Buy My Motherboard!

It's an ECS G31T-M, Intel Socket LGA775 Motherboard, supporting Core 2 Duo and Quad, Celeron 4xx and Dual Core E21xx processors. It's got integrated video and HD sound, supports up to 4 SATAII 3.0GB/s devices, up to 4GB of DDR2 PC6400 RAM (supports Dual-Channel operation).

Win the auction and mention the blog and I'll throw in a COMPLETELY RANDOM SURPRISE GIFT! :)




**UPDATE**
MoBo has been sold and shipped! w00t.

New Look

It's similar, but kind of different - I realized that there were no links for comments with the old template, so I switched it up.

In other news, the new MediaPC is up and running (and has been for a little while, actually).

Specs:

• Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (not OC-ed)
• 2GB of DDR2 PC6400 from Crucial (it was ridiculously cheap at Fry's so I figured I'll upgrade when PC8500 drops in price)
• ASUS EAH3650 Silent Graphics w/ 512MB of DDR3
• Antec Sonata III Case with an EarthWatts 500W Power Supply
• Samsung SH-S202J IDE DVD±RW
• KWorld ATSC 120 HD TV Tuner Card
• Seagate 750GB SATA HD
• Vista Ultimate 32-Bit Edition

My MS contact couldn't swing a copy of XP MCE, so I went with Vista. I originally installed the 64-Bit edition (both are included when you buy Ultimate), but was running into a lot of Media Center stability issues, so I clean installed 32-Bit . . . after two 64-bit edition reformats/clean installs :)

I've still got an image of my Windows Partition just after installation of Windows and essential software for 64-bit, so if the drivers and support come up to speed, I might revert to that.

Next Upgrade: New TV! (but not for a while)

Paul Fong, stop sending me junk mail.

Paul Fong (Democratic candidate for the California State for Assembly) is mailing me entirely too much campaign material. I probably get something in the mail from his campaign every other day. It goes immediately into the shredder/recycle bin. I really didn't care about voting for State Assembly, but this assault on my mail box is impetus enough for me to vote against him.

Think of the trees, Paul Fong. Think of the trees.

Quick Recap

It's been a while since my last post and much has happened.

I went to Tahoe again and I apparently still remember how to ski! I snowboarded for one day too and fell much less than I did last time (possibly b/c the snow was actually ice and I was focusing on avoiding serious bodily harm rather than improving technique).

I did some gardening - mostly weeded the flower beds and put bricks around a drainage grate to keep the leaves from clogging it up. I also found newt-y/salamander-y things living under various bits of stuff. I thought they were worms at first, but then realized they had eyes and little arms . . . and wings and breathe fire.

So, on the work front, I finally nutted up and found a new job. It took a couple of weeks to talk to a few companies, but then everything went crazy. A couple days after the first offer came in, I was signing an offer letter and giving my two weeks notice. Today was my first day at the new place. Things are looking good - the overall atmosphere seems a lot lighter - people seem happier and much less stressed out. I was apprehensive that'd I'd be leaving one job to go to another one only to find that it's exactly the same, but as of right now I'm optimistic (knock on wood).

Jazz band has been fun - we had a great concert with Bob Florence a few weeks ago and another less spectacular one last night, but it's been great - no more near panic attacks before/during solos. I think that maybe my attempts to expand the boundaries of my comfort zone are working.

So, what's to come? Dance classes start again in the spring, more jazz band, more hanging out with the new crowds and hopefully work stays ok.

Things are looking up, I think.

work has turned me misanthropic

And I'm not the only one:

O: i was super bitch at DB
O: yelling at poor customer service ppl all day long
O: esp if they had accents

return to normalcy . . . ?

When life gives you lemons you've gotta roll with the punches and get back on that horse (or use the lemons to kill terrorists, like Jack Bauer). I think I'm good now. I think it's been a long while since I've been at 100% -- like I had grown inured to a prolonged emotional slump. Rather than moving on, I internalized what had been vexing me and when I should have been coming to terms with my woes and letting them go, I carried them with me as I trudged on through life.

Well, I think I'm done with that. Hopefully. For now?

In other news, Tahoe was awesome - I was more than a bit apprehensive about spending 3 days/2 nights with a bunch of people I had never met, but it ended up being a lot of fun. Special thanks to AWo and Lily for the invitation and the snowboarding lessons and to all of snow-trippers who contributed to the overall badass-edness of the trip.

Now, for a bit of reading followed by bed. I started reading Snow Falling on Cedars and realized a two pages later that I'd already read it. It's still holding my attention now, so I think I'll finish it again. Next, I think I'm going to pick up a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 (which I had previously assumed was some sort of horror novel, but was recently informed otherwise), but I have nothing queued up thereafter. Suggestions?

updates

Holidays in StL - AWESOME :) I started running again on the treadmill in STL and my foot was ok, so I didn't end up getting better running shoes . . . I guess I'll wait until it starts hurting again and reconsider.

Reupholstered chairs:


Bought a jenky piano for $150 delivered, broke it some more and then fixed it a bit:

Piano

I'm kind of working on tuning the piano myself, but it's proving to be more difficult than I anticipated - mostly b/c the tuning hammer I bought is too big for the pegs :( I did find, however, that the smaller sockets from my socket wrench set use a connector that's only slightly larger than the pegs, so I've tuned a couple notes using a smaller socket paired up with my hex wrench. The lever arm is kind of short, so fine tuning is actually pretty hard to do. I'm probably going to hit home depot sometime soon to see if they have something else that fits a little better or at least a super long hex wrench. I'm thinking this piano should keep me occupied for a while yet.

I received some news recently that threw me off balance. I knew it would happen sometime and thought I'd be totally ok with it, but it ended up affecting me a lot more than I expected and a lot more than it should have. Actually, I'm noticing a developing trend in which I react strongly to things that really aren't that big a deal.

I think that these overreactions stem from the lack of variation in my daily life - like the highs and lows are so closely correlated that a dip seems absolutely catastrophic when considering the uniformity of all the other events. Back in college, there was always drama - always something to be excited or angst-y about, but with work it's easy to settle into a familiar and stable pattern. A pattern that develops into a slow inward spiral toward seclusion and solitude in an attempt to avoid the bumps and dips that send you (one) sprawling. To pull out of this spiral I've decided to try to inject more variation into the monotony of working life.

I'm working on trying new things, even if they do mean putting me outside of my comfort zone. Something that will probably help is Jazz band. The lead alto position was passed to me after the 1st chair alto player (who previously covered a vast majority of the alto sax solos) was promoted to the damn-near-professional 8 O'Clock Daddios band leaving me the sole Alto 1 player. As you may or may not know, I really suck at improvisation. I never really learned to read chord changes and the scales/licks that accompany them, so every solo is an adventure :) At the last performance I was on the verge of a panic attack when my solo rolled around, but somehow ended up in autopilot and a total freak-out was narrowly averted. All but a couple of the charts we're performing this quarter call for Alto solos so hopefully we can quell these freak-outs as performances approach.

So all in all, I'm still a little off balance from the aforementioned news, but I think I'm starting to catch my stride again. Wish me luck, eh?

X-mas Recap

Christmas in St. Louis was great - I got to spend a lot of time with high-school friends I hadn't seen for a long time and was also able to help the 'rents out a bit.

Things I fixed over Winter Break:
- Layout for work that I didn't have time to finish before leaving (~24hrs of work)
- Cloning Lounge/Restaurant server PC x2
- Replacing CPU fan on mom/dad's desktop
- Installing new Dining room chandelier
- 2nd floor landing light
- Replacing Garage door opener
- restoring image on lounge/restaurant surveillance PC
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