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This last weekend I went to my spouse's reunion but that was just an excuse to go to LA and visit Disneyland. Many pictures are available.

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One of the pleasures of having children, is someday being a grandparent. So, to the left is a picture of my several month old grand-daughter. At least all the ladies with "feelings" about these things are sure it's a girl. I look forward to meeting her in February.

I recently changed the MPA on my server from sendmail to postfix. The only problem I had was configuring my mail relay -- my relay requires me to log in. How to do this in postfix? The answer is not obvious and not explained. In coming SMTP connections are covered extensivily but not out going.

After many hours of Googling, I came across Daniel Mettler's Postfix outgoing/outbound SMTP authentication for smtp.hispeed.ch/cablecom.c . Here he gives the secret which I shamelessly copy here for my own future edification.

Add to your /etc/postfix/main.cf file:

relayhost = mail.your-relay.net
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = plain
smtp_use_tls = no
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous

where mail.your-relay.net is the name of your relay host computer. This instructs that the mail relay is using sasl logins and the credentials are in the specified file.

Then, create /etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp containing:

mail.your-relay.net login:password

where mail.your-relay.net is your relay host, login is your login account name and password is the password for your account. Then, has the file (creates /etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp.db) and have postfix reload it's parameters:

/usr/sbin/posthash /etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp
/usr/sbin/postfix reload

Viola, it works!!

I visited my local Safeway to fill my Diet Coke habit andI found that there are now three different versions of low calorie Coke: origional Diet Coke, Diet Coke with Splenda and, in a burst of creative marketing and brand development, the Coke answer to Pepsi One: Coca-Cola Zero.

We purchased all three and held a tasting. The results were:

• Diet Coke still tastes the same. I have been drinking it so long that I prefer the slightly non-sweet taste. But then, I prefer the not-over-sweet tastes of snacks (insert pitch for dark chocolate over milk chocolate);
• Diet Coke with Splenda: this has the base Diet Coke taste but it has an after taste which must be from the sweetener. I think this is a flavor that different people will take differently so you'll have to give it a try. But, as a person who's used to Asperaine, this taste was not pleasent;
• Coca-Cola Zero: YUCK!! It is much sweeter than normal Diet Coke and uses both Aspertane and Splenda for sweetness. They are obviously going for the "sweet drink" profile (Diet Mt Dew, Code Red, ...). Their market surveys must have been telling them that people want this. I'd suspect the flavor is close to the "New Coke" thing from a few years back.

Now, I don't doubt that there is a market for a sweeter drink -- some people like that stuff -- but I don't know why they decided to mingle the product with the Coco-Cola brand and not create another brand. We'll see if their sharp marketing people have gotten this one right. Anyway, I'm sticking to my Diet Coke.

I didn't mention that my trip to Chicago was on United Airlines . It seems that United has pissed of their baggage handlers and we're the one's, you and I, who are suffering the consequences.

On the way home, everyone got onto the plane, all sitting in our seats and buckled in with the door closed ready to go, but we sat there for 45 minutes while they "finished loading the luggage". That's right, the plane was more than 45 minutes late because of waiting for the luggage to be put on board.

On the way to Chicago, I arrived there at 5pm on Sunday. It was over an hour before my luggage was on the carrosle. Mine wasn't the real sob story, though. The plane in from Las Vagas was sitting at the gate with the luggage onboard. People were standing around waiting and waiting for their luggage until the United representitive who had to face all the ticked off customers told them that they didn't know when the luggage would get unloaded. The best they could offer was to file a 'lost luggage' claim and it would be delivered to them the next day.

That's service.

I think, that no matter how cheap the fares are, you should give United a miss for a while.

Oh, and yes, I didn't check my bags on the way back.