Some Major Changes for Willsroom site!

I have decided to do a complete revamp of the site. As most visitors go to the blog, anyway, I will be replacing the old layout with Blog being the homepage. Additional sections of the site will be moved onto a format similar to the blog. All other pages and content will be removed by the end of the year and links sections will be cleaned out.

Willsroom HomePage
This will be done away with and combined into the current blog Format. About ME, Games, and other existing Willsroom sections will be changed and added to the standard Blog Layout.

Willsroom Forums
I am going to axe the forums as they do not generate traffic and I do not have time to work on them or moderate them.

Willsroom Store
The store will remain open, but I will be cleaning out old items and reducing the amount of items available. Store#2 will also be cleared out. Neither store generates any revenue, but doesn't cost anything to run.

Airsofting Links & Airsoft Information
These will all be removed and cleared out until I can come up with something better.

Cybergun Boycott
I am closing out the site and will hand the reigns to someone else. I do not have time to work on them and the boycott should be given to someone who has the time to actually coordinate and update the site. This will be done ASAP and all other traces of content will be removed shortly. Once the new host is ready to take over, he will launch with a new site with new content. Until then, site content will be store offline.

Other content
I will go through and clean out all old media and files from the server and restore the items I need.

Any questions, please feel free to contact me via comments below.

Thank you.

30-what days until Chistmas....shit

Yes, its Christmas time, everywhere. This has been going on since about a week before Halloween, yet a few days before Thanksgiving, it was suddenly Christmas. Shit.

I hate the holidays. Not because of the celebration or the family time spent together, but because of the greed and over-commercialization that completely ruins anything remotely special. Store advertise specials trying to emphasize how - if you love them, you will huddle into our crappy store and instead of finding what you're looking for, make a substitution with something else equally crappy.

Bullshit.

If you love your family, then gifts are trivial. Buy them a Gift Card and get the hell out of that store as quickly as you can before someone shove you out of the way or knocks you over. After Christmas, when the store have to liquidate inventories or when they have restocked the regular items, take your gift card in there and buy.

I have a better idea, how bout "no."

Don't bother with thoughtful gifts or any of that crap. Take all the money you would use to buy gifts and buy them a Savings Bond. The other items they need, like clothes or small items, yeah go for it. But keep the gift-giving light and help them save some money for later.

If you have to use gifts to make up for not spending enough time with your loved ones, then you can do two things - give them a gift of your time and then a New Years Resolution to spend more time with them.

After about 18 years of buying them $200 - $800 worth of Savings Bonds, they are going to have a nice little chunk of savings. And you'll have made an investment of time in your family.

Bullshit.

The store tells me what to do. They own my ass with their credit cards and financing. I owe them money and my loyalty. They make my family happy with stuff I buy from them. I must work extra hours to pay them back while neglecting my family. Then I can make up for that by showering them with gifts. Gifts bought on credit.

Yeah. A vicious cycle, isn't it.

I miss Christmas when I didn't have to think about how it was done. Understanding the song and dance that goes on in the background takes away much of the magic.

Let's call a Spade a Toenail Clipper, just for sake of argrument.

Not much going this last week. I got the parts to finish up the computer only to find the old processor simply had two bent prongs. Work was kind of dead this week. My Dad celebrated his 59th birthday, I suppose, I wouldn't know, I didn't get to speak to him. And my plans to leave Wisconsin to reopen the Big Bend Cafe with my brother met with biting criticism, scrutiny, and biting sarcasm from my wife.

Infernal Gateway/Home Networking
Finished. Next Project is to upgrade Annie's computer with additional RAM and a new Graphics Card. After that, I plan to look into a newer laptop and wireless router for the network. I am currently "Stumbling" the are AP to make sure the new one won't be overlapping/jamming the neighbor's network. Not that I really care if they are jammed, but I would prefer to have my own network accessible in my home and not worry about overlapping the channels with theirs.

59th Birthday for Chuck Billy -- heh heh, My dad's initials are CBS....
Yeah. My dad turned 59 this weekend. Unfortunately, I assume they made a trip to Midland to celebrate, shop, and catch a movie. I tried calling last night, too, but no one answered. I guess I will just have to ship his present out on Tuesday. :)

My Master Evil Plans...
Yeah, in a moment of sheer boredom, I professed my desire to move back to Texas, open up the Big Bend Cafe in Marathon, TX and run it with my little brother. Such a crazy and zany idea that could only come from the mind of a truly bored person. Kris was pissed about it.

I did think about it the other day while I was taking a crap. I was staring at the pattern in the wallpaper and thinking, hey, that looks like a woman's face and then it dawned on me....sheer brilliance. Naturally, I wanted to share it with my wife.

Kris has been in a pissy mood lately. This is largely due to the trouble with her parents and her near-fist fight with her little sister over comments about her kids. I can truly say both of them were right, but I was glad not to be present for that one.

So, I am going to hang in here for another year or two and then decide if there is really anything else for me here in Wisconsin. Andrea will be in High School and Jacob will likely be living with his dad. If Kris wants to move, then I guess we'll move. If not, then maybe I'll be moving.

Whatever.

Darth Vader should play Harmonica...

Infernal Gateway

As most of you know, Infernal Gateway is my secondary machine that Jacob uses.

The computer started its life back in 1999 as a Gateway Essential 400C running a very nice install of Windows 98SE. In the fall of 2004, I did a reformat, losing alot of the good stuff I had on the system, including functionality of my CDRW drive. I was forced to replace this and a failed CDRom with hopes of adding upgrades. Unfortunately, my upgrade path for this machine was severely limited to 512MB of RAM and a 500 PIII. This was not acceptable, but I could not afford to go much farther.

Infernal Gateway was almost a trusted friend. I tweaked and hacked the system to keep it running and upon doing performance testing and benchmarking it consistently rated as being that of a 700 MHz Machine. Eventually, age began to show on the system when the power supply began showing signs of dying.

I purchased a nice case with 400 watt power supply and the system seemed to spring back to life. The case was black to match the Sony 52x CDrom I had bought. Black looks nicer than the old beige box 90% of computers were at the time I bought it.

When I began work at DiscoverNet, I began purchasing parts to build a new computer. This was helped by my dad sending me a processor from his previous attempt to build a new computer. Unfortunately, the board I had bought would not fit the Infernal Gateway case, so I was forced to purcahse a new one. Trying to keep costs down proved to be a hassle as I repeatedly hit bad deals on Ebay. This left me with a dead stick of RAM and a crappy case. I tossed the crappy case and bought a Super Tower at Ram Tech for about $50.

I had Foxconn up and running about a week later and just in time to pull the final Microsoft 98 Support files from the Windows Update. During this time, I purchased a second mATX board because I was not completely sure if it was bad ram or a crappy board (all of the other eBay stuff I had bought had been crap).

Infernal Gateway sat directly next to Foxconn and was connected up via a USB FIle Transfer cable and KVM switch. This allowed me to swap files and still use Infernal Gateway for other projects. It also gave Annie a machine to run her blasted French CD that she had to use for studying.

In May of 2007, one of Kris' co-workers offered to give her old computer to the kids. I was initially opposed to the kids having a computer because (1) they never take care of anything they have and (2) Andrea had been caught "playing jokes" on several Adult Dating Sites, particularly BI-sexual and Lesbian Dating services. (Kris got to handle that one as it required a long embarrassing lecture on female sexuality and the dangers of online predators.)

We got the computer, I upgraded it, and then built a network to share our Cable Internet connection. This required about $100 in parts and about three hours of actual work. A few weks later, I made the decision to utilize the pare parts I had and upgrade Infernal Gateway. I also disposed of my Old Gateway board and processor.

In August I purchased a Nvidia 5500 256MB GFX card for foxconn and moved the 5500 128MB card I had over to Infernal Gateway. This made IG quite a nice little gaming platform. But the old installation of Windows 98 on this machine began to show signs of instability, so last week, I installed Win 2kPro over it and removed all remaining W98SE files.

As you may have read from last night's entry, I damaged my $20 1.8GHz proc while trying to swap out Procs and GFX cards. This has caused me to begin shopping for a new processor to toss into Infernal Gateway. Today, I picked up a 2.6 GHz Proc for use in Infernal Gateway, which has a wonderful install of 2KProSP4 waiting.

Andrea's computer is also getting an upgrade to a DVD Rom as I found a $14 DVD ROM on Computer Geeks, which seems to be the only Ebay Tech seller that I trust. I no longer purchase through eBay, but directly from their site.

So, Infernal Gateway will have the following specs once I'm finished with it:

• 2.66GHz Processor
• 512 MB of RAM
• 20GB HD (legacy from old Gateway)
• Nvidia 128 MB GX5500 GFX Card
• Windows 2000 Pro SP4
• 52X Sony CD ROM

Honestly, I'm very proud of this machine and can't wait to get it running again.

Access of Evil?

This month bring all kinds of hell to the table. The immediate frustration comes shortly after completion of upgrades to the home network. Buen Amigo Reserves begin to dwindle. Jacob's smart-ass mouth results in Kris growing a pair...for a moment or two. The Armalite collection reaches 4 AEGs! Halloween....ehhh. And stuff and things!

Network Woes!
This is not only frustrating, but simply grates at my soul! This last week, I took Infernal Gateway to work with me so that I could begin final upgrade work for the home network. I successfully installed my copy of Windows 2000 SP4 on the computer and had everything working. I decided to put this on here because the Windows 98 installation was getting pretty buggy and Windows 2000 was going to go on this machine anyway.

IG uses the black case, drive, and FDD, and CD from my old Gateway computer, which I purchased last year when my old Power Supply started to go out. I had to go this route because the Gateway box used a proprietary 120 Watt power supply, my system needed more power to run the USB card, GFX, and NIC. Rather than spend $30 to replace the power supply for a machine I was going to replace anyway, I spent $50 to get a new case.

So I have an excellent installation of 2KSP4 on this machine and bring it home to put back into the network. Foxconn, my scratch-built computer uses a larger server case because it has a full size ATX board as opposed to the mATX board in IG. Well, our desk space makes use of Foxconn somewhat cramped. I had also planned to take Foxconn to work the next day and run the same upgrade/cleanup on it as IG had received. At this point, I decided "hey, why don't I just move the proc and GFX from Foxconn to IG and put Foxconn back in Jake's room.

Sometimes, ideas and actual execution do not equal success. That perfectly describes this scenario. Removal of the proc and GFX from Foxconn went perfectly. Removal of the GFX from IG went smoothly, but removal of the proc did not. The thermal paste on the proc fan somehow became an adhesive that stuck to the proc. When trying to remove the fan, the proc came out of the socket. Mind you, the ZIF arm did not unlatch, so the proc came right out, somehow damaging the proc.

When I installed the 2.4G proc from Foxconn and booted up, all was well. But when I plugged in the 1.8G proc into IG, it would not boot. I quickly went back through and tracked it back to the proc not working. Great, I'm out $20. That's not really much, but it does put IGout of commission until I can replace the proc. Rather than putting another 1.8 G proc in it, I've decided to move on with Proc upgrade. I can get a brand new 2.4 or 2.6 proc for about $40. So I am going that route.

The night Kris almost Grew a Pair
It was a dark and stormy night in the Smith household. Jacob has become increasingly difficult to deal with. This interestingly began when he began hanging around with a boy his own age that also suffers from ADHD, but that's neither here nor there. Unfortunately, his parents can't afford to put him on medication and apparently can't afford to discipline or really give a damn about his behavior. HE treats his mother like total garbage and Jacob naturally sees this and decides to try this at home.

I see the "because he has ADD or ADHD" as being the current excuse why parents don't discipline their children and "because spanking children ruins their childhood" excuse for the rest who don't have ADD/ADHD. Yeah, I don't exactly believe that you should make excuses for any kid behaving like a shit. ADD/ADHD does not prevent a child from learning how to treat people and how to behave.

And its not outside the realm of reason to expect a child with ADD/ADHD to try to behave themselves. Nor is it unreasonable to expect any less of them than any normal child. Making an excuse for a child with a disability only teaches them to make excuses for themselves. That does far more damage than anything else. Let's take that as a given and move on.

Jacob no longer asks permission to do anything, he tells Kris what he's going to do and then yells at her if she doesn't give him what he wants. Just a mental note, he doesn't pull this crap when I'm around. But he does throw a screaming tantraum when he doesn't get his way. I ignore it, but Kris falls into his game and goes to try to stop him from making all the noise by giving him what he wants. So Jacob has began threatening to throw a fit when he doesn't get his way.

Well, on this particular dark and stormy night, Kris had had enough of this garbage and sent Jacob to his room. He immediately began crying that we were being mean to him and that he wanted to go live with his daddy. After about 30 minutes of this, he began throwing his stuff at the walls and screaming even louder. Then he began demanding that we give him a drink of water. Mind you, this was punctuated with "MF-er give me some F-ing Water."

Kris got him a drink of water and took it to his door. He continued with the "I want some F-ing water, give me some water you MF-er." So she gave it to him. Right in the face and slapped his mouth. Immediately, he made the "What you actually have a backbone, that's not fair" whining and then the snivelling, followed by the incessant "I want to go live with daddy" crap.

She then tore into him telling him how he was going to behave in her house and how he would speak to her. It was great to see her standing up to the little creep and taking control. And I was so proud of her for finally taking control of the situation. But then she changed his bedding for him and told him he could go clean himself up and began cleaning up the mess. This continued with him making demands again. She almost had it right, but I let it go.

I don't know what is going on with Jacob anymore. Is this puberty or his medication? Or is this simply what I have suspected all along, he a sniveling spoiled little bastard who makes a strong case for why abortion should remain the woman's choice. This kid has been raised to respect everyone by his mother and I and taught that women are second-class servants by his dad. He is taught to be loving and respectful to everyone by us and taught to be hateful and manipulative by his father. Basically for every month of teaching and coaching by us, all of the good is undone with simply weekend at his dad's house, where he can have free reign.

Unfortunately, he treats his dad the same way. He also treats his dad's girlfriend that way, so that she won't allow Jacob to be there if his dad isn't there. To which, his dad hardly cares and would rather simply tell Jacob he can't come over at all. His dad no longer claims to want Jacob to come live with him. This is mostly because he spent most of the summer with him and Rick can't handle his behavior at all.

The Armalite Collection
Well, it looks as if work on the Armalite collection will be coming to a close. I have 4 Colt M16A2 variants and an additional front assembly to interchange with my A2 Carbine. Please refer to the picture below for the final concept here.



While there are 5 rifles displayer here, the actual project only has 4 rifles and a spare flat top receiver assembly to create the A3 carbine. The Kitty Kat is still int he process of being built. I have to purchase the DPMS front end kit to build it from an existing 733. I also have some additional tweaking to do on all rifles. Next stage will be to purchase the various optics I plan to use on all weapons.

The Kitty Kat will likely get a carry handle mount and a Reflex red dot. The 733 is going to get a cantilever mount and a Aimpoint. The A2 Carbine will receiver the same. The A3 Carbine is going to get a reflex. It also currently has a suppressor and extended tightbore inner barrel. The A3 is designated for counter sniping and Scouting duties. The A2 Rifle is slated to get a carry handle mount and a 6-8x sniper scope.

Other Plans
With the release of JG's HK416, my Armalite Project is somewhat in turmoil. I would like to purchase two HK416s and replace most of the Armalite. I would still be able to keep my existing M4 hicaps and simply rid myself of the other guns. Most likely, I would get the "Crane" style versions as they take the nicer crane batteries. this would allow me to get rid of the 1100 mah mini batteries I have been using.

I have put most of my Armalite collection up for sale to fund this transition. I do plan to keep the A2/A3 Carbine as it has been an excellent weapon thus far.

Closing
Well, that's really all there is for this post. I'll try to keepon the Blog a little better, but work and home time have kept me pretty busy as of late.