Rubénerd Blog :)

Had a bit of a scare with our oldest little doggie Romeo yesterday, he completely lost his usually veracious appetite and looked as though he was struggling to move. We rushed him to the vet where a blood test revealed his white blood cell count was through the roof, so he was hospitalised overnight. We were told the symptoms pointed to a a severe infection, but there was a chance he had a tumour in his liver. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep last night worrying about it.

Fortunately he was discharged today after being placed on several vitamin drips and his blood returned to normal. We have to keep him under close observation over the next few days and have a cocktail of medications to give him, but he’s already looking more like his old self. Hopefully he’ll be looking as happy and silly as the photo above again soon :).

The half-arsed half episode!

Clock and calendar silliness; the Queen’s Birthday isn’t the Queen’s Birthday; Queen Elizabeth’s mugshot on Australian coins; blogging about FreeBSD desktop background managers; the de facto one episode a month show; people whinging about too many blog posts; Zombie Plan on useless tweets; MannyTheMailman’s brand new air conditioner; Asia Pacific being ahead of Hawaii; iPhone Apple WWDC speculation; Neal O’Carroll and I suing for the iTelephone name; Elke’s lack of tweets; the world is flat; illegal Dutch pot scenarios and zombies eating skittles.

Download MP3 to listen 12:30 5.9MiB

You can also view previous episodes, subscribe via iTunes or another client, stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.

My mum and I in 2006 at Changi Airport in Singapore

Since 2007 my blog here has been dedicated to my late beautiful, cheeky, warm, funny, brave mum Debra. Now that it’s 2009 I finally feel strong enough to upload some photos of us you see here and write this post: I’ve rewritten it hundreds of times (yes, really!) but nothing I’ve put here seems to be able to do her justice. Here’s take #101 I’ll be linking to with a Dedication link in the header of this blog.

After an epic battle with cancer that lasted since my sister and I was little kids and through three international moves, Debra suddenly left us in her sleep on the day before Christmas Eve 2007. Her funeral was a beautiful service in Sydney a few weeks later with close friends and family played to the sounds of Santana’s Sam Pa Ti, Bob Dylan’s Forever Young, Bob Marley’s Stir It Up, Sabah Habas Mustapha’s Warm Rain Falls, The Beatles’ Let it Be and of course Spirit in the Sky.

She was an amazing person with a ridiculous sense of humour that I can proudly claim was the primary influence for my own. We’d watch Bertie Wooster and Fawlty Towers episodes for hours on weekends (a cow creamer!). In the oncology ward where we considered the nurses and Dr Tan family she’d refer to her chemotherapy drip as champagne and loudly insist on seeing the wine menu. She introduced me to Michael Franks (now my favourite singer/songwriter) and his Search for the Perfect Shampoo. I’d dance into her bedroom singing Dean Martin’s How Do Ya’ Like Your Eggs in the Morning? to her at breakfast and she’d throw books. I’d poke fun at her short stature and she’d mock me for being a nerd who was too scared to ask that cute Korean girl out that she had already pre-approved. Most of the time when she didn’t have enough strength to get out of bed I’d bring a pair of laptops in and I’d do my work while she lectured on why the dress the latest celebrity was wearing was awful or how corrupt the cosmetics industry is.

Officially the most epic photo of all friggen time!

Behind the tough, silly exterior though was a person in almost constant pain and anguish. Routine aspects of most of our lives were insurmountable chores for her that only got more difficult and painful as the years went on. She was a master at hiding it from the outside world, but the consequence was she’d rarely want to leave the house for the effort to put her self described "mask" on was nearly always just too much.

She confided in my sister and I shortly before she left us that we were the reason she continued to fight, because she wanted us to be old enough to have memories of her. It’s only now I realise how incredible (and lump-in-the-throat inducing) that was. I’m also becoming aware now as I get older that she won’t be around for so many milestones in my sister’s and my lives (graduations, work, weddings, kids) but we do have memories we would not trade for anything.

One of her favourite songs of all time was Thunderclap Newman’s Something in the Air, particularly the beginning of the final verse when the coda finishes and the melody seems to soar; she told me she loved it because it sounded like a bird was taking off without worries. While I selfishly wish she was back here with me, I also know she was living in excruciating pain for years and her passing finally allowed her to take off and leave the agony behind. Even if she was taken away from me far too soon, she’s no longer in pain.

Unfortunately I didn’t seem to inherit her class or her incredible musical, comedic, artistic or literary skills (thank you Rainer!), but given this website is one of my own primary outlets for my mind I can’t think of anything more fitting than to dedicate this to Debra Schade, even if all it amounts to are sporadic thoughts about software and the universe that she’d laugh and mock me for for if she read! We had a great relationship :-).

I love you Mumster, I miss you so much it hurts. Thank you for giving me life but even more for your friendship. Forgive me for this next part.

#import Display.h;
int main( int argc, const char *argv[] ) {
    printf( "Lots of love, Ruben" );
    return 0;
}

Looking for something fun to do this afternoon I decided to do this American Accent Quiz. According to the results, if I were an American with my current accent I would be from the Northeast.

As someone not hailing from the States I’m not sure what this all means, but it was fun anyway!

It’s been a while since I filled in another of these LivingSocial Top Five lists I’ve grown so attached to, so this afternoon I created and filled in a new list entitled My Favourite Heathen Tomes!" I figure at best only a few billion people follow each of the major religions meaning the majority of the people on Earth will be going to Hell including me, so there’s no point trying to work against it right? ^_^

• On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
• The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
• The Portable Atheist, Christopher Hitchens
• The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris
• The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Bobby Henderson

Photo of my Blueberry iMac from 2003 (uploaded in 2006). This wasn’t the first machine I put Linux on but it did get it around that time too.

Slashdot has an article asking you to remember when you first installed Linux. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I can remember my first Linux installation vividly.

I was 14 or 15 I think and it was a Saturday which meant I was window shopping at the Challenger superstore at the top floor of Funan Centre! I had just walked into the software section which was separated by a huge space station looking thing suspended from the roof that I always thought looked cool in a very retro way, when I saw this box with a graphic of a weird, silhouetted figure of a guy wearing a red hat. At the time Red Hat Linux was THE Linux distribution and was available in cartons like commercial software.

I had heard of Linux but had never used it before and didn’t even really understand the free software movement, but I was shocked at how cheap it was compared to Windows so I used my allowance and bought it! I sat at the Delifrance downstairs and had a snack and read the back of the box trying to understand what I’d need to do to get it running. I was really excited!

When I got home I pulled out an old machine from retirement, booted it up and started installing it. I was absolutely enthralled by the process, it was so unlike anything I had used before coming from a DOS and Windows background! I’ve since moved onto FreeBSD for most of my non-Mac machines, but I still have fond memories of that day, until that point.

Barely had the installer started, my dad told me to go with him to the hospital. It turns out my mum had suffered a major complication in her chemotherapy treatment which even back then had been going on for years. I’ll spare the details, but suffice to say what I found out scared the heck out me.

My cynical teenage years started around that time, it seemed whenever something good happened to my family or to me something bad just had to happen to neutralise it, because we weren’t allowed to be normal. I guess that’s the way Murphey’s Law works, right?

Anyway at least one good thing happened; buying that box started my current love for tinkering with OSs, Unix-like systems and with free and open source software and platforms.

I still wonder even now whether I would have stayed a Windows guy had that not happened. If so, what would this blog read like now? I guess I’d be defending Windows Vista/7, telling everyone the Microsoft Office ribbon is wonderful and that the only reason Windows is so insecure is because of it’s large desktop market share. Perhaps I could have even been hired to write an astroturfing blog! Come to think of it, it’d probably have made more money than this blog does ;-).

My 2009 Easter eating!

I saw this post from the White House blog and Jim’s comments on it, and I had to add my own family experiences around this time of year. If you’re not on Google Reader here it is:

My family could best be described as agnostic I guess, but we still had hearty dinners over Easter and Christmas. Since moving to Singapore though when I was a kid we were disconnected from our extended families so it was just mum, dad Elke and I. We also started celebrating Chinese New Year which is much bigger in Singapore than Easter or Christmas which is mostly celebrated just for the tourists and business folks!

I have fond memories of those gatherings; for a few hours we pretended my mum wasn’t terminally ill and we didn’t have a care in the world. Except when it came time to clean up of course!!!

It would bore you to tears if I were to relay all the gritty details, but suffice to say when I took my extended leave of absence to be with my mum before she passed on it messed up my university timetable because the degree I started changed during the time I was away. I was able to start studying again, but there was lots of ambiguity and confusion as to what I was supposed to be doing.

One quick session at the Student Advisory Centre at the Mawson Lakes campus this morning fixed it all right up. I sat down with one of the friendly councillers who drafted a new study plan and timetable, explained to me in detail what the new courses are and how they’re structured, and even gave me some help and advice on the Federal government study payment scheme whatnot. I now know what I’m doing again.

I’m all for flexibility but there’s some security and comfort in knowing that things have been taken care of and something is definitive. I’ve been living week by week with far too many variables, health scares and negative experiences over my now 23 year life that something stable and set in stone is refreshingly consoling, if that makes any sense.

For the first time since 2006 I have a 100% clear and structured path to achieve my study goals. I’m not sure what "study goals" means, but it sounded fancy. No matter what it is, my life is finally back on track. Look out world, Ruben Schade is back!

ASIDE: I’d cite the "Shady’s back" lines from an Eminem song, but I respect you, dear reader, too much to subject you to it.

To celebrate my 23rd birthday yesterday, my sister (who’s in Adelaide studying at the same university I am) and I braved Adelaide’s bafflingly confusing public transport system and went to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills for some German beer and grub, and for a bit of a photographic expedition. Good times!

I’ve been making the mistake of taking far too many photos and not uploading any of them, so this afternoon I made the time to pick the best shots and upload them to a Flickr photo gallery, surprisingly named Birthday in Hahndorf!.

Hahndorf is a beautiful little German heritage town in the Adelaide Hills in Australia with many German souvenir shops, restaurants, delicatessens, pastry shops, art galleries and coffee shops. Wikipedia’s Hanhdorf article has a lot of information about it’s history.

The Google Map for Hahndorf gives you an idea where it is in relation to the Adelaide city area:

The German influences are really noticeable in the architecture and design of many of the buildings and streets. At this time of the year when the weather is getting cooler in a part of the hills where it’s usually cooler than the rest of Adelaide it starts to feel really authentic. The only hint you’re still in Australia are all the Holden cars parked along the side of the road!

Our favourite German restaurant and pub in Hahndorf is the Hahndorf Inn on Main Street; we’ve been coming here since we first visited Adelaide back in 2004 when we were trying to decide what city in Australia to study in (it’s good to have some recent history to recall in times like this in my birth country!)

The food is ridiculously good and reasonably priced, especially compared to German grub in Singapore which can cost over $100 for my sister, dad and I. They also have authentic German beer from Munich on tap which tastes great and is also reasonably priced.

Given it was my birthday I got the German mixed grill which had roast pork, sliced potatoes with herbs, klöße, sauerkraut and a selection of würstes and mustard. As I said, it was ridiculously tasty! Elke got her usual schnitzel, and of course we got plenty of authentic warm pretzels! We had some chocolate cake and coffee for desert after sitting and talking for an hour or so.

I’m regretting posting these photos now, they’re making my hungry again! Do you reckon they do home delivery to Mawson Lakes?

After a certain time on weeknights the buses back to Adelaide only leave every hour, so after a few hours of eating, taking photos and walking around we rushed to the main bus stop with just a few minutes to spare. I’d love to come back with my camera when in less of hurry, as I said Hahndorf is a beautiful place.

You can view the rest of the photos I took in my Birthday in Hahndorf Flickr photo gallery.

As for my birthday, I had a great time even if I spent all morning doing homework! I got some great presents and an amazing delivery as well, but those will be for another post. Thank you all for your birthday wishes on Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook and emails :). I was worried how down I’d be feeling considering it’s only my second one since mum moved on, but it would’ve been hard to feel bad with all you guys sending me messages all day. Thank you again!

Suntec City and the Convention Centre from the Padang, taken with my D60. I will get around to uploading all these photos I took to Flickr… eventually!

Isn’t it always the case that we focus on the things we didn’t end up doing on a holiday instead of things we did end up doing? Or is that just me? Well after spending late December, January and most of February back in Singapore from Adelaide I can confidently say I got done less than 1% of what I wanted and needed to.

At least I had an excuse this time; I was out of action for weeks with… let’s use the word "uncomfortable" food poisoning and then a flu which the doc says I caught while my immune system was weakened when dealing with the first darn thing! Whooptie-do. As a result I spent most of my Singapore end of year holiday either in bed or curled up on my computer chair covered in blankets and a thermometer in my mouth. To be fair, I can think of worse situations, and I’m certainly glad it happened while I was on holiday instead of when I was studying, but it did bother me that as a result I couldn’t do anything.

ASIDE: The following two lists were literally transcribed from my own to do lists, but cleaned up a bit. As such, there are no links whatsoever, treat them as the seething masses they are!

Things he wanted and needed to do

Going down the list of things I needed and wanted to do that didn’t happen, I was supposed to go back to KL again and see Julee and the guys from RHB; upload all my photos taken with my new Nikon D60 on Flickr; meeting up with Kevin in Singapore to have a coffee, chat, philosophise and to help him out with his MacBook; renting a Segway and riding it around Sentosa just like Jackie Chan did earlier this year; do some more Nikkor lens window shopping with my dad; going to Harry’s at Clarke Quay to listen to some live jazz; getting Skype working with our gateway to talk to Felix; getting up early and going with my dad and sister for a walk around Sungei Bulloh Wetland Reserve and the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve; paying bills that were due back in Australia while I was in Singapore for the phones (whoops!); sorting through most of my late mum’s posessions; beating my dad and sister at Wii Golf and Wii Bowling again; looking at motor scooters; starting a public and light road transport advocacy blog (long shot, but I did get as far as creating a theme); finally get some prescription sunglasses; demo my alternative ideas for Whole Wheat Radio; looking for a cheaper version of my dad’s ultra wide angle Tokina lens to take back with me; throwing away stacks of old burned CDs that contain data I now have on multiple hard drives and dual layered DVDs; taking a budget airline to Cambodia and hiking through Siem Reap; eating more prata and teh tarik with my dad at 3am at Mr Prata; cleaning my bedroom in our apartment there; test all our old computer hardware and donate it to schools or figure out how to send them elsewhere in South-East Asia… wow I’m not even half way down my list yet. Sheesh.

The Singapore Flyer and the top of the Esplanade, also taken with my D60. I will be uploading these to Flickr, I’m determined!

Things he did get done

As for the things I did get done, most involved things at home because that’s where I was stuck for weeks on end! I managed to work around the restrictions on installing drivers on my dad’s work laptop by connecting his home office laser, photocopiers and photo printers to a second machine and accessing them over the network; I ripped our entire 3,200+ CD collection to our DIY media PC (THAT was a really good way to pass time!); I copied all my Rubenerd Shows over to the Internet Archive; converting my old Pentium MMX 200MHz desktop into a fancy firewall between our modem and router; upgrading my FreeBSD desktop I access through SSH in Adelaide to FreeBSD 7.1 Release; and a whole pile of other technical and non outdoor related things. I did manage to see my shrink and now a good friend, and go out a few times for dinner with my dad and sis too, just wish I had more time and was feeling well enough to have done them more.

The end is the best place for an ending

Ah well, I guess as I said before disappointment over what you didn’t and did get done on a holiday is natural to a certain extent. Now that it’s Monday the 2nd of March and I have class in 20 minutes (ugh), the volume of homework, assignments and tests will preoccupy my mind enough. And my sister doesn’t even have classes today, so she’s still fast asleep as I type this at the Boatdeck Cafe. Some people have all the luck.

Looking down my To Do list for Adelaide, I have about a dozen things that need to be done today, another dozen tomorrow, and a dozen on top of that for later this week at the latest. Can you get student secretaries? As in a secretary for a student? That’d be fantastic.