Author: Lee

Catching Up

I’ve been too busy lately with all of my on-going projects to post any lately.  Since I’ve got some free time, let me update you about the ongoings happening in my life.

It’s a Girl:  We found out last Wednesday that we’re expecting a baby girl.  While Rachel is happy she’s having her first child, I’m a bit indifferent.  I’m not saying that I’m disappointed, I was just hoping for a boy – merely because I already have a daughter.  She was acting up during the ultrasound and wouldn’t let the technician get a good look at her heart, so Rachel is going to have another ultrasound during her next appointment, just to make sure she’s developing normally.  We have had a boy’s name picked out for over a year now, but have been having trouble with a girl one.  We’ve finally decided on 2 – which we are keeping secret until she’s born.

Remodeling Blues:  I’ve been over-occupied lately with remodeling.  While I have made a lot of progress, there is still much to do.  Last week I finished the next to last set of wires I need to pull.  It was a complete nightmare, but this will give us some flexibility in the layout of our living room in the future.  My next job is to cover up our duct run and post downstairs.  We have decided to use some decorator panels downstairs instead of paneling or drywall.  These panels are relatively inexpensive and will eliminate the majority of painting we would need to do with our original plan.  I hope to get the downstairs almost complete by the time I go back to school in June.

No Flash:  Friday while in the midst of “wire pulling hell” I wanted to take some pictures.  I discovered our camera, a Nikon Coolpix 7600 has a problem.  The flash isn’t cooperating, you can’t turn it on in most of it’s modes – and even in the modes it does “function” it doesn’t work.  We’re working on finding a solution and have found a nice one with the Nikon Coolpix S210.  Now it’s just a matter of purchasing it.

Demon’s Are Gone:  The spring semester has officially ended.  The last few weeks were quite the nail biter, as I did horrible on 2 chapter tests in my Math-050 course.  I’m pleased to say that after 10 years of taking this course off and on, I have passed it with an 86%.  This summer I am taking 5 courses, this will enable me to finish my degree in 7 semesters.  With a baby coming, the sooner the better.  The next course I am dreading is Math-111, I took it once and failed.  I hope with 050 off my back, and a little help from Rachel I can conquer this as well.  I’ve decided to change my degree and concentration.  I originally was seeking an Associates of Science in Computer Information Technology with a  PC Support & Administration concentration, after reviewing the coursework I know a little about everything.  I don’t feel like I’ll be challenged or forced to use my brain to it’s full extent for that matter.  I’ve decided to get an Associates of Applied Science in Computer Information Systems with a Programmer / Analyst concentration.

Free Tix:  Being a smoker, I get mailings from time to time with coupons, offers, etc. from tobacco companies.  I was pleasantly surprised when I received a voucher for free tickets to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.  My mother has received this same offer, but for Kentucky Speedway (as she lives in Louisville).  I’ve decided to bring my mother, as I don’t think Rachel will be comfortable in the heat all day.  We get free parking and free rental of headset radios to listen in on the teams.  I’ve never been to the 500 before, and being free makes it that much better.

That’s One Big Apple

It was an amazing trip.  Rachel and I have both came to the conclusions that the stigmas regarding New York from the “old days” are still around, at least where we live.  We felt safe at all times, and only saw a handful of homeless.  I saw many people out trying to help the homeless.  They seem to have people on every block asking for donations.

The first day we arrived late in the day due to plane delays, so we just walked around a little bit and ate dinner.  Our hotel, the Marriott Marquis is located right in the heart of Times Square.  We could see a sliver of the new years ball from our hotel room.

Enjoy the slideshow containing all of our pictures from the trip!

Continue reading “That’s One Big Apple”

Resurrection…..Well Sort of

It turns out that my computer wasn’t on it’s death bed, my hard drive was.

For the past few months I would have these symptoms:

  • The power supply was extremely loud after being on for more than an hour.
  • No response on occasion, which would lead to a reboot.
  • Slower than normal function.

It all came to a head when all of these symptoms came together and after a reboot I got the dreaded message, “Disk Read Error.”

I knew the hard drive wasn’t dead, but there was a problem.  I switched the power cables and it worked.  So I backed up everything onto one of my other hard drives and purchased a new drive.

I bought a Western Digital 160 Gig PATA drive, that I must say is super quiet.  You have to put your head up to the case just to hear it!  It turns out that one of the pins on the 4 pin power connector had “sheered” away.  I gave it to my co-worker Tito, I’m sure he can get it going again.

I knew my computer would run Windows XP, but I thought I would see if it could handle Vista.  I think it runs Vista better than it ever ran XP.

I’ve had a few glitches, but nothing that wasn’t the case about XP years ago.

The biggest scare was last night.  I’ve been re-installing all of my software, using my DVD-RW drive.  When I went to install MS Visual Studio Pro 2008, my drive was nowhere to be found!  Vista gave me a message that “there was something wrong with the driver.”  After some searching I found that Vista has a quirk with some older drives.  A quick registry patch resolved this.

While my computer cannot import video or audio directly anymore, it is working great as an all around PC.  This is awesome news.  I’m not feeling the pressure I was to purchase a new machine anymore.  I can hopefully wait until our renovation is complete and I have a new office area before acquiring more equipment.

Meltdown

Last night Rachel and I had a computer meltdown. My main hard drive was not responding, so I rebooted to get a “disk read error.”  I removed the computer and cleaned it out, switched some power cables – which lead to a rant about all of our computing issues.

I’m purchased a new 160 gig hard drive to replace the failing one. I was surprised at the price for a small hard drive these days, for $40 you can buy a 160 gig!

This is mainly a band-aid on a bigger problem, but I’ll remain optomistic.

A Different Summer

This summer is going to have a big change of pace for me.

My wife is expecting our first child, and I am remodeling our basement & a nursery.  I am also going to school to finally get an education that I’ve been working on for a decade.

We’ve decided that I shouldn’t work this summer.  This is easy due to my academic year positions.  Instead I am going to focus on my education and try to cram as many summer courses as possible.

Even though I have been working on this degree for a decade, I’ve only achieved 3 credit hours towards my degree.  This may sound astounding, but my educational history has been filled with disappointment.

I’m going to take 5 classes, with one of them being online.  I’m very nervous about this online course, as I took one several years ago and failed it.  It was the same math class that I am doing very well in right now.  The class in particular is Introduction to Microcomputers, something I could sleep through.  I will be nervous about this until I get a few assignments in.

Here are the classes:

  • CINS-101 – Introduction to Microcomputers
  • ECON-101 – Economics Fundamentals
  • COMM-101 – Fundamentals of Public Speaking
  • IVYT-107 – Professional Presence
  • HIST-101 – Survey of American History I

It’s a total of 13 credit hours, a big load for someone who hasn’t went to school full time since 1997.  All of these classes are in my general education requirements for a CINT (Computer Information Technology) degree.  After completion of these courses, I will only have 2 other gen ed classes left.

I’m excited and scared as hell at the same time.  I wasn’t lucky enough to have a “real” college experience.  I think this will give me a piece of it.  I don’t think I will have the availability to do this again, with the impending arrival of my second child.

So Far

So far I have mostly completed the office area of the basement, it just needs new paneling, paint and the floor coating.

I have begun on the other side of the basement, beginning with the removal of the hideous ceiling fan.  It worked, but did not fit the look or atmosphere we want in our home.  I had a fun time trying to wire the replacement light fixture we put in it’s place, as it had a remote switch wiring scheme.

I have not completed much work on the other side besides the removal of the paneling and replacing the one fixture.  From what I can tell, our walls are sound.  We did have a slight worry since we have a pine tree about 10 feet away from that corner of the house.

We recently had the corners of our gutters repaired, which I think may have been the root of our water leakage issues.

There is one issue that I’m still trying to wrap my brain around, and that’s how I’m going to run new cable, phone and LAN lines to the exterior wall in the living room.  I had believed that there was a line directly going to the corner of this room, as the label on it said “attic.”  I was wrong.  Access to this particular spot is difficult due to the placement of our fireplace.  This particular spot is almost just above the fireplace.  I’ve always wanted a fireplace, but for this particular instance I do not.

My concrete repair work started out slow, but is going much better now.

When I attempted this method of repairing, I came into many issues.  When my sander would contact the patch, the patch would fly out of the hole.  So I changed my game plan, and just filled the hole and not the surrounding areas as well.  This method has went so well that I would like to do the whole basement, but Rachel will have none of that.  She just wants the rooms done.

Our next few weeks are booked, so the time I have to dedicate to working on this is little at the moment.  I have basically the same things to do on this side as I did in the office.  The key difference is there is less wall area to renovate.  I guesstimate that with only 2 or 3 more weekends, I will be ready to put new paneling up.

IOU

I’ll be buying a new computer within a couple days. It’s just a matter of finding the proper hardware for the right price.  Right now I’m leaning towards a Dell Optiplex 760, it’s a solid business class machine.  KSoB uses them exclusively, and I know their inner workings inside and out.  I wanted a quad core machine, but to get this machine I will have to sacrifice that feature.