All the best wishes, Decrepit!

Bless your heart! I don't think this should wait till next Thursday, some things shouldn't wait and this sounds like one of them. Please take good care of yourself, there are times for toughing things out and times you shouldn't do it. I think this is one of those times that you should be smart instead of tough. I worry so much over you with all this going on this past month or so.


** PS: And thank goodness you dodged your neighbor's critique on your music choices!








This post has been edited by mALX: Nov 4 2017, 06:04 PM

You misunderstand. What I mean to say is that those whose memories stretch back far enough to recall my long ago musical performances are apt to hold grudges.

My doc's office finally returned my call. This week's appointment has been moved from Thursday to tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

Haven't had another major "episode" since the one Friday night. Did have what seemed to be the start of one Sunday afternoon minutes after lying down to read. Strange thing is, once I stood up the pain all but vanished with a minute or so. Nor did it reappear when I laid back down, except as a slight discomfort in that area, which didn't last overly long. Since then I've had no real episodes, but the small area from whence they originate is a bit sensitive. When I cinched my belt before heading out on my grocery run this morning that same area stung for a while. I notice it's presence even now that I'm back in sweats.

Finally got in a full exercise-walk after having missed two days in a row due to errands and weather. Almost didn't go out today, as circa 52F temp felt too cold. Then it dawned on me to don my old military field jacket and switch to a thicker toboggan. That did the trick, though I can't say the walk was comfortable. Wish I'd thought of the field jacket sooner, as it might well have allowed me to walk Monday.

Nothing came of yesterday's PCM appointment, other than a urine test that cleared me of Urinary Track Infection. The doc wasn't much interested in my new symptom, which thankfully hasn't bothered me much these past few days.

I've handled this recent time change surprisingly well. I wake earlier by the clock than usual, but not enough so to do me in. More bothersome is becoming super sleeping not terribly long after supper, which I normally eat between 1600 and 1700. But what can ya do other than fight it off as long as possible?

As for today, I got in my exercise-walk circa noon, two hours before scheduled. Not a bad day for a walk. Sunshine. Low sixties. Very light breeze. It's projected to be a good ten degrees cooler tomorrow.

Called my DC Senator (a lost cause) and Representative (mostly but not totally lost) to inform them to oppose ...hmmm, maybe I'll leave it there. As stated before, I dread these calls, as I can't stay concentrated long enough to effectively speak my message. My first call (the Rep) was fairly pathetic due to that. The second (Senator) went appreciably better.

I've no other plans for the day other than the usual...supper and the internet.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Nov 9 2017, 09:46 PM

Dental exam/cleaning 0800. Went well as usual.

Groceries at Walmart on the way home. Circa $38US this week, $2 of which was for cheapo measuring scoops rather than food. Intended to buy beets to add to my salad suppers...too expensive.

Drove home. Put away groceries. Drove to our local auto repair shop due to dashboard BRAKE light coming on occasionally during today's drives. Left car with shop for brake job. Was driven home. WowButter sammich for lunch.

Called DC Representative to tell him to vote against.....

Tried calling medical clinic to check on Colonoscopy Test scheduling. Their phones malfunctioned.

Exercise-walk circa 1400. Went well.

Got my repaired car back early afternoon. $341.99 bill. More than I wanted to pay, of course. Truth to tell I was expecting $350-500+, so won't complain too loudly. So far as I know, this it the first time the car needed brake work in its nearly 20yrs of existence. (I inherited the car from my mom.)

Got my exercise-walk out of the way soon as I got home.

Logged care repair expense in my PC checking account ledger. I placed it until "spending money." It now comes to me that I need to edit the ledger and split the cost between spending money, my meager monthly car upkeep fund, and my slush fund. It comes out the same no matter how I divide or don't divide it. But dividing it gives me a better idea of how much "spending money" remains to see me through the month.

Glad to hear you got your car back okay Decrepit, and that it didn't break the bank.

This week has really tried me as far as getting my hopefully still functional PC back up and running.

I've managed to take it apart to get at the PSU and it's many, MANY built-in cables. Had to remove the RAM just so I could have more room to painfully pry the cables from the motherboard, and I also had to remove the GPU just so I could remove one (1) cable. Butterfly locks are hard to remove when one is covered up by a heat sink. :v

Now I'm not sure if the RAMs securely in place, and I pretty much have to leave the GPU disconnected until I get the new PSU so I don't have to deal with removing it again. (I haven't even ordered it yet) And also my fingers are sore. I hope I didn't end up damaging the motherboard with all my fumbling

Can't wait to get back to playing.

This post has been edited by monkeyemoness: Nov 15 2017, 02:21 PM

I feel your pain. Power supplies are the biggest pita of all computer parts to replace, well, except for the motherboard.

I was gonna dispute this, but thinking on it realize PSUs can indeed be a major hassle to replace. The huge size of my "new" PC's CPU air cooler makes some components that normally aren't hard to work with a chore. AIO water coolers definitely have an advantage in this regard. Yeah, motherboards are about the worst. An add-on CPU cooler with required back-plate is equally painful...if your case doesn't have a mobo tray with CPU cutout large enough to not need to remove the motherboard first.

One of the worst parts of power supplies is making sure you buy one with enough of/the right connectors for your video card. Some of them are 8 pin, some 6. Usually PSU's come with some cables that will go both ways (by making the 7th and 8th pin possible to pop off to turn it into a 6 pin). But not all do. When I was running two gpus in an SLI that was 4 power cables right there.

Honestly the cables were one of my biggest worries when picking a new PSU. The one I'm replacing was pretty beefy for a prebuilt PC but geeze was it a mess o cables just so it could cover every single component. At least the cables are modular?

As someone with little experience building PCs I kinda dread the inevitable motherboard replacement, though. Part of me wishes I had built this thing on my own when my brother-in-law was still around so I could learn it while having access to help. Welp, I guess this little project will be my introduction.

This post has been edited by monkeyemoness: Nov 16 2017, 09:15 PM

YouTube is full of Computer Tech type videos, mostly dominated by what I'll term "tech kids," relatively young folk who mostly test/review products and assemble computers from parts sent them by manufacturers. My favorite YouTube PC tech channel is different. It's the sole work of a comparatively older fellow who is an actual Computer Technician. His primary main line of work has been assembling and supporting PCs for businesses and individuals for over 25yrs. He films himself working on actual client machines, with no paid for product pushing in sight. I like the guy's delivery style. He tends to be very thorough in explaining how and why he does what he does.

Here's a couple of representative video segments:

Broken AMD Computer Diagnostic from 2015.

Kaby Lake Build from early 2017. This is a pretty basic build, with only one storage device and on-board video rather than a separate graphics card. Still, it demonstrates his thoroughness explaining the building process step by step. (My Notua CPU air cooler was easy to install, certainly much more so than the cooler seen here. Course these days many will opt for AIO water cooling.)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Nov 18 2017, 12:28 AM

He certainly does like to utilize Corsair products!
Seems like a fun guy, Khajiit could see himself watching one of his videos if he needed to know how to do something.

This one would like to add:
@Monkey- Khajiit built his current PC with little more than this how to guide from IGN and the installation instructions that came with the components themselves. This one is still amazed at how relatively easy the process was!

Wow, musical performances? Do tell more, I'm all ears! I mean, you don't need to give your name, but at least the music style or genre?

*mALX pulls out old records and taps foot impatiently...*

That is an awesome record on how long that car has not needed repairs! Wow! Glad you found a decent price on redoing the brakes, that is really reasonable comparatively. Around here that would be considered a very low price for a relatively simple brake job. (no extras like grinding rotors, etc).






How anyone can have the guts to pull apart a computer and fiddle around with it = it just floors me! Ghastley and Subrosa; Treydoggie; Decrepit; and now you! And Haute completely floored me by actually building her own gaming computer!

I have to take mine to the repair shop and pay exorbitant prices just to have them spray the dust off for me!!!! And it isn't like I just have the gold laying around to do it, I have to save up for that! Holy Cow, if I ever stuck my hands in there, I can guarantee it would never work again, lol. I am so in awe of anyone who can do it and actually fix something in there!

We really need a bowing down emoticon on this site; I have been stunned by how many of our members or those I've talked to on ESO that can muck around inside computers and end up with a working gaming PC when done!!!! Just plain Awesome!









Wow, that guy is amazing! I think I actually learned something from watching his vids, and I don't have a technical bone in my body!!! Good vids, thanks for posting those!







This post has been edited by mALX: Nov 18 2017, 12:00 AM

Actually, if you look back through some my earliest posts here (not saying which sub-forum(s) and thread(s) there should be vague references to my so-called musical past, including one photo of me in the act of butchering music. Beyond info already supplied, I do not wish to divulge much about that phase of my life, other than that I am honesty surprised (and thankful) I was allowed to continue with it as long as I did. Even back then I knew myself to be no more than a flawed mediocrity, but hindsight being 20/20 I now know myself to have been even worse. (As I might have mentioned before, one of my very few positive traits is the ability to be honest about myself...up to a point.)

Believe it or not, there was once a number of videos available at YouTube of performances of which I was a member. Thankfully, they were all removed quite a while ago, likely due to copyright infringement. (I'd not mention this were any still available.)

I know this sounds all doom & gloomy. There were fun times back in those days too. In fact, had I the sense to throw in the towel two to three years earlier than I did I'd have a better overall opinion of my misbegotten musician days. (There were solid self-serving reasons I held out those extra years.)

Aw! And it is not "honesty" really because = although it is honestly how you feel about it; that is because you are your own worst critic. I remember how badly you downplayed your gameplay vids, and they are the most entertaining I've ever seen! So I have no doubt you were just as good musically as you were as a video producer, lol.