Monthly Archives: February 2010

New day on the horizon…

Posted by Andrew Hrubik on

Today is the day I start a new norm. I am making several adjustments to way I live my life financially and physically. This comes not in a time of actual need but a strong desire to adjust and make better what I have worked for and what has been given to me already. Its time I took responsibility for a few things that I have been slacking on in my life. Hopefully this post will help me keep on track and for those few who read this feel free to help keep me on task.

Today I took the first step. I chose not to eat out after church. This is a start to controlling the one area of my finances that has continue to elude me. This will also begin at work as well as I eat out constantly for lunch and as of this week that comes to end. So as I enjoy my turkey sandwich and grapes here at the house while writing this I feel good about the decision I have made.

Wish me luck!

2nd New Motherboard = Phail

Posted by Andrew Hrubik on

So the second new motherboard is in for the media PC. I installed it hoping that everything would just magically work because surely the second time around nothing could go wrong. Boy was I wrong again. This time though there was no immediately obvious reason why. The board installed fine and looks fine. All of the parts installed correctly but the damn thing produces no video;  either through the video card of have for it nor through the on board chip. I removed all the relevant parts except for what’s necessary and still no video. Swapped out memory modules and still no memory.

So … I ordered another processor to try and see if the first new motherboard fried the original processor. Hopefully this will be it and I can begin the process of shipping off the various parts I have that need to be RMA’d.

New Motherboard = Phail

Posted by Andrew Hrubik on

Well for those that don’t know my media PC has been down for a few months because the video card went out. I was reusing an old laptop that was no longer “beefy” enough to handle my games but was more than enough machine for streaming HD content to the main TV in the living room. One day the I turned it on the stream some Stargate and noticed a slight pixelization that got worse and worse over a couple of weeks and eventually resulted in lockups and then total display failure. As expect the laptop is out of warranty and but unexpectedly they want $400 for a new video card for it. My answer to that is hell no. So as I contemplated what to use for the media PC now I discovered an older system at my parents house they had used up until my Dad retired a couple of years back which would work well. I got back to the house, cleaned it up only to find out while playing with it that the motherboard had apparently gone south (single board/component system) and I needed a new one.

Fast forward to Yesterday. I had ordered a new motherboard and installed it. It worked for a whole 5mins before burning itself out. It was Gigabyte branded so they used the Intel reference board and made a few tweaks which usually results in a little better board but this time it seems to have back fired. Submitted the RMA for a refund and ordered the Intel reference board. Maybe I’ll have better luck with the original design.

Black Ice

Posted by Andrew Hrubik on

Well yesterday I survived my most recent black ice driving incident for the first time in a long time whilst (love that word) getting on the highway at I-35 and 19th Street. Accelerating to highway speed down the on-ramp I lost the back end (4×4 vehicle in 4×2 mode) and at 40MPH was moving down the ramp sideways. Correcting for the spin I went back and forth from left to right about 5 or 6 times before centering and sliding/accelerating onto the highway just in time at full highway speed (60MPH). Further proof my Dad was a good driving instructor.

Thanks DAD!

Illustration of the event:

Aquinus | Mage of the Forsaken

Posted by Andrew Hrubik on

I usually post pictures here of the various different avatars I’m using in the various games that I play from ships to toons to whatever they are classified as. I have been delinquent since I started playing World of Warcraft again in December 2009. Here is Aquinus. I thought it would be funny to name an undead magic user after a 12th century catholic priest known for his logical approach to theology.

Aquinus | Mage of the Forsaken