Hangin' out at Hang Town. |
It was a very quiet Birfaday this year. Just what I wanted.
I'm saving up for the big four oh next year, and wanted a stress free weekend. Mission accomplished!
The week itself was filled with repairs. Maytag came out and fixed the errant Neptune, replacing both the main board and the motor. Thankfully the parts were under warranty. I just had to pay labor.
Then this little guy caused me tons of trouble. I was building a new system for Marianne at the office. I use these Shuttle X or AMS small form factor boxes. I can put in everything that I want, just the way I want it. Unfortunately, it means if I have a bad part, I can spend hours trying to figure out which one is causing the system to go belly up.
I spent a couple hours trying to figure out what was wrong with the new hard drive, and then systematically started to swap out each part with known working parts. Why I spent so much time thinking it was the hard drive is beyond me. The RAM seemed to be counting up just fine, so I discounted it as a cause early on in my troubleshooting.
I got all the stuff from Fry's and I refuse to go through their heinous Return line. It usually stops just sort of full cavity search. I was panicking that I might have to return the computer case.
Finally, I swapped this DIMM out with another computer I built a couple weeks ago, and that memory allowed the new system to boot right up. Like a fool, I put the new memory in the older system, and it played havoc with the it.
Wham bam, the next thing I know I have a computer with a hard drive failure. Complete meltdown on that system.
That wasn't just BAD memory. It was EVIL memory!
So now I am rebuilding two computers, and both are sitting there for me to tackle Monday morning. I was gonna work on them this weekend, but I SWORE I would do nothing this weekend.
Just peaceful bliss.
By Friday I was ready to party a little. They closed down the office at lunch and we all went over to Hang Town grill. Actually, shutting down the office for lunch isn't that big of deal on a Friday. Lots of staff are on 4-day work weeks, so Fridays tend to be rather lite. That compounded with summer travel and vacations, we often find the building a bit like a ghost town with drop ceilings.
We had a nice time, and it wasn't actually RAINING.
We have had a lot of rain this last week or two. Not real flooding, but all the rivers and lakes look swollen and it's still real green and lush when normally everything is starting to wither up.
I went for a short bike ride on Sunday and took this picture of Barton Creek. Normally it's easy to ford this “trickle” of a stream, and well, now that I think about it, it is dry most of the time. So that's a lot of water.
Missed a lot of biking this week because of the rain. I hope I don't fall out it. It takes about an hour and a half of my time everyday, so it is “expensive” time wise, but I sure do enjoy it.
I prefer the road bike rather than mountain biking, but Sunday was so nice and relaxing that I thought I would just tool around and take some pictures. More of that later.
Saturday, which was my Birfaday, was reallllllly quiet.
I got up and cleaned house. It really needed it.
My mom called while I was scrubbing toilets.
I told her I was actually glad I was only having to clean the house once, cuz normally I have to clean it before the party, then afterwards as well. I was giddy that I was cleaning it AND it would stay clean for a couple days.
I also went to the gym downtown. Normally I hit the one that is just a couple blocks away. The one down town is so gay, filled with cute guys, and well, potential models, I thought I would go down and workout there.
It “nicer” then the one I work out at. The decorations and lighting are so so gay! The equipment is nice, but they don't have enough of it. But I feel more comfortable at this one, it's just a major hassle to get to. Good break from the routine. Maybe on the weekends I will workout down here.
Jonatan stopped by also stopped by on Saturday.
He brought me the metal sculpture I had picked out. I am so spoiled! I get home delivery!
The Dragat is half bat half dragon. He's so big! It is kind of like a gargoyle, and I was thinking of mounting him over a doorway, but he sits so nicely and might be too big for that a doorway.
So for the next month or so he is gonna sit right here on the counter top.
I just love this piece!
Next I came home and watched a great movie. Alan is a “fan” in Iowa who has in the past sent me some gay type videos. Not porn, but anything gay related. Thanks to him, I've had the pleasure of seeing the French Rugby “Making of “ DVD on the TV. Will and Grace Bloopers, and of ton of other short clips. I think Alan mentioned that he might have one of the most complete gay-oriented media collections, and you know, I think he might.
This week he sent a DVD of Prom Queen. The story of Marc Hall, a gay Catholic school youth who goes to court to bring his male date to the prom.
It has all the depth of an “after school special” thrown in with some gay sensibility angles and effects that brought it up a couple levels.
It was very well acted by Aaron Ashmore, though not really believable as the real Marc Hall and perhaps a little too old even at about 23-24 to be playing a high school student. Plus, well, he's just too straight…sorry.
But he is a fine actor, and I kept trying to figure out where I had seen him before. At first I thought maybe he was in the Sci Fi Channel release of Children of Dune.
Then it dawned on me that he was “Bobby Drake aka Iceman in the X-men flicks. How could I have missed that, with those gorgeous ice blue eyes? Now THAT was perfect casting.
I hop on over to imdb.com to see what else he has done. Uh. No X-men listed as an accomplishment.
How could this be? I see so few errors at IMDB! I was shocked. I better write in and tell them to add the two MAJOR motion pictures that he was in. What a huge mistake!
Thoughts of showing “someone” how smart I was at finding this flagrant error rushed through my head. I then began to click around to the submissions area, but first I thought I would read his bio. Good thing I did or I would have looked like a numbskull.
Aaron Ashmore is a twin! His brother Shawn is in the X-men movie! Wow! They look identical, though I think Shawn has beefed up a bit more, but they both have slight frames.
Can you imagine? A complete set of these two handsome men with glowing blue eyes? Amazing!
I noticed that Shawn's career has been a bit more successful. I wondered at that. They both seem the same to me in both looks and acting ability. Perhaps personality or drive?
It won't be long before some director spots that the twins are a gold mine and find the right vehicle for them. Hell, it could happen in the X-men saga, with Mystique running around looking like everyone else.
Hey wait! Mystique did morph into Bobby Drake, yet I don't think they shared any screen time..two Bobby's in one seen. Missed opportunity or a future one to take?
Regardless. These guys are definitely breakout stars. I hope they make some great career choices cuz they have some skillz and be cool to watch them develop over the years.
I also completed a boring task this weekend. I finally transferred all my photo CD's to firewire drives for redundant backup. Took me forever!
I also found some fans that I could sit to cool the whole thing down. It was hoooooooot.
Looks tacky though.
Like a fool I didn't look online first. I found one made by Antec.
There also a cool one made by Kensington, though it didn't look like it would put out that much air.
So I ordered a couple of the Antec ones. Not a big deal, I spent 30 bucks on these case fans, and I am sure they will go to great use in all the computers I will likely build out over the next couple months.
So now I can store my CD's offsite and be really sure I don't lose the whole collection. Phew!
Like I said earlier I took a bike ride around town and had a fine time taking pics as I went along.
Lots of big changes downtown. New buildings!
The Frost buidling shot up like a weed, and it warps time and space. From down town, its looks big, but not THAT big. But when you are in any of the outlaying areas of town, all you can see is the Frost building.
I like the building. It looks like something form the Emerald City.
This building used to be a giant hole in the ground. For what seems like years, they dug out a hole and built up layer upon layer of parking garage space. I figured it was just gonna be one giant garage for the neighboring CSC buildings. Nope, they put this copper plated..uh..ski lodge on top of it. I like it though!
Check this out. Rapids on Town Lake! Water was high, so it looks like they had the flood gates open on the dam.
Ok..that's it for this week! See ya in 7!
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