So Many Games, No More RAID

The last couple of weeks I’ve had a RAID/JBOD setup on my computer with my two harddrives. I set it up that way because it would be easier for me to have to manage one, big logical drive instead of two. The first time, I had it working for a day or two; long enough to get everything installed and setup.
Then, for some strange reason, the RAID configuration “lost” one of my drives and I had to set it up again, which erased everything and I had to reinstall all of my stuff. A couple of days later, the drive disappears again. More reinstallation, but this time I had a theory as to why. So I set it up again and tested my theory.
Everything was running great until this morning, I go turn my computer on to check on something and what do I see flashing on my screen? “Off-line” under the status column of my RAID. So, for some strange reason, the drive has disappeared again and I’m left with no other choice: I have to reinstall EVERYTHING again, but this time without the RAID. I’m just going to have to deal with two drives instead of one.
Before my RAID flipped out the last time, I was curious to see how many games I could install on a terabyte and a half before it was full. The free space started out at 1.36TB, after eleven games, it was 1.12TB. Apparently it’s going to take a large amounts of games to fill up that much hard drive space. Luckily, I have a large amount of games.
This time, I’ll put the operating system on the 500GB drive and just install all the games on the Terabyte drive and use it for nothing else. Good thing I had made a Ghost image of my hard drive before it flipped out, so the only thing I have to intsall are all the games. No big deal.
Also, last Thursday, I passed my first Microsoft certification exam. One more to go before I have my first Microsoft certification. Seven more to go after that and I will be done taking Microsoft tests. Two more after that and I will be done testing for certifications and can move on to other things. Like learning how to program so I can make my own games, that would be cool. I could also spend a lot more time working on the website so it’ll be ready to go whenever we have something to put on it.
I’ve been going through the scripts I wrote for the comics and expanding them out after I realized they would be way too short the way they are now. My artist, Ash, is excited about the expansions after I told her how violent they were. She, apparently, likes violence.
I’m going to go start studying now and figure out what I’m going to do for lunch. I might take the day off early and go fix my computer, again. PIECE!!!!!

Blah, bleh and all that good stuff

It would seem that I’m almost ready to take my first Microsoft exam, getting close to it anyway. I don’t know, I just seem to be in one of those blank moods at the moment. It’s not good and it’s not bad, it’s just….bleh.
New Year’s was just another day. Jessica and I went over to our friends’ houses for a little while. We started out at one and went to another one to watch the ball drop and ring in the new year. Can’t really say that I’m excited about the new year since the previous one wasn’t really all that good.
I also started expanding my comic scripts. I was going through them a week or so ago and noticed that they were pretty short. I started doing that when we were at our second friend’s house, so that’s how I like to party. On my laptop. Away from the group. Rock on.
I still haven’t taken the clothes to Good Will, the truck that’s usually in one spot wasn’t there last Thursday or Friday, probably because it was a holiday weekend. I’ll see if they’re there today. If not, then I’m dropping these bags off at another place here in town. I’d like to get my backseat back in case I need to give more than one person a ride somewhere, which usually never happens.
My dermititis is acting up, the spots on my face are real red today. I look like I’ve been in a horrible fight and lost. My left hand is covered in scratches (thanks to our cats) and my face is covered in red spots. Not the usual red that looks like irritated skin, blood red like the blood is trying to leave my body through my pores. It’s weird.
Anyway, I got the opportunity to check out Borderlands and Resident Evil 5 over the weekend. I don’t really like the Resident Evil games, but this new one looked like it had some good graphics and I also wanted to see if my computer could play newer games. It can.
Well, I guess I’m going to get off here now and make a couple of phone calls and study some until it’s lunch time. Hopefully I can get in a better mood by then. We’ll see how it goes and I’ll let you know. PIECE!!!!!

I’m Baaaaaaack

After three weeks of vacation, I’m finally back at work. For today. I’ll probably leave early today since it’s New Year’s Eve, I’ll be off tomorrow and then I’ll come back on Monday. It’s pretty cool to only have to work 4 hours this week.
I didn’t do a single thing on my vacation worth mentioning. Wait, yes I did. I did one thing. Jessica and I cleaned out our closet in the bedroom and now I have ten bags of clothes I’m going to drop off to Good Will here in a little bit. I also beat a couple of games, but other than that I didn’t do a whole lot of anything.
I keep saying that but then I think of something else, I found a cure for my insomnia. Sort of. It sounds crazy, but bare with me. There is a sleep aid out there called Calm’s Forte, or something like that. One is for restless leg syndrome and three are for insomnia. So the other night, I got tired of not sleeping, so I took three Calms Forte pills.
Since I can’t breathe when I lie down, I took two Benadryl to clear my sinuses. Well, about ten minutes later I was passed out and slept for about twelve hours. I had an INSANELY bizarre dream, but at least I slept.
The next night, I wanted to see if it was dumb luck or because of the sleep aids. So I took three Calms and two Benadryl. Slept for another twelve hours straight without waking up in the middle of the night and when I woke up I actually felt rested. So take that insomnia! The next big step would be to be able to go to sleep without taking five pills just to do it.
I could reduce it down to just the three, but I want to be able to breathe when I sleep so until I can afford sinus surgery, it’ll have to be five. Work seems to be pretty slow, so I won’t be here all day long. I’ve studied quite a bit on my vacation, so I don’t have to study much today.
I’ll be ready to take my first Microsoft test next week, which will be cool. If I pass that test, then the second, I could have four certifications before I go to Europe and then I would only need five more when I get back to reach my goal of nine. It’s good to have goals.
Well, I’m going to go find a Good Will center and drop off my clothes and get something for lunch. PIECE!!!!!

Disillusionment and the Final Test

This is probably going to be the longets post yet since I haven’t updated in a while. So grab a cup of coffee (or your choice of beverage) and kick back, this is going to take a while.
I recently obtained a liquid cooling kit for my computer. I went home after work yesterday thinking it would only take around ten minutes to install since I went home earlier for lunch and cut the tubing. Two and a half hours later I had everything ready to go.
The radiator/fan wouldn’t fit on the mounting holes of my case because it’s a 120mm fan and my holes are only for 80mm. So now the radiator is just sitting inside on top of all the cables, which I’m going to fix this weekend. Now there is absolutely no room left in my computer for anything new, luckily I can upgrade or replace the hardware in it if I need to but can’t fit anything new inside. The side panel is bulging out a little too.
Anyway, I put the coolant in the resevoir and hit the power button on my computer and get real nervous. Suddenly, I see: FATAL ERROR. SYSTEM SHUTDOWN TO PREVENT DAMAGE across my screen. I freak out and turn the computer off, wait a minute and turn it back on. This time it just comes up with an error saying the CPU fan isn’t working, which is fine because it’s been replaced with a cooling block.
Disillusionment: I was under the impression that a water cooling kit was supposed to keep internal devices really cold so they could be overclocked without harming them. My devices are only being kept around five degrees cooler than what they normally are, which is better than having them catch on fire and burn.
To be fair, the radiator is inside the case on top of cables and the heat from it is just filling up the case. Once I get new holes cut in the case, I’ll mount the radiator to it and have the heat blow out the back, which should keep it nice and chilly inside, allegedly.
Final Test: Once I had it all up and running I let it get warmed up (the computer, not the liquid) and decided I’d give it the ultimate test, the reason I got the kit in the first place: I was going to turn the heat up to where it was not freezing cold in the apartment because Jessica hates the cold and hope the internal devices on my computer would stay cool enough.
First, some information to clarify something. The two bedrooms in our apartment get incredibly hot when the heater is on, about thirty degrees hotter than what we set the termperature at. Also, the heater doesn’t turn off when it reaches the temperature we set it at, it just keeps going until about twenty degrees past that, so the rooms get around fifty degrees hotter than what we wanted (at least it feels that way) so the second bedroom we keep the computer in was getting way too hot and I like to keep my computer on constantly since I’m on call 26 weeks out of the year.
Jessica was getting tired of having the whole apartment freezing just to keep the computer room cooled down, that room was always the hottest for some reason, even when the computer’s not on. I’m really sensitive to the heat so I don’t like running the heater. Anyway, back to the test.
I got the computer going and turned the heater on and went to take a shower. Jessica wasn’t home last night because it was the first night of the musical she’s in so she was out doing that. I got out of the shower and was met by a wave of heat, the apartment had warmed up. Now to check the temperature on the computer.
Since I don’t a thermostat in the computer itself, I have to rely on software programs that pretty much guesstimate the temperature. I run two of such programs and they both tell me the inside of the case is around 40 degrees (I’m putting most of that on the radiator) and the processor was at around 33-36 degrees and the video card was running hot around 50-60 degrees.
Summation: The liquid cooling kit was a success in keeping the computer cool while I was able to run the heater so Jessica wouldn’t turn into a popsicle (which is ironic because I turned the heater off when I went to bed and let the apartment cool off naturally). Plus, I didn’t really want to leave the heater on all night in case the cooling kit decided to stop working for some reason and the computer was forced to shut down.
I’m going to look into the coolant and see if there’s some I can find that’ll keep the computer a little cooler than I’m getting now. Of course, once I mount that radiator onto the case instead of having sit inside, everything will be better and the video card won’t be running so hot. Now if I could just close up the holes on the sides of the case and let the cool air from the fan fill it up.
The holes are from fans that no longer have power connectors since those were taken up from the liquid cooling kit. So there aren’t seven bright green lights on the case lighting up the room. Now there are only five. Not a huge difference, and the computer is in a desk so you can’t even see the lights anyway, but you can from the street when the light in that room is turned off.
When I first turned the computer on after hooking everything back up, I wanted to watch the tubes to make sure they were snug and not leaking. That was pretty cool to watch the water get sucked out of the resevoir and carried through the tubes, it made a slurping noise.
At first it didn’t look like there was enough coolant as the tubes weren’t full and you could see the liquid going around, but after a couple of minutes they filled up and now you can’t tell anything’s moving, except for the fact that the computer hasn’t spontaneously combusted yet so I know it’s working.
Also, on a different note, I beat F.E.A.R. and FarCry, finally. I started Half-Life 2 the night before last. I’m trying to beat all the older games I bought and never played before getting to the newer games I have, now that I have time to do it and a liquid cooling system to keep my components nice and cool. Now back to studying, PIECE!!!!!

So, here we are

Last night I got bored and decided to put F.E.A.R. back on my computer and finally finish playing it since I’ve never beaten it. Jessica came home earlier than I expected but at least I got to play. I need to beat it before I play the second one, but I’ve already started that one when I first got it.
I’ve been getting the urge to put Grand Theft Auto 4 back on my computer and playing that again, that was fun. I need to stop loading a bunch of games on my computer because I keep switching from game to game and end up spending too much time on one and forget where I’m at on the other ones. But I have too many to play one at a time. Stupid catch 22’s.
I met up with my artist Saturday and got to see some sketches, they were pretty good. I was able to recognize which charaters were which and which panel was which, so that’s a sign of good art. That was exciting, that was the first time I got to see my ideas in art form. It shouldn’t be too long now until I have a full comic book. The I can get the website really going then.
I’m going to wait until I have one series completely done before I start advertising the website and getting everything going, right now I’m just getting things set up so it’ll all be ready when I am. Other than that, I had a pretty uneventful weekend. I started studying for my Microsoft tests, hopefully these won’t take too long to get finished with but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m still waiting for my third certificate to show up in the mail, it should be coming pretty soon since I got my second one a couple of weeks ago and I passed the third test a week or two after the second one. Oh well, it’ll get here when it gets here. I need to get some picture frames for the certificates so I can hang them on my wall at work with my other one.
I just got a call from Jessica, she’s on her way home for lunch, I’m going to go meet her and eat with her. I might be going out there tonight for her rehearsal, I’m not too sure. Depends on how nicely she asks and how strong the urge to play games is. I better take off now before I get too hungry. PIECE!!!!!

Productive Weekend

Well, I wouldn’t really call it productive, but I did more this weekend than any other weekend. Ever. Saturday, Jessica wanted to go to karaoke with some friends. I drove around and picked everyone up then went to the bar. After about ten minutes of loud, horrible singing, I decided I wanted to play some pool.
I’m not any good at pool, but I like to play. One of Jessica’s friends joined me and we equally sucked but that’s what made it fun. Then one of her friend’s friends came by and wanted to play. I made up my own rules, Baseketball-style, and after a few minutes he walked off.
Then I drove all the drunk people home, which was amusing to say the least. Then I went home and had the worst night trying to sleep.
First, it was late so that didn’t really help. Second, I couldn’t breathe without propping my head straight up which was highly uncomfortable. Then the cats kept slamming themelves into the door because they thought they were starving to death. Then the sun came up.
Exhausted, I got out of bed and drove out to my parent’s house and had some extremely good curry. Then I had some even more delicious strawberry cake with cream cheese icing. Then I drove back home, where Jessica had stayed to do her homework since she had a test the next day in piano and needed to practice. After that, we drove out to Jessica’s school for her rehearsal and I sat in my car for a few hours.
I actually like sitting in my car, I get more done there than I would if I had stayed at home, but that doesn’t make any sense. I finished the seventh book and started on the eighth. She got out around nine o’clock and we drove the thirty miles back home where I promptly went to the bedroom and layed down.
But it doesn’t stop there. I forgot I didn’t brush my teeth, so I got up to do that. Then I got up to make sure all the doors were locked because I’m a little paranoid. Then I got up to get the cats some food so they wouldn’t wake me up again. Then I had to get up because Jessica forgot to put her clothes in the dryer and I couldn’t wake her up to have her do it. And then I was able to go to sleep.
Not sure what time it was, I don’t look at the clock when I go to bed because I can’t go to sleep if I know what time it is. But I slept like a baby, with my head at a level position for the first time in months. It took a while to get out of bed since I was sleeping so well, but I finally drug myself out and got dressed.
I went outside to thirty degree weather. I love winter. It was a little overcast (I think. Everything was gray so I can only assume it was overcast) and excrutiatingly windy. The coolest thing about this morning was my coffee was piping hot, I set it on my car outside while I was warming my car up. Five minutes later, it was cool enough to drink.
Then I came to work and had a belgium waffle. So all in all, today has been pretty badass in my opinion. I’m in a good mood, my belly’s full of delicious waffle goodness, it’s freezing cold outside and to top it all off, my birthday’s tomorrow. Not really a high-point, but it’s worth mentioning.
My sister stopped by for the first time in a couple of years to give me my birthday present early, it was a video game (one that I don’t have yet, which is the hard part about buying me video games). I’ll check it out tomorrow since it’s a present for tomorrow. Anyway, I better get to work. PIECE!!!!!

Back to Prilosec

There are three constants in my life that make up the entity I am: Headaches, fatigue and heartburn. These are the three things I can count on being there almost everyday. Not so much a bad thing, more of a nuisance. I will tackle these…now:
Fatigue. I am tired 100% of the time, unless I’ve had double-digit hours of sleep. There is no rhyme or reason, I’ve tried everything. I’ve changed my diet, I’ve exercised, I’ve cut back on caffeine. But still, no matter what I do, I’m tired constantly.
Headaches. Not a big deal until I had a stroke, then they became somewhat of a concern. But after getting an MRI and having nothing show up, we figured that was just another thing I’d have to deal with. Tried everything with that, exercise, diet, caffeine, good sleep (when I get it) and almost voodoo at one point but I finally just gave up.
Heartburn. Again, absolutely NO REASON this should be going on, except for high levels of acid in my stomach (that’s purely speculation). But with this, at least there’s some relief. I took Prilosec for a long time but then it got to where I didn’t need it. Lately, however, my heartburn has been coming back daily…almost hourly. So I went back to using Prilosec and now I’m all good.
So there, the only three things that seem to be a constant in my life. Not a concern, doesn’t bug me anymore, but they’re there. Well, two are, heartburn is pretty much gone (for now anyways). Well, that’s all I have to say for now. I’m going to get back to being tired. PIECE!!!!!

Eventful Weekend

Went to a “haunted woods” attraction in a smaller town, it was pretty good. Then went to a party the next night with the cast from the play Jessica was in. I forgot how crazy college kids get when they drink. The nothing happened last night. Now I’ll break it down for you:
Haunted Woods: Small little attraction on the side of the road, the only thing noting it’s existence was a small sign on the side of the road. It was only open at night, for atmospheric purposes, and it was five dollars a person. We went in a group of four, the leader was given a flashlight and we had to walk around the little dirt trail.
People would jump out at you wearing crazy masks, then they would follow you. They were dead quiet so you wouldn’t know they were there until you turned around. Someone riding a horse flew out of nowhere and scared everyone, nobody was real certain that the guy riding the horse was going to stop and it came within inches.
Then there was the last twenty feet, there was a little kid dressed up in a Chucky mask and outfit holding a big, fake, glow-in-the-dark knife. We all thought it was fake because he wasn’t moving, so we moved along and Jessica mentioned it was moving. I turned around and saw the kid beckoning for Jessica to come closer with his knife, she made a fist at him for some reason and that kid flew at her at lightning speed (I was surprised this kid could move that fast) and it scared the ever-loving bejesus out of Jessica and she took off running and screaming at the top of her lungs.
I laughed at that for at least an hour, it still brings a smile to my face. Then the next night we went to the party, I just kind of hung out by myself while Jessica mingled with her friends. Later on in the night some girls went for a walk (don’t ask me why, I thought it was weird) and came back and told the hostess there was a dead cat in the road so she went and checked it out.
It turned out to be this stray cat that they’ve been taking care of, so then she starts crying, the bearer of bad news starts crying, then everyone else started crying. The hostess changed out of her costume and went to some place she goes to when she’s sad and didn’t come back, apparently she fell asleep in her car. Then one girl gets extremely drunk and starts throwing up.
While she’s throwing up, she’s apologizing to everyone and laughing for no reason. Her boyfriend wanted to take her home, she couldn’t walk, so he decided to carry her. Then he tripped and fell right on top of her, she hit her head on the ground. Everyone freaked out, I was the only one laughing because I saw the humor in that.
She wasn’t hurt, she was still laughing and throwing up. Then everyone started leaving and Jessica and I came back home. Crazy college kids. Tomorrow is our two-year anniversary. Don’t have any plans, won’t be able to go anywhere or really do anything thanks to financial restraints. I’ll make it up to her when I get paid Saturday.
That’s all I’ve been up to this weekend. Oh, I’ve been trying to build this computer for a friend of ours as a surprise for his boyfriend (yes, you read that right, no I don’t care). It’s been two months and I’m almost done with it, it’s been a long journey.
First, the power wouldn’t work, come to find out there was a little cable I didn’t connect because it was labeled SB/Switch and I didn’t know what that was. Then the IDE cable wouldn’t read hard drives so I had to replace that, then I had to go buy an adapter for the power plug on the motherboard. Now I have to get a video card in it and I’m finished.
The video card that’s in there now is a 16MB card, not good enough to play games on and that’s why I’m building it. Luckily, I found a 256MB video card I can throw in there when I get home. Okay, that’s all I have for today. PIECE!!!!!

Multinational Lotteries

If I win any more of these things, I won’t have to work ever again. Last week I got an e-mail saying I won around 500,000 pounds. Today I get one saying I won 850,000 pounds. All they need is my name, address and phone number. That sounds legit.
Unfortunately, or forutantely, I’m not an idiot. But we can all dream, can’t we? I finished the fifth comic a week ago or so, I can’t really remember. I started on the sixth one the other day and got some more put on it last night. Jessica doesn’t really like the idea of what I’m doing with this one, but she also doesn’t really know the story, or the point.
But that’s okay, sometimes things just don’t make sense and somehow, life goes on. The point of the story isn’t really in the first seven comics anyway, it comes after that. That’s when the story really starts, the first seven are just filler for the brain, it’ll all make sense when it’s over.
Anyway, writing comics, getting certifications, winning lotteries in other countries, I’m a busy guy. Got a haircut last night and all it cost me was making a computer work for someone. Bartering is awesome. It’s a computer I wanted to build for one of my friend’s and couldn’t get it to work. Then, last night, I realized it doesn’t work because I didn’t plug in the power cable to the motherboard (it was labeled S/B switch and I didn’t know what that was for). Now I just need a hard drive and I’m done.
I could probably stand putting a better video card in it, I might have an extra one lying around, if not then another friend of mine has one I can use. If you took all the computer parts my friends and I have, you could probably throw together a few dozen computers. Which is a good thing because someone will have something if you need it and don’t have it yourself.
I started going through the Microsoft study materials, it’s easier than I thought it would be. That’s a good sign and I guess that only makes sense after messing with Windows for fourteen years. Thinking about getting a Cisco certification after the Microsoft tests. I’ll look into it.
I’m going to get to work now, have to go look at some scanners. PIECE!!!!!

Last Monday

I noticed yesterday that I made it seem like I was downplaying the birth of my niece after only giving it a short mention at the end of my post. Yesterday was a weird day and it seemed like my priorities were all shot out of whack. Needless to say, it was a stereo-typical Monday, complete with flip-outs and things that just didn’t go right.
Last Monday was a lot better, I spent all day at the hospital with my family as my sister was giving birth. Around 9:45 or 10:00am (I can’t be sure) my brother-in-law walks out of the surgery room wheeling his brand new baby girl and a ten mile smile.
Then we spent most of the day with my sister, making sure she was okay. Once we knew that mom and baby were going to be okay, I went home to spend some time with Jessica, who was sick and had things to do. My mom was also sick, but she was there for my sister.
Anyway, I guess I’m going to get out of here. I’m starting studying for my Microsoft tests, I can’t seem to quit studying. PIECE!!!!!