Recently in Stuff Category

I've been neglecting my blog a bit lately.. mainly because I have been contributing elsewhere. Hope to write some more stuff soon.. and maybe post more pictures of my dogs.

I am really glad I don't LIVE in the Metroplex. Granted it is a nice place to visit for a few days, and there are all kinds of things to do there that we don't have in Midland, but the driving is a bit crazy and the deals aren't that great.

Luckily I did get my Freebirds fix, and I'm going back on business in a few weeks.

Well it seems the ol blog is still working.  Though I must admit that I am spending my time contributing to another blog instead of keeping my own little corner of the internet up to date.

This is due most in part to me making sure I do something else with my time, like make money to pay the bills.

I spent the holidays with my relatives in Houston.  My brother-in-law used to be a staunch conservative, but over the years as he has earned a law degree and then gone on to PhD work, he has become a liberal.   He reads the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Village Voice and blamed "Big Oil" for at least two different problems with Houston's transit system.  He even thought Bono would be a great pick for the Nobel Peace Prize.

And lo, on the thrid re-install did Fedora Core 4 install, and it was good.  And lo, did the Apache Web Server run, with FTP, SSL, and MySQL, and that was good.  And lo, were the ports open and pinging and packeting, and that was very good.

And then the RPM of Firefox 1.5 was found lurking in the garden and tempted the penguin with the power to surf the internet better.  And the penguin ate of this fruit and it wasn't YUM(my)..

Next time, don't use the development RPM, stupid.  At least I didn't force the YUM install!

It has been really cold around here the last two days.  The temperature is coold enough make anything you do outside statutory!

I have two dogs which usually stay outside wile the wife and I are at work where they terrorize our back-yard.  However, they have been kept in their kennels or in the house becasue it is so freaking cold.

So if my online nick has been Opus for a long time, why do I use Ospurt?

Well first off, being content with my internet existence, I neglected to log on to every free email/blog site de jour and gobble up the name during the dot.com boom.  Heck, I'm lucky my name is obscure enough that I was able to get my first initinal last name at Hotmail... (but not Yahoo, Gmail, etc...)

So I resorted to my dark username: Ospurt.  Which was courtsey of a community of VMS FORUM / mIRC addicts, malcontents, MUD Players, and assorted characters.  I was the non-drinking member of this rag-tag band.  At a particular Friday the 13th Party they decided to spike my normal IBC RootBeers with Everclear and proceeded to get me hammered.  At some point during the party I blew chunks and the name Ospurt was born.

OK.. so it is a little morbid, but I think it will be great fun!  I have now sent in my deadpool roster!

Opus is a nickname I have had since High School.  I was a real big fan of Berke Breathead's "Bloom County" and had (and still have) a rather impressive Stuffed Opus Collection.  It was so bad my own sister cross-stiched an Opus in a Mortar Board as a graduation present for me.

When I went to A&M and got sucked into the world of VAX Forums, VMS, the internet, and small time hacking, I kept the nickname.  I know that there are plenty of users with the nick Opus, but I doubt any of them have had it as a verifiable online persona as long as I have (1988).

Today I have cleared the contents of my Blog to start anew... or maybe to just start.

I feel comfortable enough with MoveableType to move forward into the world of blogging on my own site (no Blogger for me.. no sir).

I spent most of my Thanksgiving setting up my first complete Linux Box using the RedHat Fedora 4 Core.  I've had Linux on computers before, but typically I was just running the CD versions for diagnostics, etc... this is my first full time Linux Box.  I hope to have it up an running as an Intranet Test Server for the various web-sites I help administer for some of the non-profits I support.