Week of August 27, 2001
Monday
Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday
Saturday Sunday
Most Recent Update
No update.
I'm back!!!!!!! Yes, I'm back to posting once again. Grab a cold one, sit back and enjoy the great adventure I am about to take you on. It has tears, laughter, smiles, and hair being torn out all in one place. To say I have learned a lot about this hobby of mine is an understatement and to deny that I have been very frustrated by this hobby of mine would be a lie. Having said that I will take you to the beginning of the story.
As you may recall from my last post, I had just received my new motherboard, processor, and power supply. I was too busy the next night to do anything remotely connected with my computer as it was a very long day at the office. Then, Friday night we drove to the beach for our weekend there arriving about 10:30 PM that night. Saturday morning I spent in my medical meeting attending three excellent lectures on dermatology, diabetes, and high blood pressure. I learned a lot from those lectures which I am already incorporating in my practice.
The lectures were over at noon so I had the rest of Saturday off to explore the beach. We happened to be at Seaside, Oregon on the weekend of the annual amateur beach volleyball tournament which is supposed to be the largest amateur beach volleyball tournament in the world so we watched beach volleyball all afternoon and enjoyed the sunny, warm(by Oregon coast standards) weather. Stephen was able to spend some time by himself checking out the other kids(girls) there for the weekend and there was a dance at the beach that night.
Sunday morning I got up and ran in the more typical Oregon coast weather, cloudy with drizzle. We then went to the Outlet Mall there to look for some things for Stephen before heading home. Once we were home I proceeded to unpack my new hardware and remove the old power supply, motherboard, and processor from my system. I carefully recorded where my applications' executable files were on my applications partition before I shut down the system and made sure all my data was backed up to my Jaz drive. Then, I shut down the system, unplugged all the peripherals, removed the case, and removed the old hardware after labeling where the cables plugged in.
Putting the new power supply in the case presented the first problem. The holes for the screws in the new power supply case did not match with the holes on the computer case. After some engineering of the case (drilling new holes) I had the power supply mounted in the case (fairly snugly). Then, I mounted the new motherboard with the new memory in it and reconnected the cables to the drives and replaced the video card. Now, it was time to test the system to be sure it would boot up before I replaced all the other expansion cards.
I turned on the main power switch to the power supply and nothing happened. I went back and rechecked all the connections again, tried the switch again and nothing happened. I went and read the manual for both the power supply and the motherboard and could not find anything wrong with how the power supply was connected to the motherboard or any of the drives. I tested it in different outlets in the house and still now power. Then, I realized that I had not connected the CASE power switch to the motherboard, thinking that the main power switch on the power supply probably bypassed the case power switch. Sure enough, when I connected that switch and turned it on the system booted right up. I then turned it off and replaced all my expansion cards in their respective slots.
The above took up all the time I had on Sunday night, so I resumed the great adventure on Monday night. I had all the cards back in their expansion slots so it was time to reinstall the operating system. I had already seen how much faster the system was with the new Gigabyte GA-71XE4 motherboard and Duron 755mHz processor so reinstalling Windows 98 went much quicker than it had with the old Pentium 200mHz processor. Once it had finished its marathon of reboots I had a functional network card for the first time but the sound card was not working. Pulling it out and reinstalling it multiple times did not result in it ever working. Reinstalling its drivers likewise did not help. The system would recognize the card was there but Windows would not, even if I manually installed it using the Add New Hardware Wizard. It did install one time with functional drivers but the next time the computer was rebooted it was gone again, never to return.
I finally gave up on the sound card and turned my attention to reinstalling my applications and getting internet connection sharing running. Configuring ICS was fairly simple so I had my computer and Delanae's sharing one dialup connection the first night. I ended up having to reinstall Windows 98 on the kids computer to get their network card to install properly but now we have three computers sharing one modem. It has been nice as we now have one telephone line open all the time and the one modem doesn't drop connections like Delanae's used to. There are still some bugs to be worked out, especially how to get ICS to drop the dial-up connection when no one is using it. I am sure there is an article about this in the Microsoft Knowledge Base but I have not had time to search it yet.
There is much more to this story but I need to go to bed now so I can get up tomorrow. It is my day off but I have a lot to do as I was not able to finish all that I needed to get done today. More details tomorrow.
Two days in a row! Yes, I am trying very hard to get back in the habit of posting every(most) day. Things are running very smoothly on my system at the present time so we will see how I do posting every day. Today was my day off but I spent it catching up on all the paper work that I did not finish yesterday. Rather than finish it all last night, I left at 7:00 to go to a meeting. This morning I finished up everything and after another meeting came home. I am trying to come down with something so I mostly rested this afternoon and is why I am not at church tonight. I hope to be back closer to myself tomorrow as I have my usual full schedule at the office tomorrow. No, I do not have a completely full day as I am leaving the office about an hour early tomorrow afternoon to catch the Arkansas Razorbacks versus UNLV which will be the season opener for both teams. It will be played in Little Rock and will be one of the few times the Hogs are on TV this season, at least as the schedule is now. I can't wait!
In other good news, Stacey made her eighth grade volleyball team. The final choices were announced this afternoon so she is very happy now. The team will have a couple weeks of hard practices before their first game. Hopefully, I will get to see some of the games if they are not all in the afternoon like they were last year.
Now, back to the story of why I was gone all that time. After giving up on the sound card, I turned my attention to reinstalling all the applications on the applications partition of my hard disk. Actually, before reinstalling them, I repartitioned my second hard disk using a combination of fdisk and Partition Magic 6.0 leaving a large part of the disk unallocated to use for a Linux installation in the future. The repartitioning went off without a hitch, as opposed to when I installed the second hard drive.
Once I had the partitions right, I restored my data partition from my Jaz disk and was ready to start reinstalling the software. The first application I tried to reinstall was Outlook 98 so I would have my e-mail back. I went to the Outlook 98 Setup folder on the applications partition, found setup and clicked on it. It told me it was looking for a download site but there are none anymore as Microsoft has pulled all the sites down. Darn, I wish I had ordered the CD version of it also. I tried importing the old .dll files from the previous Windows installation which I had stored in a Winold folder on the C drive but even though Outlook 98 would now load it would not connect to the internet, display the calendar, or open an e-mail into a full window. I looked for a repair option but there is not one under Outlook 98. I sent an e-mail to the rest of the Daynoters asking if any of them had a copy of the CD version of Outlook 98 but they only had downloaded copies. After a few days of hitting dead ends (yes, I know I could have bought one of the books with Outlook 98 included on a CD) and using Delanae's Outlook Express I finally decided that I would simply install Outlook 2000 which I had gotten on the CD with my Compaq iPaq. Our office computers are due to be upgraded to Windows 2000 (with Outlook 2000) by the end of this year so then I will once again be using the same version of Outlook at home and at the office. Since AutoSync for the Pocket PC will not work with two different versions of Outlook I will have to wait for the office computer to have Outlook 2000 installed on it to be able to synch my home computer with the office computer using the iPaq. That wait will hopefully not be four months. If it is I may regret not spending the money on the book and CD to use Outlook 98 for only three to four months more. I think I made the right decision to go ahead and upgrade at home. By the way, Outlook 2000 installed without any problem then I imported the pst files from my broken Outlook 98 and I am back with all my e-mails, contacts, and calendar intact.
Next, it was time to reinstall Norton AntiVirus. The installation went smoothly enough but LiveUpdate does not work even after multiple uninstallations and reinstallations. I have been unable to find any reason in the support sections of Symantec's website that this is happening. Delanae has a functioning version on her computer so I hope I will be able to copy her updated virus definition files to this computer until I can get LiveUpdate working properly.
What happened with the sound card I hear you asking. I eventually had to purchase a Sound Blaster 16 PCI at CompUSA for $30.00 to replace the Ensoniq Soundscape sound card which would not reinstall earlier. The Sound Blaster installed without any problems and the drivers work fine. It will do until I build the new system at which time I will use a Turtle Beach Vera Cruz card for it. This sound card will be good enough for the kids when I turn this computer over to them after the new one is built. I can now listen to music again as I write this and, with 256MB of memory, my system does not slow down doing both tasks as well as keeping a couple of Internet Explorer windows open and minimized.
Interspersed with all the above was work including call. Somehow I did not have enough time at night to also post updates. Also, I had to repair the installation of 1st Page 2000 before I could resume posting. That took a few days to get it to work correctly and I was never able to redownload a working ZIP of the program to just reinstall it. Instead I had to move a lost DLL file from my WINOLD folder to the new WINDOWS folder on the C: drive to get it to load again. It is working properly now so I have no other excuses for not posting other than the usual one about not enough time.
That's about it for tonight. I am going to bed early so I can have all my strength for work tomorrow and the Razorbacks tomorrow night. The game is on ESPN at 6:30 PM CDT if you are interested.
A win is a win is a win....... The Razorbacks won tonight despite having no offense with their only first down before the final minutes of the game coming on a penalty. But, they did win the game 14-10. Or, rather, UNLV lost the game if you look at all the mistakes UNLV made. Dropped snap from center on a punt attempt and two short missed field goals which would have won it for them. Arkansas did have to convert fourth down plays on the final drive and they had been unable to convert any third down plays up to that point. Arkansas has to get better on offense or it will be an extremely long season for me. Their wide receivers have to catch balls right in their hands. Their quarterbacks have to throw the ball where the wide receivers can have a chance to catch them. Their defense, however, looks very strong. Their defense did score one of their touchdowns on a interception return. Next up is Tennessee which will be a better team than UNLV was. No TV for that game I am sure.
I am feeling better today. I think the virus is going away so hopefully I will feel like running again tomorrow. I have missed three days already this week and I can tell it. I start feeling edgy and slower than I ordinarily am. Tomorrow will be cloudy and cooler here which will make for good weather to get back to running.
Tomorrow looks busy at the office. We haven't had too many slow days this summer and with school starting here next Wednesday things will pick up even more. This weekend Stephen has a football scrimmage and then I will be on call Monday and Monday night. So, no three day weekend for me. But, that means I will not be on call for Thanksgiving. I must go to bed now so I can get up early tomorrow.
Very hectic day today. Busier than yesterday for some reason. Lots of phone calls and patients to see in the office. Luckily I only had one patient in the hospital. That patient should go to the nursing home tomorrow. I have to be back at work Monday since I am on call then and will be seeing patients in our Urgent Care Clinic that afternoon. That does leave me the rest of the weekend off however.
There is a Bobcat parked in front of our house. We will use it this weekend for moving bark dust around and leveling our back yard some. We are sharing the use of it with our neighbor across the street. He has some landscaping of his own to do. It should make moving the bark dust to where we want it a much simpler operation as well as much quicker. Hopefully, we can finish that project this weekend. By the way, the bark dust came from grinding up most of our stumps. We are using it to cover areas such as flower beds where we don't want weeds to grow. After that we plan to seed the back yard in September.
Tomorrow Stephen has a scrimmage with other local teams. After that is a potluck lunch for all the football team at the high school. There we will get to meet all the parents of the other players. Then, his team opens up their season one week from tonight. I will be hustling to make it to the game on time as it is an away game a little over an hour from here. I will be there for it however. Stacey is gone to a birthday party tonight and we will pick her up tomorrow between the scrimmage and the lunch. We are also going to look at cars tomorrow after the lunch. After that, hopefully, we will have time to move some bark dust.
Today was eaten by locusts or car salesmen. This morning I had to go by our local hospice care center to see a couple of patients. A hospice care center is a facility where people with a terminal illness go when their family is unable to care for them in the last few days of their life. It is a wonderful place where wonderful people work caring for these people. All I ever hear are kudos from families about how good the care was there. Although it is sometimes difficult to see people who are dying I walk away from there feeling better.
Then, it was on to the football jamboree. A jamboree is a controlled scrimmage where a sports team can play another team in a practice situation. There are officials calling penalties but the coaches are allowed on the field to call plays and make adjustments in the huddle. In today's jamboree, there was no punting or place kicking and the varsity and junior varsity teams were both running plays against the other team's defense on opposite sides of the fifty yard line. The jamboree was over within an hour and Stephen's team did not look good as he and the coaches admitted after it was over.
Following the jamboree, we went to a potluck lunch for all the football players, coaches, and players parents. Predictably, the football players tried to outeat each other carrying hugely loaded plates to their tables. The head coach made a short speech introducing all the coaching staff, the senior players, and discussing the upcoming season. After the speech I was pressed into service checking out a player with a knee injury from the morning jamboree. He is fine to continue playing.
We then spent the next five hours looking at cars at one of the local car dealers. We are considering trading in our Jeep and getting ourselves a newer vehicle and Stephen a small pickup. Currently we favor a 1987 Mazda B2600XL short bed pickup with only 66,000 miles on it. He likes it, it has an automatic transmission, and a four cylinder engine which is important for gas mileage and lack of power(which is the part we like best). It does ride and drive very nicely although he complains about the lack of power steering. Still he would take it as it has four wheels and an engine. We ended up test driving almost every vehicle on the lot and will go back again tomorrow afternoon. Needless to say, I did not get to use the Bobcat today but we have it until Tuesday morning so we will find time to use it tomorrow and Monday.
No new vehicle yet. We did go back to the dealership this afternoon after church but we did not drive home with a different vehicle. There is still some paperwork to be done on the loan for two vehicles. We probably will not do anything until Tuesday at the earliest since tomorrow is a holiday.
Speaking of holidays, tomorrow I am on call. It is my holiday this year to be on call which means I will also be working in our urgent care clinic tomorrow afternoon from 1-5 PM. It is supposed to be nice weather tomorrow so I do not know what that will mean as far as how many patients we will see. Tomorrow morning I will be rounding on hospital patients with one of my partners who is the inpatient physician tomorrow. Probably no update tomorrow as I will be busy at the hospital all day tomorrow.
After going by the dealership, the rest of the day was spent moving bark dust and doing some leveling with the Bobcat. We got a tremendous amount of work done this afternoon as we have now moved all the bark dust from those ground down stumps and the yard looks more like a yard. Both kids, as well as myself, got to drive the Bobcat but Delanae declined the opportunity. There are pictures in the digital camera which I will try and get from Delanae shortly. The hydraulics on it are cantankerous as we found out but it did its job. Both our neighbors want to use it tomorrow before it has to go back to the rental company on Tuesday. Also, my boss, the medical director of our group, who lives across the street from us came over to see what we were doing making a noise he had not heard from our house before. I told him I was learning a new trade to fall back on; namely heavy equipment operator. It was fun but not something I would want to do all the time.
