Going Back to the 80's

With all the talk lately about Def Leppard, Poison, Depeche Mode concerts and more... I couldn't resist throwing up my own little throwback to the 80's:



This one goes out to my good friend Russ Peacock. Remember when, my friend?! Good times... good times... :)

(Oh, and yes, that's me with a mullet; and yes, that's my gargantuan tongue; and yes, I'm proud of it!)

For those that don't know, Photon was the first laser tag arena in Utah. It was located across the street from The Sports Park (remember that?) just West of I-15 near the 9000 South exit. Its building has since been several other things, including Paintball Planet, but I'll always remember it as the place Russ and I used to go kick trash and take names as laser tag champions; or so we thought... til the one day we got ganged up on! I know you remember that one, Russ.

The Night I Nearly Burned My House to the Ground

It's now been over a month-and-a-half since I've blogged... there is good reason; most of which I've been busting my butt at work trying to help fix problems after a major data-center changeover and trying to meet a deadline for some software we're working on.

Nevertheless, the wait will be worth it I promise... look at the title after all!

So I'm having a LAN party this weekend. I have one every year around this time; it's been a tradition for several years.

As fate would have it, last Friday during Friday Night Gaming, I was playing a game of Starcraft with Jarin. Right around midnight my computer took a dump and I saw the first Blue Screen of Death I've had on my computer in 3 years. Unfortunately, Death is the keyword in this sitch.

After rebooting several times, I found my computer auto-rebooting itself every time after reaching the agp440.sys file (a video driver) during Windows initial loading process.

Not knowing what caused it (it could've been anything: bad hard drive, bad hard drive controller on the motherboard, bad CPU, etc. etc.) and not really having any time or resources to troubleshoot it right now; and needing to have my computer running wonderfully for my LAN party this weekend... I pursued looking at what it would cost to snag a new motherboard, CPU and memory (I already have a new video card and hard drive to throw in there.)

This would eliminate the major potential failure points, allow me to REALLY enjoy the LAN party and provide a machine that will meet all of my requirements until we finish our basement, yard and fence.

Gwen agreed and I purchased the product. It arrived yesterday and I spent the late hours of the night gutting my old parts out and replacing with the shiny new ones.

All was going well (all things considered) thought it was taking quite a bit of time since I'm out of practice with this sort of thing (for those that don't know I was a professional technician for a Utah distributor for around 5 years and got to the point I could build 10-15 new computers in a work day.) That's not to mention I really enjoy the rare times I get to play with new hardware now to really try to make the inside of my computer a work of art.

I made it a work of something this morning.

I completed the rebuild of the hardware a little after midnight this morning. I brought it upstairs, hooked it up and turned it on.

BEEP!

Huzzah! Successful post on the first try - we always like that. So I happily go into the BIOS and look through the settings to make sure I have them to my liking. Through the process I'm getting stoked to see what my computer that now has 4 brains built onto one CPU core can do with my shiny new 8800GT video card.

While starting the Windows XP Pro installation process, I stuck a floppy disk in to provide drivers for my hard drives. I noticed that the floppy light was on constantly which usually meant it wasn't going to read disks for you because it wasn't hooked up correctly.

"Minor setback," I thought to myself as I shut down the computer, flipped the power switch on the back and walked around the side of my desk to start making the changes.

This is where I earn my spot on the Darwin awards nominations for 2008. Instead of being the smart technician I used to be and getting a flashlight for my office which doesn't have adequate lighting in that part of the room at that time of night... I decide to just go ahead and "feel it out" to get it plugged in correctly.

After my switcharoo, I walked back to my seat, flipped the power switch on the back of the power supply, and hit the power button on the computer to fire it up, literally.

BEEP!

Huzzah! Happy post again! I rock...

The POST information starts appearing on my monitor, but for some reason it looks a little hazy on the monitor. Looking over to my left, I see smoke coming out every crevice of my case; especially around the DVD-Rom drive that sits above my floppy.

Immediately I start taking every possible step to disconnect power to the machine before it sends me to oblivion and takes my family along with it.

Thankfully, the Lord blessed me, even in my moment of stupidity, and I was able to avoid flames... barely.

Praise the lord that whoever makes these cables does so in a way that the melting that takes place when you plug the wrong pins together stops at the next power connector point (at least, if they don't work that way, I must've powered down fast enough to not let it spread further.) Here's the results of my not taking 2 minutes to go hunt down a flashlight because I was so in a hurry to see what this new kick-butt hardware was going to do... (click the image to see it close-up)


Look at the cable and the connection point on the back of the floppy drive. Yes, they're toast. Part of the power cable is completely gone... char spread partly on my desk, partly in my computer case, and partly outside where I promptly took the computer to blow the crap out.

Needless to say, it's now 2:14am here and I sit basking in the sweet sweet smell of burnt electrical wiring and melted plastic, blogging about my mayhem instead of the ten-thousand cooler things I've wanted to blog about for the last month-and-a-half. Hopefully I'll get to those soon because I have some REALLY cute pictures of my family that we had done on President's Day.

Anyway, I digress... so now, instead of getting XP loaded tonight and being able to set all my games up Wednesday night so I could be more than prepped for this weekend... I get to now spend Wednesday night re-gutting the computer to make sure it's cleared of all burnt debris; and I can confirm that no other damage was done (remember, my computer was still booting up, desptie the fact that the floppy drive didn't like where I'd plugged the power in and was deciding to get smoking mad about it...)

So yes, I'm quite confident the new hardware will kick butt (barring that I haven't singed anything else and caused permanent damage to my XION power supply.)

I certainly hope I didn't do other damage... I don't have money to replace what I just replaced. heh.

This happened once before when I was with Supercom. When the first motherboards that provided SMB (System Management Bus) arrived and we were building our first computers with them... they had a pin set on the motherboard identical to the pin sets for external USB port brackets that had been coming with motherboards for several months prior.

Recognizing the familiar pin set, and not paying attention to what this particular pin set was labelled, I ended up plugging the USB bracket into the SMB pin set. Their power pin configurations were different, so when I fired that sucker up, it smoked like my computer tonight.

Again, we thankfully caught it before the damage spread to more than just the cable. We were able to simply grab a new USB bracket and plug it into the correct place and the system worked flawlessly.

Pray for me that the same happens with my new hardware. I'm really not in the mood to have more mayhem than I already have.

And I hope you've been able to laugh as hard at this entry as I hope to be laughing at it on Friday when I re-tell it to my LAN party guests that haven't already heard the story. Right now it's not very funny...

Moral of the story... go find the flashlight! Shortcuts never were happiness (except in TrackMania)

That One Hiatus Guy - Not By Choice

Why oh why have I had to neglect you, blog? So much has gone on, and for over two weeks, I've had so much to tell you. Alas, because so much has gone on, I haven't had time to poop much less blog about what's happened.

Here's the really long condensed version (I love oxymorons):
Well over a month ago, I'd scheduled to have work off for a week before Memorial Day to do all the final work in getting my house ready to sell, so we could find a larger abode to house our upcoming adventures. Well, when the time finally hit, this is what happened...

Day 1: I get approached by my excellent friend Clint, who referred me to a company he used to work for, touting an exciting opportunity in Software Development. I was compelled to go check it out... so I did so on Day 2; after busting butt to try to get stuff done on the house, and spend some quality time with the fam.

Day 2: Interviewed with ProPay and had a ball. I interviewed with four people, and luckily knew two of them from previous work experience and common friends. This made the interview much less intimdating (one against four - those odds are intimidating) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Day 3: Worked more on the house... helped Brennan's third-grade teacher with a dance party for their class. The festivities included an intense game of musical chairs, the chicken dance and treats with much sugar content. Fun was had by all.

Day 4: ProPay makes an offer I can't refuse. The offer puts me on my friend Wayne's development team working with new Microsoft .NET technologies which has me giddy. The salary increase will help me afford a house in Utah. The feelings at this point are bittersweet; as I already had a killer job with StayWell Interactive in downtown SLC. I now had the ever-so-opposite-of-anything-remotely-close-to-fun responsibility to turn in my letter of resignation.

I will digress now and discuss how painful this is, since I've never had to leave a job I've liked without being forced to due to lay-offs, etc. Leaving a job you don't like is easy... leaving one you do like is torture. I have some really great friends at StayWell and enjoyed my two years with them very much; and learned a lot. They will be missed. Thank heavens for instant messenger.

Back to the story...

Day 5: We find our next home. A too good to be true house in Riverton that's way bigger than we were planning on buying... whose story has to be told in another post, because it's a story of its own. It will suffice to say that we had to jump on trying to land this place or someone else was going to scoop it up. However, at this moment in time, the planets weren't aligned but we tried for it anyway.

Memorial Day (the Monday after the week off): We list our house and put our offer in on the home we felt should be our next stomping grounds. We were basically asked to come back when we had a more serious offer and didn't have a house to sale still.

Tuesday - 29 May: I drive to work with heavy heart and a letter of resignation... head still spinning from all the mayhem that took place the week before. Mustering up all the courage I had, I slowly walked the Green Mile into my boss' (friend's) office and said, "I have some bad news." He said, "I don't think I like the paper that's in your hand." We discussed things and as I returned to my other friends and had to drop the bomb there too.

Note to self: avoid doing that where possible... it's a very difficult thing to do. (Did I mention, thank heaven for instant messenger?)

Back to house stuff... and I need to digress and mention that I'll probably be writing a supplemental post regarding the spiritual aspects of this whole crazy whirlwind that has been our lives over the past month or so... that part of it has been really neat. To illustrate a little in this post, we listed our house at what seemed to be against the odds.

Our agent (and excellent friend) Trent looked up comps in our area, and while one like ours had sold in 3 days, it had been gutted and completely remodeled. Ours has had some remodeling done, but nothing like this other house. The other comps around us were still on the market and had been for 27-45 days; still not sold.

Gwen and I had both always had the feeling that our house would go quick when it was time to sell, so we listed it anyway with that in mind and still went for the house in Riverton. Well, our first sets of people came through the house on Tuesday.

Wednesday: More work on the house, more people coming to see it.

Thursday: More people checking out the house, one set being a couple that had checked it out on the first day and were making a second visit.

Friday: An offer is made on our home by said 2nd walkthrough family.

Saturday: We go under contract on our home and make a second offer on the home in Riverton we wanted.

Monday (4 June): Phone negotiations start between agents on the Riverton home and by the end of the week finally get it under contract.

Friday (8 June): StayWell Interactive graciously takes me to PF Changs for my final lunch with them... That day really sucked... it's always hard to part knowing you won't hang out with those same friends everyday anymore. I wish them the greatest of success and more good times in my absence. I know this wil be dififcult since they won't have the dry humor pun guy there making them groan with 1/2 courtesy-laughs, 1/2 gagging reflex from reaction to the jokes. They also will lack the entertainment of me sitting at my computer trying to play a video one of the other guys sent via hyperlink in an instant message and freaking out about my sound not working; only to find it was because I was instant messaging in a Remote Desktop session on my secondary monitor -- both machine's Windows Taskbars in plain sight on the monitors... good times. They will be missed.

Monday (11 June): I start my job at ProPay. The drive tanks, except for the fact that I'm driving in Orem and that means I get to see lots of UTOPIA trucks and vans around laying fiber optic lines. I've driven past apartment complexes with signs touting their being connected to UTOPIA and my heart skips a beat... then gets extremely jealous and covetous. One day... one day in my Riverton (Phase II UTOPIA City) home... I so can't wait... but I digress (imagine that.)

I've only been at ProPay 4 days so far, but what a cool crew they have over there. I've enjoyed my associations with everyone I've met so far - a very family-friendly company and the work is going to be very enjoyable.

Now we move on to the house inspections, fixing stuff up to prep for the move and all that other fun stuff.

In the meantime, I've started planning (with some neighbors) a block party for my current neighborhood. We put one on last year and it was a ball. We want to do "one more for the road" as a farewell party to have one last huzzah with all our friends before we start a new adventures in Riverton; as well as help integrate the new family into the neighborhood.

Dreyers does this really cool thing every year called "Neighborhood Salute"; where they bring free ice-cream to several block parties. We were fortunate to be selected this year as one of the lucky block parties to have Dreyers' tasty goodness to share with the friends/neighbors. It should be a riot, and we're excited (and grateful!)

In the midst of all this mayhem... I've also been running around like a head-with-its-chicken-cut-off (yes, you heard me right...) trying to finish some side work and keep the Jordan Alumni Association website up-to-date with information on the Centennial Celebration happening in less than three weeks. My latest project on it was to add a Collector Pins database to the site. Shamless plug: some of those pins are the bizzomb. I'll be trying to scrounge up money so I can see about trying to put together a set... :)

Amongst all this, we've discovered this sickening cancerous looking mass growing on my tongue.
WARNING: Clicking on the link isn't for the weak-stomachs out there... for the rest of you, I know how much you want to see my tongue, so click away. :)

I'm getting that looked at by an ENT on Monday and will, I'm sure, be getting it cut off shortly thereafter. That's a pleasant thought... knives in my mouth gouging the tool that allows me to communicate with others... and taste Dryers ice-cream.

I'm sure it's stress-invoked... but dang, kinda freaky. I'll keep y'all posted on that one as I know you're fascinated *barf* -- it merits its own post, so it will most likely get one.

Like I've told everyone else, before I've shared it with you, blog... but I'm obviously a psycho masochist who always seems to find some exposed portion of the plate to slap something else on. My family is going for the Guiness record of most life altering events in a year (or rather six-month period. Crock, we might already have it just from the last month. I take that back, we have to wait til the twins are born so we can count that... three months. Most life altering events in three months.)

I just hope I can finally poop after the 14th of July. The Centennial will be over by then, we'll be moved into our new home (assuming the planets ARE aligned now and things go smoothly.) The job transition is over and the work on getting the house sold is done (again assuming nothing goes wrong there.) -- finally Gwen and I will be able to take a breath for two seconds before the two babies arrive and make our lives crazier than they have been for the past month.

Buckle your seatbelts folks, it's going to be a crazy ride. And now blog, you understand why I've neglected you.

Obviously I'll have more later, until then... nothin' but love.

And thus I end my epistle.

Trick or Treat

The ladies in my life: my beautiful wife, Gwen; my soon-to-be 6-year old Mandi; and my soon-to-be 2-year old daughter Kimmie are all chocolate freaks.

Kimmie is especially known for spreading her chocolate love all over the place when she consumes it; especially all over her hands and face.

After the jubilee, she comes to flaunt it in my face by showing me her chocolate hands... usually getting some on me, which is alright because then I get to share in yummy goodness too.

That is, until tonight. Being as it is only two days after Halloween night and having buttloads of chocolate all over my home, it's natural to see Kimmie with chocolate fingers all-day-long.

Tonight is extra special. I'm sitting at my computer, checking some email and talking a friend through getting two computers networked together so he can play some network video games with his buddy.

Kimmie comes down in her usual flaunt style... chocolate all over her cute little hands... waving them at me to pick her up and help her get cleaned up. She gets the usual dab of it on my fingers and as I go to lick it off; I don't taste the sweet sensation I'm used to tasting.

Needless to say, the friend was immediately and without warning put on hold (phone dropped to the floor;) my toddler and I make the world's fastest dash upstairs where I promptly unload her on my wife (giving her the 10-second cliff notes summary of how my adorable angel-baby has stuffed her hands down her diaper to find treasure... and then haul my sorry tainted mouth to the bathroom for an emergency "chocolate" evac (otherwise known as a good toothbrushing.)

Needless to say, I won't be using that toothbrush ever again. Nor will I be licking the chocolate off my hands that my ever-so-sweet and cuter-than-cute daughter so lovingly shares with me... EVER... AGAIN.

Moral of the story: Next time someone tells you to eat $#!Z... I don't recommend it.