Category: Uncategorized

I found out today that next Monday is Memorial Day, which is one of the paid holidays we get. Yay for a 3 day weekend. If I’d actually looked it up I’d have noticed, but I’ve been busy lately and didn’t think of it.

Today was graduation at the Air Force Academy, so they had the Thunderbirds out for their yearly air show. Unlike last year, I actually found out when it was and got to watch it from the balcony on the back of our building. It was neat, especially when they flew somewhat low right over us on the way back to the AFA.

Leaving work today (later than I intended, which has been common lately) I saw a rabbit trekking across the parking lot. I’m guessing it’s one of the ones that lives in the landscaping in front of the building, but I’m wondering what would prompt a rabbit to go that far from anything green or all hiding spots besides cars. Perhaps it spotted a bush and decided something along the lines of “that’s green, I’m going to go eat it despite standing next to all these other plants.”

Meant to post something last weekend, but didn’t like what I managed to write so it didn’t get posted.

The weekend before last I switched my newer desktop into the case of my older desktop (that case was bigger so it would fit a bigger video card). The next Monday when my new video card (GTX 580) arrived I installed that into my new desktop and continued to ignore the fact that my old desktop was spread out all over my floor and table.

Last weekend I reassembled the old desktop and mostly put away the boxes from cases, motherboards, and stuff that I had out for the documentation on which set of pins went to which plug from the case so little things like the power button would function. Still haven’t actually hooked it up, but I’ll probably do that tonight or tomorrow.

This weekend so far I’ve mostly disassembled the video card that I was replacing (GTX 280):

Most of the purpose of those pictures was to show where the thermal paste goes if I decide to put it back together, but it also shows how massive the GPU chip is (nearly as big as a pentium 1 chip, but the pins on it are much, much smaller and closer together). I also wanted to take the plastic cover off the heat sink, but one of the tiny little screws is completely stuck and working on that more will just further strip the teeth off it or my screwdriver. I’m considering just cutting the plastic to take it off, but if I decide to try to put it back together either I’d have to glue it or let it rattle (it’s not a load bearing screw, just holds the cover on the heat sink).

If I decide not to try to put it back together the heat sink is a large chunk of what looks like aluminum (with copper heat pipes), so perhaps I’ll take that to my dad in case he gets everything to cast something out of aluminum again.

My desk has reached a new level (literally) of awesomeness. I’ll probably post a picture in the next few days.

I spent a good bit of time cleaning off my desk so I could rearrange my monitors a bit. There was a very large amount of cat hair scattered in the back (of course), as well as a large number of random wires. Now all the wires that weren’t in use (there were many) have been removed, several things that are used exceedingly rarely are on a shelf on the other side of the room, and all the cat hair I could manage was removed.

I also cleaned off the back space to the right side of the desk so Talore has more room. That wasn’t the intent, but that’s how it worked out. With my left monitor pushed back there isn’t room for Talore to walk all the way around behind my monitors anymore. Hopefully she won’t push over a monitor trying.

I still have to rebuild my computers (swap cases for more space on the newer computer), so I’ll probably bother to organize the cables under the back of my desk while I’m at it.

In other news, I weaseled out of traveling to New Jersey for work next week. I was told I was supposed to go out there on rather short notice, and I hadn’t traveled for work before so I didn’t have (or know I needed) a corporate credit card. Despite my manager being on vacation I’m now approved for one, but it’s not expected to be here fast enough to get a flight on Tuesday. Luckily, in the process of attempting to get me set up for travel quickly, one of the leads questioned the need to physically be in the room where we’re setting stuff up considering we have remote access, and it was decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of sending me unless we have a problem with something.