Father’s Day 2011 Ride

I recently cycled “the big circle” on Father’s Day with a couple of friends. It was an opportunity to explore the city, and get some fresh air after the seemingly endless rain we had been having.

Even before the ride started, I had two flat tires. I had swapped my balding 2.25’s on my sturdy Rocky Mountain that morning for narrower 1.9’s, and had somehow managed to pinch-flat both tubes in the process. However, after some hasty patching (and as an omen of things to come, watching the first rain deluge of the day from the comfort of my garage), Ian and I we were off.

The route was a counter-clockwise loop starting and ending in Calgary’s deep-south community of Sundance. Entering FCPP (Fish Creek Provincial Park), we headed west to the end of the park, then north out of the park to the west Glenmore Weaslehead area (where Jamie met up with us). Some scenic residential riding took us through the Tri-Glen communities to Edworthy Park, where we had a snack and then followed the Bow River pathway east to downtown Calgary. Continuing south past the killer weir, we had a forced detour onto the Eastern Headlands irrigation canal due to construction blocking the pathway north of the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. We got back onto the Bow River Pathway north of Glenmore Trail, then back into FCPP at the Bow Valley Ranch and home.

I captured our track with my Garmin Legend (you’ll see it in the slideshow), downloaded it to my PC using GPSBabel, and then mapped it using LePetitPoucet.

FreeBSD mention on Linux Outlaws

I was lucky enough to get a shout-out for FreeBSD from Fab and Dan recently on Linux Outlaws podcast #213. Fab conceded he had “… heard from other people that FreeBSD was a good server” and Dan grudgingly commented “I know it’s a very well used server.” On a Linux podcast, I couldn’t have hoped for more!

The origin of this shout-out was when I was cycling home from work one day listening to Linux Outlaws # 210 (AFAIR). Fab had launched into a tirade (in beautiful Fab fashion) on what a loss it would be to the Linux server community if the CentOS project collapsed (CentOS is a free GNU/Linux distribution based on and functionally identical to Redhat Enterprise Linux). I immediately got off my bike and e-mailed Fab the solution – FreeBSD. Not only is FreeBSD the absolutely best Unix-like server OS, but the FreeBSD project has easily stood the test of time with its genesis in 1993.

I like Linux Outlaws to get a overview of the open source community and updates on foss software projects, new and old (I also like listening to Fab and Dan banter back and forth, although the language is closer to sailor’s than nerd-speak. I admit I’m envious of the attention GNU/Linux attracts, but most of the attention is for desktop features – shiny widgets, graphical applications, etc. When I was selecting a server OS, I wanted a GUI-less interface, minimal cruft between me and the silicon, a stable consistent architecture, good documentation, a reliable release strategy, and a community that felt right. For me, that’s clearly FreeBSD!

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