Monday of the last week

content/blog/wk13day7.md

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ title: "Week 13, Sunday: Padel!"
 date: 2024-10-27T21:55:00+02:00
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/noraenpure-11.png" alt="Credit: Nora en Pure, YouTube" >}}
+{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/kasger-02.png" alt="Credit: Kasger, YouTube" >}}
 
 I woke up at 08:30 after a tremendous sleep. I love sleeping in my own bed, the difference between
 its comfort is most apparent just after I return from a trip abroad. This morning I have a sportsing

content/blog/wk14day1.md

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 ---
-title: "Week 14, Monday:"
+title: "Week 14, Monday: Last Week!"
 date: 2024-10-28T21:55:00+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/noraenpure-12.png" alt="Credit: Nora en Pure, YouTube" >}}
+
+I have to say I'm a little bit melancholic seeing that today, week fourteen of my sabbatical, has
+started. My journal is going to be perhaps a bit of an anti climax because I have promised myself
+that in the last week I would not do very many things, but just recompress after having been able to
+let my mind roam free for so many days.
+
+In all my years as an adult, I've never had a vacation longer than three weeks. Ever since working
+at Google, and I started in 2006 mind you, I have mostly spent school vacations traveling with my
+family - in the before times this was to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes as well to Sydney
+Australia. I would work mostly, and in the weekends we'd do fun stuff together as a family.
+
+I'm now looking back at the time I spent off-corp, and it's difficult to overstate how valuable it
+has been for me. I've gotten to finish a few projects that have been quietly and patiently waiting
+for my attention in the dusty corner of my work room. I've traveled quite a bit and enjoyed the
+company of many friends, family and network engineers. I also finally cleaned my room&trade;, and I
+got a Roomba vacuum robot called _Suckel_ to help me keep my room tidy. I played wiht lego, although
+not as much as I would've liked. Marina and I drank many martini's in the back yard while the Summer
+was blessing us with good weather, but I did not get to re-design and work on our garden. Tim helped
+me, as an emotional support animal and subject matter expert, to get my flight simulator up and
+running, and I've clocked 20hrs or so of flight time in it. Yesterday I ordered two 31.5" screens
+which will serve as the left and right window. I find VFR difficult without having a lateral view
+out the window of my little simplane. Would you believe those screens were only CHF 120,- apiece?
+Unbelievable!
+
+In the morning I cut a new release of my KVM image for VPP, Bird2 and FRR 10.1. I've included the
+`sFlow` plugin, a working `hsflowd` and some tools like `psampletest` and `sflowtool` in the image.
+While testing, I started an [[Akvorado](https://github.com/akvorado/akvorado)] instance to validate
+that things work. I think there's still a few small things we need to take care of, notably around
+SNMP information and perhaps a few fields in the sFlow counters (such as interface state and speed).
+And for the Akvorado data model, I'll want to feed it some BGP information using
+[[BMP](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7854)] so that things like prefixes and
+source/destination AS numbers are known. But, it's a start, and it works.
+
+In the afternoon I spent some time with the simulator. My buddy Luuk pinged me on Signal, and he'll
+be renting a plane this week, intending to fly it up from Lugano where he lives, to Wangen-Lachen,
+airport [[LSPV](https://www.flugplatzwangen.ch/)]. All we need is a bit of good weather, and today
+it's gorgeous out! In the sim, I'm doing attitude control, controlled turns and flying patterns. I
+find it very difficult to keep my altitude, perhaps also because there is no motion feedback in the
+simulator (ie, I don't feel myself going up or down). But I'll get the hang of it, eventually.
+
+There's still a flurry of requests for FreeIX Remote. Lancom in Greece has offered capacity on their
+100G wave from Thessaloniki to Amsterdam, and will be giving all of their local FreeIX Greece
+members (there are half a dozen for the moment), free access to the NIKHEF exchanges. FreeIX Remote
+is slowly growing, with currently 210K IPv4 prefixes and 64K IPv6 prefixes. Not bad for a peer :)
+
+Marina makes a non-typical but delicious meal! She takes butternut squash and onions roasted in the
+oven, with goat's cheese and cured ham on a bed of arugula with a light vinaigrette. She asks me if
+I can fry a beef _Limousin_ steak, which I happily oblige. Together, this makes for a very tasty
+dinner indeed! After dinner, we watch some news and settle down on the couch for a few episodes of
+Lilyhammer.
+
+## Pictures of the Day
+
+{{< gallery-category >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-28/akvorado.png" caption="Akvorado on a testbed with four VPP machines" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-28/IMG_2247.JPG" caption="Marina's delicious dinner: ham, goat cheese, squasch and rocket" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-10-28/IMG_2248.JPG" caption="To accompany Marina's salad: Limousin filet mignon with Chicago rub" >}}
+{{< /gallery-category >}}
+
+{{< gallery-modal >}}
+{{< gallery-script >}}