4 day holiday

I received the components for my new super computer a day early on Thursday and as a result I asked to take Friday off to use as PC migration day.  I threw the components together Thursday afternoon.  My office was a f’n mess of boxes, static bags and packing peanuts.

I hadn’t built a system for myself for a loooong time.  My last 2 systems had been Sony Vaio’s and I have been quite content with them.  My last one has served me since 2002, an ETERNITY in my pc world.  For whatever reason I had the bug to put one together again.  A lot has changed since the late 90’s in system building with new style cases, power supplies, uv lighting, SATA hard drives and enough fans to cool a large room. 

I took my time but did not take the time to tie wrap and carefully route everything because once I get all my UV lighting I will be redoing the connections anyway.  The moment of truth came where you hope everything works and you push the power button.  It lived, I was relieved.  I got a sample of the speed of the beast when it installed Windows XP Pro in all of 10 minutes.

Thursday night and Friday I spent tons of time getting data, programs and application settings from my old PC to the new one.  I had close to 100 gig of data to move.  The procedure was made more tedious because the plan was to have Ali utilize my old pc so I had to duplicate the effort a second time once mine was migrated.  After many, many hours over the 4 days and much frustration, I am pretty much done.  Ali’s old pc/my file server is tucked under her desk on an A/B video switch humming away doing it’s server duties and Ali is happy running on my old pc which feels like greased lightning compared to what she was used to.  I took some pics of my new pc as it stands now.  The components had a total of 5 separate rebates associated with them, filling them all out was a pain in the ass. 

Saturday morning Ali participated in a 5k.  Even with it starting at 7:30 am the air was thick with humidity and as soon as the sun cleared the horizon the temps skyrocketed.  Once the race started I volunteered my services on the food prep table.  I quartered what seemed like a couple hundred oranges.  By the time the first few runners were crossing the finish line I was still cutting away.  Once that was done my job was to man the table trying to keep the water and gatorade jugs full and minimizing the mess created by the chaos of dozens of runners converging on the refreshment table simultaneously.   The water jugs were filled with a garden hose which seemed low class but with the amount of water that is consumed there is little choice.  The problem was there was no ice to dump into the coolers so the water didn’t stay cold very long.  People were constantly complaining the water was warm.  I am suggesting that a bunch of ice is purchased for the next race.

Anyway Ali finished the race in what was a slow time for her.  The steamy weather and the fact that she did a hardcore spin class the day before contriibuted to her time.  When I was running with her I would have been really on her back to pick up the pace.  Since I have been relegated to the sidelines I feel I have little basis to say much.  I feel like if I am not putting in the miles with her, it is out of line to say much.  I don’t think it is a coincidence that Ali’s 5k times bounced back up after I stopped running them, I acted as a pace setter.  I added the pics from the run to Ali’s running picture page.

The weekend was very, very wet.  At several times rain was just coming down in sheets, like someone with very large buckets was dumping them on our heads.  Our yard was completely underwater several times.  I took several pics where it had receded a bit.  I took some more yesterday where you can see full submersion but they aren’t online yet.

We scattered a good amount of activities into the weekend.  We went out to dinner and miniature golfing with the neighbors on Saturday.  Sunday evening we went to a party at a friends house for a few hours.  On Labor Day, Ali went shopping with my Mom in the middle of the day.  I played a lot of WoW.  Last week I hardly played at all, I think I played zero until Friday. I made up for lost time Monday.  The only effort I made towards a traditional Labor Day celebration was making burgers on the grill for Nicki and me, wahoo.

The NFL starts this week!  My fantasy football roster is set and I am excited about the Eagles this year.  If they stay healthy I am hopeful for a strong year.

Our cat Buttons is a load. I snapped this pic for some reason. She lookes like a 2 liter soda bottle.  Several times during the weekend I wanted to choke her after cat puke/ass wiping on the carpet episodes.  I really am ready for her to go to cat heaven.

Man I was sad to hear about Steve Irwin.  I really liked that guy.  What a way to go, although I would say it is fitting he went down doing something like that. RIP Steve.

 Full moon is coming and I can feel it.