Computer, you're on notice!

After all the hard work to assemble the proper parts for my new computer, and hours of bench-testing the new setup, I finally assembled everything into my case and began the final assembly. This includes 4-6 hours just for filling, priming, and leak-testing the new watercooling setup. Finally, the moment of truth. I press the power button.
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Nothing

(-->Insert exhaustive and comprehensive list of expletives here<--)

Initially, I submitted an RMA to NewEgg for the motherboard, then I punished it by giving it a time-out and ignoring it for a week and a half. Yesterday I decided to finally prep it for shipping, but I'd better test it one last time before I pay another $15 to ship it back to the mainland - again.

Success, kind of.

Horray in that it is fully-functional. Holy crap in that I have absolutely no idea where to begin in the troubleshooting.

So now it sits for a little longer until I can summon the patience to toy with it again. I'm still limping along on my wife's computer, and praying daily to the great pasta god that this system doesn't go belly-up on me while I'm using it.

I lose. I win! I lose. I win!!

I lose.
You may have noticed that immediately following my proclamation that I would pick up on the blogging again, that I dropped off the face of the earth. Asus, Gigabyte, and Microsoft can collectively kiss my ass. First, my motherboard died - suddenly. Attempts to rebuild have been hampered by hardware failures, RMA wait times, and Microsoft's inability to allow you to load RAID drivers from anything but a floppy disk (unless you slipstream, which so far has only been mildly successful). Between all of this fun, housework, and life in general, I'm going on 4 weeks without my own computer up & running, which must be some kind of record.

I win!
The latest super-dooper 3-d sonogram told us quite clearly that we are having a boy in late July! I know I should be indifferent, and no doubt I still would love the baby if it were a girl, but I'm truly esctatic that I will have a boy to continue the family name, eat dirt with, and enjoy watching movies involving gratuitous violence with when we're older.

I lose.
As part of the new, baby 2.5 edition (oldest sister is a half-sibling) soon to be released, I have been both highly anticipating and dreading the replacement of Danger Ranger III. Alas, DR3 cannot fit 2 car seats and had thus had an expiration date equal to that of the arrival of baby 2.5. DR3, my 1999 Ford Ranger had been my nicest truck thus far, and I had heavily customized it to compliment it's street-only life. Fat tires, rear anti-roll bar, KYB shocks, Flowmaster, upgraded intake, as well as a host of other customizations. It was downright fun to drive, and will be the last stick-shift that I will have had the pleasure to own for quite some time. I will miss that truck dearly.

I win!!



My new truck, that needs a name. 2007 Honda Ridgeline RTS 4WD. Okay, Honda has the audacity to call it a 4WD. It's really front-wheel drive with automatic variable torque output (up to 50%) to the rear wheels. The short version: No 4WD low, so it's only "All-wheel-drive," and I can live with that. If it handles trails as gracefully as my wife's Pilot, I'm stoked. You know what else I'm stoked about? A 25% smaller engine (3.5L) that puts out 36% (87!) more HP. There are more cubby-holes and storage places on this thing than I've ever seen. You could probably smuggle 10 people across the border just in the trunk alone!

Since this truck is mechanically near-identical to my wife's '04 Pilot, I only have to buy 1 set of fluids, filters, wiper blades, light-bulbs, etc!

And the mother of all wins, I got an awesome trade-in on my Ranger. Awesome as-in they didn't drive it and find out that it has major engine computer issues (idle hangs at 2000RPM at stoplights) and the tranmission shifts so hard (bad syncros) it's like driving a dump-truck sometimes. I would have lovingly fixed it all if I knew I was keeping it (eventually), but it was kind of cool to get high private-party blue-book for it ($5300) as a trade in. Kinda like sticking it to the man for a change. Of course we basically paid sticker price for the Ridgeline (just below retail value), so its all a matter of semantics. We stuck it to each other.

It's a little depressing, in that this will be the frist time that I was Ford-less in about 15 years. I do love Fords, and even considered the F150 Super Crew (sorry Explorer Sport-Trac, you're ugly), but it came down to what was the smallest, and best truck that I could find that I liked, and Honda won hands-down. Counting motorcycles, this is my 5th Honda, and I don't regret "switching teams."