Bike accident

I was so sad today to read about the fatal bike accident that occurred on Steven's Creek Canyon yesterday morning. We do that ride all the time, only missing yesterday because we were skiing. I love riding that road because I find that the cyclists and motorists are generally very courteous, with the exception of occasional yahoos in sports cars. It's a nice, quiet road with a good steady climb. My heart goes out to the families of Matt Peterson and Kristy Gough, and I'm sending as many good thoughts as possible toward Christopher Knapp - I hope he is able to recover from his injuries.

Strong crypto in base Solaris 11!

My Friday night integration of 6498066 PSARC/2006/610 Data Encryption Kit (SUNWcry) Removal now means that strong crypto is available in a base Nevada system, starting with build 85 and forward. What does this mean for you? Mostly it means that you no longer have to get special packages to get longer key lengths for arcfour, aes or blowfish and that things like OpenSSL will work out of the box.

Earlier posts to this blog explained how I took a different approach with strong crypto with Solaris 10 Update 4. This work I just completed in Nevada, which was originally started by darrenm, is not appropriate for an update release since it removes packages and modules from the system.

Also, earlier this project was tied in with libsoftcrypto. I worked closely with the crypto team on this, and we decided that the removal of the Data Encryption Kit was more important and needed to be integrated as soon as possible, so libsoftcrypto was pulled out of this project gate in order to speed up delivery of PSARC/2006/610.

One really cool thing about this integration? It removes tons of now pointless Sun specific modifications from the OpenSSL source. Hurray!

This should make it easier for folks to use Nevada and OpenSolaris builds, as well as make it easier to do development in the affected areas. Let me know if you have any questions!

Sun Headlines debut!

I just made my debut as an anchor for Sun Headlines. In this latest edition of the program, I'm talking about how cool Project Blackbox is. It's weird watching a video of myself, but it was such a cool experience making it and I love talking about Sun technology. I hope I get another opportunity to film one again! Check out my segment and let me know what you think!

Yay! Audition paid off!

I'm so excited! I just found out I was cast as Shy in the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with the Actor's Theatre Center. And the icing on the cake? Two of my very good friends were also cast, one of which I haven't done a show with since midway through my career at the Gaslighter.  The auditions were fun because my two friends came with me, "Mom" Reynolds was on the piano and Nancy Kwong was our choreographer.  "Mom" is always a reliable player, and the fact that she gives you a hug before you sing really helps calm the nerves (yes, one of the many reasons we all just call her "Mom").  Nancy teaches by calling out names of steps, which makes it so much easier for me to follow & learn.

Anyways, I'd better cancel my appointment at the Dragon Theatre, since these two shows conflict with each other.

Audition fun!

It must be that time of year, because I've been auditioning like crazy.  Last week, I had my auditions for Fame at SCP and the TheatreWorks general auditions.  The Fame auditions started out well, but for some reason, the pianist did not play the last line of my song (my first time using Stormy Weather). The piano playing stopped a bit unexpectedly, but she played very well, so I can't possibly blame her for my lack of callbacks.  Perhaps it was my bad dancing. *sigh* I'm actually not a bad dancer, but I'm not a true dancer, so I take longer to learn the steps.  I've actually done some very complicated dancing in many of the shows I've been in (and friends say they've been impressed), but I did not do so well in the Fame audition. For me, the instruction was a bit too quick, and only the count was called out when we were on our own (as opposed to "what step is next").  The other two women I danced with seemed to pick up the steps much faster, so it must've just been me.

My TheaterWorks general audition went better, starting with the familiar face of long time Stanford Savoyard Jonathan Erman behind the piano.  I did my "standard" audition piece of Turn Back O' Man from Godspell (for which I got to practice a lot when I played the role of Sonia with STOC's production a couple years back), and performed my first monologue since I was in high school.

Tonight I'm auditioning for ATC's Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I'll do my standard piece again, and try to really focus on the dance portion of the audition. I really can dance - I'm just need practice, practice, practice!

Saturday, I'll be auditioning for Dragon Production Theatre Company's The Country Club in Palo Alto & Saratoga Drama Group for their fall production of Ragtime (which I'm not even sure I can do, with all the events I already have planned for the fall).  I have to learn another monologue for the Dragon audition, since the souther accent one I used for TheatreWorks will not be at all appropriate.

In more interesting news, I filmed my first Sun Headlines segment last week. It was so cool working with a crew - even a makeup guy to powder my nose!  The teleprompter was fascinating!  Look for my web TV debut on sun.com on February 1 as I tell you all about Project Blackbox!

Northstar skiing!

Finally made it skiing this weekend, up to Northstar, and it was AMAZING! Okay, my legs were not in the best shape, but on Saturday the sun was shining, the lift lines were short to non-existent, and the snow was perfect!  Nice and soft. Northstar left some of their runs partially ungroomed, which was a lot of fun - I could ski in the deep, cut up snow for awhile, and as I got tired - bail out to the nice, even groomed bits.  We decided to drive straight home on Sunday, after getting a look at the wind & snow starting to fall - which seems like a good decision, since the resorts got between 18" and 36" yesterday! It would've been fun to ski in, but not for long, and the drive home would've been a nightmare. I just hope we get more good snow like this - both for the skiing and to help stave off the drought!

Melodrama returns to the Bay Area!

It was with great excitement a large group of us trekked down to Scotts Valley two weeks ago - Daniel Dye has brought back melodrama to the Bay Area with the premier of his Merry Christmas Brent Spudley -or- Yuletide Hijinks. As you might guess, it is a holiday themed story, about the kind hearted Ms Cuddly who gives out toys to disadvantaged children every Christmas - and, well, any other day they need them. Her generosity has greatly impacted her "bottom line", and she finds on the eve of the Christmas holiday that the bank is going to foreclose on her mortgage. The dastardly Victor Von Sprout is found waiting in the wings (okay, behind a Christmas tree!) to take over the mortgage and turn the toy factory into a brussel sprout processing factory, with the help of his dastardly assistant, Diamond Visage. Will the kind hearted Spudley family be able to save the day, and help Ms Cuddly save her toy factory? You'll just have to watch the show and find out!

The Golden Crow Theater has done an excellent job of putting together this production, with a beautiful set and fun sound effects. They even have all the popcorn you can eat or throw! It was so much fun getting to boo the villian, hiss at the villianess and cheer the hero (who, like always, is just a little thick headed, but as sweet as apple pie).

All of the performers did a really good job, but I was especially impressed with the energy of Geneva Holloman, who played Molly Spudley. My only disappointment was that we didn't get to see more of Daniel, who only popped in at the begining and end as the narrator. I'm sure not being on stage gave him better flexibility to direct, and the resultant product was so good that I couldn't possibly hold this against him. I was really impressed with the Golden Crow and the overall production of the show. There is one weekend left, and I can't recommend enough that you try to catch this show before it closes.