Installing CasperJS on Raspberry Pi

15 December 2018 David Leave a comment

This is generally a simple process to install CapserJS on a *NIX box, but had not done this on a Raspberry Pi before, and ran into a couple of minor gotchas. This is a stripped down explanation of what I needed to do, but it will server as a reference for me, and maybe for some other people as well.

Prerequisites for installing CapserJS

Node
npm
PhantomJS

Node

Installing node is very simple, but you should grab root access to do it. This should be simple and run without any issues.
apt-get install nodejs

npm

The Node Package Manager will be used later to actually install CasperJS, once PhantomJS has been successfully installed.
apt-get install npm

PhantomJS

PhantomJS is a web automation framework, that CasperJS uses to run it’s extended suite of tools. NOTE. I found that I needed to modify my user’s (pi in this case) environment to tell Phantom that not to expect a console for rendering webpages; I’ll document that at the bottom.
apt-get install phantomjs

CasperJS

Installing CasperJS is done most simply via the npm (Node Package Manager):
npm install -g casperjs

Handling the PhantomJS Display Error

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ casperjs
QXcbConnection: Could not connect to display
PhantomJS has crashed. Please read the bug reporting guide at
and file a bug report.
Aborted

The fix is to add this line to the .bashrc file, which will stop the error. I simply added this to the last line of the file.
export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen

Sports, Texas, travel

Kayaking the Guadalupe River in December (1-Dec-2018)

3 December 2018 David Leave a comment

Following up on Friday’s shenanigans above The Horseshoe, we were at it again, this time we started at the River House and headed downstream on the Guadalupe River.

Weather was even nicer than Friday, with good temps and plenty of sunshine. What a great way to keep up the weekend rocking.

Heading into The Horseshoe is a nice easy paddle, providing plenty of time to get warmed up, acclimated and ready for the Class II+ challenges ahead. Piece of cake in a raft, but a bit of a challenge for someone that’s not been kayaking rivers for more than a few months (aka. me).

Even with the leaves mostly gone now, it’s still a great river to run. The terrain changes quite a bit along the river.. with some low-bank sections with homes and others lined with trees.

The banks get a little steeper and the river a little quicker as it narrows up, providing some nice warmup sections before hitting the remains of several dams paddle wheels along the river.

On the left side, are some campsites that are part of the Whitewater Amphitheater, which is right on the river. Check the schedule, the summer season kicks off with Wille Nelson shows.

There are some fun little rapids where the river splits through a small grove of trees.

There are 6 places the roads cross the river, they have a numbering conventions, starting from the edge of New Braunfels (crossing #1 is right as you get into town). This here is crossing #4 and due to a minor mishap on the river, was the takeout point for our trip.

It was a fantastic day. As is the tradition, we cap off the day with a fire.

I’m going to look at some ways to take some better pictures, and probably some video next time out. I just hope the weather holds and the Army Corps of Engineers don’t cut the flow back too much more; having to drag boats and portage around exposed dams is a little less than idea.

travel

Kayaking the Guadalupe River in November (30-Nov-2018)

1 December 2018 David Leave a comment

Sure it was a Friday, and yeah.. maybe I was supposed to be in Austin at the office.. .but.. with the temps coming back to normal, and the opportunity to go kayaking on the river while the flow is still up.. going INTO the office was just not going to happen.

The plan was to kayak the Guadalupe River from the base of Canyon Lake Dam, back to the River House.

After finishing up some work in the morning and dealing with the ever annoying Scrum Standup meeting, we packed up the truck and headed to the River House, where Uncle Senior Tim was waiting with the kayaks loaded and ready to go.

We reached the dam around 1:00, put in below the hydro plant and I immediately set to capsizing the kayak. I figure it’s best to get that sort of stuff out of the way first.

About 30min. into the trip, the sun came out, the temps jumped up and it turned into a glorious afternoon!!

Not far down the river, you hit Horseshoe Falls.
It’s not that tall, and when the river is up, rocks are a lot less of an issue, but the hydraulics of the upper damn and the falls itself would make for a fun rafting run.. but.. in sit-on kayaks.. eh.. we opted to portage around as the sign suggested.