I attended another lovely tech day at A&S BMW last weekend. Saw a lot of great folks and "supervised" a lot of wrenching. Photos in the gallery.

Here are a few samples:

Got a letter yesterday from AT&T, indicating that we need to start looking for another phone provider, as their CallVantage VoIP service is being shut down at some point this year.

Utah Phillips was a storyteller and historian; a purveyor of American heritage in the form of tale and song, with a penchant for labor union history and hobo folk songs.

As a big fan of Playmobil toys since I was in their target audience 30-something years ago, I'm saddened to read that Hans Beck, has died at age 79. From the article:

Yesterday the SF Zoo posted a few photos of their new giraffe calf. Really neat pics.

I loved this:

More here at OldJewsTellingJokes.com

I've been using FreeNAS, a terrific open-source NAS based on my favorite server OS, FreeBSD. I'm running it on an MSI Wind PC, a tiny silent desktop based on an Atom processor. It's hosting a couple terabytes on my home network at very fast gigabit speeds, and also serves my iTunes library to the household.

In a moving journal entry from Texas, Ara reflects on Christmas and wealth, and makes some simple, hearty bread. Wonderful stuff.

Click to read