I’m building a lab at the house to use to study for CCNA and CCNP certification. On the left are some old Cisco routers and switches scrounged from work. On the right are some routers and switches I bought on eBay. I have a Cisco 3620 with an Async cable connected to all of the console ports so I can access all of the systems console ports thought the 3620.

It’s just about ready to go — I’m just waiting for an order of DCE/DTE crossover cables to arrive and then I’m in business. I hope to be able to get things set up so that I can administratively reconfigure the systems without having to make a lot of patch cable changes to create different scenarios… we’ll see.

Finally, in the bottom left corner, is an Ubuntu Linux system I’m using for general management of the switches. It’s got tftpd set up, and can receive syslog messages from the systems if I need to do some heavyweight log troubleshooting. Eventually, I hope to get it set up as a TACACS server as well.

Update #1 — mounted the equipment into a rack that was donated to this cause.

I’m testing auto-blogging via Flickr from my iPhone.

Cornell University Dragon Day 2008

Dragon Day is an annual event that occurs on the last day of classes before Spring Break on the Cornell University Ithaca campus.

Cornell Architecture students create a huge dragon float and carry it down towards the Engineering Quad to taunt the Engineering students.

When the dragon procession reaches the engineering quad area, the engineering students block the path of the dragon with their own creation, a phoenix. A “battle” ensues and then the entire procession heads up along Ho Plaza towards the Arts Quad — where the floats are ceremoniously cremated in a bonfire.

Note the Phoenix did not make it to the bonfire this year.

Full Dragon Day 2008 photo stream is here: http://tinyurl.com/2bxa5j

You can listen to the show along with photos from the studio on the Snake Oil Salesmen website here.

Here I am in my new Utilikilt at the Snake Oil Salesmen 16 Feb 2008 gig. We played at The Nines in Ithaca, NY and it was an amazing concert — I’m processing all of the audio and video and hope to get some things posted to the Snake Oil Salesmen website within a few days.

The kilt was the birthday present mentioned in an earlier blog post. It is so comfortable to wear, I’ve already ordered a second one, and I’m planning to purchase a third. So far, I’ve done all my ordering from The Kilted Nation in Manassas, VA and they’ve been very responsive both in shipping as well as a few pre-sales support questions. I’ve got a conference (Internet Security Training Workshop) I will be attending in Virginia early next month and I plan to stop by their brick-and-mortar store when I get a chance.

I’ll expose the details about the gift later this month as long as its not too cold.

Daily Zen

My project, the “War Morgan Project“, is coming along. I’ve got bits and pieces coming together with either melodies or chord progressions defined for eight songs so far. I’ve got lyrics coming along for three songs so far.

No names other than Logic Pro filenames for the songs so far; it looks like its going to be a mix of rock, jazz, and electronic styles.

Everything here is subject to change, but this is what I’ve got so far:

WMP-1 - Catchy rhythm hook with variations on a lead

WMP-2 - Variations on a bass riff

WMP-3 - VIm IV V VIm ballad in D

WMP-4 - VIm I II IV VIm piece in Eb

WMP-5 - I IVm IIIb VIIb I in F

WMP-6 - I VIm IIm V I in A

WMP-7 - I IIm IIIm IV V I in Bb

WMP-8 - Ambient Electronic

WMP-9 -

WMP-10 -

One website I found very helpful was the Hot Frets Progressionator which is a Flash application that generates sample chord progressions. I find it a nice tool to help me get started.

I’m pretty happy with where I’m at with the project, between work and the upcoming gig with my band Snake Oil Salesmen at The Nines in Ithaca on Saturday, the 16th at 10pm, I’m not going to have much time to work on the songs until after that gig is finished.

– Paul Schuh

I set up a site for my project, the “War Morgan Project” — where I’ll post notes and media specific to the project. I’ve co-written a few songs with Snake Oil Salesmen, but never put out anything of my own, so this should be a fun experiment to get those music composition gears going.

About the name, “War Morgan Project,” it is a play on the name of an organ sample on my synth (Warm Organ) and my middle name (Morgan.)

– Paul Schuh

Daily Zen, Music

Mario and Luigi

Originally uploaded by schuhfits

After watching some of the MacWorld 2008 interviews with the folks at Gelaskins, I went ahead and ordered a few for my laptops. They arrived earlier today and honestly, the only problem I have is not enough laptops to get all the designs I like.

On a related note, I am also testing Flickr’s Blog feature with this post… let’s see how well it works.