Yippee!
Good news!
The computer is in GOOD health and is VERY speedy! More to come later!
Good news!
The computer is in GOOD health and is VERY speedy! More to come later!
“I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.”
- Orson Welles
Today is Thursday, September 16th. All is well.
Yesterday marked the first day of school for the children of Beslan, Russia. It would be hard to ever return to school after that.
On Tuesday I dropped my new computer off at Apex Computers in Malden to have them put it together. I feel like a little bit of a failure for not being able to do it myself, but I’m starting to suspect further damage to the motherboard. I spent a couple hours on Saturday trying to get the IDE drives to work and sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t without rhyme or reason. It could be that there’s a damaged component or it could be that I got the jumpers all wonky. Therefore I decided to let a professional put it together. They’re good people down at Apex and I always enjoy going there — especially now that their parking lot is paved. I tried desperately yesterday to avoid calling; I don’t want to be a pest. I don’t think I can do it today. I think I’m going to have to call to see if I can get the machine back tomorrow. When it comes back I’ll install Windows XP on it and start getting it back in to shape. I want to put a bunch of the software back on … but I have to confess that I can do without most of it.
I didn’t get the job I applied for at work. I am disappointed but not surprised. I thought the interviews went well and got confirmation of that this week. I talked with some of the interviewers and don’t think they were just being polite or kind when they said I was a good candidate. In the meantime, my old boss, who lost his title and became one of us seems to be cementing his position as team-lead. Its certainly not inappropriate that he get the team-lead spot. But I wanted a crack at it too. I don’t think he would follow my instructions and would probably leave in short order, but I am also having a hard time following his lead. Over the last few years he’s left most of the day-to-day issues for me to resolve and manage and its uncomfortable having him step on my toes.
I sent a letter to Gabriel’s new first grade teacher, Ms Santosuosso, asking for a speech therapy evaluation. I got word back in the form of a note in Gabriel’s backpack that she would be happy to meet with me on the issue and there would be a sign-up sheet for conferences at the upcoming “open house” event. Liz will go to that and sign me up to talk with her. Her letter was nice and polite. I know that first graders are routinely evaluated a few weeks in to the new school year so she could have dismissed my request easily by pointing me to the evaluation. I’m hopeful it will go well. What I’m really after with Gabe is getting him to pronounce and recognize his R’s. He’s not just picking up Boston’s regional variation in dropping the “R” — this is more than that. When he spells words phonetically it becomes clear that he’s not even aware that there’s a letter there. For instance Liz saw him spell “strawberries” like this: S-T-O-B-I-E-S. So I want his speech problem corrected quickly. Unfortunately Melrose is cutting corners in all areas of education and things like speech therapy are very difficult to get now. However, I’m determined to get this issue resolved and won’t be deterred. And its not like this problem goes across many speech issues — its REALLY just the one issue with the “R”.
Chloe starts full time Kindergarten today. She’s loving school and naturally had no separation troubles. Not only that she didn’t even say goodbye when she ran off to school! We ran in to her teacher on Sunday at the Victorian Fair downtown and chatted some. She’s the same teacher who taught Ben and Gabe. We like her a lot. She’s pretty excellent. She really cares in a very earnest way about her kids.
Ben is doing VERY well in everything I can throw at him. That is, he got all the spelling words correct and enjoyed the arithmetic we went over. I’m very proud of how well he’s doing. Gabriel is at a difficult time in his reading skills. Ben went through it too. Its that stage where he is sounding out the words but keeps stumbling over the rules and everything. Its frustrating for him as well as us. Still he keeps working at it with a determination I admire. He’ll get it.
Sphere: Related ContentYesterday I was telling someone at work about how I don’t really “buy” DVD’s. I’m more of the sort of person who watches a movie once and then I don’t look at it again.
Last night I bought the new Star Wars Trilogy DVD set at Amazon.com — well, its not released yet — I pre-bought it.
Then I thought about whether or not I really watch movies repeatedly and what I said yesterday was a blatant lie. Apparently I fabricated it out of whole cloth! I *DO* watch movies again and again and I *DO* sometimes buy a DVD. Lord of the Rings, The Matrix series, Teletubbies.
Sphere: Related ContentToday is Tuesday, September 7th, 2004. Since the computer is still out of commission, who knows when this will post. Gabriel’s seventh birthday is tomorrow. On Saturday we had a “party” for him at Rollerworld — a local roller rink that the kids like. I put the word party in quotation marks because about half the people failed to show up. I don’t mean half the people RSVP’ed and declined. I mean, that of those who RSVP’ed half failed to show up. It was very discouraging. Poor Gabriel always seems to get shafted. He’s very much the middle-kid and I so desperately want to make sure he doesn’t get overlooked. He’s a great kid who doesn’t complain much and doesn’t demand much, which means his needs tend to be overlooked more than the others.
And how about this: it turns out that there’s a “critical mass” of guests who need to show up to make it feel like a real party! We had a total of 10 kids (4 were mine) and it really didn’t feel festive or very special. I have to come up with a better idea for him for next year. He deserves to feel special on at least one day out of the year. I don’t mean to say he didn’t feel special. I think he did. He had a good time skating around and so did his guests. Nonetheless I feel compelled to do better for him next time.
We also spent a lot of time in the yard cleaning it up. We removed two old miniature kiwi vines that never bore flowers in this New England climate. We had previously gotten rid of some fruit trees that wouldn’t bear fruit either. I dug up and cut in to small pieces two holly bushes and a hydrangea that didn’t quite make it through last winter. I also cleared “the canyon” of giant weeds. The Canyon is a section between our house and the driveway next door. Its more like a four or five foot pit that collects plants and litter. More of the latter than the former. Its always a little spooky because its kind of dark and you never know exactly what you’re stepping on. I have faith that none of it is an actual animal or snake or something.
Last winter I got an outdoor fireplace that came in handy on Saturday. We took a lot of this yard waste and burned it. I had previously stored a lot of the sticks and big branches that had been cleared anticipating something like this. We got the fire going good and hot with old dry wood and then threw on the green stuff. We tried to keep the smoke low by only putting on a little greenery at a time. It took us a couple of hours to go through everything. I kept thinking the local fire department would stop by and make us knock it off. Or the police would come by to put a stop to it. This really took the joy out of the outdoor fireplace.
Many of Liz’s plants in the front didn’t make it through our exceptionally hard winter. So we went to home depot where she bought some new bulbs and some peat moss and whatnot. I got grass seed, fertilizer and a new cross-cut hand saw. I spent some time yesterday seeding and feeding the back yard after mowing the grass. I understand you’re supposed to plant fall grass six to eight weeks before the first frost so I think now is the right time. Liz turned over all the dirt in the front and added the peat moss and some fertilizer to the soil. It looks much richer now. She’s prepared the spot so she can plant her flower bulbs any time in the next few weeks.
After getting a lot done in the morning I took the three older kids fishing in the afternoon up at Spot pond. We didn’t catch anything but the kids seem to be getting better at casting. When we got there the kids really wanted to splash around in the shallow water. I knew it would scare the fish away, but since Ben had already fallen in accidentally I didn’t think it would hurt anything. We had two fishing rods for three kids — a situation I intend to remedy today. And they could knot up a line in about thirty seconds (sometimes three seconds!). I managed to untangle their knots in under five minutes. This meant that most of the time I was untangling knots instead of fishing and they were standing around waiting instead of fishing. They were all better at the end of 2 hours than at the beginning and I think they’re getting the hang of it. They also found one live crawdad and one dead one. We’re hoping they are of no relation to each other. I nearly caught a duck. But no fish. Still, it was nice getting out to the lake and not having too much to do. I’d like to do it again right away, but I don’t think I’ll get a chance. After 45 minutes or so I told the kids that I wanted to fish for a little bit and that they should try untangling their own lines for a while. I didn’t even get any nibbles but it felt good nonetheless. Another thing is that I want to get actual earthworms next time — I always have better luck with live bait than with lures.
Now its back to work. The boys start school tomorrow (9/8) and Chloe starts the following Monday I think. They don’t start at the same time anyway. Ben’s third grade teacher will be doing this thing called “looping” where she will have the same class for two years. The idea is that they can save four weeks at the beginning by not having to get used to each other after the summer. She’s supposed to be very good, so I’m hoping it turns out well. Ben and his first grade teacher didn’t hit it off but I have high hopes for this teacher. I don’t recall her name.
We were in line at Home Depot and there was a very cute little girl who kept smiling in our direction. Then Liz asked Benjamin if that was “Lauren” from school. He confirmed it was and went over to say “hi”. Then she got bashful and didn’t want to talk to him. But when he got 10 feet away she started smiling at him again.
The kids are really excited about getting back to school. They’ve had a busy summer but haven’t seen any of their usual friends even once! It will be good for them to get back in to the groove. Chloe and Grace will be starting dance classes next week or the week after. Chloe will be taking tap and Grace is engaged in something called “Creative Movement”. I don’t know if they learn anything but they’re both really excited to go.
I guess I better get back to work. They’re supposed to announce who got the manager job for which I applied sometime this week. I’m hopeful but not optimistic about my chances. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Oh and there’s a “team building” event this evening at my new boss’s house. It will be fun I think. Its just a BBQ but I know him and his wife and like them both quite a bit and I like the group of people who will be going. I think I’ll be home around 9 or so. Not terribly late.
Sphere: Related ContentI just ran in to someone from HR and we got to chatting. I asked when the results of the manager-hiring process would be announced and right then someone walked by and she got kind of flustered and said “anytime now”. Yeah, I knew that much! I did find out that the last applicant was interviewed last Thursday and that there had been a total of 12 people applying.
I wonder how far down the list I am.
Sphere: Related ContentI don’t know when this message will post. Today is Friday, September 3rd, 2004. My computer is in pieces. Many small pieces. Both computers are in pieces.
Last night I decided I would get the new computer fired up and see how “live” I could make it. My plan was to make sure the computer could start with just the monitor plugged in and one of the memory cards. I added an unformatted HDD as well. Then I would introduce more hardware one at a time. It would probably be more time consuming than adding everything in at once, but I wanted to make sure everything worked right.
When I turned on the power the first time nothing happened. Nothing. No HDD spinning up. No nuthin! Only the face of the case lit up. It cycled through some colors and looked very pretty. Useless, but pretty. I didn’t take this too badly since I knew it was probably something simple. I started closely examining the 500W power supply and the cables that should go to the motherboard. To me that seemed like the logical first place to start.
The motherboard wasn’t plugged in! After supplying power the fan on the CPU started right up! The good news is its an easy fix. The bad news is that the supplier was supposed to have done that. I found a couple of fans and I plugged them in. I wondered what else the supplier skipped.
One thing of which I was suspicious was that the heatsink on top of the CPU seemed to kind of pivot a little. That is, it didn’t seemed like it was securely fastened to the motherboard. But I’m not very knoweledgable about CPU’s and motherboards and heatsinks and maybe its ok for it to do that.
So, now the LED’s light up, the fans on the case spin and the fan on the CPU spins. The monitor doesn’t come though. Hmm… I turned it over in my head for a while and a couple of different things. Finally I removed one of the memory cards. THEN the monitor came on and showed the Biostar company logo.
Five seconds later the whole machine shut down.
THIS bothered me.
I more closely inspected the mysterious swivelling heatsink. Its a piece of metal about 2/3rds as big as my fist. Like a billard ball. Its big. To shorten my already lengthy story it turns out that the heatsink is secured to a plastic frame that fits around the CPU. The plastic frame is screwed down to the motherboard in two places (right/left side). Each screw goes in to a little metal shaft with threads on the inside. The shaft looks like its secured to the motherboard.
This assembly provides a stable base to anchor the heatsink. Since the heatsink requires a very tight fit to the CPU in order to move the heat away from the CPU it has to have a stable base. In this case one of the metal shafts has parted company from the motherboard. So the anchor has nothing firm to hang on to!
The computer continued to shut itself down because the CPU was overheating within 10 seconds of starting.
I called the supplier and was very upset with everything. I think I was able to adequately explain what the problem was, but I don’ tt think the supplier understood.
They decided to send me a new heatsink assembly. I think that those shafts are PART of the motherboard. Therefore, I think I need a new motherboard.
Or some superglue.
I told Liz that I thought I could superglue the piece where it belongs. Afterall, its only job is to sit still! She said “Rob, listen to yourself. You want to SUPERGLUE your motherboard. Does that SOUND like a good idea?”
She has a point.
So I’m going to wait for the heatsink assembly to arrive to see if the part is in there. I can’t believe it will be there. In the meantime both computers have been canabalized and are in many pieces. I suppose I could put the old one back together but I don’t think there’s a rush.
Only this blog is updated from there. So by the time this message is posted my computer should be all better! It might be a while, though.
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