Put up some pictures of our Christmas decorations this year.

So my wife was feeding the fish this morning when she noticed a bunch of baby fish in the tank! Our Red Platy apparently was a mommy all this time ... we've counted five or six new fish so far and it looks like she's still going. This is so cool :)

Just got back from doing Christmas at Steve and Megan's. They got me the Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit edition... ROCK! Thanks a lot guys! :)

Thank you google and the hostap mailing list!
It brought me from this (card totally fried due to a screwup by me while flashing the firmware):

Dec  2 22:23:58 syslog@ridley/ridley kernel: hostap_cs: Registered netdevice wlan0
Dec  2 22:23:58 syslog@ridley/ridley kernel: wlan0: trying to read PDA from 0x007f0000: OK
Dec  2 22:23:58 syslog@ridley/ridley kernel: wlan0: NIC: id=0x800c v1.0.0
Dec  2 22:23:58 syslog@ridley/ridley kernel: wlan0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.1.1
Dec  2 22:23:58 syslog@ridley/ridley kernel: wlan0: Failed to read STA f/w version - only Primary f/w present

to this (we have signs of life):

Downloading to volatile memory (RAM).
OK.
Components after download:
  NICID: 0x800c v1.0.0
  PRIID: 0x0015 v1.1.4
  STAID: 0x001f v1.7.4

and finally this (the card is permanently fixed in flash):

Downloading to non-volatile memory (flash).                                     
Note! This can take about 30 seconds. Do _not_ remove card during download.     
wifi0: NIC: id=0x800c v1.0.0                                                    
wifi0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.1.1                                                      
wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v1.7.4                                                      
wifi0: Card initialized successfully after flash download                       
OK.                                                                             
Components after download:                                                      
  NICID: 0x800c v1.0.0                                                          
  PRIID: 0x0015 v1.1.1                                                          
  STAID: 0x001f v1.7.4                 

Now my formerly fried wireless card is back to life, with the firmware I originally wanted on it (supports ESSID hiding).

What a crappy present

My favorite language turned 16 today.

Woo. After I pick up some gift cards on Monday and my amazon order shows up I'll be done with Christmas shopping. With 5 days to spare this year. I did a lot of shopping online, you just can't beat it - no crowds or fighting with angry drivers for a parking space. Parking at the mall at christmas in a pickup truck just SUCKS.

I'm not much of one for being hot but it really sucks when the heat goes out just after it's snowed. Brrrrr. Trying to get ahold of someone who can come out and fix it, but half of Northern VA's heat went out at the same time, apparently...

I lost /home today due to a screwup on my part which corrupted the filesystem. Now I realize how much crap was on there that should have been burned to a CD. The main thing I am upset about losing is my digital camera photos. I can re-rip MP3s, I backup my financial data and taxes, but I only had one copy of several sets of vacation photos. This really sucks.