Molly Ivins died and I'm sad that she is gone.

Seattle weather has been cold (freezing at night, thawing a little at noon and freezing again) and unusually clear.  The lack of cloud-cover has made the cold sharper.  Last night the weather finally started acting like Seattle again:  damp, rainy, and a cloud-cover that prevented frost.

My weight jumped up during the week when I couldn't ride due to weather and the weeks when I only got one day of riding.  Seems I need no less than 6 hours of sweaty exercise per week to maintain my weight and more than that if I want to shed some pounds.

I brought my bicycle into REI yesterday for a tune-up and I'm hoping it will be done today.  I'm back to my usual bicycle commute.

My body is changing, though.  The UW campus is a very physical place.  When I first started riding there on the Burke-Gilman Trail, I used my 6 fastest gears, now I'm using only the 4 fastest.  When I first started climbing the outdoor stairs I would need to stop and take a breather at one or two landings, now I don't need to pause; although I'm still panting by the top.  It makes me realize how out of shape I was in spite of all the exercise I did.  Working there may be saving my life.

My contacts page is fixed and I've foiled the spammers who are abusing it.

Last April my "to do list" looked like this:

1. Get Mailman working for Seattle LinuxChix
2. Refactor my home page so that the layout is controlled with CSS instead of tables
3. Set up all my links pages so they pull the links up from flatfiles or a database, to reduce work when I CRUD (create, read, update, delete) links.
4. Set up a DNS server

I can cross number 2 off the list.  the other items stand.

I am learning SO MUCH at work.  Sometimes thinking about everything I don't know about being a Unix/Linux System Administrator is a little daunting; but the things I am learning now have given me a great push forward to learning a lot more stuff.  I set up an FTP server from scratch.  I'm learning about rebuilding kernels.  I've configured complex firewalls and understand SAMBA and NIS enough to be quick at troubleshooting.

I'm enjoying work.  I have had only about 6 weekends since I started that I haven't had to work, and I'm working this weekend.

The winter-blooming plants are blooming including my sarcococca (very fragrant), yellow bush honeysuckle, and my dawn viburnum.  Our fragrant clemetis has buds for the first time.  On campus, the earliest rhodies are blooming.

Annas Hummingbirds have been visiting the feeder.