Andrew's blog

We have a new arrival, a little girl, Brooke Ruthven!

She was born on Saturday the 14th of April at 9:10 am, weighing in at 6 pound 8 ounces (2.95 kg, but the metric system seems wrong for babies...). Mum and Brooke came home on Monday evening, and are doing very well. A proud Dad managed to survive the labour experience with both hands intact, just.

We're having fun settling into a life style that involves sleep deprivation and smelly nappies.

We'll hopefully post some updates to this blog over the coming weeks. Photos should start to appear on our gallery sometime soonish. But to show off our little girl, here are a few photos.

(Why the LCA2007 tag? Check out the t-shirt Susanne is wearing...)

Update: Thanks to Graeme for putting some photos up here!

At Linux.conf.au 2007 there was an organised GPG key signing session, where lots of people performed the GPG KeySigning dance. Afterwards quite a few (but less) people hung around in the foyer for the to perform the CAcert assurance dance.

I assured a few people, then joined a queue to be assured by one of the CAcert super assurers (and continued to assure people while waiting in the queue). This assurance bumped me up to the maximum number of points allowed for normal people. W00t!

I wasn't the only person from Catalyst to use this trick to get maximum points. As a result we now have 3 people able to allocate 35 points each. We also have a number of other people who can allocate less points than that. So if you're in the Wellington region and are interested in CAcert, drop by our offices (with suitable ID) and we can get you bootstrapped so you can start assuring people as well.

One of the projects I've been following quite closely is the OLPC project for the last couple of years. At Catalyst
we have an A-test board. Unfortunately I haven't much of a chance to play with it (although I would like to).

Last night one of karora's sons ran over and told us "Daddy there is a grownup over there using a kids computer!". Turns out that the Please Send Us To linux.conf.au students from Oregon State University had a OLPC out and were playing with it.

Susanne and I headed over to check it out. It is a really amazing device, even more amazing to see it in the flesh. It is very small, quite light and looks pretty darn cool. There is a video of us checking it on YouTube.

I can see why the hype has increased even more now that all the components have been put together and the working screen is in it.

Oh, and Susanne now really wants one.

Susanne and I finally made it into Sydney!

It turns out that our flight was via Auckland. And our flight to Auckland was about 10 minutes late arriving. When we finally made it to the International terminal the departure board was saying "Final Call". We had 20 minutes to make it through customs (the queue was long, very long), then a long walk to the gate. Fun. However lots of people boarded after us anyhow... I'm now convinced they always say that.

While the plane was 30 minutes late leaving the airport, due to good winds we arrived in Sydney on time. Awesome!

Unfortunately our arrival in Sydney is going to be delayed by 1 day.

Due to the fog at Wellington airport our flight has been cancelled (after waiting for the fog to clear for 3 hours).
We have been bumped to the same flight tomorrow morning. So we'll be getting up at an insane time tomorrow morning as well. Oh joy.

The only good news is that the flight we're on already had most of the rest of the Catalyst delegation already book on it. Looks like it'll be a - rather subdued - party flight. Oh, actually no, just been told we're on the 0700 flight, the others are on the 0640 flight.

karora and family who are booked with the competition might still be able to fly out today. If only we could switch airlines...

See you in Sydney!

Only 1 sleep to go before Susanne and I leave for linux.conf.au in Sydney. This year they've decided to have the annual Australian Linux conference actually in Australia.

It was held in Dunedin last year, which was very convenient for us, but Susanne was a bit disappointed when I asked her to come to an Australian conference, then told her it was being held in New Zealand. This year however, she is very happy! And looking forward to the Partners Programme which looks pretty good.

I've got a fairly good idea of what talks I'll attend, and will be at the GPG KeySigning (as will Susanne) and will also do a bit of CAcert assuring as well.

Anyhow, back to the preparations.