On a recent Sunday, the weather was perfect for flying. So, my family and I climbed into our Cessna 182, departed Torrance (TOA) and headed almost due East towards the inland desert. Our route took us just south of Disneyland, north of the old El Toro Marine Base, over Lake Elsinore and south of Idyllwild. The view of Mt. San Jacinto and the surrounding mountains was exceptional! Crossing the ridgeline, Palm Springs came into view just to the north and the Salton Sea spread out to the south. Just ahead was our destination - Chiriaco Summit.

Over the years, I've collected a number of PCs - mostly surplus from my wife's company. They're technologically obsolete as workstations, so I decided to give them new life and, at the same time, satisfy a curiosity I've had for some time: Could I build a Beowulf?

So, after a little research, I decided to build a six-node cluster with the hardware I already had, just to fiddle with. Clearly, I'm not going to obtain blistering compute speeds with such a meager setup, but it's certainly sufficient to explore some parallel computing concepts. And, heck, it's just a great nerdy thing to do! Since I've used it on all my other servers, I chose to use Debian GNU/Linux on all cluster nodes.

John Spencer was an actor, trained in the theatre, rewarded with a lengthy career in television and film. Recently, I happened to see John play a minor part in the 1984 movie War Games, but mostly I've known him, as I suspect most of us have, as Leo McGarry on The West Wing. That role was complex - powerful, political, street-wise, witty, vulnerable and deeply human. Leo was an unusual man in a powerful position and yet he harbored familiar frailties - skeletons in his own closet.

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