Old Joe and Goorooyarroo

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Steve, Mel, Michael and I went for a walk to Old Joe trig yesterday. I hadn't been to Goorooyarroo at all before, and was quite impressed. The terrain is nice, with some steep bits as you get close to the border (its clear that the border follows the water catchment from a walk around here). Plenty of nice trees, not too many thistles, and good company. A nice morning walk. We bush bashed to the trig straight up the side of the hill, and I think there were gentler (but longer) approaches available -- like for instance how we walked down off the hill following the fence line. That said, the bush bash route wasn't terrible and its probably what I'd do again. I need to come back here and walk this border segment, that looks like fun. There are also heaps of geocaches in this area to collect. [kml: 20150928-1]

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How we got to test_init_instance_retries_reboot_pending_soft_became_hard

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I've been asked some questions about a recent change to nova that I am responsible for, and I thought it would be easier to address those in this format than trying to explain what's happening in IRC. That way whenever someone compliments me on possibly the longest unit test name ever written, I can point them here. Let's start with some definitions. What is the difference between a soft reboot and a hard reboot in Nova? The short answer is that a soft reboot gives the operating system running in the instance an opportunity to respond to an ACPI power event gracefully before the rug is pulled out from under the instance, whereas a hard reboot just punches the instance in the face immediately. There is a bit more complexity than that of course, because this is OpenStack. A hard reboot also re-fetches image meta-data, and rebuilds the XML description of the instance that we hand to libvirt. It also re-populates any missing backing files. Finally it ensures that the networking is configured correctly and boots the instance again. In other words, a hard reboot is kind of like an initial instance boot, in that it makes fewer assumptions about…

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First trail run

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So, now I trail run apparently. This was a test run for a hydration vest (thanks Steven Hanley for the loaner!). It was fun, but running up hills is evil. [kml: 20150922-1]

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Exploring for a navex

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I feel like I need more detailed maps of Mount Stranger than I currently have in order to layout a possible navex. I there spent a little time this afternoon wandering down the fire trail to mark all the gates in the fence. I need to do a little more of this before its ready for a navex. [kml: 20150916-3]

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On running

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I've been running for a little while now, but I don't mention it here much. I think I mostly don't mention it because I normally just post photos here, and I don't tend to stop and take happy snaps on my runs. The runs started off pretty modest -- initially I struggled with shin splints after more than a couple of minutes. I've worked through that and a couple of injuries along the way and am consistently doing 5km runs now. That said, my longest runs have been in the last week when I did a 7.5km and an 8.1km. I'm building up to 10km, mostly because its a nice round number. I think ultimately trail running might be the thing for me, I get quite bored running around suburbs over and over again. Its interesting that I come from an aggressively unsporting family, but yet all of my middle aged siblings and I have started running in the last year or two. Its a mid-life crisis thing perhaps? [kml: 20150913-1]

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CBC Navigation Course

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So today was the day long map and compass class with the Canberra Bushwalking Club. I liked this walk a lot. It was a good length at about 15km, and included a few things I'd wanted to do for a while like wander around McQuoids Hill and the northern crest of Urambi hills. Some nice terrain, and red rocks gorge clearly requires further exploration. [kml: 20150912-1]

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Lost and alone in the dark

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I've been doing the Canberra Bush Walking Club navigation course for the last couple of weeks, and last night's exercise was a night time dead reckoning navigation session. The course is really good by the way and I've been enjoying it a lot. It should be pointed out that I also wasn't lost, or alone, but it sure was dark. Anyway, the basic idea of the exercise is that you're given a hand drawn map, and a set of markers. You determine the bearing from each marker to the next, and the distance to walk. You then set off on your adventure. Getting a bearing or distance wrong matters, because you either need to stop and find the next way point, or carry the mistake on to the next marker. The markers were generally things like "gate in fence" or "two big trees". It turns out for me the hardest part is walking in a straight line when its dark. If you look at the GPS logged map below, you can see that the consistent error is that I tend to veer slowly to the right. That's a pretty useful thing to know, because it means I can correct a…

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Walk to the Southern Most Point

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I've just realized that I didn't post any pics of my walk to the most southern point of the ACT. The CBC had a planned walk to the southern most point on the ACT border and I was immediately intrigued. So, I took a day off work and gave it a go. It was well worth the experience, especially as Matthew the guide had a deep knowledge of the various huts and so forth in the area. A great day. [kml: 20150818-2]

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Pen making with my eldest son, or how to win at the $20 boss

Andrew, my eldest son, was enrolled in a competition recently by his school. The competition is called the $20 boss, and is run by the National Australia Bank, which is one of the largest banks around here. The basic idea is that the bank loans each of the students $20, with which they start a business. The goal is to make a profit, with the bank expecting to be returned $21. 10% of money over that should go to charity, and the rest is the student’s to keep.

Other kids seem to have chosen to make muffins, cookies, or drinks. Well, except for the kids who made candles. Andrew on the other hand had a think, and decided to ask me to teach him to make wood turned pens. This was exciting to me as Andrew hasn’t previously shown a particular interest in wood craft.

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