The weather in Aberdeen, Scotland really isn’t that bad…especially compared to what the Eastern United States is having to deal with. In town where we live the roads are fairly easy to drive on since so many cars use them and the snow doesn’t pile up like it does in the countryside. We are experiencing our 2nd snow storm of the year. It snowed very lightly on Monday and then snowed more heavily on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday (today). Kalani and I were very happy that it was Matt’s Friday off of work so he could play in the snow with us.
We haven’t bought snow gear since it doesn’t snow that often and we will be leaving Aberdeen in a few months.
Our neighbor saw us playing in the snow and offered to let us use their sled.
Kalani loved having her dad to play with her in the snow. After this picture we went inside and had some hot chocolate and a warm bath. It was a Fantastic Farley Family Fun Day!
At work we’ve made it a practice on our team to take turns presenting lunchtime “Brown Bag” sessions on various technologies of interest. Usually the topics involve something work related which can be applied somewhere on our project.
I’d had casual conversations with a few team members in the past about our home network and DVR solution. I thought it would make a good brown bag session and was urged on by a few of them when they expressed interest.
I decided to go for it and cover all aspects of our home linux server, from TV to Music to File Storage.
For those interested, the full presentation can be downloaded in two formats:
- 1 hour recording of the live brownbag session (CVX_Brown_bag.avi – 245mb) (right click -> Save As..)
- The full slide deck and accompanying screencasts (Home_Server_Presentation.zip – 75mb)
The live recording is good if you have the time and want to hear about everything in great detail. The second option is better if you’d prefer to just browse through the slides and watch the screencasts at your own pace. Note that you’ll need to use the included Video Player (vlc) if you go the second route. Load the Video_Player.exe found in the Video_Player folder. When the presentation has a bullet that says “Queue video: ” just drag and drop that particular file (video) onto the player you’d previously opened.
Presentation Outline:
- MythTV (4-tuner PC-based DVR)
- XBMC Media Center (watch recordings around the house)
- TorrentFlux (bittorrent services)
- SqueezeCenter (Music server)
- Remote Storage / File Server
- Virtual Machine Hosting
- Residential VoIP (Internet Telephony)
- Irssi (Internet Relay Chat)
Kalani and I were able to spend a month in California seeing family, friends, shopping and eating at some GOOD restaurants. Matt was able to take 2 weeks off of work to come visit and play in California with the rest of the family. Here is a recap of what we were able to see and do:
Kalani was able to make a candy house for the kindergarten class at her uncle’s grammar school. This is a tradition that my grandmother started with my aunts and uncles. Kalani probably ate more candy than she actually put on the house. She quickly realized that if she dropped candy on the floor then I wouldn’t let her put it on the house and she was free to eat it. She dropped a lot of candy!
Next big event was the marriage of Matt’s brother Adam to Diana. A new in-law in the Farley family. She is a sweet girl who has dark hair, dark eyes, short, and speaks Spanish. I think that we know what these Farley guys like.
Then it was Christmas. We showed our family the End of the Year video where they realized that I was 18 weeks pregnant with a baby boy.
We spent a lot of time visiting with friends. We were able to spend family night with the Davis family where we played games, had dinner and dessert and a wonderful evening.
Next we were off to the airport to pick up Makana and her daughter. I was finally able to see and hold one of my nieces. Kalani was very happy to meet her new cousin and to hold her. I was able to keep the secret that Lei, Robbie and Makana were coming to California for Christmas and/or New Year. I was pretty sneaky!
Matt and I celebrated our anniversary on airplanes. However Matt was heading back to Scotland for work and I was heading off to an Eastern Caribbean cruise with my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law. We had a wonderful week of being pampered; other people cleaning up after us and making our meals. It was OUR cruise! I LOVED the time that I was able to spend with the Fabulous Farley women to just relax and enjoy each others company. I am one lucky girl to have married into such a wonderful family.
For those who do not yet know…we are having a baby boy at the end of May! We didn’t really tell anyone until Christmas via our end of the year video. Kalani didn’t know until Christmas day and now she tells everyone. She hugs and kisses my tummy and tells me that she is hugging and kissing her brother. Although she wanted 3 sisters AND THEN 4 brothers I think that she is very excited to have a sibling…even if it is a boy. She is still pretty set in her mind that she will have those 7 younger siblings…I am just going to take it one birth at a time and will not make any predictions.
