Planetfurry BBS

hikaru · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2005 11:23 pm Post subject: Overdue for an update...

I've been meaning to post an update for a while, but have been pretty busy.

Had a good time for Christmas. Got some nice loot from the family including a 300G hard drive and a cruise control for the car. Drive back from Alb. went just fine until I got to Emporia. Stopped to fill up with gas and couldn't start the engine. No reason why. It was around 1AM, so I called my brother on the cellphone and we spent two and a half hours trying to figure out what went wrong with the car. Finally gave up and the girl at the gas station called a tow truck for me.

Towed the car to a shop where they checked it out after they dropped me off at a hotel. Got a call at 8:30AM with the news that it was the timing chain. New one would cost about $600 to repair and they weren't sure they could get the parts in with enough time to fix it before end of day. Talked to my brother (it's his car) and he agreed it needed to be fixed. Fortunately they found a source for the part in town so I was able to get out of there by 3PM. Total cost for the repair: $575 and change. God only knows where I'll come up with the cash to pay back my mom for covering the bill.

Got home finally around 5:00PM Central on New Years Eve. Spent a few hours checking mail then just vegged in front of the TV until a little after midnight and then crashed.

In other news, this week I'm covering the office for one of my customers while they go down and take a cruise in the golf and do some diving. This calls for a 45 min drive (each way) to the office, which is no big deal. After driving 19 hours to Albq, 45 min is a breeze.

Of course, that was until yesterday. Yesterday evening, an ice storm moved in. Crappy visibility and ice everywhere. Wound up driving home doing about 45 most of the way. This AM I wokd up to find the car covered in 2" of ice. I used the screw driver I had the good forethought to bring with me from the apartment and chizzled the ice enough to open the drivers door, only it wouldn't open. Couldn't push the latch button in. No sweat, chizzle open the passenger side door and get it open, climbed in and opened the door from the inside. Fortunately, the passenger door wasn't frozen solid like the drivers side. Got the car started and let it idle until the heat started getting oppressive and the ice started to melt against the windows. De-iced the windows and drove down to Paola, again at 45-50 MPH the entire way. Crazy day. Only expected to be down there for a few hours, but wound up staying all day and leaving finally around 5:30. Drive home was miserable as well, but at least I didn't get killed.

The best news of all? The ice storm caused a power outage last night. I didn't hear the UPS's beeping because my room door was closed. By the time I did hear the alarms, they were pretty much drained. I went to do a shutdown and the monitor turned itself on from standby and pushed the UPS over the edge. Everything went off. No big deal. Just have to run checkdisk on the Linux box in the AM. Went back to bed. When I got up, the power was back on, so I kicked on the UPS's and fired the PC's back up. Linux box came up just fine, but my main WIndows box os brain-dead. No video/keyboard, though power supply comes on just fine. It's supposed to have some kind of smart motherboard that talks to you if there's a problem, only it didn't say anything. No clue what the problem is yet. I'll have to figure it out.

And the new year was looking so good.

Oh well, we'll see if I can get it working. If not, I'm just going to be up the creek a little more.

Styx · Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:36 am Post subject:

Bear, try clearing the CMOS using the jumper on the board,if you havent already. That normally works for customers who call in because their system won't POST after a sudden loss of power.

webkilla · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 7:45 am Post subject:

not to rub salt in anything - but whats the status on the next update?

hikaru · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 9:44 pm Post subject:

Finally swapped out the old 80G with the new 300G drive and system boots fine. Guess the 300G drive didn't like working with the drive that was on my secondary chain as it's working fine on the primary.

Been sick most of the week and spent most of my time sleeping. Didn't get any writing done. Hoping to get something done this week, but no promises. Life's sucked lately. Had a friend pass away (Wabbit... the same one from the Anna in Wonderland video) earlier this week which bummed me to no end.

Sorry for the delay, but I'm affriad it's just something that I'll have to deal with.

Cheers

webkilla · Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 10:48 am Post subject:

dude - sry for downing you on the hurry...

didn't know bout nobody gibbin... sry

my condolances to whoever needs em Embarassed

taspacecampjh · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 12:12 am Post subject:

hey Hikaru
Did you try setting the 300G as a secondary by the jumpers?
... Sorry if I'm stateing the obious... was just a thought.

hikaru · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:06 am Post subject:

It was a compatibility issue with the other drive on that chain. I moved it over next to my WD 150 and it worked just dandy.

shroom · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 4:01 am Post subject:

Sorry to hear of your loss. By all means life comes first. Take the time you need, we can wait. I'm sure the muse won't leave you alone for too long.

Best Wishes
-Shroom

hikaru · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:50 pm Post subject:

Yet another update on the car.

It's dying a horrible death.

Mechanic did a compression test on it and cylinder 8 got 50pis out of 150psi indicating bad rings or valve. Had the guy squirt in some oil and re-do the test to verify and the value went DOWN which indicates that it's definitely a piston ring issue and that means total rebuild on the engine.

I can't afford that.

So for now, I'm kind of frak* for transportation.

Guess this year is shaping up to be a real jackpot for me.

Kit Fox · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:26 am Post subject:

Well, if you can manage to get a ride out here you can have my old car.

'88 Nissan Maxima. The engine is in great condidtion, 160some odd thousand miles on it, but she could probably get up to 200 though no problem.

The only thing thats wrong with the car is taht the frame is starting to go on it. So it could pretty much be used as a temp.

hikaru · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:08 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the offer, but I doubt I'd be able to fit into the drivers seat.

Cheers

Kit Fox · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:22 pm Post subject:

Ha... trust me... if I could fit with my combat boots on, you can fit. A little background... Im 6'2"... the boots add another 1 or 2 inches Very Happy

You could fit... Worse comes to worse theres always the prybar method Twisted Evil

hikaru · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:22 pm Post subject:

Keep in mind that I way around 500lb... It's not the height (I used to drive a Toyota Cressida), but the width. *laughs*

Kit Fox · Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:41 pm Post subject:

Ahh, I gotcha. Well, I could always take some tape mesure to it if ya like Smile

All its been doing has been sitting in our back yard since last week. Ive been out to start it a couple of times, thats about it.