The weekend was good!

Friday, I went out with my brother-in-law, David, and his work crew. We went to Sharp Shooters and killed many pieces of paper with large caliber rounds, then wandered off to some mexican restaurant for food and beers (it was horrible).

After being forgotten by the staff, we went to the Trent n’ Dale, a tiny little pub in the Valley. They had many different micro brews on tap for very cheap ($2.50 a pint!). Oh yeah… it may be small but it’s my new most favoritest place EVER!

Saturday, my wife and I went shopping for a new washing machine, as ours gave up the ghost that day. Luckily, it fit in her Jeep (we were worried about that). After removing the old one, cleaning up the HORROR that was under it, and installing the new one, we got to work in the yard.

We finished the retaining wall in the front and did all the back-fill (I’ll post pictures later). My wife pulled most of the petunias that were lingering on and we planted a ton of bulbs for spring (tulips, hyacinth, daffodils, etc). It should look good come spring!

Today’s plan of attack: Get Tom’s computer to the airport.

As I’ve mentioned before, I built a spiffy little PC for my friend Tom (who lives in Alaska). After much searching for BattleField2 on DVD (you can’t get it any more), I settled on picking him up a copy on CD-ROM (it was only 3 disks) and installed it for him. Damn… his Geforce 7800GT kicks some serious ass!! I cranked everything all the way up at 1024×768 and it played like a dream (which is better than my 6800Ultra).

Perhaps I should ship him my PC instead 🙂

EDIT – I dropped it off around 11:30… by 1:30 it was in on a plane leaving Seattle and on it’s way to Juneau. Damn… air freight is fast!

EDIT Again – Tom called me at 10pm (9pm Alaska time)… it was at his house. Bejesus, that was fast!!

The end of the week from friggin’ hell has finally arrived, and not a moment too soon.

From being frustrated to filling like crap, this week has hit all the highlights. I plan on celebrating it’s passing by ingesting large amounts of fermented beverages.

Luckily enough… my brother-in-law has just that planned for tonight! I’ll be hangin’ with the Monaco gang, and the activities involve shooting large caliber weapons at paper targets, then beer and pool… in that order.

Oh… and one final note: my cubicle is finally finished in the “sit-stand” configuration that my doctor suggested. It only took 6 weeks, and I had to stand for 4 of them. My DVI Video splitter, second LDC display, and wireless keyboard/mouse combo are all here.

w00t!

There are days when updating my resume seems like the only viable option.

Today is one of those days.

Looks like I better start increasing my dosage.

My friend Tom came down from Alaska to deal with some family things a couple of weeks back.

Of course, while he was here, he solicited me for advice on what parts to get so that he could build a computer that wouldn’t become obsolete in 2 years.

“Good luck” was my advice.

Of course, we did get online and did some shopping. We ended up with the following:

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 1GHz FSB
eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
CORSAIR XMS 1GB DDR Dual Channel (2x512mb) with heat spreaders
Seagate Barracu 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
XION II XON-103 case (black with blue fans)

He already had the DVD burner a few other components.

Because of time constraints, Tom had the parts shipped to me, and I would build it for him. This turned out to be a very good idea. The 450watt power supply that came in the case isn’t exactly what I was expecting (I guess I should have paid more attention to the images on the website). It has exactly 4 molex connectors (the rectangular power plugs that go into a hard drive or CD-ROM). I had to add several “Y” adaptors and am crossing my fingers that once he installs his CD, DVD, and other hard drive, the supply will actually run them all.

6 weeks ago, my physical therapist and Doctor agreed that I should think about converting my cubicle at work into a “sit-stand” configuration. The idea is that I sit most of the time, but can stand from time to time if my back starts to bother me. I spoke to my manager about it, but held off from actually requesting it from our facilities department for about a week.

Why oh why did I ever mention it?

I’m not going to go into all the gory details, but after 4 weeks of standing in my cube for 8 hours a day, I finally got fed up with it. Today, they dropped one side back down so I can sit again in my old chair (which is quite comfortable). I’ve ordered some hardware (a DVI splitter, second LCD display, and wireless keyboard/mouse) so that I can work from both heights (total cost: under $500).

Why the hell didn’t they just do that to begin with instead of trying to order $800 chairs that won’t work and then balking at the $1,000 system that would raise and lower my desk.

Ugh.

At least I won’t be going home with a sore back, shaky legs, and 1,000 lb feet any more.