Why There Are Words Reading

Busy, busy, busy. Not only do we have a new baby under 2 months, but Kyle has a new job. On Monday he starts at MobileIron in Mountain View. It looks like a great company, plus he’ll be able to…

DevOps Troubleshooting

Here is the cover of Kyle’s new book, DevOps Troubleshooting: Linux Server Best Practices. It’s due out in October 2012, but you can pre-order it on Amazon. More about the book: In this book, pioneering Linux sysadmin Kyle Rankin teaches…

Gideon Rankin

If you haven’t heard, our son, Gideon Aaron Rankin, was born May 22, 2012 at 3:13 p.m. He’s healthy and cute. We like him.

A Year Of Owning Chickens

My chickens are a year old! Rosie, the Rhode Island Red: Penny, the Lace Wyandotte: Olivia, the Columbian Plymouth Rock: They produce 2-3 eggs a day, fertilize my garden, and eat my weeds (as well as my fruits and vegetables…

The Giant Sloth of AWP 2011

I don’t have much to say about AWP 2011, the writing conference I attended last week. There are many posts on it out there, all similar in nature, with people name dropping the other cool people they hung out with.…

What The TSA Pat Down Is Like

[Note: On the way to Washington DC to attend a conference, I received the TSA pat down. I wrote this right after it happened:] I am currently at San Francisco International Airport, otherwise known as SFO. I’m traveling with my…

Short Story: Flatten, Poke, and Blow

Hey, check it out! I have a short story up in LitnImage. It’s called Flatten, Poke, and Blow. Excerpt: Judith’s parents’ barn is full of wooden spools. There are dozens of them wound with rope as thick as tree branches.…

Spain 4: Barcelona

I was so excited to go to Barcelona, but ended up thinking it was overrated. It’s touristy, expensive, and the people are kind of mean and grumpy, and yet the city doesn’t have the great museums or sites that make…