Stunningly, staggeringly busy

Although the intersession is, in many ways, a brief respite in the usual madness, I have been incredibly busy due to the variety of projects I've been trying to squeeze into every available moment. Read more to hear about them.

The biggest project this week has been setting up a pair of servers with Randy to implement LON-CAPA at UMass. We special-ordered two servers from Amherst Computer Works, installed Fedora Core 4 on them, installed LON-CAPA, and are now trying to figure out how to make it work. George did the heavy lifting on ordering the servers last month. Randy wanted to be more hands-on, so I've been trying have him actually do as much of the work as possible, but in teaching him linux along the way, its actually taking more time than if I just did it myself. It's been fun and there have been a few places where my experience with linux was really valuable. For example, the new machines use very new Intel motherboards that are not supported, so we had to do some searches and, eventually download updated RPMs and burn them to CD to install them. Other than that, it has worked pretty well, but has taken a fair amount of time.

Although we did a huge amount of work at the LAN party, the New ELNA website continues to require significant ongoing changes. I've been trying to keep up with all the email and actually participate in at least some of the on-going discussions. I've been really happy with Phil Dorcas being a facilitator and moderator among the various competing voices.

The ADTC is also requiring input -- not too much yet, but increasing as the caucuses approach. I continue to try to write brief notes in my blog there. It's interesting to me how many people were interested in the idea of having blogs there, but who haven't gotten around to trying to write anything. Peter wrote one entry and promised to write more and find more people to contribute. But he hasn't. I'm actually writing this at the Loose Stool waiting to meet with him. We were supposed to meet at 3pm, but it looks like he's not coming. He seems, if anything, even busier than I am.

The house continues to progress. They've been dropping off the supplies for the siding. Today, Alisa and I picked out replacements for the horrible porchlights that the house has. I'm really excited to see what the house is going to look like when we're done.

But at least it's Friday. Friday! I can't wait to go home, kick off my shoes, and relax in my recliner. Friday!