This is going to sound odd, but.  I am really pleased with the server that we have running our home
network. It’s the 6th or 7th one that I have put online and I always seem to have it almost where I
want it, but this latest version is just great.  I’ve got one box that acts as my firewall, access
point, web server, mail server, file server, DVR, PBX and all kinds of fun stuff. The only thing I
would do different is add more disk space, but you can never have too much disk space   Another
neat thing I figured out is how to consolidate our DVDs. We’re living in the apartment now and
space is really a premium, but I discovered that if I copy my DVDs to my harddrive, strip out all
of the stuff that I don’t want and get them down to a manageable size, I can then cat them all back
onto 1 DVD. So where a single DVD used to hold one movie, I now have 7 or 8! True, that isn’t the
server doing that work, that’s all Linux, but still. Damn!   Good stuff man, good stuff.

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Yeah, I got sick.   Tonsilitis, strep and a curiously enlarged spleen. Good stuff.  I spent 48
hours feeling like crap before I went to the Dr and got medicated. ZPack. So I spent the last 24
hours cra….. well.  let’s just say it has side effects.  Jessi has got all signed up and working
on  her masters. Boy, that has turned out to be a little more costly then we expected it to be. But
it’s way cheaper then starting over!  No movement on a house yet.

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Dad’s surgery went well. We spent about a week in Lone Jack helping take care of stuff. He’s
tired, spent a lot of hours under the knife but things seem to be good. He’s off for the next
couple of weeks getting some R and R. Father’s day was fun too. It seems a bit odd to get gifts for
being given the greatest gift ever, but who am I to argue when presented with a years supply of
socks, underwear, T-Shirts and Blue Jeans!
I broke down when we moved and went into debt to buy a few 19 inch widescreen LCDs and a video card
for the home rig. Since Im running Linux, I can run them all at once and have just one very large
display to work at (think 4 foot wide screen). I don’t think I will be able to go back to a single
monitor again. It’s amazing how much more you can get done when you have everything running all at
once and you can see it all! No switching, no alt-tab, just look left, look right, look center and
it’s all there. I ended up having to get an Nvidia 6800GT to power two of the screens because I
can only run DVI at the resolutions that I’m running. Seems even a 300Mhz RAMDAC can’t keep up with
the Horizontal refresh rate, even at 60hz. I’m already planning the upgrade. Next march, Dual
Core, Dual PCI-E 16 dual DVI cards. 3 24 inch displays. Oh yes. 6 foot of LCD.
Sounds like overkill I know, but being that I work at home and stare at these screens all day, you
just wouldn’t believe how much more you can get done if you have everything in your face all the
time. No forgetting about that email you had to write because it made it behind the web browser
that is behind the FreeCell game. Bitchin.

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