If only I had more time...

Fedora 12 released today. I did not do much for the Docs Project for this release. Based on the timing of releases and my work schedule it is beginning to look like I may only get to work on odd numbered releases. I did some review work for a few of the guides though and mostly kept up with the mailing list. I do know that jjmcd once again put in a LOT of work on the Release Notes and rudi wrangled a lot of guides through translations.

I did get to work with the beta a lot more on this release in conjunction with another project. I finally took the time to look at the new features of the anaconda installer since its rewrite for Fedora 11. I even experimented with an encrypted partition. I also have decided that I do prefer GNOME to KDE for an overall desktop even though I have used several KDE applications for years. I guess I just believe in old school keep it simple and string em together UNIX philosophy. Launching the all in one control center to get to one of the modules just drives me nuts. Unfortunately, I have not yet had time to work with the updates to virtualization and the selinux sandbox. These areas encompass the most interesting new features for my uses and I am looking forward to learning more.

I did submit one "not a bug" and felt pretty stupid after but I guess it better to submit a "not a bug" than to not submit a bug at all. I still need to figure out what bug to add to for getting my the tablet part of my laptop to work. Fedora 11 Live found it "out of the box" by Fedora 12 (live or DVD) does not know it exists. I have not had time to figure out if I can make it work.

GET FEDORA

-SML

Bats

Yesterday evening I spent at least 15 minutes watching a bat. It was mesmerizing. It was circling around above the house with a lot of quick turns and dives. Every once and while I would loose track of it as it came lower into the tree line. There must have been some good eating up there.

-SML

Season Opener

There was a good showing of fans for the UNC Women's Basketball season opener. It was Friday night, the weather was improving, the next day would have the final home football game, and the Carolina Fever group showed up. All this totalled up for a much better crowd than the previous exhibition game.
The women played in the Smith Center last year while their arena was being renovated. Carmichael is not quiet ready yet, so this year is also starting at the Smith Center. Finally, this year, they get to enjoy a few of the other perks of the Smith Center. Someone came to dim the lights and run a spot for the team introductions.

It was all still way too loud while playing the video but I suppose that is what many fans expect or want. I have noticed that the band director wears earplugs.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the ACC, Virginia head coach Debbie Ryan earned her 700th-career victory and N.C. State women's basketball coach, Kellie (Jolly) Harper got her first NCSU win. All the other ACC teams that played also won.

-SML

links:
Collection of recaps from TheACC.com
Raleigh N&O article on NCSU.
My photos of the UNC game.

Thanks Ida

The remnants of Hurricane Ida have been trying to pass through my area.

After 48 hours and over 4 inches of rain, the wind also arrived. It is still raining and windy and now it is also cold.

Meanwhile the water table had a much needed refill and at least one rotten tree was identified in my yard.

-SML

New Camera yields basketball photos.

The Tar Heel Women played Carson-Newman in their second and last exhibition game. They won as expected and by a lot as expected. It was a miserable rainy night and not a lot of fans braved the weather to attend. The place really could have used a bit more fan energy.

I have a new camera so I was not paying as much attention to the overall game as I was trying to get some good action shots. I took 156 photos filling 1.1G of the memory card. When I got home, I narrowed that down to about 50 that I liked. So far I have less than 20 of those cropped and/or scaled down for sharing.

I was WOW-ed with the first game. This one showed more of the same energy, speed, good ball handlers, and tall rebounders. There is a LOT of potential in there and they are real quick learners putting it all together. Now, if we can keep that energy when we get to some tougher competition...

Links:
TarHeelBlue writeup
Daily Tar Heel writeup
My latest photos.

-SML

Its Basketball Time!

Tonight was the first exhibition game for the UNC Women's Basketball team. I missed the scrimmage with the practice team on Sunday but I was at tonight's game. All I can say is WOW. We got us some GOOOOD freshman. And the returning ladies look good too.

For a more professional recap - and photos check out the TarHeelBlue writeup.

I have volunteered to help out Tar Heel Team Tempo with some photography. All I had for this game was my point and shoot. There are a lot more in focus shots than I thought I would get. I played around and was please with how well I remembered the timing of the camera. Then I played with the burst mode some. I like the composite shots it made now I just need to figure out what to do with them. My photos are up on Picasa.

Francis Marion played really well. There are a lot of ties to UNC for that program. The UNC coach used to coach at FM and had been hired by an athletic director that had been a student athlete at UNC. One of the current assistant coaches of FM was a Tar Heel not that long ago. All that history, plenty of time to prepare, and FM came ready to play. They ran up and down the court. They had some really nice shots. They showed some Tar Heel style traps - which I think they did a good job with though it may not have been obvious since the UNC players broke the press a whole lot easier than they were doing last year.

The warmup was fun. There are a couple new drills and a lot of the shots were going in which is always a good way to start. During the game, there were the usual early season mistakes and freshman mistakes. Not as many as I remember from recent year though. These ladies know where they need to be and they play smart ball. Three freshman had 2 blocks each - some of those were also really nice ones. One had 5 steals - Krista Gross who a number of us kept confusing with Italee Lucas. I heard "yeah Italee" more than once when it was Krista who had just made the play. The returning students have all stepped up their games too - and they will need to if they do not want to loose there spots to some of the these fabulous five freshman.

-SML