Update from April 2006 Computer Project

LAst Spring I had some big plans for wiring my house with internet. I have since changed plans as we have decided to move a computer into the basement. But here's an update from last year, April 2006 scheme.

• Stage One: Find Laptop - Completed
  
• Purchased IBM Thinkpad T20
• Upgrade RAM to minimum of 256 RAM
  
• Stage Two: New Case - Completed
  
• Purchase New Case
• Install old components
• Install new CD and FDD
  
• Stage Three: Wireless Networking - Holding
  
• Purchased Used Dlink 604 4-Port - out of commission, awaiting second replacement
  
• Purchase Wireless Router (802.11b/g) to set up access - scrapped, will be buying wireless access point to add to replacement router.
  
• Purchase various wireless cards - completed, laptop only.
  
• Install and Setup networking - in progress, currently networking foxconn and Infernal via USB File Transfer cable.
  
• Stage Four: Primary Desktop Replacement - Completed
  
• Scratch-Built Replacement -"foxconn" up and running as of August 2006
  
• Purchased used 4-port KVM switch
  
• Integrated into network - in progress
  
• Upgrades (2.4 GHz, 512 RAM, 20GB HD, 52x CD, 128MB Nv GFX, Win 98SE)
  
• Step Five: Performance Upgrades
• Infernal Gateway - being phased out, replaced by Additional Secondary Machine
  
• Upgrade to 512MB of RAM - done
  
• Install 2x additional HDs 20-80 GB - scrapped
  
• Install Win2k Pro - holding off until second system goes live
  
• IBM Thinkpad - in progress
  
• Upgrade to 512MB of RAM - scrapped until reliable sources can be found
  
• Install 20-40GB HD - holding until Second System goes live.
  
• Install Win2k Pro - same.
  
• Desktop Replacement - "foxconn" finished and operational
  
• Upgrade to 1GB of RAM - not possible in WIn98 SE, holding
  
• Install 40-80GB HD - Holding
  
• Install WinXP Pro - Not possible, moving to XP Home
  
• Step Six: Additional Machines Wanted
• New Laptop - holding
  
• IBM or Sony Preferred
  
• 1.4Ghz or better
• 1GB of RAM or better
• 64MB GFX or better
• WinXP
• WinCE/PocketPC Machine(s) - scrapped
  
• NEC MobilePro 7xx or 8xx series
• 2-3 wanted
  
• Sony Picturebook - scrapped
  
• 400-66x MHz model preferred
• Windows 98SE or Win2K
  
• 256MB of RAM or better
• 10-20GB HD preferred

I will update with the additional plans once I get done with Tax Season.

Sick Family

This week, everyone was hit by a nasty cold, courtesy Mr. Jacob. Friday, he stayed home with a temperature. Then he spent the entire weekend bopping around the house. Monday, he stayed at his grandparent's home because Annie had to come home with a fever. Kris and I wanted to stay home, but we have to work. Even Jada was sick!

Salsa to the Rescue
Not wanting to cope with a bout of the crud, I dispatched a gallon of my garden salsa and chips to fight off this mess. Usually, I simply burn a cold out of my system by blasting it with multiple batches of very hot salsa. It seems to work very well and cuts my total sick time down to a day or two. I don't know what exactly seems to work - the added vitamins, the heat from the peppers and onions, the garlic? I can't argue with the results.

I had been doing well to avoid sickness by drinking lots of OJ. I add that to lots of other liquids and some other good foods. But in the last two weeks, we haven't had juice at home and I haven't had the time to pick any up. Toss in the fact that several of my friends are sick and that Jacob insists on hanging on everyone when he's sick.

This batch of Salsa includes:

• 4 Large Tomatos
• 6 Jalapenos
• 4 small yellow onions
• 2 Green Bell Peppers
• 6 cans of diced green chilis
• 1/2 clove of garlic
• 1/2 Tablespoon of Black Pepper
  

It made about a gallon of Salsa and we are working on it to fight off the sickness. Its not too hot, but it does have some kick to it. I tossed all ingredients into the blender to get a nice uniform puree. Usually, it goes immediately into a large 1 gallon Tupperware bowl to sit for a day. Then it is put into several cleaned Salsa Jars and store in the fridge until its gone. It usually lasts about a week or two, depending on how large a batch I make.

I eat the Salsa with Yellow Corn Chips and plenty of Mountain Dew. Kris likes to mix it with a 1/4 cup of fresh Sour Cream, but she will occasionally eat it with me. Jacob likes it both ways, but only eats it with me if he has something to drink if it gets too hot. Annie will only eat it mixed with sour cream and usually makes a point to just eat it when her mom is having some. Lily doesn't like the salsa, but she will eat small slivers of onion and the occasional Corn Chip with sour cream on it. Jada doesn't much care for the smell of the salsa, but will eat sour cream and corn chips.

Other News
Andrea finally has all of her grades out of failing, especially her Math grade, which is currently a D-. Jacob has all A's and B's for the first time ever. He is doing exceptionally well in school and we're hoping to get his home behavior under control. Kris made a Lemon Meringue Pie that kinda flopped, but it was still very tasty. I made Cinnamon Rolls with the Schwann's Frozen Bread dough that disappeared shortly thereafter.

Willsroom Store Open Again!

After nearly 3 years of being closed, I've decided to re-open the Willsroom Store. I have also placed a permanent link to the store in the Blog Links section.



What will I have in the store? T-shirts, Coffee Mugs, and other items. If you want a custom item made, let me know. Proceeds all go to supporting the website.

Busy Two Weeks

The last two weeks have been buzzing with work. I haven't had much time to update. I haven't really had much time for anything other than work and sleep. But there has been some fun in between, once I stopped to catch my breath.

Sunday, January 14th CQB Game
This game went pretty well, despite the fact the building had not been cleaned as promised. We were originally set to do a hostage rescue scenario along with some smaller "Last Man Standing" - type games. The building is a paint ball facility and we had worked out this game months ahead of time. Unfortunately, the owner is proving to be less reliable. Nothing had been cleaned up for us and the places was a mess.

Todd, one of the event organizers, was able to use this to his advantage and create a Sci-Fi-themed event based on Aliens, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Doom, and several other Movies. The scenarios caught some people off guard, but it was a blast. I wasn't able to participate through most of it because I was still exhausted from the week of work. I did play in one scenario, but by its end, my body had started to go into shutdown mode and I thought I was going to be sick. We had 30 players show up out of 40 invites, so we did very well.

Additions to the Collection
This week, with my large paycheck, I picked up two additional electric guns in a very sweet deal. I picked up a Marui G3Sg/1 - an excellent weapon, I might add, and a used Classic Army CA33E - its based on the Heckler & Koch Hk33E - a smaller version of the G3. I've wanted to have these two rifles together for quite some time and I finally got them.

They both need a little work, I am planning to upgrade the G3 to around 380fps and the Hk33 to around 350. Both are going to get a few add-ons: scope mounts, spare mags, additional batteries, etc. I'm very pleased with them. This puts my "Ultimate Hk Collection" to four weapons: Marui G3SG/1, Classic Army Hk33E, Marui MP5SD6, and KSC USP Compact. I am in the process of getting pictures, so stay tuned.

Other Random News
Kris won a set of Hockey Tickets at work, but did not realize they were for the following weekend. We really couldn't make the trip to the Cities to use them, so she gave them to her co-worker, Sparky. She is planning to enter the next drawing at work, and we will make plans to go to whatever event they are for.

Jacob's hair is really getting long. Last weekend, I had to make a trip to work to pick up a computer for one of our customers. The owner of the company had asked if Jake was my "little girl." I snickered and said, No, that's my step-son. Bill was somewhat embarrassed, but I told him jake was stubborn and refused to get a haircut. The same thing has been asked to Kris and Annie about jacob, whose long blond hair does make him look like a messy little girl.

Andrea won an award for most improved effort at school. This is somewhat of an award, similar to the "Participation" ribbons they hand out at kid's sporting events so that everyone can be a winner. Yeah. Her grades are still pretty low and trying to get her to improve is like pulling teeth. She wants to get a job this spring, but her grades have to come way up. The amount of work that will require would leave her very little time to work a job. We'll see how she does over the next few weeks.

Finally, I did my Yearly review and was given a raise. There are a few area I could improve in, such as them wanting me to learn more about their network so that I'm not as dependent on the Nate - the Network Administrator. I told my boss I really was not comfortable working on the Net Admin side of things, but that I would do whatever I could to help out.

Winter Weather, finally
We've been getting a steady dusting of snow this last week. Probably the first and last of Winter. I can't wait for warm, spring weather. I'm ready for some more outdoors games and want some warm weather to spend a little time outside.

First week of 2007

This week has been really busy. College kids are heading back to school and we are implementing a simplified biling system at work. We also have a new mail system coming online and I was able to get three repair jobs in this week. We celebrated Kris' Mom's Birthday and Jacob spent the week at his dad's house.

Work and Toil
This week has been really busy at work as we finish up implementation of a new Web-Based Mail system. The new system is very nice and will be a major leap ahead of the previous system. This week also had a bit of urgency as we got in a new Cisco Router to replace hardware on one of our locations. We brought the old one back and Nate began going over it to see if he could find out what was wrong with it. We had three repairs this week, which is really good.

Home Again
This week was kind of quiet at home. I have been getting to bed early to try to recover from New Years Weekend. At work it has been busy enough to just be exhausting. Andrea chose to throw another fit on Thursday because she was told to clean up her room. She had wanted to have a sleep over but was told it would not happen if she didn't clean up. She chose the hard way, stretching the job out three days, each time insisting she was done until we'd go in to inspect her room. Its still far from clean, but its much better now.

Kris has been kinda angry about Jacob staying over at his dad's house for hte last week and a half. She's not the only one as Rick's girlfriend apparently smacked him the other night for being disrespectful and rude to her. Both the kids treat her like garbage and there's no doubt the women despises both of them for it. Kris tries to stand up for her kids insisting she is just a bitch, but neither one of the kids treat her very well to begin with.

Jacob undoubtedly deserved to be slapped because his mouth has gotten really bad. His behavior at home would get him a smacked mouth, but he doesn't act that way when I'm here. I've had enough of it. I just ignore him now when he acts that way, and let him know that's why. Hanging around his dad this much has been one of the reasons he acts this way.