Growing Up Geek

Tech-Head

Last night at work I was having an admittedly bad day. I just did not want to be there and was very disgruntled. I met my wife for dinner and vented to her about my frustration. My frustration came from the fact that with my schedule I seem to be doing nothing but close lately. My wife, always trying to be the bright star in my gloomy night, tried to cheer me up. And as usual, she did manage to cheer me up. I went back to work not thinking about how much I did not want to be there, but what I would do when I got home.

As I walked around my departments, I let my mind wander. I used to do this years ago when I was working in hardware, and used to come up with some great ideas this way. Anywho, letting my mind wander, a random thought came into my mind.

“I miss being a tech-head”

My tech-head days have long been behind me ever since we closed i/o Computers. I took a beloved hobby of mine that I really enjoyed, tried to turn it into a profession, and in doing so, totally soured my hobby forever. I promised myself right then and there that I would not do that again. Only one question presented itself now.

“How?”

I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do something that would make money. If I did something to try and make money, there’s that pressure to make said money. I was looking for another tech hobby. Again, I came up with nothing. That is, until my buddy Jerry texted me around midnight tonight. He knew nothing of what I had been thinking about. In fact, only 2 people knew what I was thinking about and that would be my wife and JP. However, not knowing what I had been thinking about for the last 24 hours, Jerry seemed to not only find a solution, but sum it all up very simple. Here is his text message in its entirety.

“Growing Up Geek?”

Prefect! It’s a property we created and abandoned. It’s something I loved doing, and something that was not revenue driven. To me, this fit the bill. So, we texted back and forth like all good geeks do for about 20 minutes and tried to come up with something resembling a plan. Right now we have come up with this: we want to do it, we just need to figure out a time good for all of us. We said we might try and record this weekend, but again, we may or may not. This was the main reason we stopped recording back in February. We just couldn’t come up with a mutual time & date to get everyone on Skype at the same time.

When I asked Jerry what made him ask about Growing Up Geek, he said he just listed to the last episode we recorded, and really missed it. In fact, I am listening to that very episode on my iPod as I type this, and I am laughing my ass off. I so want to start doing GrUG again. And we will, one way or another, in the words of the venerable Captain Jean-Luc Picard, “Make It So”.

Having Cake And Eating It Too (It’s Not A Lie)

On January 27, 2008, I made what is for me, a life changing decision. Did I get married? No. Did I have a baby? No. Did I get my nipples pierced? No. What I did do is was buy a Macintosh and leave the world of desktop PCs behind me. In the months that followed, I was quite happy with my decision, even becoming somewhat of a preacher-boy for the OS X platform. I had wanted a Macintosh for years, but it wasn’t until my experiences at i/o Computers that I needed to leave the PC world behind. After fixing other people’s computers for 3 years semi-full time, I was so sick and tired of viruses, spyware, the Windows Registry, legacy drivers, and root kits that I just couldn’t take it anymore. Hell, when my main rig died on me in June 2007, it took me months to look at it and to get it back up and running. In fact, it sat on the floor of my computer room for a good 3 months until I even looked at it. Once I determined it was the video card that had fried out, I ordered a new one and installed it. But by the time that happened, my main computer had been down for almost 4 months. In that time, I just used my laptop and was content with that. Plus, once my main system was up and running at full speed, I ditched it again in 3 short months for my new Mac.

Where am I going with all of this? Well, as much as I love my Mac, there are still some things I need a Windows environment for. Most of these tasks can and have been handled by my laptop, but there is one aspect that nothing but my main rig is suited to do – play games.

I brought my PC down from my filing cabinet a few weeks ago and made room for it on my desk. I hooked the keyboard and mouse up to it, something that hadn’t been hooked up in quite some time. Prior to this, the tower itself just sat on top of my filing cabinet with just a power cord and an Ethernet cable hooked into it. I was using the system as a media server for the house and accessed it via Remote Desktop. Now however, I was getting the itch to play some of the game I have, but have never played or finished. There was only one problem with this whole setup – I needed a second monitor. Leaving the world of CRT monitors behind with my Mac, I searched for a solution to share my monitor. First, I thought a simple DVI switch would be perfect. After researching the solution, I was stunned by how much they cost. For the cost of a switch to share the same monitor with my Mac and PC, I could buy a whole new monitor. I looked online to try and find the same monitor I already had so it would be a nice mirror image on my desk, only to discover that this model has been discontinued. The only place I could find one was eBay, and quite frankly, I’m not willing to buy a monitor on eBay. My last option was a manual KVM switch. Since I didn’t want to use the same keyboard and mouse between the 2 systems, I needed a KVM with a manual switch that had dual DVI inputs. Yeah, sounds easy, right? Wrong. Everything I was finding was right around a solid c-note. Being cheap frugal I decided I would just switch the monitor cable manually. Well, that lasted about 2 weeks before that really got old. So, last night I finally broke down and brought my old 19” CRT monitor down from the attic and hooked it up to my PC. I had forgotten how bad a CRT looks next to using an LCD for the past 11 months. But, it was a free solution, and it did what I needed it to do without constantly switching cables. So today after editing episode 21 of Growing Up Geek, I rearranged my desk to a point where I can use my Mac and my PC seamlessly.

I now have the best of both worlds. I can work on Mac, and then game on my PC without switching anything and not moving.

Vacation — Day 5

So today is my 5th day of vacation, and let m tell you…it doesn’t feel like it. My first day, Friday, was a run around day when I was out most of the day gathering supplies for my vacation. Saturday was spent at Knoebels having a great time. Sunday was spent hanging out with my wife, editing Episode 13 of Growing Up Geek, and starting to paint the porch. Monday was spent starting to clean up the house, taking the cats to the vet, and going over all the work that needs to be done to my house and my parent’s house with our electrician. Today — well, not quite sure yet. I’ll probably end up doing some more painting and cleaning today.

What this all boils down to is that I am almost 1/2 way through my vacation already and its going by like a whirlwind. I really can’t believe how fast it’s going. Today I am starting day 5 of 10, and it honestly feels like my second or third day off.

But then again, aren’t all vacation like that?

Old Days

Thanks to Konami, the gamer side of me has been reborn.

I picked up Metal Gear Solid 4 on Thursday when it came out. I was going to hold off and buy it next Thursday after work so i could start playing it on my vacation, but I just couldn’t resist buying it on release day. I’ve always been a big Metal Gear fan, even though I never got around to beating Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty. (in all fairness, my ex taking our copy with her had something to do with that) I came home that night, and threw the disc into my PS3 while Jess went outside ion the porch to write a paper for school.

Let’s just say the game sucked me right in. So much so that I was up until after 2am playing last night, even though I woke up at 5am yesterday to go to work.

Yeah, that sounds like the old me.

I’m about 4 hours into the game and have just started the Second Act, but with the way Act 1 ended, this looks like it’s going to be a pretty killer game.

In other new around the Earth, today is Father’s Day. Jess is currently at work and won’t be home until about 4pm. So, I’m going to hop in the shower after this, and go see my dad. Then when she gets home, she’s going to take a quick shower and we have to head down to Easton to see her dad and have dinner with him. (about an hour and 40 minute drive) So, given that I just woke up at noon, this is pretty much my day. I do have to swing by the grocery store and pick up some cat food since we’re all out. Trust me, having hungry cats is not a good thing — they’ll eat your toes off if they’re hungry enough!

Other than all that, I go back to work at 6am tomorrow, and go straight thru until Thursday. At 6pm on Thursday, I officially start my vacation and won’t return back to work until 6am on 6/30/08. During this time off I’m going to work on the house a bit, and play lots and lots of video games. I’m hoping I can get pretty close to beating MGS4, and get a lot farther in GTA4. We’re also planning to do a special episode og Growing Up Geek on 6/27/08 which should be fun. I’ll let more details slip closer to the actual date.

For now, I’m off to the shower and to get my day stared.