I've recently been fiddling around with my kernel, configuring most options as modules to enable faster dehibernation (which seems to work). Anyway, afterwards I could not longer mount my USB stick. For some reason, USB Mass storage support got broken. The USB device was properly recognized, but there was no SCSI device generated.

[   62.166775] usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[   62.455087] scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[   62.460703] usb-storage: device found at 2
[   62.460707] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[   65.047735] usb 2-1: reset full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[   65.409629] usb 2-1: reset full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[   65.769525] usb 2-1: reset full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 2
[   66.041867] usb-storage: device scan complete

To cut a long story (and debugging session) short: The problem was a kernel option "USB Selective suspend/resume and wakeup" (CONFIGUSBSUSPEND) that I enabled in the process (it sounded useful). Disabling this option made everything work again. Yay!

[  629.199144] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
[  629.786207] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[  629.787051] scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[  629.789039] usb-storage: device found at 4
[  629.789043] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[  629.789055] usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
[  629.789058] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[  632.291508]   Vendor: USB-DISK  Model: FreeDik-FlashUsb  Rev: 1.06
[  632.291519]   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 00
[  632.302503] SCSI device sda: 32736 512-byte hdwr sectors (17 MB)
[  632.305490] sda: Write Protect is off
[  632.305493] sda: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
[  632.305496] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[  632.312994] SCSI device sda: 32736 512-byte hdwr sectors (17 MB)
[  632.315988] sda: Write Protect is off
[  632.315992] sda: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
[  632.315994] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[  632.325982] SCSI device sda: 32736 512-byte hdwr sectors (17 MB)
[  632.328979] sda: Write Protect is off
[  632.328982] sda: Mode Sense: 0b 00 00 08
[  632.328984] sda: assuming drive cache: write through
[  632.329014]  sda: unknown partition table
[  632.334028] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
[  632.335561] usb-storage: device scan complete

I've been spending this evening for a just cause: Fixing our flat's toaster. It broke down somewhere around yesterday. At first, the toaster would not stay down and on, but later on the glowing wires wouldn't do their glowing act at all. Thinking I'd just have a quick look and repair the thing proved somewhat of a challenge...

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This afternoon, in an attempt to make Xdmx work, I decided to dist-upgrade Kat and Xanthe, both of my Debian sid boxes. After upgrading 600-ish packages, suddenly I couldn't start any new xterms. Some investigation showed a font problem, and since a font incompatibility was the reason I started upgrading in the first place, I thought it would help to restart my X server.

That turned out to be nasty, since ion, my window manager, crashed on start up with a rather cryptic message.

>> [72] X_CreateWindow (1) 0: BadValue 
    (integer parameter out of range for operation)

Anyone with some debugging experience will concede that this is not a real pleasure to work with (actually, anyone without this experience will run away screaming seeing this...). Still, I need a window manager to work, so debugging it is...

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Just this week, I've ordered a new toy: An Ergoriser. Or not really a toy actually, but a useful addition to my desktop. Last week I decided I wanted something like that, last monday (around midnight) I ordered it and wednesday it got delivered. Nice and quick.

Instead of fiddling around with cables to my external monitor or having to look down to my notebook while working, I can now put Xanthe (my notebook) up on my ergoriser, to get the screen on a decent and ergonomical height.

I still need to connect my keyboard and mouse to use them, though. I'd like to use bluetooth for that, but there is no bluetooth edition of my keyboard (or any other 'broken' ergonomical keyboard...) and I have not found any device that can connect USB peripherals through bluetooth.

So, I'm gonna be trying another option: Use Xdmx to put up a proxying xserver on Xanthe. Xdmx can dynamically attach and detach to other X servers, for graphical output as well as getting input. I'm not sure how exactly this will work out, though, but if everything works out, I will be able to use the CRT monitor on my desk through xdmx as well (it's connected to Katherina, my workstation).

To make it even fancyer, I should be able to attach the monitor and input devices automatically, through WLAN, as soon as I get home (using the wireless access point's MAC address to detect 'home'). Fun!

The second LARP event I've ever been to, was Dummnoni Destiny V. Not only did I have a wonderful time there, but later I came to realize that Dummnoni events are fundamentally different from every other LARP I have played or organised so far. The last time I've played at Dummnoni was three or four years back, since every event since then was either too expensive or was held at the wrong weekends...

Last weekend, a new Dummnoni event was held: Celtwood. Unfortunately I had to skip my mother's birthday for this, but this was too good a chance to let go. Finally, after years of absence, my character Maddox of the Dummnoni, was again present among the heroes of the realm. Celtwood is set in the realm of the Menapi, the Nervi and the Usipeti, three of the clans of Faerie. Every year these three clans hold a great contest, to decide who is the most honorful clan. This contest is the center of Celtwood.

Maddox, together with his wife Tegwen (played by Brenda), were asked by queen Athea herself to accompany a group of Arkeesh and old friends to go these games to investigate a bad omen seen by the queens druid.

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Anyone that knows me just a little, will know that the emptyness on my blog this summer, has not been caused by a shortage of things to write about. Quite on the contrary: I've been doing so many things I could have written about, that it didn't leave any time to do the actual writing. By now, classes have begun again, so I won't be having too much time soon either. So, instead of full length posts about all the fun stuff, I'll do a one post summary. I might even make it short.

De Randmeren

So, where have I been this summer? I've been around, but most of the time somewhere in Harderwijk or Ermelo, at either one of my parents or at Brenda's. Most of my summer has been spent helping out at sailing school "De Randmeren" my father started this year. I've mainly been assisting with administrative tasks and boat rental, but also with giving sailing lessons. Since they have just started, I have been setting up most of their administration, both financial and other. I've even been working on an online customer administration system, but it has not been deployed yet (I'll leave that for the winter, together with a complete website redesign by Brenda). During one of these weeks, Tin came over from Enschede to help us out with the youth sailing lessons. Thanks, Tin!

Apart from making a few bucks by working there (though not much, since it is still a starting company), I've been getting a lot of experience, in various areas. The last two weeks I've been working there, I was my father's replacement, since he went on a vacation. Those weeks, I've been basically running the company, together with the other owner, Erik. Very useful experience.

Exodus

Another major time sink during this summer was Exodus, an event by Evolution Events, for which I have been organising. I've mainly been busy with the various IT support tasks, which went well mostly (could have been better if I would have had some more time...). The event itself, at the end of august, was quite succesful. We have been receiving a lot of positive feedback from our participants and we are happy with how the event itself turned out. Best example of this was the saturday night dinner, which was served fully IC, so people continued playing not only over dinner, but even when doing the dishes!

Camping

Somewhere in between there I've been spending some time with Brenda. We have been away for a few days of camping, by bike! Brenda has done cycle vacations with her parents for years and has wanted to do so again together with me. This year, I've finally gathered enough courage and Brenda arranged me a decent bike (borrowed from her neighbours), so nothing stopped us anymore.

We've been cycling for 4 days, starting in Ermelo, going to Elburg, Wesepe (near Olst), Kootwijk (near Apeldoorn) and back to Ermelo, for a grand total of about 150 km. Pretty impressive distance, for me at least. We have been staying at nature campings (Small, cheap campings, having only bare sanitary), in a brand new hiking tent (only 2kg!) I gave Brenda for her birthday.

Other stuff

Furthermore, there is some other stuff I'd like to mention (and possibly write some more about in the future). Last week, I've been scourging the "boeldag", a yearly second hand market in Ermelo. Apart from some useful LARP stuff, I found an original NES, for free! I've tested it this week and it worked, at least somewhat. I do need to find/build a power adapter and some controllers, since I got it completely bare. I've also found the NES is a fairly simple machine, which makes it ideal for modding and hacking :-) Nice for the stack of nice-projects-when-I-have-some-time.

Ever since I've purchases my notebook, I have been looking for a name for it. Somewhere during this summer, I've finally named it "Xanthe", a name I came across a while back that stuck around. Now all I need is a catchy name for my blog (and a matching .nl domain name)...

Just last week, I've finally decided to do the embedded systems master here at twente. I've been through some trouble to participate in a few courses for which I didn't subscribe in time (ie, before the summer).