Ed sent me this picture of what I think is the most interesting snowmobile I have ever seen. I think I will have to make one of these some day. Think I would turn a few heads driving this baby in Tahoe?

Last night I took the advise of the guys and removed a few components in my PC. I took out the Creative PCI Sound Card, (using the onboard sound now), the dial-up modem (not sure why I still had that in there anyway) and this Multi port USB device. I decied to leave the G drive disconnected, cleaned up the wiring, plugged in the USB Keyboard, mouse and video then hesitantly pressed the power button. Much to my amazement she fired up. I never realized how much I had missed that nice little Post “Beep” from the PC.

Now even though the PC is back up and running I am still not sure what the problem was. I can continue to follow the advise and put components back in one at time to see which one causes the problem but I am just damn glad to have it working agian. What I really need to decide on is whether or not to plug back in the secondary “G” drive and see if it works now. One opinion I have recieved is that it ‘might’ have been affected by the problem that was causing the machine to fail to post. I guess I will mess with it more over the weekend. I have missed out on World Of Warcraft for several days now and I am jones’n to go out and kick some Murloc butt!!

Yes it is true, computers and the internet have become a big part of my life. That can be both good and bad because when the darn thing breaks down I am really upset. Maybe more upset then I should be??? I mean how many times have you come home from work to find your internet down? Where you jones’n? Were you overjoyed when it came back up? LOL I know I am both!
I do build my own systems, I currently have four up and running at the house. My server, that this blog is on, the kids PC, the home office PC (that is rarely on the internet) and MY Game Machine.. Notice how I capitalized MY? Yes it is my personal computer and my game machine. It also happens to be the most cutting edge of them all of course. That isn’t saying too much for it is like 2 years behind the times by now.

Anyway MY PC was recently down due to the Allied 450W power supply seeming to crap out. Yes, I did say “seeming” and this is why: The PC would power up but not Post. There are fans running but no HD spinning and no beep from the mother board. I pulled out the Allied power supply and took it in to PC Club where I purchased it, had it tested and they said it was fine. I bought another identical anyway and installed it. Alas, the PC came up fine. Problem solved right? Maybe not. Around this same time I was having some issues with my secondary hard drive “G” which was a drive given to me over a year ago by VorteX. Knowing that it was a used 60 gig I grasiously accepted it and she has worked fine until recently. (No problem VorteX, it was free and I really appreciate having it) Some of the games on that have been messing up and so I ran the Maxtor diagnostic on both drives. My C drive checks out fine but the G drive was reported as “Failing”.

After I am successful in getting the important files off the G drive I decide to go in and disconnect it. This is because the PC seems to be taking too much time to come up after a reboot. The ICONs on the desktop taking some 5 minutes to appear. Once they do all is fine until I would try and access the G drive. Anyway, I unplug both the power and the SCSI cable from the drive and fire up the PC. Low and behold it won’t fire up and is giving the same symptom as it did when I changed out the power supply.

I have inquired with my Go-To-Guys, Atomic, Aspirax and VorteX and they all give me the doom and gloom of it. I have some testing to do suggested by Vortex in the MainLAN Forum but it looks like it might be the Motherboard. I hate this for money is tight at this time and a decent Mobo is expensive. Damn the luck. I will be running these tests and will get back to let you know what comes of it all.

Wish me luck!!

I have found a few silly state laws and I thought you all might find some humor in them. Some are very old as you will note.

Tennessee

• In Memphis, Tennessee, it is illegal for a woman to drive a car unless there is a man either running or walking in front of it waving a red flag to warn approaching motorists and pedestrians.
• In Tennessee, it is illegal to shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile.

There was a Pastor whose wife was expecting a baby so he went to the congregation and asked for a raise. After much consideration and discussion, they passed a rule that whenever the Pastor’s family expanded, so would his paycheck. After 6 kids, this started to get expensive and the congregation decided to hold another meeting to discuss the Pastor’s salary. There was yelling and bickering about how much the clergyman’s additional children were costing the church. Finally, the Pastor stood up and spoke to the crowd,”Children are a gift from God,” he said. Silence fell on the congregation. In the back of the room, a little old lady stood up and in her frail voice said, “Rain is also a gift from God, but when we get too much, we wear rubbers.” And the congregation said,”Amen!”

Well, Raakkos has encouraged me to post occasionally so here is my debut post. Those of you that are computer gamers have probably heard that the next installment of the popular Battlefield game franchise will be released this fall. Titled “Battlefield: 2142″ it is set on a futuristic Earth were a new Ice Age has caused man to fight for the remnants of land still habitable. It will feature futuristic vehicles and mech combat. More here, if you are interested.

Now, while that sounds neat, I’m still partial to their first game, Battlefield 1942. There is just something about that era that is very appealing to me. In fact, I was discussing this with some gamers at work, and we joked about how instead of moving forward, the Battlefield folks should regress in history for their next games. I stated I’d like to see Battlefield 2142 B.C. I think it would be something like this:

Comic - Brewster Rocket by Tim Rickard. Used without permission. All rights reserved. Void where
prohibited. May cause swelling or itching. When I want a cracker, I want a Ritz.

10 year old Johnny comes home from school to tell his father the good news. “Dad, guess what I got a part in the school play! I get to play the part of a man who has been married for 20 years.”

His dad was glad and replied, “That is great son. Keep up the good work and one day you’ll get a speaking part!”

You know, when the wife is out of town one would think that the husband has more time to himself. But, when there are kids in the house that may not be the case. Last night I was wanting to get on and play some World Of Warcraft early but first dinner had to be made, then pick up the house, do some laundry and then yes, help the boys with homework.

When I asked my son Eric what he had to get done it didn’t seem too bad. Once we got into it though my time on the computer shortened with every chapter. He had to finish up his paper on the western states. Naming the states, rivers, lakes and land marks. We got that finished then he had 4 chapters in a book to read for his book report. Now this did take a while for he isn’t that fast at reading. I found myself wanting to read it all to him but what would that do to help him become a better reader? Darn the ethics.
Now don’t get me wrong. I do enjoy helping with homework but hey, the wife is out of town and that should be time for me to play right? Oh well, a good father should do his part and I did. Will again tonight but we might do the homework first then I can get on the computer sooner!! Battlefield Vietnam with the buds! Oh yeah.

Raak

As some of you know it looks like we will be moving again. Yes again. This time from Reno to Eugene Oregon. My wife has been offered a transfer to a bigger mall up there. She will be working specialty leasing at both malls for a while then eventually just working that one. In the mean while the company I work for, SMS, should be moving into that mall as well. This will be to run the maintenance and housekeeping. As I am told by my RVP and his boss, I have a great chance of getting the Facilities Manager position at this same mall. So hopefully it will mean a simple transfer for me as well. I sure hope this happens so I don’t end up hunting for a job up there. At my age that sucks.

We traveled up to Eugene a few weeks ago so that my wife could meet with the property manager at that mall. While we were up there we got a chance to look around the area. Eugene is actually a pretty cool place. Reminds me of Northern Michigan quite a bit. Lots of tall pine trees and it was actually green for being winter. The nice thing is the cost of living seems lower then here in Reno which is a great thing. We ventured out to the coast which is like 45 minutes from Eugene and found not only sandy beaches but rock cliffs down to the water. Very cool stuff. We even checked out the lighthouse there and I’ll post a few pictures as soon as I get that part of this site working.

Well here we are, Saturday March 18 2006 and my site is up and running for the first time. Thanks to a ton of effort by my good friend VorteX. What would I do without good friends? For that matter what would any of us do without a good friend or two? It is true that good friends are hard to find and I could count my ‘true’ friends on both hands. Thanks again VorteX.

This page is here for the use of my friends and family to post thoughts, short stories or comments that they have. I encourage them to write about pretty much anything. From time to time I will post thoughts and stories here that you might like and some that might leave you wondering what planet I am from. That’s ok because this is my place and I can talk about whatever comes into my fertile brain.

My sister is a good writer and I have to get her on here for some stories. I have a good friend that goes by the name Atomic. He too is a good writer. I wonder if he’ll put something interesting on here??

Well that is it for now. Check back for something that will leave you wondering!!

Raak