Blog tech and hosting

12 Mar 2018 | technology code

This iteration of my website and content will continue to evolve but for now there are two key components:

• Blog adamrumbold.com
• API api.adamrumbold.com

Domain registration and management

My domain is registered through Netregistry. I’ve delegated the domain however to Cloudflare as this provides free hosting that supports full management and CDN capability for small sites.

Blog hosting and technology

The main blog is managed through Github pages. This allows for free hosting and management of the blog through my github account and an associated adamrumbold.github.io project.

This has also had the added benefit of allowing me to move to a static wCMS, with all posts written in Markdown and managed as a new file in the github project. The website is run as a Jekyll site, using the Lanyon theme. I linked in my google-analytics account details so I can get some metrics on visitors and their behaviour.

It was reasonably straightforward to use a migration tool to export my existing WordPress blog and repackage the content into the Jekyll based site. Since then I’ve continued created semi-regular updates.

API hosting and technology

The API is based on an open source project and was initially setup to work with RedHat OpenShift. Due to upgrades in that platform that did not support the use of custom subdomains for hosted content, I migrated to AWS. Initially this was using a Ubuntu instance on EC2 to keep the service running. That however proved too expensive, so I looked to take advantage of AWS serverless architecture to serve the content. Given you only pay for the transactions through the lambda function - this should prove very cheap way to host this rarely called service.

Unfortunately this was trickier than I first thought - with the main steps and traps being:

• install the Node serverless packages including the serverless-offline package for local testing
• modify the project with a serverless.yaml and other minor modifications
• test locally
• set a very large (300000) AWS_CLIENT_TIMEOUT environment variable to avoid a deployment timeout
• deploy to AWS

However since AWS API Gateway only supports HTTPS the following steps were also requried

• copy and upload Cloudflare certificate into AWS Certificate Manager (US-East-1 region only)
• setup the custom domain in the API Gateway and map the default path to the production stage of the API
• using the API Gateway generated cloudfront domain create a CNAME entry for api.adamrumbold.com
• ensure the ‘orange’ CDN enabled flow is configured for the subdomain on Cloudflare

It’s now all working and hopefully next months AWS bill is only a few cents and not the $15-$20 of previous months for a dinky EC2 server running 24x7.

Summary

I’m pretty happy with the setup now. I’m paying around $25 / year for the domain registration, and that is it!

The DNS, the blog, the CDN and DDoS protection are all free. The API is not free but should be next to nothing given the cost is $3.5 per million calls to the API.

---

Cbr day

10 Mar 2018 | homebrew beer recipe

Drinking notes:

• deep amber colour, good carbonation.
• drinks with deep malt and restrained bitterness and aroma. good strength. seems true to style.

CBR day

---

Straight outta Europe

06 Mar 2018 | homebrew beer recipe

Straight outta Europe

---

UK Holiday report

29 Jan 2018 | UK Netherlands holiday

After 9 days back at work in 2018 it was time for another holiday. This trip was designed to spend time with the in-laws rather than visit and explore places we wanted to see. So really a friends and family visit in the depth of a UK winter.

The flights worked best travelling out via Adelaide, so we left on Sunday evening from Canberra, through Adelaide, then Dubai arriving into London Gatwick mid-morning a day later. The flights were all very easy - as we had paid for business class and I’d snatched a standard 7 hours of good sleep onboard, and a refreshing shower on our layover in Dubai winning. To complete the ‘easy-as-it-gets’ trip halfway around the world we met our chauffeur driver soon after landing for a door to door drive the 60 miles out to our base in Pamber Heath.

Pamber Heath

Up early the next morning I waited until it was light (about 7:30am) and took my legs out for a stretch around the forest and common that Denise’ parents house backs onto. Crisp and boggy but with some lovely trails and enough space to lose yourself in.

We then visited the Tadley shops to stockup on our vegetarian-and-low-sodium dietary needs, and visited the local cafe for a couple of strong coffees to help reset our body clocks. Over the next few days at we set into a ryhthm, I would awake pre-dawn and spend an hour or two tinkering on the laptop, then go for a run, then return for second breakfast and wait for the house to be awake, before a lunchtime or afternoon excursion out somewhere. I managed to:

• visit Watership Down
• visit Windsor castle
• visit the locals; Calleva Arms pub for dinner, and the Pelican for a pint
• get in a few more trail and footpath runs
• re-establish the node js application running api.adamrumbold.com on AWS after redhat openshift decomissioned the existing free VM and their platform wouldn’t support custom domains anymore.
• continue to tinker on migrating our Wybalena Grove website onto the static open source Grav platform

blue sky!

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Jan 17, 2018 at 4:00am PST

On the Friday we headed over to Reading to spend the night with Nicola, and have a night out in Reading. We only made it to a single coctail bar, and then a local pub for a drink on the way home. Our bodies weren’t quite adapted enough for a wild night out. The weekend had us heading into London to visit friends in Highgate for drinks, and catchup with an old school friend of mine.

It was a cold and wet day in London so we wandered through the Burrough markets and then visited the Tate modern for a couple of hours. That night we wandered up the hill to the Dukes Head and rather than a pub crawl spent the evening catching up with Sarah, Andrew, Susan and Ian.

On Sunday we attempted to meetup with Denise’ older sister and visit the Natural History Museum, unfortunately there was a massive queue outside in the snow and cold, so we instead wandered through the Victoria and Albert museum. Later that afternoon we met up with Will and his fiancé Bernie at the Royal Art Academy for a cup of tea, followed by a quick beer at a local free house before the slow train back to Reading.

To get ourselves back to Pamber Heath on Monday we opted for the convenience of an uber, which for just £18 was well worth it. Once back I decided to quickly head off for a long run - as with darkness descending before 5pm, time was of the essence. The run was lovely, through a few forests, old Bucklebury, then back along the canal for a sneaky 43k run.

Denise in this time had come down with the flu and was bed bound for a few days. Tuesday I had an easy recovery day walking into the village and buying supplies for a poorly Denise (and a few English ales for me), then making a nice soup. Thursday morning with Denise still feeling rotten, we were picked up by Nicola for the 4 hour drive north to Manchester. This was so I could experience a CAMRA real ale festival - and this one didn’t dissappoint. There were literally hundreds of beers, with over half true English cask ales, and the remainder kegged beers of all flavours and styles. Nicola and I put in a good solid 7 hours of sampling and slowly drinking our way through the beers of interest.

might be boozing it up on 100’s of craft beers...

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Jan 25, 2018 at 8:18am PST

Friday morning we explored Manchesters Northern quarter to see what had changed in the 15 years since living there.

Holland

We took a short KLM flight over to Schipol and then headed to Delft to catchup and stay with Mishka and her family. Since we last visited, they have moved and are living in a nice, (relatively) big house in a village (or more like a suburb) just outside of Delft. On Saturday we travelled back into Amsterdam to stay with our friends Martin and Sonja. We took a short bike ride to Oude Pijp to see the place where Denise, Martin and Sonja used to live, and spent some time strolling through the markets. That evening we Sonja drove out of Amsterdam to have a lovely dinner at Wendy, Roland and Polo’s new house.

Sunday was an early start, with a drive to Den Helder, followed by a short ferry trip over to the island of Texel. This is where Martin grew up, and his family has a history reaching back a few hundred years. Denise and I spent a bit of time by the wind swept north sea at De Koog. I fortunately could use this opportunity to get a run in :)

A late lunch at Martin’s parents house in the Oosterend village. This was a beautiful old house, with so much character, which his parents have built upon over time. Martins parents house is next door to the a church, with surrounding gravestones, many with the Vlaming surname etched on them.

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Jan 28, 2018 at 8:34am PST

There is also the communal barometer that the fishermen of the village would consult before heading out into the fierce north sea. It was lovely to spend time in this nice little village, with a nice family, and with such a lovely house. We even got magical sunset colours as we left.

Boom.

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Jan 28, 2018 at 8:51am PST

Martin kindly dropped us at the airport - and we timed it perfectly, through the standard security and immigration ho-ha, to the gate, and boarding straight away. Only to sit on the plane delayed for about 30 minutes. Such is life.

UK pt. 2

We got back still feeling the last traces of the UK cold we picked up. So we unfortunately had to scotch our plans for a catchup with a friend for a meal in London. We headed back to Nicola’s place in Reading for a bite to eat, a shower and coffee. From their I decided to mission home on foot, slightly longer than first thought, but a really nice run

On Tuesday we took a nice drive along back roads up the Thames up to a nice waterfront cafe in Benson. Wednesday was spent catching up with Denises oldest uncle Brian down in Southhampton, and a dinner with the family out at the Old Mill pub in Old Basing.

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Jan 30, 2018 at 9:34am PST

That brought us up to the end of our trip - with a slog across the M25 to Gatwick and schlepping across the globe to get back home in time for work on Monday.

---

2017 in review

31 Dec 2017

Last year ended with a hike up to the Bendora arboretum in the Brindabella mountains that frame Canberra.

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Dec 31, 2016 at 3:09am PST

As the sun went down, the excursion was a relatively cool and calm way to see out a 2016 that had a few rough edges. This year I’m pleased to say has been smoother sailing.

Home

Our major improvement to our home this year was to replace all our aged windows and draughty sliding doors with new double glazed windows. We paid a lot for high quality German engineered doors and windows which are extremely solid and of high quality. Of course, given our location the installation was a challenge, and required the destruction of parts of our garden to get a machine in to lift and move the windows. Unfortunately due to a manufacturing error - we had to wait until September to have the final sliding door fitted and the installation complete.

This year I joined the Executive Committee that represents the Owners Corporation for Wybalena Grove. This has been a good experience so far, building networks with members and residents of the Grove, dealing with a wide range of issues coming up for discussion and decisions (including some curly situations that threaten legal action) and the perenial ‘difficult’ residents to manage.

We sadly bid farewell to our little compnion Roger in November. He arrived in our life about 12 years ago as a rescue dog from the pound, and lived to a good old age of about 17. For the past couple of years the old man had got increasingly frail and unaware of his surroundings. He was costing us a fortune in absorbent towel, not to mention the disturbed nights sleep. The decision came quickly after he turned off his food and was ill over a weekend. On that Monday afternoon we took him in for his final vet visit, and a few days later had a well sealed box of his cremated remains. Farewell Roger and thanks for being part of our family.

night folks

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on May 31, 2014 at 6:48am PDT

---

Trail Running

I set myself a goal of increasing my yearly mileage from just over 2000km in 2016 to over 2500 this year. That was going to require a pretty consistant 50+ km / week. As you can see below I’ve hit my target with a very consistant year.

I bought 3 shoes this year*, and with each pair averaging about 1000km before they are retired, my current stock on rotation is looking pretty good:

• Inov-8 Trailroc 285* (238.0 km)
• Inov-8 Trailroc 245 (1,157.4 km)
• Inov-8 Trailroc 245 #2 (635.5 km)
• Pearl Izumi N1 trail v2 (708.4 km)
• La Sportiva Bushido (880.3 km)
• La Sportiva Arkasha* (496.7 km)
• La Sportiva Mutant* (161.4 km0

The one glitch to my otherwise injury free year occured a few weeks ago when I tripped onto a sharp pointed rock that punctured my knee. No lasting injury - but with a lot of bruising and a single stitch on my kneecap it laid me low for a good few weeks.

Unplanned running break :(

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Nov 10, 2017 at 10:44pm PST

I only entered two big events this year. I would have liked to have capped off the year with another Deep Space Mt marathon run - but my bruised knee ruled that out. What I lacked in quantity however I sure made up for in quality - with two superb runs in amazing locations.

Mt Solitary 45k had a false start this year - with the remains of the tropical cyclone leaving too much rain and danger across NSW. The race was rescheduled for July and David and I returned to the Blue Mountains to run it out. You can read my race report here.

The highlight of the year however would have to be the multi-day stage race, Run Larapinta. This was 130km over 4 days across the spectacular Larapinta trail in the West McDonald ranges outside of Alice Springs. Travelling on my own, and exploring central Australia was a real treat. Unfortunately having unseasonably-searing-heat in late August, with averages of 31 degrees, made it a far bigger challenge - and one that I’m keen to return to. My race report for Run Larapinta is here.

Next year I have a goal to run more +50k runs, starting with the 65K Razorback run in mid March, and all being well followed by UTA100 in May! As always the main aim is to maintain consistancy and the pleasure of running, exploring new places with great views, and meeting great people out on the trails.

---

Travel

Denise and I took the opportunity in March to sneak away for a short city break to Singapore. It was my first time over there, and we stayed in the beautiful Hotel Fort Canning nestled amongst the green and relative cool Fort Canning park. This was a lovely break with some time spent running, relaxing with a good book by the pool and heading out for short excursions in the heat. Fortuitously our mate from Melbourne, Sandy, was visiting friends in Singapore over the same period - which meant we all headed out to the local coctail bars and restaurants to catch up.

This year my work sent me to a few peer National Statistical Organisations to review their IT solutions that support the Census in their country. This meant I had some time in Washington DC, followed by Ottowa Canada, then Titchfield in the UK. Being in late July the days were long and the weather pretty good - until the UK at least! In late November myself and my boss travelled to Christchurch and Wellington in New Zealand to review the Stats NZ preparations for their Census in March.

In mid-September Denise’ sister Nicola travelled out from the UK to visit. She wanted to see Quokka’s so we quickly obliged

Quokka fun #noanimalswereharmed

A post shared by Adam Rumbold (@arumbold) on Sep 17, 2017 at 11:43pm PDT

We then spent the next two weeks road-tripping north up as far north as Shark Bay and Hammelin Pools, before returning south down to the Stirling and Porongurup ranges, and via Margaret River back up to Perth. A really good mix of scenery, food, wine and company.

This year we also got in a few trips up to the Tate Lodge in Guthega and down to our friends lovely holiday home in Lilli Pilli on the beautiful south coast.

---

Reading

A steady stream of good books this year - including finally reading War and Peace on my kindle about a decade after receiving a hard copy version.

• War and Peace
• Girt (Unauthorised History of Australia #1)
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
• The Unexpected Vacation of George Thring
• Killing Dylan
• Revenge
• Hostage
• Death of Stalin
• The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir
• American Sour Beers

---

Homebrew

I continued to refine my all-grain BiaB setup this year - purchasing a nice Ss brew kettle, a Ph meter and a 5l demijohn.

I captured my brewing setup here

This year I brewed the following batches:

• Aus BitsaPride
• Tiny Bottom Pale Ale (take 2)
• Who’s your daddy porter
• English Bitter - I’m not bitter I’m thirsty
• Tiny bottom my arse
• Make it up as you go Red IPA
• nearly SMASH
• Blueberry Berliner Weiss
• Gammy Knee Pale Ale

I also developed a taste for the sour/funky beer styles. These styles can be challenging to create - often taking over a year to develop and requiring some advanced methods to blend and balance the flavours. I brewed my first batch using the simpler, kettle souring method - which used a lactobaccilus starter from natural yoghurt to innoculate the wort and sour it within 48 hours. Whilst not to everyone’s taste - this light beer is fresh and carries a nice tartness and blueberry hue and has been brilliant over summer. More sour beers to be created in my home brewery soon.

---

Tech

Back in April I rebuilt this website using GitHub hosted pages, and the static site generator Jekyll. So much simpler than a traditional wCMS for such a simple purpose. I wanted to use this as the impetus to blog more, and whilst not proficient I certainly have posted more this year than any other.

We’ve now effectively ditched the old home theatre PC setup in favour of a single Chromecast. So much simpler to stream everything, including ‘live’ TV (when we occassionaly watch it). Works a treat using any iDevice or computer to cast to the TV. We continue to use NordVPN for security and cough geo-blocking reasons, and it continues to work pretty well despite Netflix playing whack-a-mole with the IP ranges they use every now and again.

I found myself subject to the recent Apple CPU throttling on my old iPhone 6plus which was starting to drive me nuts. I also cracked my phone screen during our WA holiday. It was only when the screen went on the fritz properly and wouldn’t work at all that I decided to fork out for the new iPhone X. Again another well engineered phone, brilliant camera and screen, and the face ID works really well.

To close out the year - a new Suunto sports watch that I’d been eyeing off showed up online for 40% off. Denise kindly offered to buy it for my Xmas present. So hopefully next week I’ll have the Suunto Spartan with wrist HR monitor on my arm during all my runs.

---

Wrap

So that was a flavour of 2017. Denise and I feel a bit more like free-agents despite frequently seeing shadows of Roger. We think 2018 will involve a few small holidays, starting with a trip back to the UK to see the Maddens. However 2019 is shaping up as a year of travel and adventures as we think we might avail ourselves of our long service leave and spend some time OS.

I don’t make new years resolutions - but in 2018 I hope to run over 3000km including my first 100km ultra run.

Here’s some other awesome things I discovered in 2017:

• Gin. In particular G&Ts. Particular standouts are the Canberra Underground Spirits Shiraz and Pepperberry and the Old Youngs 1829 Gin
• Natural, tart/funky on skin fermented wines. Do yourself a favour and check out Brave New Wines wines.
• Rabbit running gear - made in the US and good quality.
• Bar Rochford rightly won a gong for best bar in Australia
• The Out-Laws was a highlight of the years TV viewing - a superb dark comedy from Belgium. The latest Fargo series a close second.

ends

---