Farewell, Cthulu
So, my mom and I went out for a little drive today to prepare my trip to San Jose, CA tomorrow. We had gotten everything purchased, and came back. My cat, Cthulu, was laying in the driveway. At first, we thought she was just being funny, she tends to fall asleep in random places like that all the time. We chuckled and honked the horn.
Nothing.
Frightened, we got out of the car. Barely a pulse. Her eyes were glazed over, and her tongue was hanging out. There was a slight purring going through her as I touched her.
We rushed her to the Animal Hospital, with the smallest spark of hope that maybe we could save her…but it was too late. She died tonight, and a part of me died with her. For the past six months I’ve been through some very hard times in my life, and Cthulu was always there to cheer me up. It’s just such a bummer to see her go, especially because of the joy she brought to my house.
So, to honor her in the geekiest way possible, I turned a candid picture I took of her into a lolcat.
I Blogged My Way to OSCON
So a crazy random happenstance occured around the beginning of this month. After chatting it up with the Linsux.org staffers, I decided to up and check my email. Needless to say, after looking at top of my inbox I was kind of shocked. It was a message from Brian Proffitt, community manager of Linux.com, which is where I write my more serious articles. (The ratio between my vulgar Linsux.org ones and my respectfully entertaining ones on Linux.com are currently a bit unbalanced, but I’ve got some good articles coming up in the queue.)
Anyways, Brian Proffitt. He sent me the following message:
“Sean:
As a way of celebrating the Linux.com community blogs, we had a little competition for the bloggers. As media partners for the ever-cool OSCON event, happening July 20-24, 2009 in San Jose, CA, we were graciously donated two free passes to the event (excluding the tutorials) to share with the two Linux.com users who received the most hits for their blogs between June 11-30.
I am happy to say you were one of the two top bloggers for the judging period!
To claim your pass for the event, all you need to do it surf to https://en.oreilly.com/oscon2009/public/register and when registering, use this promotion code:
(censored)
This should waive all fees to the event. Please note that tutorial sessions are not included with this free pass.
I hope you can attend the show, and again, congratulations!
–
Brian Proffitt
Community Manager
Linux Foundation”
For a few minutes, I wasn’t entirely sure what to think. Just earlier that day, I had watched the emotionally scarring masterpiece that was Requiem for a Dream. (The old woman’s “I’m going to be on television!” psychotic frenzy.) I was almost afraid I was being duped for a couple minutes.
But no, not Brian Proffitt. He’s a cool guy, mainly because he’s been so helpful with the articles I’ve posted during Linux.com’s article moderation freakout. I looked at my various articles. Several of them were in the thousands range. Yep, this was for real.
Anyways, needless to say I’ve raised the money through various means for travel (I will never look at a back alley the same way ever again.), I booked my flight and reservations, and other than travel expenses I’m going to OSCON for free.
Can’t wait for the 21st.
