A Mix of Things (by sarah)

Today has been lovely and annoying, destructive and creative in turn.

Mary Elf and the Tinsel Dragon Cat have been up to shinanigans - I wonder which of them decided to poo on the table cloth this morning - the nice white one with shiny white flowers on it that snags easily that my aunt bought us? I assume it was the cat, it smelt like cat - I was not happy but here they are being cute - the sequence will be storyfied never you fear.

The Tinsel Dragon Cat was lonely and felt quiet rightly that it did not have enough tinsel so it called to the Mary Elf, a little rainbow of a thing that hopes here and there and everywhere and never EVER stops talking.

The Mary Elf attended the great Tinsel Dragon who was once again in it's most comfitable of guises as the young cat Lithium. Mary Elf listened with care to the instructions of the Tinsel Dragon Cat.

The instructions where simple... go forth and fetch all the tinsel that abounds across this fair and mighty land and bring it back for a snuggly bed was to be crafted.

So the Mary Elf went and had many adventures over great lakes that others called puddles and scoured vast deserts of "the super market", onward the little rainbow bounce trekked until the was a montain to scale of stairs scattered with toys which she had to tidy.

Until she bought home much tinsel for the Tinsel Dragon Cat to sleep upon. So pleased was the dragon in it's guise as little Lithium the pusskin that with paw and claw Mary Elf was Knighted most valiant in all the land of Front Room. There was much rejoicing.

The End

But not of our day. Unwanted turd cleaned up Al's cousins turned up and we did presents and things and had tea and headed out for a lovely greek meal in Gloucester Docks.

Except our car wouldn't start - this has increasingly been an issue we need to take the battery out and top it up (or that was our first thought anyway). So we headed out in the van after we'd moved all the tents and greenpeace signs I picked up at the wood recylcing project to turn into something for the garden - if we ever get stopped by the police (happens a lot when you drive a van) then we might have trouble convincing them that we are not militant activists or something!!!

The meal was lovely though Mary did not like the octipus tentical that was served up to one of our number - she loves octipi and talks to them when she sees them. She almost tried a prawn.

I felt guilty that all the presents we handed over where home made and embarassed that the scarf and hat that glow in light where knitted using the looms and not just on needles - I kind of feel it's cheating but I am getting neat results with the looms and still struggling about with needle knitting.

I got a lovely wooden bowl.

I hear there is a computer game and things too and Mary is excited about knitting the little mouse that is her present 🙂

The resturant we were aiming for was actually closed so we ended up the opposite side of town to where we had parks, there was a cunning plan of Al and Maurice getting the car and van and picking us up. It went abit haywire as plans often but all was well with a bit of twoing and throwing.

We said goodbye and headed back home, it was getting dark, the sun set was a beautiful striation across of the city and sea scape of the dock, I failed to take a photo I'm not sure why.

There were swans.

Our car was clicking and clicking and clicking and clicking when we got home, it had been locking and unlocking itself continously whilst we had been out. Roll on car madness involving origami, welding and drinking straws.

The moon was a finger nail sliver and venus (I think) was bright and garish.

I used Jean's head as a camera stand. I also had to help her with her homework by taking photos of her in posses from some famous artist. His drawings look like Mary's, no honestly they do!

Back to fixing the car... we needed to take the battery out but a terminal cover was needed and there wasn't one on the battery so origami came to the rescue!!!!

I am so proud of this that you are going to see it in action from three different angles!

It was to stop accidental contact and sparkage!

It is folded from half a page from a very old and battered copy of an Enid Blighton book. It was beyond salvage and has been used in three different craft projects and now fixing a car.

The contacts were all pretty corroded - enough that I am wondering if that is part of the problems we've been having. We have like a spare jump start battery - the car reset itself with that and stopped the damn clicking which must have been driving our poor neighbours made as it was outside their window 🙁

The fault also left the car basically unlocked, there was only really some loom knitting and survival tools and some cuddlies and colouring in books of the girls in the car but still I'm sure we would be grumpy if they got stolen!

Turns out there's a battery bracket/brace with a slightly inaccessible bolt.

I held the torch and after accidently getting Imperial and Metric round the wrong way Al got his long bolt undoing tool firmly in place and turned, all locked home and good seeming there was a crunch and then the thing went round and around.... because the force had broken it :/

The bolt had not moved.

Other tools where got but would not fit or reach etc...

Queue the welding and adapting of a screw driver to make an undoing of the bolt tool. The new belt sander I got Al for Christmas was also used, the go pro failed to record sadly so there will be no funky video 🙁

He tried it... it needed further adapting.

And again. He was resigned and cold.

Back out in the ice he went and... the damn thing broke and the bolt was still firmly in place.

Kids fed and in bed, we ate our Christmas pudding - it's a gluten free one so it fell to pieces but we had some special brandy butter and it was nice and warm and filling.

We decided to add penetrating oil but the reason we had not already done this is that the little tube for getting into narrow spaces was not long enough so a drinking straw had to be used to extend it so that we could actually get the oil down to the bolt. A special tool will have to be got to get the battery out. We used the jumpstart battery to lock the doors and packed up for the night. School run in the van which will be interesting as car share kid has a broken leg so will need help getting in and out 🙁

But it should be possible, other down side is that Al will have to pay for parking as the free carpark for his new job has a height restriction (£8 a day and it obv. ates fuel).

He is now PC minecrafting it to calm down.

I've been doing more origami...

This is what I mostly made 🙂

Muse Monster Book Corners or origami bookmarks, they are a variant on the hats I used to fold out of newspaper 🙂

I am making them to go with The Monster Blog Zines and Wiggly Pet publications that I make. They will be making a debut at the Ok True Believers Comic Book Festival in Cheltenham this Feb.

And then I wrote this post.

Happy New Year 2017 (by sarah)

The new day dawned on the new year and we were all still snoozing in our nests of clean bedding. We'd changed the lining so we would have clean sheets for the new year - symbolic.

We had a lovely night last night with wish stars and fire and The Rats of Nim, and there are photos which I hope to get around to sharing.

Today we got up at 12, lunch time. And made our resolution and goal setting jar. We burnt our wishes last night so that they could fly free (plus I can never shake the idea that burnt things go to heaven - this idea got lodged in my head at 7 yrs of age when my nan died and was cremated I would make her things and cut them up and burn them so they could go up to heaven for her - I got very distressed when I realised a lot of rubbish got burnt!).

We each picked a colour and then cut A4 paper in that colour into 8 (some of us used more than one sheet some of us less), we wrote the resolutions and how we are planning to carry them out, we wrote goals and little action plans, Mary mostly drew hers. We then rolled them up, popped a loom band round and dropped them in the jar. Some of them we shared and some we didn't, for ones that are secret "Don't Read" was placed as a label on the rolled up scroll.

There are extra sheets in the four different colours plus a little bag containing pencils and loom bands in the top of the jar. The jar is huge and once contained stuffed olives - it still smells vaguely of garlic but that is being seen as a feature. We plan to keep the jar highly visable so as not to forget and to help keep the pace up and also we aim to review the contence at the equinoxes and solstices and any other time we think it appropriate. Again this is to keep momentum up.

Mary saw me knock a leek down that was waiting for composting as we ended up with ALOT of leeks this year. This lead to a humourous half hour of word play about me leaking on the floor and at one point calling Jean down from upstairs to help clean up Mary's leeks as she'd leaked all over the downstairs of the house 🙂

Jean rolled her eyes and then giggled and then proceeded the Leek Summoning or nest building as the demi-deamond Mookie Moo (Mary) called the leek construction. I pointed out to Alaric that they had gotten lots of things for Christmas and what was it they were playing with? Shrivelled up leeks. There were arguments over how many sides there should be, Jean said 5 Mary said 6 we pointed out that traditionally it is 7 or on the discworld 8. Like all good kids they ignored us and continued with their game which was actually two separate games but hey they were playing co-opratively with each other - something both of them had put down as a resolution.

Then we went off to the cinema to watch Newt Scaramanga unleash havoc on New York - Mary cried when we said we were going to the cinema to watch a Harry Potter movie, she wanted to watch Frozen there if we had to go and why couldn't we watch it at home? She cheered up once she found it was not one of the films we had at home even though we had explained that multiple times on route!

Me and Jean are of the opinion that Newt looks like Matt Smith if he'd been turned into a shop manikin and then back into a human - weirdly melted.

I have no idea what happened in the fight scenes as I had to hide from them but yeah no slurred speech just slightly tingly arms and a bit of virtigo! 🙂

There were tears today - mine as I feel short changed by the universe and also like I have no right to feel like that... I was ill and stuff as a kid with blood transfusions and walking aids and hearing and speech issues etc... but I thought I'd grown out of it, I thought I'd grow up big and strong and then I was grown up and I tried to do the stuff you need to be big and strong to do.... I failed. Alaric asked me what I'd invisioned myself doing as a grown up and so I told him... climbing mountians, deep sea diving, exploring... maybe even going to space.

I find it hard to let go of dreams. I wanted to find new things and explore. He says you can do this without physically going and picking up rocks, I say I know I tried that but the physical location of labs in some institutions meant I couldn't get into them or it was exhusting to do so and it was still the consolation prize and I still failed at it. He reckons there is new stuff everywhere to find, I'm having trouble seeing that - I said the closest I get these days in writing my novels, notice the mary-sues or janes or what ever they are called of sick people designing exo-skeletons or waldos or other to get around physical issues???

And having said all this I am probably the fittest and healthiest I have ever been bar my brain not working properly... oh the irony it's always something...

And I am lucky, I am alive, I have explored things, this summer I got to go to South Africa, I got to see whales, I've always wanted to see whales!!! I got to read the landscape and talk to people who helped end apartied, I got to see the southern hemi-sphere for the second time in my life. That is amazing, that is more than most of the earths population, I have a big house and kids in amazing schools, I have a hubby who doesn't hate me for keep getting ill or sick or injuried. Who is my best friend.

I have friends, friends who have not abandoned me when my brilliance of mind was dulled, friends who did not run away though none of us can be there always because we all have lives and that is a two way street, a cyclic thing, they helped when they could, and we have done the same, we've stopped each other from drowning.

So I am a ball of confused emotions, the more better I get from the head injury the more frustrating I am finding the issues it has left me with but I am also amazed at what I have.

Maybe next year my Christmas can be filled with sparkling lights again - I miss them but if I can't have them then I can do what we've done this year and just ask people to visit us and have events here.

After a year of multiple redundencies Alaric has a good job and we are even looking at getting a car!

Life is good, our plans are solid, we are almost where we thought we'd be 10 yrs ago 🙂

The coming year will be full of creating and making and videos of much of it as they are easier than big junks of writing at the moment and serve almost the same purpose!

Also Salaric Craft and How To blogs have just had their tenth Christmas so you will be seeing a lot of stuff to do with that, and the Wiggly Pets blog was set up in the summer of 2007 so prepare for more zines and photo stories and the like!

I like acting - I know I've come to this conclusion late in the day but I did an advert and the Fright House stuff, in 2015 I did a music vid and docu-drama. I'm not sure how to get more of this sort of stuff but I will be looking!

Alaric needs to get time to work on his projects - he has stuff that humanity needs... most of his time "off" ie redundent got taken up with infrastructure stuff in the house/server migration.

2017 here we come!

Apparently there will be stargazing and photography 🙂

Failing (by sarah)

I've failed at morning - there is pink tooth paste on our bed and Mary only half dressed in the car for school 🙁 Still I think that is the first proper melt down we have had so far this term with getting ready in the mornings so... getting there - of course Jean has taken the bright turquoise coat to school so I am sure we will be getting a letter or she'll be getting a detention or something about that as she's only allowed black ones :/ To be fair her black one is at the school drying out from yesterday still but she was supposed to take my coat!

My chest is still bad and I've failed to finish decorating the girls rooms. I've now been ill since the 2nd of November and am BORED. Hoping it will sort itself asap.

Yesterday was a System of A Down and Cradle of Filth et al kind of day, Jean came home sans coat and bag as they were too wet and she'd been lent other things in their sted. Which was a relief as I thought she'd gone out in the torrential rain without anything!

Today I wonder if she's remembered her jujitsu bag as she's going straight from school with her friend and I forgot to remind her - I can see the bag from here but that does not mean she hasn't got the trousers and t-shirt with her - the jacket is just too bulky for her to carry in with all her school things.

Maybe I'm letting her down by not sorting it all out, by not driving etc - I hope she is just becoming independent. She's actually pretty epic at organising herself considering she is organising herself and she is mine and Al's daughter and she is only 11.

Rain like this always makes me worry - in 2007 before Gloucester but in Gloucestershire we were flooded and ended up being out of our home for about a year. Rains since have caused issues with the new houses roof etc... and though I know that means it's now a good roof... the fear is there tangled in my brain, if it rains heavy I feel I should go and just check that things aren't flooding - because you know I'd be able to do something about it if it where :/

I'm all mouth ulcery - and run down... thinking it's the aneamia, thinking it's still on running issues of having gotten low levels of gluten etc... over the summer etc... but I don't know.

There are happy things to write about just feeling a little deflated so thought I'd share what was going on. Alaric's new job is great - he's loving it but due to traffic in Cheltenham he is not getting home until gone 7 at night and because he does school run in the mornings he's gone for like 12 hours to do do his 9 hr job. This is the first time I've been on my own on my own in the house everyday since having kids... there has always been a kid about and/or a husband. It's weird because instead of the relief of them having their 2 days in nursery it's like... the house is EMPTY.

I think I'm getting less done but I also think I'm getting more done as I am doing the new rest regime from the doctor to try and get the head bang healing properly.

Tomorrow there is coffee with a friend and at some point I need to go and pick up some bits from another... I have stalls to organise for Salaric Craft and The WigglyPet Press for December and I need to decide weather to shut down my Patreon account due to the fact I think I'm going to end up triple taxed on income that otherwise would be taxed once max.

It's a shame I like the platform... :/

Anyway I will now go and up load pics so I can get back to cutsie blogging and political rants.

Towards the Family Mainframe (by alaric)

Last September, I posted progress on the construction of our domestic mainframe. To recap, the intent is to build a dedicated home server that's as awesome as possible - meaning it's reliable, safe, and easy to maintain. That rules out "desktop tower PC in a cupboard" (accumulates dust bunnies, gets too hot, easily stolen, prone to children poking it); "put a 19" rack somewhere in your house" is better, but consumes a lot of floor footprint and doesn't fix the dust bunny problem. So I've made my own custom steel chassis; fed cold air at pressure via a filter, incorporating a dedicated battery backup system, locked and anchored to the wall, and with lots of room inside for expansion and maintenance.

Since that blog post, I've finished the metalwork, painted it with automotive paint using a spray gun (which was a massive job in itself!), fixed it to the wall, and fitted nearly all of the electronics into it.

A significant delay was caused by the motherboard not working. I sent it back to the shop, and they said it was fine; so I sent the CPU back, and they said THAT was fine; so I sent both back together and it turned out that the two of them weren't compatible in some way that was solved by the motherboard manufacturer re-flashing my BIOS. That's now up and running; I was able to use the HDMI and USB ports on the outside of the chassis to connect up and install NetBSD from a USB stick, then connected it to the network and installed Xen so I can run all my services in virtual machines. It's now running fine and everything else can be done via SSH, but the HDMI and USB ports are there so I can do console administration in future without having to open the case (unless I need to press the reset button, which is inside).

The one thing it's lacking is the management microprocessor. I've prototype this thing on a breadboard and written the software, but need to finish off the PCB and cabling: but it will have an AVR controlling three 10mm RGB LEDs on the front panel, and three temperature/humidity sensors in the inlet and outlet air (and one spare for more advanced air management in future). But the idea is that the three LEDs on the front panel will display useful system status, and the environment sensor data will be logged.

Here's what it looks like from the outside; note the air inlet hose at the top left:

The socket panel on the left hand side worked out pretty well - 240v inlet at the bottom, then on the aluminium panel, three Ethernets, HDMI, and USB (my console cable is still plugged into the HDMI and USB in the photo, which won't usually be the case):

And here's the inside, with lots of space for more disks or other extra hardware; the big black box at the bottom is the battery backup system:

Now I have Xen installed, I'm working on a means of building VMs from scripts, so any VM's disk image can be rebuilt on demand. This will make it easy for me to upgrade; any data that needs keeping will be mounted from a separate disk partition, so the boot disk images of the VMs themselves are "disposable" and entirely created by the script (the one slightly tricky thing being the password file in /etc/). This will make upgrades safe and easy - I can tinker with a build script for a new version of a VM, testing it out and destroying the VMs when I'm done, and then when it's good, remount the live data partition onto it and then point the relevant IP address at it. If the upgrade goes bad, I can roll it back by resurrecting the old VM, which I'll only delete when I'm happy with its replacement. This is the kind of thing NixOS does; but that's for Linux rather than NetBSD, so I'm rolling my own that's a little more basic (in that it builds entire VM filesystems from a script, rather than individual packages, with all the complexities of coupling them together nicely).

I'm using NetBSD's excellent logical volume manager to make it easy to manage those partitions across the four disks. There are two volume groups, each containing two physical disks, so I can arrange for important data to be mirrored across different physical disks (not in the RAID sense, which the LVM can do for me, but in the sense of having a live nightly snapshot of things on separate disks, ready to be hot-swapped in if required). I still have SATA ports and physical bays free for more disks, and the LVM will allow me to add them to the volume groups as required, so I can expand the disk space without major downtime.

So for now it's just a matter of making VMs and migrating existing services onto them, then I can take down the noisy, struggling, cranky old servers in the lounge! This project has been a lot of work - but when I ssh into it from inside the house (over the cabling I put in between the house and the workshop) and see all that disk space free in the LVM and all the RAM waiting to be assigned to domU VMs that I can migrate my current services to, it's all worth it!

Shakespearian Mock Tales (by sarah)

Last night we had the second ever Mock Tales - 2 hours of stories and writing creativeness with sticky non-alcoholic cocktails. They were Shakespeare themed as it was his 400th birthday at the weekend 🙂

I did 20+ pages of my comic book script/story board and now know how this story arc ends, Alaric managed 5000 words of our joint novel/series.

There were 3 of us so I was limited as to how many drinks I could make!

Above are Twelfth Night which was minty, Midsummer Nights Dream which was vanillary, The Scottish Drink which was fruity, and The Tempest which was Sugary.

We also had home made Pizza which was dairy and gluten free - Mary had opinions...

I remembered that when I was in secondary school I became obsessed with The Tempest as a story and drew the whole thing as a comic - I wonder if it survives somewhere? I loved the stop motion animations they did of the shakespeare stories I need to try and find them for the girls.

Jean tried a Tempest before she went off to best - she was a little horrified at it's stickiness - she still drank/ate it.

Recipes are being written down for Salaric Cooking before people start prodding again 🙂