Things, Stuff & Such

Well, it looks like TS Ernesto is gonna be no big deal.  The worst of the high winds and rain will probably pass over us while I am asleep – which stinks. 

Here are a couple pics for the great sunset we had tonight:

I like to watch extream weather.  Last hurrican season I did everything I could to watch what was happening during the storms.  Oh well, I’ll catch the next one.

I bought a used Dell laptop that I hope to uses for my carputer project.  I had thought I would give up on that project because I was worried I would start a fire in my car with the higher current needed to power a computer and lcd.  Now with a laptop that draws less current than a desktop I think I may give it another try.

Last week was my first full work week in a month.  I had been taking Fridays and Mondays off work while the boys were here so we could have long weekends together.  It worked out great and I my do it again next summer.  I thought I was back in the swing of things but last night didn’t feel like a Sunday night.  Usually on sunday night I have made sure I have done laundry and got my stuff together for work the next day.  Well, I did all that but I didn’t have that ‘school night’ feel where I am mentally ready for work the next moring.  I got used to not worring about Mondays.  I also missed the boys alot.  I felt uninspired to do anything at all.  Sunday afternoon was a hot day and I thought to myself it would be a perfect time to take the boys to the pool.  But there boys were not there to take.  That sucks.  The house was quiet compared to when the boys are there.  When they are around there is an energy that I feel.  When I have them with me I feel… fulfilled.  A lot of the time when they are not here I feel I’m just keeping buys until we are together again.  I don’t know how to articulate it, but I feel it.

Over the weekend I was keeping track of Ernesto as he wavered from tropical storm to hurricane, back to tropical storm.  All the projections since early yesterday have put Ernesto on a track over us.  It has moved from the central gulf of mexico to now curving right over south Florida somewhere.  It is still too early to know for sure, but we are at least in for a heavy storm.  The last heavy ran I drove in I noticed my wippers were for crap so I thought I should replace them before Ernesto arrives. 

While I was out I also went to look for a new heatsink for my pc.  I planed to move it over to my new pc case but am missing a neccessary piece.  I want to dump my liquid cooler and put in the original heatsink but, I must have thrown away the original CPU fan retainer clip so I headed to Best Buy to see if I could find one.  Best Buy isn’t what it used to be for finding pc mod parts.  They didn’t even have a single heatsink on the shelves.  Off to my second choice, Circuit City.  They do have a small section that takes up a whole half a row dedicated to pc mods but not what I wanted.  They did have a neat heatsink, from a good company called Antec, which uses heat pipes to remove the heat from the cpu.  Heat pipes are a newer and very efficent way to cool components.  It is becoming a popular method among modders and I have seen newer Dell desktops use them.  This is the way I plan to go eventually, but for now (until I find the one I want) I am just looking for the cheapest way to cool my cpu.  I decided to just search the net to find a cheap replacement retainer and chose to order from www.cyberguys.com.  I have never used them before so we will see how good their service is.

The shuttle launch set for yesterday was scrubbed due to a lightning strike.  I’m not sure when it is rescheduled for.  I jumped on the NASA website and watched a video of the strike.  I enjoy watching the launches on NASA TV.  Sometimes I can stand outside and look to the northeast and see the vapor trail as it assends – it’s pretty cool.

Last night my mother told me Pluto was no longer a planet.  I had read that they were working on clarifying the definition of a planet and that Pluto may not make the grade while others may be added.  Now I have to learn a new mnemonic device to remember the new order of planets!  And what about Pluto?  Floating out in space cold and alone.  An outcast.  Are we still going to call it Pluto?  Or will it now be know as ‘the celestial body formerly know as Pluto’? 

Installed smooth – found all most hardware – searched for MS supported video capture card – no surround sound now- found Nvidia 6600 runs great on rig – nice video -no surround sound though

Last night I brought home our Windows Vista Beta media to try it out on my rig.  I grabbed the hard drive out of what was going to be my carputer project and blew away the partitions.  I disconnect my original primary drive so I can quickly go back to my original configuration when the beta expires (which, according to the EULA, will be 5/30/2007) and began the install.  Right away you notice that Microsoft has put effort in changing the graphical user interface (GUI).  Normally when installing Windows on an unformatted hard drive the first thing you must do is create and format a partition and after that process it copies all the files to your new partition and begins the install and then asks for your key.  In Vista they get the key out of the way first and then begins the partition creation and file copy. 

The install went smooth.  The whole process (file copy and install) when a little faster on my 3.0GHz HT system than it did on the office pc.  I have a USB and Firewire PCI board that under XP I had to install drivers but, Vista found it with no problem.  Vista also found and installed the driver for my Nvidia 6600GT card.  My Hauppauge MCE video capture card driver was not installed initially but the Windows driver update feature fix it. 

The only outstanding issue is sound.  I have a 5.1 sound chip on the motherboard that Vista is only seeing as 2 channel.  I tried installing the audio software and drivers from the boards website without success.  I will work on it some more over the weekend.  5.1 sound isn’t super important for during the beta run.  If I don’t find a fix the problem will be reported to Microsoft anyway. 

Running Vista on my rig I get the full benifit of the improved Vista GUI.  I like the ‘glass’ transparency effect on all the windows.  You also get a new set of wall paper and some new screen savers.  I love the tab browsing in IE7! IE has a new feature called ‘quick tabs’ that give you a tile view of all open tabs on one page.  Plus the Gadgets are cool.  They are mini applications that run on your desktop.  I have one that is an analog clock, one that shows my ip address, one that verbally greets me when I log on (geeky), and one that shows my current CPU & RAM usage (geektastic).

This weekend I will really dig into Vista and see what other cool new features or improvements I can find.

As for moving my hardware to my new pc case, I have decided to dump the liquid cooling system for the traditional heatsink fan (HSF) setup.  I have found the original heatsink and fan that came with my CPU but I am missing the plastic base for the motherboard that the heatsink needs.  I will look some more tonight – I hope I have not chucked it.  I have another heatsink (sans fan) that has four plastic pins that may work to attach the graphics card cooler so I’m close to being able to mover everything .

A friend at the office gave me an old hard drive platter that was found in another office.  He turned his into a neat wall clock that you can read about it in his blog.  He also has a really cool lamp that a relative made for him (you can see it in his post).  I’ll look around for some clock parts to do the same thing with my platter.  It will be a nice geeky touch for my office.

Yesterday I came home from work to find my new pc case waiting for me at the front door.  I was surprised it arrived so quickly.  There was no word from Tom’s Hardware that they had processed my affidavit and were shipping the case.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it so I left it in the box until tonight.  I want to transfer my current rig to the new case but I am not sure what to do with the liquid cooling set up.  If I keep it I need some place to mount the radiator and I don’t see anywhere I would be willing to put it in the new case.  I do have an OEM heat sink for the CPU but I’m not sure if I have everything I need to attach the cooler for the video card.  I’ll have to do a little searching before I make my next move – which stinks ’cause I want to move it over right now . 

I got my hands on Windows Vista Ultimate Beta 2 yesterday.  I set it up on a spare pc at work and have been playing around with it.  It’s awsome!  And yes, I realize I am speaking of a Microsoft operating system.  The GUI is very impressive and features are plentiful.  Some of the new features of the GUI that are particularly cool is you can set the opacity of windows and gadgets.  This controls how transparent they are.  Another new GUI feature are gadgets.  Gadgets are small applications that sit on the desktop with many possible uses.  Some of the default gadgets are an analog clock, mini picuture slide show, RSS feeds (very cool).  Buy the time Vista is released there will no doubt be many many more.  Once released, there will be five different flavors of Vista for the various markets (Ultimate being the highest).  Many of the versions come with a newer and sweeter version of Media Center.  I played with it a bit today and am now eager to get it on my current Media Center PC.  As this version of Vista is a beta I don’t want to blow away my current setup to install what is basically a buggy version of the OS.  What I’m thinking now is to take an 80 GB hard drive from another of my pc’s and throw it in my rig to install Vista on.  That way I can easily go back to my current setup if Vista doesn’t play nice with all my apps or hardware. 

Today at work was the big boss’s birthday party.  Basically it is a nice big pot luck lunch for the whole office.  Everyone either brings something they made or buys into a platter of food.  For me, every year I am asked to make fudge.  Most people seem to like it which make me feel good.  The theme for this year’s party was something to do with wild animals.  With that someone arranged for the Naples Zoo to bring in a two toed Sloth and a snake to show around.  I got to pet the sloth wich is a first for me.  It was actually neat to see the animal up close.  It is an impressive creature.  You can see some pictures I took with my camera phone here.  The pics are not the best quality but, I hope you like them.

Today is the boys’ first day of school.  Aaron is starting a new school this year and he and his mother toured it yesterday.  Last night I asked Aaron what he thought of his new school.  He didn’t really seem to care either way if it was a new school or an old school – it’s school and he doesn’t care for it.  He does well at school though so, I don’t push it.  Scott isn’t looking forward to homework – but hey, who does?

I can tell they are back to there routine at home – when I called last night they were arguing over the computer.  Aaron wants to play Scott’s new computer game and Scott doesn’t want him to.  It’s the same thing I got when they were here.  It’s what brother’s do.  Aaron was complaining because Scott wouldn’t give him a turn with the new pc game.  Scott come back with the fact that he bought it and doesn’t have to let him play.  The problem is that there is only one computer that can play current games.  There are two computers in the boys’ room.  One is connected to the internet and they can use it to play an online game called Rune Scape plus a couple older games that don’t tax the low-end video card.  The other is more capable and is used for the more recient games that require a more robust graphics card.  Not a bad set up in my opinion.  I never had two computers available to me when I was twelve (maybe that’s why I have so many now ).  The irony is that a couple of months ago there was only one computer and the arguement was the one or the other was hogging Rune Scape.  Now there are two pc’s that can play Rune Scape but the fighting continues over a different game.

“In local news…”

My office is finally painted and put back together.  For the last few weeks the maintanance guys have been painting the offices and hallway in my section of the building.  It’s been a mess for a while, with people being displaced while their offices have been painted and the strong smell of primer in the air, but the end is near.  Compared to most of the other people I got lucky.  My office was primed while I was off on my long weekend with the boys so I was able to work with a temporary setup in my office when I got back. 

This is my office with everything cleaned out so the Maintanance guys could remove my furniture.  Everything was put in boxes and moved into the server room.

While I was off with the kids they took my desk apart and moved everything else out of the office.  This is what I came back to on Tuesday:

I needed a place to work so Shawn helped me move everything into the mail room except one desk that I would use as a temporary setup:

I had to work like this for about a week but it wasn’t bad.  I had everything I needed to do my work and only had to say out of my office while the guy was painting directly behind my chair.  If you look at my LCD you can see a window in the upper-left corner… that’s my video stream from home watching the boys.

Over all the ordeal was not bad at all.  Most people were relocated to other rooms in tighter quarters so I’m lucky I was spared that.  Shawn got the worst of it I think.  He decided to stay in his office during the entire process; cramped quarters, paint smell, and all.  You can hear about his ordeal on his blog.

Over the weekend my brother called me sounding very excited.  His big news was that Ethan had gone potty all by himself.  If you are a parent of a toddler you understand.  It was big news… a watershed moment in the life of a child and his parents.  You can’t rush a child and at times it could seem he just won’t get it but, eventually, when they are ready, they do.  Congratulations Ethan! (and congratulations Mom and Dad!!). 

They boys left for their mother’s house Saturday moring – flying out of the airport a little after 11:00a.m.  I think we had a great time over the last month and we did a lot.  I am going to miss seeing them every day.  It is always an adjustment for me when they go back.

Here is a old video of Aaron that I took at one of the parks.  I think Aaron is about five in this.  I am at the bottom of a platform that has a tire in a hole that the kids can jump thru.  I love this video because if you listen closely you can here Aaron saying “I’m coming” in that sweet little voice he had.

Aaron thru the hole

Here in Collier County school started this past Monday which means more traffic on my way to work.  It’s not a big deal for me, usually I just have to allow a maybe five extra minutes to get to work.  The worst part is that in my dialy drive I go right past a high school.  Today, four days into the new school year, was the first of what will no doubt be many car accidents.  The accident looked like it was a hard rear end collision that bent the hood of the back car almost in half.  What it seems to be is stupid teens racing there cars thru traffic.  They all seem to think they are better drivers than they are.  I see them almost every moring speeding in and out of lanes without a signal or a care.  They cut over two lanes at a time.  I must be getting old ’cause they really anoy me and I cringe to think I have an entire school year of this ahead of me.  I was a stupid teen once – but I was never in a traffic accident.  That’s not saying was a driving prodigy, I just didn’t need to speed and weave thru traffic.  I sound like a grumpy old fart now.  I don’t want to be a grumpy, teen-hating fart.  But, teens are stupid.  They do anoy non-teens.  They are delusional Masters of their Universe.  Maybe I’m not grumpy?  Maybe I’m just… right?

Tomorrow is the boys last full day with me.  I’m not sure what we are going to do for the day.  Maybe we’ll hit the water park one last time for the summer.  Maybe we’ll go see Talladega Nights at the theater. It looks to be funny.  That would be a good note to end the summer visit on.  Probably what will happen is we’ll do BOTH. 

Saturday isn’t going to be a good day for any of us.  Getting to the airport and that whole hastle then, the boys spending hours flying home isn’t fun for them and me missing them isn’t fun for, well… me.

Last night the boys and I went to Blockbuster to rent the new Robin Williams DVD “RV” which looks funny.  While we were there we looked around for anything else we may want to watch.  The boys decided on Adam Sandler’s “Big Daddy” movie and I rented “The Producers”.  I had seen the older movie with Gene Wilder and liked it and figured with talent like Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, and Will Ferrell this one had to be good.
After Blockbuster the boys wanted to check out the Learning Express toy store in the plaza.  This is the store we bought the Blokus game which the boys and I like to play. We go there every once in a while to see what’s new.  It is a neat store, but I think in a couple of years, at the most, the boys will be to old for it.   They had a small tv running a demo video of the newest toys.  One was a ‘spit ball shooter’ which was a long plastic tube that shot out water soaked balls.  Aaron was looking hard to find one in the store but the clerk told me they had not come in yet.  Bummer.  It did look like fun.  I could see the three of us at the pool or the park with those things.  Instead we got a cool new tosy-flying thing.  I can’t remember what it’s called but, it’s a short tube that you throw like a football and it soars thru the air.  If it doesn’t rain after work we’ll try it out.  Should be fun.

Last stop was Publix for some hamburgers to cook on the grill tonight.  We get home and unload groceries (the boys are getting better about helping put away groceries ) and I start up the grill. 

After diner the boys and I watched ‘RV’ and it was pretty funny.  Laugh out loud funny at several points.  We such had a great time watching the movie that we missed our nightly “Who’s Line is it Anyway” fest and didn’t mind.  “Who’s line…” always get us laughing. 

This morning when I opened up my video stream to the house to keep an eye on the boys I realized this would be the last time I would do it for this visit.  It made me a bit sad.  I can’t believe it’s been a month already.  When I picked them up from the airport on July 19th I was so happy because we had all this time ahead of us.  And we made good use of it, too.  We’ve had fun at the waterpark several times, a couple of trips to the beach, Bush Gardens, MOSI, hanging with my brother and his family, and just spending our days together.  Everything is more enjoyable when they are here (even grocery shopping).  Now, it is almost over.  I will get to see them again in October when I fly up for their birthdays but, it is hard to let them go. 

Last Friday I got a call while I was at the pool with the boys so my Mother took the message.  It was from a woman named Pam with Tom’s Publishing – parent company to Tomshardware.com on of my favorite sites.  They have been having a prizes for several months to celebrate their 10th aniversary on the net.  Every week they have a trivia question you can answer for a chance to win.  Well, I won for the week of July 3rd!!  It is a Thermaltake PC Case.  The woman from Tom’s left me a message that I needed to sign an Affidavit of Eligibility and that an email would follow. 

So, I watched my email. 

Nothing Friday… 

Nothing Saturday…

I didn’t expect anything on Sunday…

Nothing by Monday late afternoon.  

Then I wondered if they have my correct email address.  I used to use an old earthlink account as my email for any websites that required an email to sign up or join a forum but have since cancelled it and moved everything over to Gmail.  I looked up my account on Tom’s forums and see that, indeed, I had used the earthlink email and forgotten to change it over.  Crap!  I wasn’t going to get the email.  First I updated my profile and then went to searching for a contact number or email that I could use to let someone know the email wasn’t valid.  I found a general 800 number for Toms Publishing but when I called I couldn’t locate the woman who left the message in the automated directory.  I then got the idea to check my phone’s list of recient calls for the number.  I found a number from Friday around the time I was at the pool and decided to give it a cal.  Bingo!  It was a direct line to Pam.  I explained the situation to her and she resent the email to my correct address.  She was very pleasant to talk to and seemed happy to help me get my prize.  As soon as I hung up with her I checked my email and there it was.  I forwarded it to my office email so I could print it out and fax it as soon as I got to the office. 

Now I have to decide if I’m going to build a new setup or just move my existing hardware over to the new case.