Thursday, August 24, 2006

Water Cooled


While every one has their own version of “perfect”, I have a version of Awesome. This is my PC. It is a liquid cooled, yes you read that right LIQUID COOLED system. How you ask well just look. It has the same thing your car / truck has to cool the engine. It has a pump, reservoir, tubing, water block, and radiators with fans. It is a closed system using non-conductive liquid. For those just in case there is a leak it will not conduct electricity and fry the system or anything else. All the other parts to the computer include a GForce video card with 256MB on board DDR2 Memory 8x AGP, 1.25Gig of DDR2 RAM, three Hard Drives, one SATA 120 GB, one EIDE 250 GB, and one EIDE 100 GB drives. One PCI 128 Bit Creative Labs 5.1 Sound card, one PCI Fire Wire (IEEE 1493) card with two external and one internal ports. One USB 2.0 PCI expansion card with two extra ports. Two optical drives, one is a 16x DVD +\- RW and the other is a 52x48X52 CD / RW drive. The processor is a AMD Atholon XP 2400 2.0 GHz that is over clocked (hence the water cooling). All in all it is a sweet box for me. I do have plans to make a new one. I do not have pics of any of it but it is a plan in the making. Here is the low down on what I am looking to make it with.

1 x P4 3.4 GHz Dual Core Processor

1 x Intel D945 GNTLR LGA775 Main board w/ Gig Ethernet

1 x EVGA PCI-E GeForce 7300 256MB Video card

1 x 16x DVD +\- RW Dual Layer

2 x 1 GB DDR2 PC4200 RAM for a total of 2GB RAM

1 x (maybe I will go for two) SATA 7200 RPM 250GB Hard Drive

1 x 600 or 650 Watt Power Supply

That is going to be one heck of a system. So when I ever get the chance to build it I will include a picture of it. For now though here is my current box. Enjoy.

K.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Meeting detoured.

Ok so from my last post about meeting my co-workers husband I have had some lash back from the female persuasions of my life. Needless to say the meeting did not take place as I was away from my desk and was not even called like told when said husband was going to be here. That aside I still hope to meet him and in also saying this I hope that both parties (me, my wife and her and her husband) get to meet and mingle or have dinner or what ever. I am sure that B would not mind having a dinner party as that is what I think she lives for. I do not blame her as I get to reap the benefits of it from the leftovers of stuff that she makes that is scrumptious. She can make some of the best deserts.

As for my work environment I have to say it is good to now be full time with them. I like this group of people and they so far seem to like me. It is an exciting environment and very active. Lots of things to do and many more new things always happening. I only hope that this work relationship lasts a good bit of time as I like the area, job and people alot.

K.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Social life at work- to have or to have with reservations

Ok so we all have friends at work and people that we hang out with right? Well if you don't then you must be related to Melvin from Office Space. "Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler". Any way, I am about to meet a friend of mines husband tomorrow and I some what nervous. I like this friend (she does happen to be a girl yes) and she says that her husband and I are similar the way that we act. One slight difference is this. He is an eye doctor and well I am a Tech Geek. Here lies my dilemma as I am sure there are many more out there like me and this is it, why is it women can talk about co-workers (men, women and well any one) to their husbands and the husbands think none the wiser about it, but if a guy talks about co-workers and it happens to be a woman that he is talking about the wives get suspicious? I have a few suspicions but need to use choice words as I do not want to land my self in trouble. Fella's I know you know what I mean. I have even tried to tell my wife that even she would like this person. I did try to invite them over for a party that we had but they were busy as they just moved into the area and wanted to get a lot of things done for their new digs. I still want to have them over and she (the co-worker) does want to meet my wife also. So that is my dilemma, how do men talk to their spouses with out raising unnecessary suspicions about some one that we find interesting at work regardless of their sexual orientation?

Monday, August 14, 2006

Personal Barometer / Debauchery & Communication


These three things are the things that a man should have in any long term relationship and no matter his age. I shall explain better as this goes on so please bare with me and you shall see what I mean and I only hope that you can help in applying it to your life in a way that will help you better your relationship with your significant other.

Personal Barometer as my wife puts it means just this : To have the ability to take care of ones self and know when either pains of hunger are making you angry / mad / or other wise rude or be in touch with your own feelings to know when you need to blow off some steam and go work out or something.

This needs to be premised with me stating that I am a person that by nature not personal choice that tends to eat only when I am told that I need to eat because I can not for the most part recognize better on my own that I am being angry, mad, rude or other wise unpleasant. I eat only to live not live to eat. I know that this is shocking and un worldly to some but it is me and this is the sad truth to my life. I also am a person that does not relieve stress very well on my own or recognize the fact that I need to do something to relieve said stress. I have to wait for my wife to tell me again that I am being rude, mean, and obnoxious or down right well you know. I love my wife for being who she is. I do not think that I tell her enough and with some recent events I also know that I do not show it enough in the day to day things that I do or even the special occasions that go on around us.

Debauchery is a word that was used in conversation with my wife and man she was having some trouble with some easy words so she broke out ones that were big. I fortunately have a knack for being able to spell big words but forget the little ones quite often or use the wrong tense of a word. Any way this comes into play for this conversation in a way that all men should have a sense of it. The meaning from Webster’s version I do not know but the short and skinny of it is to have a plan or purpose of mischievous nature (Three Stooges style) yet to be able to have fun with out hurting any one in the process. Webster’s version for those that have to know is “n : a wild gathering involving excessive drinking and promiscuity”. This is not what I had in mind for the word though. Two examples that my wife used for the word was that of the Three Stooges & of Cpt. Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Now this leads me to my last one on the list. Communication. This evil monster lurks every where, home, work, play, everywhere. Crikey mate this one is a bugger! Ok just had to get Steve Erwin there. This guy can make or break ya. I know that I do not actively communicate nearly enough when it counts and some times it can be a pain because you want to talk but do not because fear runs through you that you might or will say the wrong thing and hurt some one more than the intention of your words were meant to be. So here choice of words is just as vitally important. Well at least that is my fear. But as my wife would tell you “saying something is better then not saying any thing. At least by saying “I am thinking about what you said or I have nothing to say to that.” is better than not saying a single thing at all”. This is very true but plays into my fear of still saying the wrong thing or not saying enough. I need to get better at it, as much as I some times try my self to perform this (to me) minor miracle I still botch it up. Two way communication is also always key. You do not want the conversation to be a one way conversation cause that can make a woman even madder and she never wants to have the idea in her head that she is sounding like a nag because that is not what she is at all. At least acknowledge to her that you are listening to her and that you actively thinking about all that she is saying. But you have to really mean it. You can not say it to get her to shut up or anything. Not that I know this from personal experience but you do not want to have her mad at you for that also. You must be true to your self and actively listen to what she says. Even in a day to day conversation. Not all conversations are bad. The day to day conversations are also key, you know the ones that I am talking about. You come home, she comes home you both ask each other how their day was. Either of you ask about what the other would like to have for dinner, or if the other would like a glass of wine ( BTW a Cab Franc is really good choice in our house – for me any way currently the wife prefers a lot of whites just not Rieslings) or something else. Or even the conversations of what each other would like to do this coming weekend.


Leaving this post on a good note I want you to read this. I heard a great thing this weekend and I too need to apply it better to my own day to day life. That thing is this (the short version) “ … do for others to make them happy. Not because you are looking out for you and want them to do for you later but because you are not a selfish person….”



Thursday, August 10, 2006

Late Bloomer

Ok so I am not as good at this as my wife. She I swear writes (or so it seems) in her blog daily. But then again what is a blog but a daily diary right? Any way. Some great friends of ours came done from Lancaster, PA. We had a blast. Food, wine, good friends and great conversation. Ladies and youngens went shopping and eating some where while the guys went and played golf. Well it so happens that the place we went to was some what local to us. About 25 to 30 min. away. Lakeshore ( http://www.golflink.com/golf-courses/golf-course.asp?course=6752 ) golf course in Durham, NC. The weather was not to bad but it was realy humid that day. The course how ever was fair to good. The greens were slow and just grabed your ball, and the fairways did also. The only part of the course that sucked or could use alot of improvement was the tee boxes. If the course maintained the tee boxes like they did the greens I would be only raving on how the course was great. Well it also so happens that the grounds people like to water the greens durring the day instead of in the morning and they also like to do it while you are trying to hit to the green from the fairway. They also like to mow right in front of the green and not move and in fact wave you on (very dangerous I might say) to the green like your tiger woods and never make a mistake in hitting the ball. Or even better they also like to mow the fairways when you are trying to tee off and not even bat an eye to you to realize that "oh hey this guy is trying to golf, he pays my wages so I might want to let him play through and while I am at why not move so I do not get hit in the head". THIS is what the mentality of the course grounds keep personel should be not just the oposite. Out of a 10 star rating system I would rate this course as a 6. The fairways were open and not to bogged down by too many trees on the sides or un-necesary sand traps or water hazards. Every thing had a good placing except for the dag gum people working there were always getting in the way. I think this is enough on this course and shall move on to something else. For tonight, Good Night and Good Luck.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

For Starters

I am a very random person by nature. Ask any one who knows me and they will gladly tell you "yes". This blog is not going to be specific to any one item. I have many different hobbies and cravings for life. I do a little of this a little of that and then some of that. I like to wear many different hats when it comes to work and family life. I often do not even know what it is I want and have to ask my lovely wife what it is that I am after or why it is that I might be acting the way that I do. She is my saving grace, my best friend and my soul mate. I do not know what I would do with out her in my life. I love her very much.

This is just to get things started. This is for all you NHL fans out there. How many of you can say that you have done this?