Gone Swimming....jawaproMon 20/10/2008 07:58 PM
Sometime during the middle of winter, it occured to me that I haven't been swimming for ages.
I don't just mean since Summer - I mean for at least 3 years.
So I checked it out - and the local swimming pool opened on the 20th of October (today).
So I went swimming today, and you know what? They heat the pool! Where's the fun in that?
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The Hand of MegatronjawaproMon 20/10/2008 07:48 PM
When I arrived home last night after spending the weekend at my parent’s place – Neptune (my cat) was there to meet me.
Unfortunately for him, he was sitting besides Megatron’s bite-marked hand (detached from the rest of him).
This hand belongs to my Revoltech Megatron – an ultra-posable but non-transformable figure I bought on Ebay a while back. It’s not a cheap toy – this is more of a collector’s piece. I’d left him on the table in the kitchen, and Neptune had obviously decided to attack it and pulled the hand (lower arm) off.
So as you can imagine, Neptune didn’t get a very friendly greeting from me.
But it gets worse, when I tried to reattach his arm, the trade-mark Revoltech joint broke!
So my Megatron was mostly ‘armless.
This made me even madder with Neptune, who finally realized I wasn’t about to give him a treat, and went away and hid for a bit (smart move).
Fourtuantly for Megatron (and Neptune) I had a 2nd Revoltech. It was some ugly yellow dude that looks like he has a chicken’s head. No idea where he’s from – but when I was looking at Megatron (and the other couple of Transformers) on ebay, I placed a $1 bid or something on this guy, and ended up winning him. He’s been in his box ever since while I decided who I’d give him to – as I didn’t want him.
Even though the Yellow Fool is smaller than Megatron, they did manage to share the same size arm-joint. So with a little work, Megatron has a slightly wrong-coloured joint, and a hand with tooth marks on it. Not perfect, but at least he has a hand again.
I’ve forgiven Neptune for now – but if I ever catch him on the table again he’s soooo going to regret it!
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Silas to KarlendorfjawaproFri 17/10/2008 06:40 PM
Earlier in the year, I did a dash to Burnie to collect Silas – a computer that I sort of owned. Basically we’d bought it and donated it to Seabrook Christian School with the proviso that it would come back to us when it was no longer needed. As it had died – they had no use for it, so I went and picked it up.
It was a dual-P3 but had a dead motherboard. All I really wanted was the case anyway.
Well – skip forward a few months. I’ve moved house and things – and Silas was still as it was. I had grand plans to buy a mobo, cpu, and everything else and install in the case.
Unfortunately – since I am now paying off my home-loan, I’m not as flush with money as I was, and I didn’t want to spend too much – so I’d put it on hold.
But I eventually bought a second hand mobo/cpu combo from a guy I knew in Launnie. I got Klutz to pick it up, as I wasn’t in Launceston at the time.
Well – the next day, a server crashed at work with a dead PSU (power supply). I managed to rectify it by using parts of an old retired server. As the old server was now lacking a PSU and still surplus to requirements, work told me I could have it.
This server had a slightly better speced mobo and CPU than the one I’d just bought – so I contacted someone else who had been interested in the original one, and sold it again for a slight profit.
I never even saw it – Klutz picked it up for me, and the new buyer picked it up from him.
Things actually worked out really well. I had bought some other stuff with the mobo/cpu – but didn't include them in the second deals so I made $5 PLUS a gig network card, 512mb of DDR1, and an ancient floppy drive. Not bad for a few emails flying back and forth eh?
So that left me with the server from work (code-named Fatso). It was a rack-mountable server, but full length, which made it too long for my newly built rack.
All I wanted was the innards anyway. I had a spare PSU, and this had everything else I needed.
The insides of Fatso were insanely clean. I’ve never worked on a computer this clean. Even brand new PCs are rarely this dust-free. That’s the beauty of being kept in a Server room I guess.
So after a week of on-and-off working on the project, I got it all into the Silas case, and got the OS up and running with the necessary drivers etc.
So I am pleased to Introduce KARLENDORF – my new server.
The innards of Fatso, the case of Silas, and some extra bits for around the place, Karlendorf will be my new Domain Controller and VM server.
It was shockingly loud when I turned it on (Fatso had been too) so I assumed it was the CPU fan – but it turns out it was actually just a cooling fan. I knew the ones from Fatso were just as bad, but when I had a look in my parts cupboards, I found I had 3 brand new ones.
Still don’t know where these guys turned up from – but they were just what I needed for Karlendorf.
So now that it’s no longer louder than my vacuum cleaner – Karlendorf’s about ready to be put in production.
Looking at the front – I’ve filled him up with a strange array of devices.
Going down they are:
1 x SCSI drive caddie
1 x SCSI drive caddie
1 x IDE drive caddie
1 x CD/DVD drive
1 x 5 1/4 Floppy Disk
1 x some form of tape drive
1 x regular floppy drive.
Half the stuff isn’t actually running at the moment – but it’s still cool to have it sitting there.
So that’s what I’ve been working on lately.
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My Life in 2DjawaproFri 17/10/2008 09:27 AM
Hey - just a quick update.
Work's been pretty busy this week. It's actually been a quiet week, but as I am the only one in the office, that's a jolly good thing. The others are all either on Holidays or doing projects. So I've been the helpdesk (normally 4 blokes).
In other news - I went back to the Optomitrist. They said that the main glasses were definatly wrong, but asked me to try the free pair for a while to see if I could get used to them, or if they would need to be changed too.
So I've given it a shot - but it's very wierd. Seems like I've lost most of my depth perception when I wear them.
It's not a problem when I'm sitting looking at something, but when I walk around it feels really odd (made me feel sick after I wore them most of the day so I changed back to my old glasses). It's worst when I am talking to people - because it's really hard to talk to someone when they look like a cardboard cutout.
It does come and go a little - sometimes they work fine - but most of the time they don't. So I'll probably have to get both lots fixed a bit.
On the positive side - I can see clearly - even if things are 1 dimension short. I can read things in the distance properly, and I can use the computer without the problems I'd been having with my old glasses - but at the moment it would be a case of swapping between the glasses depending on what I was doing.
I'm still wearing the 2D ones as much as I can manage (the optomitrist asked me to) in case my eyes adjust, but so far they haven't.
Anyway - that will do for now. Stand by for an update on the Karlendorf Project shortly.
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New GlassesjawaproMon 13/10/2008 08:03 PM
For the last few weeks, I've noticed that my eyesight has been getting worse.
Normally that wouldn't have been too critical, but it's gotten to the stage where using a computer can affect me.
And knowing me - that's a massive problem!
Games and things aren't too bad, but text is a problem. So that's been a real pain at work, and part of the reason I haven't been blogging as much.
So I went and got my eyes tested, and sure enough, my left eye has gotten a lot worse. My right eye isn't much different though. So they think the reason it's been an issue is that my right eye is doing all the work - and the left eye is just making this worse (I actually do better if I keep it closed).
So they sorted a new perscription for me, and got me to choose some glasses (actually 2 sets, because 1 was free).
I hadn't heard anything for a while, so I went back today, and sure enough, they had arrived.
Looking at the above photo, 1 is my current glasses. 2 is my new main pair. 3 is my free bonus pair. Sorry the photos blurry, it was just going dark when I took them, my camera was set to some wierd shaky setting (must have bumped it) and my tripod fell to bits - so it wasn't a good photoshoot.
Anyway - when I went to pick them up, I tried the main pair on.
Whoooa!
My left eye is now very clear again. It was brilliant.
But my right eye?
Ok - for a demo, see this rather nice photo of my family (taken a few years back, minus the beard).
Well - that is my left eye with the new glasses, and my right eye with my old glasses.
This is my right eye with the new glasses.
I told the girl who was giving me the glasses that it seemed really bad - and she just said that it was the new perscription, and I'd get used to it. I explained that my previous good eye was bad now, and she said that that was ok, because the glasses were supposed to make both eyes work together, and it would seem like that until I got both eyes settled together and to give it a try at home for a while, and to come back in a few weeks if it was a problem.
I was pretty sure I'd be back, but I decided to do as she said (after all, she's supposed to know what she's talking about - and the actual optomotrist wasn't around).
I didn't know when I could try getting my eyes settled - because I couldnt use a computer like that, I couldn't drive, I couldnt read, I couldn't watch telly - I'd have to take a lot of time just walking around to even start to get used to it.
And I might have actually believed her and tried, but I did happen to have a second 'free' pair as well.
I tried them on properly after I left. They are smaller than I'd like - but I didn't have much choice when it came to the free frames. They also have a sort of fish-bowl thing going. Everything looks odd - like looking at the world through a glass bowl.
BUT
My right eye works fine.
So does my left.
Which means that they screwed up on the main pair.
So I'm off back to OPSM tomorrow to explain that they gave me two pairs that were supposed to be the same, but they definatly are not. My friend tried them on, and said the same thing.
They might even be able to fix the fish-bowl problem with the other glasses.
So I have new glasses - but I'm still wearing the old ones for now.
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