So today is another build day for me. This one has been a bit more stressfull -- more then normal at least. Ah well -- such goes my life.

I put in the second HD and 7.1 surround sound card into my system last night. It went smoothly until I noticed that the firewire device controller wasn't working ("Windows failed to start the device" is the message I get). I'll probably just scrap it and reload again. Not that big of a deal really. It loads the os SUPER fast (20 minutes or so). I also put on the left side panel to see if it would get too hot but it ran just fine. So I unplugged two of the three fans I had plugged in while trying to figure out my problem last time and everything was just fine -- no crashes at all. So now I just have the fan that sits right above the CPU heatsink. I've got a variable knob for that guy so I can slow it down as well if needed. I might try it unplugged but not just yet.

We went and saw They Might Be Giants on Monday. The show kicked ass. They performed as a "cover" band the entire album, Flood (released in 1990). After a short break they came back on stage and performed another "regular" set of their other hits. If I had more energy I would've gone again last night but I was rather low on it.

The weather around here has really been odd. Heavy showers for 10-20 minutes and then clearing up. Of course, since I bike, I always get caught in them no matter when I leave. They are also the type of showers that can be pouring on one side of the street while the other side is dry. It's crazy.

It's supposed to rain on Saturday. Saturday is the day I'm supposed to ride in the Santa Rosa Century. Not sure if I'm going to do it yet or not. I really dislike biking in the rain and getting wet and cold. We'll see tho. That afternoon is the climbing comp at Vertex so I have to be back by 3pm to get over there and take pictures/video.

*ugh*
Busy week.
--B--

So yesterday I head over to the Cambria Bike store as they were having a semi-organized road ride. I figured it would be a good warmup for the century this coming weekend.

I was told it would be around 55 to 60 miles with moderate climbs. No problem -- or so I thought. It quickly turned into a 70 mile epic road eventure. I'm just lucky it didn't start raining until *after* I got home!

The ride went from Rohnert Park, down several back roads, and ended up in Occidental before looping back around. There were some very serious climbs along the way. In fact the entire second section of the ride was basically one long climb split up by short (but steep) downhills. It was very nice outside so it was a fun ride overall.

Would I do that exact route again? Maybe with more time at a slower pace. Oh -- and if I had taken a little more food with me. They provided bannanas and apples at the second stop but it was too little too late for me. I should have planned it out better and had some Gu20 or some other re-energizing drink on me as well. Water goes a long ways towards rehydrating you but it just doesn't do a great job when you are depleted of energy.

I'm going to have to go out with the directions and actually drive the route so I can memorize it. There were lots of twists and turns on country roads that I don't think I'd quite remember 100%. Once I get the directions updated (along with distances) I'll post 'em all for everyone to see so you can all participate in the pain that I now feel (the next day).

Lucky for me, I was told that the century ride this weekend should be quite a bit easier without nearly the same amount of hill climbing that we had on the ride yesterday.

Thanks to Paul, Jeff, and Dave from Cambria Bike for putting it together. Your store kicks ass and you guys are great riding companions! Oh -- and thanks to Paul for hanging towards the back for us slower peoples. I was up towards the front for the first third of the ride and then when we started hitting super steep and long stuff I started dragging. But I'll work on it!

--B--

So I stopped by a computer store yesterday -- I needed to get some thermal grease since the stuff I had put on the system I was trying to build had used the little bit that I had gotten. So I went ahead and stopped by this store and picked some up.

On my way out, I noticed that they had the motherboard that I had gotten (and had problems with). So I took a look, and sure enough, the revision on the motherboard was version 2.0. This version was known to have most of the problems fixed -- problems with the memory that I got and other minor problems.

I decided (spur of the moment) today that I should go pick it up. Missy had been talking about upgrading her system for some time now, and I figured she could have the motherboard that I get back from Asus (the one going in for an RMA) and I could make sure the problem was in the motherboard and not in the CPU (the only other item that I couldn't just "replace").

So I set it up tonight and sure enough....
It works beutifully.

So I had it run the burn-in-util for 2 hours without everything plugged in and set up the way that I want it. It's now re-installing Windows (only the second time -- I think probably three or four times before I'm happy with it). I'll run the burn-in-util for another 12 hours tonight.

In other news, I'm going to go do a 50 mile ride tomorrow morning with the bike store peoples that I normally go to (Cambria Bicycle). I stopped by there today as well to pick up some chain grease. Biking in the rain makes chains go squeeeeeeeeeeek! So I stopped by the bike store and there on their counter was an announcement that they were holding a 50 mile bike ride starting tomorrow morning.

So I'm gonna finnish this episode of Stargate SG1 and then head off to bed.

Nighty-night!
--B--

So yesterday I'm at home -- not feeling well -- so I'm watching TeeVee. After watching it for about 2 hours, suddenly our stereo receiver starts kicking in and out. It'll completely shut the sound off for 20 seconds (or more) and then come back on for a couple minutes, then shut off again.

Now we saw this behavior before, lucked out that the receiver was under warranty, and supposedly had it fixed. This was probably just over a month ago. Now the same shit is happening again. Only now the receiver is out of warranty. So I've got to call up the place that fixed it, bitch them out, and hopefully be able to take my receiver back to them to get it fixed for *real* this time.

Our temporary receiver was also crapping out -- it was our old system that I've had for ... well 9 years. So I went ahead and tossed it. There was an entire channel that wasnt getting sent (the left channel) and it wasn't surround sound or anything fancy. Just an old deck. So it got tossed.

Now what does that have to do with our current problems? Well last time we took in our receiver that cuts in and out, the shop had it for just around a month. Since we no longer have a "back up" receiver, that means one month without sound in our house. Not accetable in my opinion.

So last night we went out and purchased a new receiver. Instead of going with the cheaper/more features brand, we went with the tried & true brand. We are now the proud owners of a Harmon Kardon receiver. I'd tell you the model# but I've already forgotten it. I'll update this post later when I'm at home with the model#.

I think it already sounds slightly better then our old one. It doesn't have the same wattage (sound level) for output but it does seem to make things sound a lot better.

I've got to get some new speaker wire to run to the surround right speaker as the old stuff we had was like 22guage -- way too thin for the new receiver's big plugs. Small price to pay for better sound tho.

I'll still get the old one fixed and then take it upstairs and set it up as my receiver for my computer. For the computer that doesn't have a working motherboard yet. But thats another challenge for another day.

*sigh*
--B--

So how did installing the new system go you ask?
Putting it together was easy and quite enjoyable.
Then the troubles started.

I'm getting funny errors that I thought were memory related but now I'm not sure...
First thing I ran into was that the memory, sold as "the best memory for the chipset" was not 100% compatable with the motherboard. Well okay -- it was compatable, but the standard for the super fast PC3200 memory isn't finalized. The memory uses one set of defaults, the motherboard a second set. I finally found settings that seemed to fix the problem for me (yay!) and the little app, memtest86 returned flying colors for both dimms.

"Great," I thought to myself, "Now I can install windows and be all ready to rock and roll!" Only it wasn't to be. Windows XP Install gets right to the point where it says "Start Windows" (right before you format/partition the drives) and blue screens with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors. Whatever *that* means.

And thats where I've been for two days now. I've replaced the following to eliminate wierd errors:
Graphics Card
Memory Dimms (tried slower PC2700 and PC2100 memory)
Floppy Drive (installed and not installed)
CD Drive

Since everything else is on board, that leaves...
CPU
Motherboard

*ugh*
So now I've got to figure out which one to try to replace. I've never run into problems like this. And after reading up online about IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors, it looks like thats almost a catch-all for Microsoft. People say to fix it try:
Replacing Graphics card (tried)
Replace HD (I guess I could try that...)
Install a better heatsync (CPU temp is under 50c -- don't think thats it)
Don't overclock (wasn't going to try)
Slow down the memory/replace memory (tried both)
Install latest BIOS (tried that -- in fact I tried older versions of the bios as well just to be safe)
Get latest device drivers (shouldn't matter as I'm not actually in Windows yet and the IDE controller is a standard one supported on the Microsoft HCL).
Replace motherboard
Replace CPU

So you can see where I'm at...
*ugh*
Anyone have any ideas before I go through the hastle of trying to return the motherboard?

--B--

It's Friday!

w00p!
That means tomorrow is Saturday and Sunday follows that!
Tonight I headed over to Vertex to meet up with Dan -- we had decided yesterday to do a V0 and V1 circuit today to sum up the week.

Got to the gym around 6:50ish and started right away. Let me say, after doing a lot of V0's, V1 is noticeably harder. But we managed to get them all done. Then I had the bright idea of trying a V2 or two -- and I had to show Jordan my secret beta for a V4 that I'm working. I finished up the evening with the Traverse of Doom -- a V2 traverse that is SOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo long. I did it both directions cause, as Dan and Jordan decided, I'm a mutant. Like Stan Lee style. Ah well -- they grouped me in the mutant category with Kevin so I'm in good company.

I ordered my CPU for my new system yesterday. It's an AMD 2800+ with the barton core. So tonight I'm going to put my system together. I'll be taking pictures as I do it so I'l get 'em posted. Remember, I'm going for a silent system (or at least VERY VERY quiet). So I've got way kewl cooling going on...
w00p!

--B--

So I took this photo the other day at the climbing gym. In fact I took a lot of photos. None of them turned out at all good...except this one. I had the camera on manual exposure and didn't realize it...

After a little bit of photoshop tweaking to fix the lighting and sharpness, this is what came out. It's quite kewl I think. I'm gonna show it to Kevin to see what he thinks and maybe send it off to a climbing magazine or two :)

*yawn* I'm gonna go crawl back in my hole now.

--B--

You know how sometimes you just have "off" type of days? Maybe it's cause you didn't sleep well. Maybe it's cause you didn't eat the right foods. Maybe it's cause you aren't feeling good. And sometimes you just can't figure out the cause.

That was me yesterday. It started Saturday night at dinner and went all day yesterday. I was just feeling ... well ... off. I tried climbing at the gym and struggled up a V2+. Granted it was a hard 2+ but still. And I got home and I just didn't feel normal. I've been having terrible allergies which could be part of it. I've been having very minor asthma which isn't bad enough to take an inhaler for but it's been just buggin' me for some time. I've even got these funny bug bites all over my feet and lower legs (or is it hives from allergies? I don't know...).

Anywase, I'm sick of this feeling. And on top of that, here in the office we have some sort of mildew growing that just makes the air heavy and smelly. I'm sure thats doing my lungs and rest of the body just great.

Ahhhhh well.
*yawn*
--B--

Around 8:40am this morning one of our webservers suddenly starts going haywire. It floods a network switch which then promptly crashes. So we take the server offline after some more diagnosing and decide that the onboard nic has finally choked.

Michael picked up a new nic on his way in to work this morning and I came over to ATG to install it at lunch time. Two hours later, after installing the new nic and having the same problems, I've run through just about everything I can think of to fix the problem. I've tried a different network cable, different network switch, different ports in two different network switches, etc. All with the same results. After being up for about 40 seconds it floods the switch and everything that was connected to the switch is now killed off the network.

So I start playing around with other less obvious things. I disable this, I disable that. Always with the same result. Finally I disable the NLB feature and *bam* that fixes the problem. Only now, Application Center is way pist off and refuses to behave (connect, run, start, you name it).

I hop on the google newsgroups and sure enough, other people have had this same problem. Microsoft's solution to this? Uninstall Application Center and reinstall it.

Not that bad on the first glance. Only if you have already installed Application Center 2000 SP1 then you now no longer have any way to uninstall Application Center 2000 (with or without SP1). It gets about 10 minutes into the uninstall and says "Unable to continue -- backing out changes" and proceeds for another 5 minutes to the state where you already were. It was quite humorous in the newsgroups to see the replies to the MS guy -- going "Well -- that would be great if you could actually UNINSTALL THE DAMN THING" and someone else going "Yah -- you might as well just throw in the towl and start reformatting now"

So guess what I'm doing?
Yup.
Format c: time baby.

w00p!
--B--

I've been doing these endurence climbs -- no particular reason -- but I noticed that I'd get pumped out after climbing to the top of a single 5.11. So I've been doing endurance climbs.

There's an awesome V2 named (appropiately) the Traverse of Doom. It starts in either bouldering room and traverses around all the way to the other bouldering room. I've now done this one both directions without coming off the wall. My goal? To make it three times. That would be start in the right room, traverse to the left, go back to the right, and then end in the left room. If I make it three times, I'll shoot for four.

The other climb that I've been doing to build up endurance has been a 5.7. It's pretty much just jugs all the way up to the top of an overhanging wall. But go up and down that enough times and you can get pretty pumped. On Tuesday I did it 5 times up and down (climbing up and down that is). Tonight I made it six times. w00p! Next time? Maybe 7. We'll see.

A big thanks to Sarah, Rob, and Sarah for encouraging me as I started to get pumped out. Hopefully Super Lap will also become easier after this!

Oh -- and on a somewhat related endurance note, I sent in my application for the Santa Rosa Century. I signed up for the 200km ride -- thats about 124'ish miles. It's in early May so I've gotta start riding a lot again.

--B--

So I was pretty dead when I left the climbing gym last night. I kept forgetting things -- like my rope, chalk bag, etc. I got all the way home and realized I had left my water bottle at the gym. I figured I'd just go tonight to pick it up but that would mean tonight I'd be without water...

As I'm getting ready to head out on my morning bike commute, I open the door and there it is! Now there are several possibilities as to how it made it's way home.

1) It grew feet and walked -- while possible, not very likely
2) A wormhole opened up and it traveled past the planets of Vega and returned in a fraction of a second -- only it was off by half a mile when it returned -- still not very likely (but possible! I've seen it on TeeVee!)
3) Aliens abducted it, realized it was a sentient being, asked where it belonged, and it gave them my address -- While this sounds like an X-Files plot, it's doubtfull that this happened
4) Someone (maybe Terry and Rachel?) saw it at the gym, recognized it as mine, and dropped it off on their way home -- most probable explanation.

So to whomever made the connection, many many thanks -- and see ya at the gym!
--B--

On Saturday, Terry, Rachel and I went down to try out climbing shoes at Split Rock in Tiburon (near San Rafael). After an initial problem finding the place (never trust directions given over the phone from someone who says "Yah -- I've been there once"), we found the place and went on up.

There were reps there from Misty Harnesses, Five Ten, La Sportiva, and Metolius.

I tried on several shoes by Five Ten -- I've been on the hunt for a comfortable pair of climbing shoes now for some time -- I've got quite good sport shoes right now but if I want to do longer stuff I am going to need more comfortable stuff. Surprisingly enough, I ended up trying on a size 10 in their Mesa climbing shoes -- in their sport shoes, on the other hand, I wear a size 8. Big difference!

Anywase, it was a great day of climbing -- got a little windy in the afternoon but was enjoyable all the same. Pictures are posted here:
Split Rock Shoe Demo

Thanks to Terry and Rachel for giving me a ride down and back up!!
--B--

Well -- I'm consistantly hitting V4's now.

I've done four in the past week. Thats way kewl I think :) They're hard but I seem to be able to get them fairly quickly (the same night or if I'm already pumped, the next time).

Now why are V5's so much harder?? I suppose I should start working on them again -- since I got sick I dropped back to V3 range and have been working my way back up to the harder climbs. Looks like I"m getting there at last!

--B--

Saw this on Missy's blog and thought it just about sums up my life:

"Why is user error always blamed on the admin?"

--B--