and all sorts of things. It's long and relaxed and filled with togetherness. My tradition is to cram in as many family events as possible in as short of a time as possible. So I spend the holidays seeing my mother's...