My confidence is restored

I had pretty much given up on fixing or making a new computer. I've hit problem after problem and we've already sunk too much money into it. Last night I had decided to put all of the parts that we had bought plus the scrap from my old computer onto Ebay so we could at least get a little of our money back. I knew that I would get more money for my old parts if I could say for sure in my ads that I have tested them and they at least power up.

All of the guys are out camping on a Boy Scout retreat, so I have the house to myself. This is key, because I never would have done this next part if anyone was around. I get really stressed out when I'm working on repairing a computer, so I prefer to be alone when I do it. First, I tested our old power supply, and as I suspected, it didn't work. That hit the garbage pile. Next, I suspected that there was a part of the motherboard that was bad, so I messed around for an hour or so to confirm it. In this process, however, I discovered that everything worked (almost) without this part! I was so close to getting it fixed at this point.

I was able to get video, but I couldn't for the life of me get the keyboard to work. I tried four different keyboards (they're still sitting around the living room) without luck. I went downstairs to go to bed at this point. I called Matt to see if he had made a decision about buying a new set of computer parts, to tell him he might not have to worry about it. I came back upstairs to finish my glass of Mountain Dew, and the computer was calling my name. I downloaded the schematics for the motherboard, messed around with some jumpers, and I still couldn't get the keyboard to work. My final desparation attempt was just to jiggle the keyboard port a bit. It worked!

In short, I'm posting this from my computer again. I'm so happy, and I no longer think that I should abandon the computer field as a job lol.

Not much is new

I know I haven't been posting much lately, but that's simply because I appear to not be all that creative right now, and there isn't a whole lot that's going on in my life right now. We did get our stuff delivered late last week, so that was a nice change of pace. We got a storage unit and put most of it there. We're sure not entirely sure how we're going to get the bulk of our stuff to Florida. I'm guessing that we're going to end up having it shipped.

I'm keeping somewhat busy with school and studying for my next computer certification (iNet+) coming up this Friday. Then I'm going to start on my Microsoft certifications. Otherwise, nothing at all is new!

I passed!

Today I took the Comptia Network+ exam and passed. Hooray! That's one more notch on my resume. I'm glad I passed because the exam costs $200 to take and I'm not sure Matt would have been happy if I would have had to take it again. I'm already preparing to take my next one, a Microsoft XP Professional exam. I think this one will be a bit harder, but it will make me an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional). I'm also going to study for my Server+ exam.

On another happy note, our stuff arrives in our driveway at 7:30 tomorrow morning. I am so excited to have my computer again! If you recall, however, my computer is broken right now, so I'll have to spend some time repairing it before I can start playing EQ2 again. I'm going to teach Zach a bit about computers while I'm at it. He's pretty excited about that.

The continued quest for the high score

A long time ago I wrote about a quest that I was undertaking to beat my mom's high score in a Yahoo game called Text Twist. She has a crazy score of over a million or something like that. To this day, I have not stopped in my quest for that high score. I haven't even come close. My current high is only 300,000, but I play a game or two every day. One of these days, I'll get lucky muahaha.

On another note, I have begun work on my pictures page. Check it during this next week for updates :)

We have a car again!

Matt and I flew out of Denver headed for Los Angeles early Tuesday morning. We had a brief stop in Las Vegas (they have slots in the airport!) and safely arrived in LA. We got to our car without a hitch and managed to find our way out of the city. Actually, there were no hitches at all throughout the entire trip (which is rare).

We did hit a bit of a traffic jam on the eastern end of California. It took us over two hours to get 14 miles. They were doing construction on the highway and slowed both sides of the interstate to a halt. We kept ourselves occupied by playing the alphabet game with trash on the side of the highway. Once we got past that spot, however, it was smooth sailing to Las Vegas.

We stayed in Vegas Tuesday night. It was cool to see all of the big hotels and stuff that you see and hear about on TV. We choose the Motel 6! They left the light on for us. We walked around the MGM Grand and the New York, New York. We played $20 in slots. We lost $20 in slots. The city was cool, but I really don't think I need to go back.

After Vegas we went and saw the Hoover Dam. That was pretty impressive. We didn't stay there long. We fueled up, both car and people, and headed on our way. The scenery for the rest of our trip was breath-taking. It all looked fake. Nevada, Arizona and Utah were mostly red, orange and brown canyons and mountains. Matt drove through all of Nevada and California and some of Utah and Colorado. I took the night shift and did the majority of Utah and Colorado. Even at night, the mountains were dominating and demanded respect. We had a very bright moon to drive by, which allowed for a little sightseeing as I drove.

We got some good pictures, which will be posted some time soon.