Patrick
Here’s another one in my famous statue series. I think my Loyal Readers will recognize this famous actor.
Fine day today. It was warm, sunny, and beautiful. For the first time this year, I open-air motored in both directions. It was just above 50 degrees when I left the house at 5:20. That’s my minimum departure temperature. With the windows up and the heater on full, it’s reasonably comfortable. I was cold when I got there, but not overly chilled. And the afternoon drive was beyond perfect.
Spent a couple hours this morning in the lab, which I enjoy. We were trying to get one of our new automated products working. It’s almost there. Maybe next week.
Solaris is working! It certainly took long enough. As all my Loyal Readers doubtless know, Solaris is the Sun Microsystems brand of Unix. It’s the Unix we use at work. They’ve made it open-source. I downloaded the most recent version and tried installing it in VMWare on my Mac. I got all the way through the installation process, only to have the system tell me I had installed the 64-bit version of the OS in a 32-bit virtual machine. Oops. Deleted that file and started over again. It appeared to install correctly until I went to reboot it after the install. It just sat there. After a few minutes of non-response, I deleted that file and tried several more times with various installation options. They all did the same thing – either refused to boot because of the 64-bit/32-bit problem or just sat there. Finally, I tried one more option just before I left for work this morning, leaving it to install in my absence. When I got home, I tried rebooting after yet another successful install. It sat there again. This time I just left it and went on to other things. Lo and behold, it booted! Turns out Solaris takes a VERY long time to boot and is apparently non-responsive during that time. So most of yesterday’s installations were actually successful. I’m doing one more install now, this time telling it it’s getting Solaris, so it can add its special VMWare tools. Long process, but success!
Now I just need to figure out what I wanted Solaris for in the first place. As of now, it’s pretty much just a curiosity. But a very pretty curiosity.
I’m listening to this week’s James Lileks Diner. I like all his work. You have to recognize, though, that his free stuff takes a backseat to his real job, so his delightful website is plagued with broken links, missing links, circular links, and just about every other navigational error you can imagine. The design is beautiful and the content is voluminous and highly entertaining, though. Highly recommended, as always.
Sadly, this week’s Diner has no MP3 link, so I can’t download it to the iPod. It’s available only from Lileks’s .Mac page and can’t be saved unless you have QuickTime Pro. Which I do not have. So I’m listening to it online, which is my very least favorite way to hear it. But listen anyway.
As mentioned before, we’re going to visit Loyal Readers Numbers Five, Six, and Twelve tomorrow morning. They got a new sofa and we’re getting their old one, which Loyal Reader Number Four and I really love. We got rid of our small blue sofa yesterday or the day before. it was extremely comfortable, but LRN4 never liked it. We only had it a few months, but I believe it irked her every single time she walked into the house. So we’re getting a beautiful, if slightly less comfortable, green one. Looking forward to the visit.
Otherwise, not much planned for the weekend. I need to do a few church things – make some phone calls, talk to some people, etc. That’s about it, though. Oh, I also need to get some sleep. Only got five hours last night, which was not enough. So if you need me, I’ll be relaxing.
Have a great weekend.