📅 December 2014

I've been working on the redeveloping the Squeaky Wheel website and coming up with a brand new member management and equipment app for them. Most of the project is not that interesting but I have learned something new - Docker.

Basically there are containers that use parts of the host machines kernel, that then combines them with other services you want to run isolated from the rest of the machine. You can build images of different configurations and version control them with git. Everything configuration can be described by docker files. Its basically a more lightweight and flexible virtual machine. I felt behind for not having used this before but it's pretty awesome.

In my set up, I wanted to have a virtual machine running the member app, and a front end running WordPress. @paul didn't want to use two IPs and I don't want to run a frequently exploited app like WordPress on the host, so docker was a good solution to isolate it.

In the end I based an container off of a prebuilt CentOS image, with PHP, MySQL and Apache installed and went through the configuration. I could pull the MySQL data store out into its own persistant data container by running

docker run -v  /etc/mysql centos mysql-data

. This lets the data be reused across multiple containers.

Next I set up a WordPress directory on the host VM, so that I could version control changes with git. After this, the WordPress container can be spun up by mounting the data container and mapping with MySQL, mapping the host wordpress directory into the Apache's root document folder and forwarding another port on the host machine to port 80 and 443 to the container. I will post the command once I'm on the computer.

All I needed to do after that was set a VirtualHost proxy to the container. The best part after this was how easy it was to spin up a second Dev environment for someone else - I just cloned the Wordprsss directory and ran the command another time with a different port and name.

Now that I have done this I think spinning up apps will be so much easier. Maybe I can pick start doing more server admin work like Paul.

Funky Monkey was pretty blah until @terry busted out his moves for "Turn Down for What". Booties were shaking.



The rest of the night we had a good time hanging out with Jeremy, @Robert, Mickey and Mark. here is Robert lost in @paul's VR world.

@mike. the drone you gave @paul is fucking awesome.

Yesterday we flew the drone (AR Drone 2.0) out at the church. its very difficult - you fly it using your phone, looking through the HD camera on the drone. Plenty of crashes, and thankfully it takes a beating.

Today we flew it with Jeremy - it turns out that since my phone was in German, we missed the settings for indoor vs outdoor flight, and calibrating the accelerometers on flat ground. He was a lot better at it.

I really think there's so much potential for this. There's an SDK and you can also preprogram flights. Imagine flying around and getting a birds eye view of the neighborhood, or following your bike ride. @libertad thinks we could even inspect his roof.

I need to practice this. Much better than driving a car.

Testing Paul's new drone:

After Christmas eve, we decided to open presents. @paul and I got @terry a PlayStation. They got me a new case of nut butters. And @terry and I got Paul the Samsung VR goggles. I have a feeling we will never see his face again - the glasses are so cool.

@terry and I took a wintry walk downtown to the new canals while @paul went out to hang with @hodown. It was also winter solstice which means it only gets brighter from here on out!


Waste of power!

The new ice canals are so freaking awesome. I want to a get a season pass for four people - only $75. Plus @YesThatCasey could ride the ice bikes. If we got skates it'd be so easy to go down there and it looked a lot nicer than the Rotary Rink.


Terry and I ran back and forth up to the concrete phallus that used to be HSBC. It's super trippy to look up at something so big from it's plaza.

The creepiness of the Sahlen's place is about as creepy as a hot dog is if you think about it.

@terry and I headed out to Kallie's brother Curt's bachelor party at Big Orbit Gallery. I talked a bunch with a country bro and we got to watch two drunk people fall in slow motion.

I think we were up until 5, at some point @YesThatCasey and e:masumi got a nice tap on the window.

We went Christmas shopping with @mike at the Galleria. I think it approaches what I'd consider hell.





@terry and I got to go see the animals at the pet store while Mike and Paul went to the craft store. If anyone was struggling to find a calender of guinea pigs playing sports, they sell one.

Friday my family came over along with @YesThatCasey and and Masumi to celebrate Festivus.

We had calzones, salad, a giant snickers, and baked apples.



The best part is probably the airing of grievances, where basically everyone gets
to yell at each other for minor issues. I feel like it's a real family bonding experience.







Masumi inspecting some of our Squeaky Wheel prizes.

Do the Scientologists not find anything weird about having a christmas tree in their window?

I was surprised no one came out to chase me about taking a picture here.

We eat at Cafe 59 almost twice a week lately. I am so obsessed with the Moraccan Spiced chickpeas. It's almost the only thing I ever order there - spiced chickpeas, on warm greek yogurt, with a salad.

Most of the times the portions are huge enough to make my stomach hurt. If you consider I've been working at Roswell for 23 weeks, at at least two cups of chickpeas a serving, probably averaging 1.5 times a week - it's too many chickpeas (69) or 25000 calories worth of them. I also think I'm the only person who ever orders them. The waitress knows I'm going to order it when I get in.



This week at work I've started orientation. The classes are not very useful at all and it'd probably be much more worth it if I was programming during them, but I did meet a researcher from Germany who I want to try out my German on.

After work @paul and I went to @terry's new office to help straighten out the networking situation. We wanted to move the office off of using their desktop Windows server as a DNS and on to openDNS, but we couldn't figure out to log into the switch, only the firewall. Eventually Paul found the switches address over nmap and surprise, it was the default password. Success though!


Terry made a freaking delicious soup for us by the time we got home.