Tuesday, week 7.

content/blog/wk7day2.md

@@ -1,7 +1,95 @@
 ---
-title: "Week 7, Tuesday:"
+title: "Week 7, Tuesday: Packing for NL"
 date: 2024-09-10T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
+{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/chillmusic.png" alt="Credit: Chill Music, YouTube" >}}
+
+When I got up this morning, I first published my
+[[sFlow](https://ipng.ch/s/articles/2024/09/08/vpp-with-sflow-part-1/)] article to Mastodon and
+Twitter. I really wanted to talk to the folks from [[inMon](https://inmon.com/)] beforehand, to make
+sure we're on the same page about the project - which clearly we are! Overnight, Neil implemented
+the first of two improvements to the plugin. Rather than sending RPCs to the main thread, it'll now
+create one PSAMPLE writer _per thread_, and do the write directly inline in the sampler. And what an
+imnprovement that brought!
+
+I spent most of the morning and afternoon loadtesting this new approach. I'll leave the details for
+a followup post on the IPng website, but the good news is that there is no longer a real bottleneck
+in the plugin, it scales linearly with threadcount, can easily send samples at 250K/sec, and when
+one thread is overloaded, other threads do not regress at all. Great work overall. I send an
+elaborate e-mail with the findings.
+
+I have only three goals for today, and all of them are very simple:
+1.   Grab all the schwag for the FrysIX barbecue, including a few (eh, 72pcs) of disk for my buddy
+Tim and his association in Amsterdam. If it's all for a good cause, I'm happy to give these disks a
+second life.
+1.   Cut some vinyl IPng.ch logos for the car, which will go on when I reach my parents' place in
+the Netherlands (and probably get removed again before we go home)
+1.   Pack for our one week roadtrip, and have an entertaining debate if our car's trunk is big
+enough.
+
+Marina and I will first drive to Best, in the provice of Noord Brabant in the Netherlands. Then
+onwards to Jubbega in Friesland to visit Arend and the [[FrysIX](https://frys-ix.net/)] crew, and
+on the way back we'll drive to Brussels to visit my buddy Andrew from Cisco, finally driving home to
+Br&uuml;ttisellen, Switzerland, next week Tuesday. That's seven days to pack for.
+
+My packing is rather adhoc/simplistic. Got passport? Driver's License? Credit Card? GO! Marina
+however is a bit more ... methodical in her packing style. Stacks of stuff are laid on the bed,
+compared, questions asked about clothing, stuff to put in the toiletbag, what sttuffed animals to
+take (Hey and Uhi, of course!). 
+
+As I'm doing the loadtests for sFlow, I grab Silhouette Studio and wrestle with it a little bit. I
+can't seem to find the right cutting settings for _infinite_ cutting on a roll of 12" Oracal vinyl.
+It turns out (and I think this is a bug?) if I turn the canvas in landscape mode, I am limited to
+12x12, while if I set the canvas in portrait, it becomes 12" x &infin;. Heh, thirty minutes down the
+drain! Eventually we find the correct settings, and shortly thereafter I have two beautiful 30x60cm
+logos printed in Grey. If you do a poll on
+[[Twitter](https://x.com/IPngNetworks/status/1821179665928560873)] (inconclusive, quelle surprise,
+grey is a tie for red), and [[Mastodon](https://ublog.tech/@IPngNetworks/112921027967806983)] (grey
+clearly wins), then you have to commit yourself to the result _even if your own choice would've been
+different - superior - and decidedly_ 
+{{< rawhtml >}} <span style="color:#ff00ff;font-weight:bold">more pink</span>. {{< /rawhtml >}}
+
+I send a wrap-up report to the ongoing developer mail thread and the news is good. So good in fact,
+that I decide to celebrate with a drop of the 50%-off ice wine. We do still have eight bottles after
+all. Marina is not opposed to this type of celebration, so we go sit outside. In my field of view, I
+see the cuttings of _Hydranchea_ (also known as _Hortensia_), which are looking really great despite
+having been in a bucket of water for a while. I inspect them. There is absolutely no root starting
+to grow out the bottom. Off to the internet I go, reading up on howto and tweaking my green thumbs.
+
+It turns out, the experts say I should remove most of the leaves and cut the ones that are left, as
+lots of water evaporates through them, and the stress inflicted by chopping off their appendages
+will make them want to grow more roots. Uhm, okay, but only because the experts say so, I take some
+scissors to the cuttings while Marina prepares a few pots of soil. We push the cuttings in the
+correct length and orientation. It'll be fun to see if these things are still alive or if they've
+completely given the ghost, when we get back next week.
+
+I'm making meatloaf! This needs 90min or so in the oven, and we got fresh baby potatoes which do not
+need to be peeled. Marina likes red cabbage, and I'm more partial to pickled white cabbage
+(Dutch: _Zuurkool_). "Por que no los Dos?"; the dinner is easy to make and just takes a little bit
+of patience, which eventually runs out before the 90min mark, but I guessed right: the meatloaf is
+pretty great.
+
+The last task for the day is packing, but before we do that: two episodes of _Black Mirror_ are
+watched. "The Entire History of You" (memory imlants suck), and "The Waldo Moment". But then, we get
+to work. I schlepp seventy two 3.5" hard disks from IPng's stash, and put them in the trunk of our
+car. There's also our travel bags, and some other schwag for the barbecue. In case anybody wants a
+beer mug, I took 24 of them with me, and they are most certainly _not_ coming back home with me.
+
+At 21:00 I'm done, somewhat ahead of schedule, but I decide to go to bed. That's because I have put
+my alarm on an _illegal_ time tomorrow morning: 06:00. This is not a normal time for me, and my
+body reminds me of it. I lay in bed until 01:00, and eventually doze off.
+
+## Pictures of the Day
+
+{{< gallery-category >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-10/IMG_1177.JPG" caption="Cutting the Oracal vinyl IPng logos - in Grey because that's what the Twitter and Mastodon survey suggested." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-10/IMG_1180.JPG" caption="I don't know why I took this picture, as it has nothing to do with today. But: An ASR9001 router and three Celestica DX010 switches." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-10/IMG_1182.JPG" caption="We are listening to some music on my fancy bluetooth speaker; we do this while drinking a lovely white wine." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-10/IMG_1183.JPG" caption="Marina and I tended to our Hortensia cuttings, and ended up potting them. Wish us luck! We're both absolutely terrible at gardening." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-10/IMG_1184.JPG" caption="Dinner - meatloaf, boiled new potatoes, saurkraut and red cabbage. ALSO: gravy." >}}
+{{< /gallery-category >}}
+
+{{< gallery-modal >}}
+{{< gallery-script >}}
+