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And now live at the scene we bring you....
Thu Mar 18 02:48:35 2004 | Prev | Next

Well, I thought that it was about time for another update of what has been going on, so this post is going to attempt to be a list of synopsis (plural?) regarding what`s been going on lately.

So lets start where the last link left off. The CarPC. Well It`s still in the state that it was in before and that is that it now has an operating system on it and it is operating, but the following things are not so cool:
1. I have had to use two other sticks of 64MB RAM I had around (as in from another machine) to keep the system RAM at 256 since the stick of 256 that I ordered came as 128.
2. The only video card that I can get to function in windows is a Matrox Millenium II (circa 1995). This appears to be because the PCI bus on the 440bx chipsets was dumb.
3. The video card that they sold me because the card that I sent in which was directly from another machine but somehow �broken� when it got to them was NOT broken, but just had the bios dip switch off...simple. They should have checked this...Hell, I should have thought of this, but I didn`t and I caved and now I have TWO Matrox Millenium II`s circa 1995. humph...
4. The company that I purchased my ram from ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS DIRT CHEAP.....www.compgeeks.com has REALLY CRAPPY SERVICE. They apparently have some email addresses that they just never answer (even when they say that those are the emails to send to from certain parts of their site). And then when you do get an answer, it`s a one line question for which there was a simple response given in a few hours.....BUT DAYS later I still don`t have any more information or an RMA number. I am reaching the point where I might start to be aggressive. I really liked this place and recommended a few people go there, but if this keeps up, I many have to start campaigns with those I know, and I think I could probably influence just a few people not to shop there at all. Simply because when THEY make mistakes, they make the customer suffer for it.
5. I still don`t have a slim dvd drive or floppy drive. (hell, I might not be able to play dvds if I can`t get any new technology cards to work.)

Things at work are Crazy as ever. As always, I have more things to do than the amount of awake time during the day allows for. Then I have to fit everything else in my life into that somewhere as well and when this happens, well everything suffers: work, sleep, fun, motivation, everything. There are too many things I would say that I should not and in some cases can not, so I will leave it at that for now, but this busy time could not have really come at a worse time. Why? Well....

My parents are currently in town and staying with me. Today was their last day here actually, and they leave for the airport tomorrow morning just after I leave for work. Well those of you that know me well, and know me from college know that while I may be a punctual and attentive person. I am just about the messiest person that I know. Well, this means that the last week before my parents were to arrive, I was in trouble. As most of you know I have Many projects going on here at home as well. So now I need to get most of these finished, actually CLEAN my condo, and finish the already impossible work at work as well. Well, this meant the weekends leading up to when my parents were to arrive were spent both working on projects as well as working on work. My friends can attest to this as I had to decline a few offers to do other things. Then just a few days before I kicked into high gear. I REALLY focused on finishing at home, then REALLY focused on finishing at work, and when I gave up and realized I had burned out of work for the day, I came home and started cleaning. 25 hours or so later, my parents arrived. So This means that I lost a day in there. Not only that but it was just about the longest days I have ever had. 3 hours of working on projects from home, 9 long hours of working on work at work, 25 hours of cleaning and preparing, and then one hour of meet and greet. Thus was one of the longest and hardest days (which actually spanned two days....meaning I woke up at 9:30 am Sat. and went to bed at 11:30pm on Sunday) that I have ever had and hope to have. But it does not end there, for the work work never ends, and so that is a constant, but they are actually here for several days, so that makes things complicated. I managed to sneak a day off at the worst possible time though and that was on Tuesday (a day full of meetings for me...so arguably the best day). I used this day to take my parents to Friday Harbor, which is in the San Juan Islands. This is about a 2 hour or so (less than that really) drive from where I live followed by a 2 hour ferry ride. Then to top it off because of the crazy ferry schedules, we only had 40 minutes there (less because the ferry was late) to look around and do what we wanted to accomplish. I bought 3 bottles of my favorite wine (which you can only get there), and a couple of branded wine glasses from the same shop. Then we got back on the ferry for a rather quick 50 minute or so ferry ride back (no stops going back). After getting back to the car we then drove to Deception Pass where we got out walked across half the bridge to the island its on and proceeded to take many pictures. We could not stay long though as our schedule called for us to make a 1:00 Ferry which was rather far south on Whidbey Island. Well at 1:05 we realized we were not going to make that ferry at all (j/k we realized before this). And in fact we were wrong about the times anyways and the next ferry was actually at 1:30. We did happen to make this time. We showed up almost right on time for it. Lucky us. So after a short ride from Keystone to Port Townsend, we stopped at Subway for lunch, then headed south to Bainbridge Island for some wining and dining with friends there. Then we finally caught the ferry from Bainbridge back to seattle and came back to my place. I have not worked out exactly how far that is, but it was a very long day. I had to wake up at 4:30am and leave by 5:30 to make the Anacordes ferry for Friday Harbor. I also took lots of pictures. I filled all of my flash cards which is 248MB. I did not have my laptop, or I would have had more than that. I have not copied them to the pc yet, so I have not posted them. I will in good time though. All in good time.

And you may have noticed that the site was down for about two days (or maybe you didn`t). This was my fault, although I blamed it on Comcast for about 24 hours or more. Turns out that one of the things I did was re-wire my entertainment center (where my cable modem lives) and when doing this I replaced the main splitter that I use in order to also connect the radio to the cable for better reception. Well, A, it appears that they do not rebroadcast FM stations on the cable as many cable systems (including the one at work) do, and B, it appears that when hooking my radio up that way that my cable modem can not contact where it needs to. I did not find this right away though because I tested the cable modem with the splitter and it worked grand and never thought about it when I hooked up the extra device. Well the solution came to me over night the other night, and sure enough, as soon as I unplugged the radio it started working again......oh well. Things like this happen.

Well, I am having a small gathering on Friday. I look forward to everyone being here. I will post pictures of the living room after the event (as I want to give them second rights in seeing it...my parents were first). I will also post pictures of the mini trip as well.

Also I am glad to see that another friend Gretchen is blogging now. Her blog has really started with a bang too. Nothing like a little early attention to get you going. I like to think that if I wanted it, that I could get it, but I think that my situation demands a low profile, so I will try to keep it that way. And another friend of mine: Josh has switched positions and now gets to work full time on something that he knows a lot about, likes to do, and sounds like he is good at.

More stuff later, but its late....and I have to get up early.

Take Care, J.P.

Posted by: j.p.





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