Thinking about a PC upgrade

I am thinking it is time for an upgrade. WHY? Because I want to play Battlefield 3 in all it's glory. I can re-use my case (and cram these innards in another case for possibly other purposes). So, when all is said and done, I am looking at about $760.92 for parts. I would start with two new boot Hard Drives (SATA 6GB, 250GB 7200RPM), I have a nice 2TB data drive to plug in, an AMD Phenom II X4 p65 Black Edition 3.5GHz Quad-core processor, 8GB of DDR 3 Ram, a 80Plus Gold certified power supply, a Radeon HD 6950 Graphics card w/ 1GB ram, an ASRock motherboard with two PCI-Express x16 slots, SATA 6GB/s, USB 3.0, Firewire, Gigabit Lan, and eSATA, and a SATA Blu-Ray burner.

So...to pull the trigger or not...Thoughts?

Well, off to water aerobics for the evening.

Anniversary Trip Recap

This year, for our annual anniversary trip, we headed in the same general direction as last year....North. Our destination was a bit different though. Our goal? Finish visiting the states of New England and see some sites along the way. How did we do? Pretty darn good.

Day 1: We departed work @ 2:30 and hit the road. Our destination was Milford, CT. It was a convenient stopping place for the first night, we didn't really have a plan in mind for there. On the way, we only hit a small amount of traffic at the George Washington Bridge and on I-95 in CT. We were a bit shocked by this, but it was very welcome!

Day 2: In the morning, we headed down to Silver Sands State Park and took a walk on the boardwalk there. I snapped some photos of Charles Island and some rock formations people had made in the sand. I am pretty sure this one was actually pointing due north:

Milford Beach and Charles Island

From there, we hopped on the road and started driving north towards White River Junction, VT. Along the way, we stumbled upon the Basketball Hall of Fame, and it was also a good time to take a break, so we went there (more on this later). From there, we continued driving along until we saw a sign for the "Bridge of Flowers" and decided another detour was in order. I would have loved to see this bridge during the spring when everything was in bloom, but it was still pretty nice, and there were some falls near by. After that, we proceeded on to White River Junction, VT.

Day 3: We began Day 3 planning out our route. Our first stop was Quechee Gorge (or as they like to call it, Vermont's little Grand Canyon). The view down into the gorge from the bridge was awesome, and I managed to snap some decent pics standing there. I haven't had time to do much work with the photos, so here is the best one I currently have posted:

Quechee Gorge

Our next stop was the Mt. Washington Auto Road which is apparently America's oldest man-made tourist attraction. It climbs to the peak of Mt. Washington, the highest point in the Eastern United States at 6,288 ft. It is also home to "The World's Worst Weather" being the location where the highest wind speed directly recorded at the Earth's Surface: 231mph. The drive up was amazing with beautiful views of the Presidential Mountain Range. We stopped several spots on the way to the top for photos, and then reached the peak and climbed the stairs to the observation post on top. This part of the trip was very reminiscent of Stelvio Pass in Italy.

View from Mt. Washington

From Mt. Washington, we proceeded on to our destination for the night, Bath, ME. Once there, being our actual anniversary, we went out for dinner and both had Lobster (we were in Maine, what else would we eat). It was a good evening

Day 4: Our first stop on day 4 was an old US Fort, Fort Popham. This fort was never completed and never attacked, but US forces were stationed at it multiple times.

Fort Popham

From Fort Popham, we traveled up to the Maine Wildlife Refuge. I managed to snap some great wildlife photos while we were there, and saw something that I had never seen (and will probably never see again): an albino raccoon. There were quite a few deer in the pen across the way, but the fences are short enough that healthy deer, if they so choose, can jump the fences and leave the refuge. We saw most of the refuge, but were both wearing down, so we skipped the birds and marsh areas of the refuge. The only other event for the day was driving through "The Big Dig". Having seen numerous TV specials about it, it was cool to actually drive through it.

Day 5: After crashing for the night just outside Rhode Island, we made our final push of the trip. On to the Statue of Liberty! When we arrived, the line was long and moving slowly. I had considered buying tickets online the night before, but I didn't have a printer, am always iffy about using the hotels public computer, and didn't see any benefit since according to the website, Pedestal tickets were sold out for the day, so we would only be able to visit the island anyway. Once we finally got our tickets, we proceeded to the security zone (1 of 2 we passed through). We catch the boat to Ellis Island, walk around a bit, and then hop on over to Liberty Island.

Somewhere between boarding the ferry the first time, and boarding it to visit Liberty Island, we realized that our tickets actually granted us Pedestal access. Great surprise there! So we headed straight to the statue and headed inside to get a view from the pedestal. This is where we were met with security checkpoint #2. After walking up 2 flights of stairs, we were in the museum in the pedestal. It had some interesting items, but we were more interested in going up, so we proceeded up another 2 flights, then caught the elevator to the top of the pedestal.

NYC From the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty

What an amazing view it was! We then started working our way down the various levels of the pedestal via the stairs until we finally reached ground level. Hot, tired, and ready to roll, we caught the next ferry back to NJ, hopped in the car, and sat in traffic. Somewhere on the turnpike, I hoped out of the driver's seat for the first time on the trip, and let Chrissy handle the last (mostly traffic free) leg home.

Now, about the Basketball Hall of Fame: we seem to have started a trend now. Last year we went to Cooperstown, this year the Basketball Hall of Fame, maybe Rock & Roll and Football Hall of Fames next year? Who knows. But I do know that the states we have left to visit are all to the west now, so it won't be as easy a trip to knock more of those off our list.

"Drop it like it's" a Volkswagen

At H2Oi, I purchased a JOM coilover kit from New German Performance. On Friday, Chrissy took it up to their shop in Aberdeen, MD to have the coilovers installed. So, now the Rabbit is riding low. I am not too happy about the noise of the suspension right now, but I emailed NGP about that to check if it is normal. I do remember even the stock suspension on that car making noise, just a different one. I LOVE the new stance of the car, and on the way home on Friday, a kid shouted out "Hey man, nice car" as I drove by. First time that has happened in the Rabbit ;)

You can see more pics on my Flickr account but I wanted to post one here on the blog.

Weekend Plans

Well, this weekend we will be rolling out to H2Ointernational down near Ocean City, MD. I have a lot of cleaning of the JSW to do this weekend before we drive down. It needs a good hand-washing and wax, and then I will finally get around to take some photos of the car once it is all clean to post on my garage page. Keep an eye on my Flickr account for a bunch of Volkswagen and Audi photos to be posted either Sunday night or Monday.

Work has been hell this week since we had to tell users they have been doing things they shouldn't have, and I received a bunch of backlash for that. Some of it felt very personal, and even though everyone says not to let it get to me, but for me, when I stop letting it get to me, it means I don't care any more and I should move on to a new job, so, my boss should be glad it still gets to me.

2 Months Out

I just realized that it has been exactly 2 months since my surgery and I neglected to blog about that.  I didn't weigh myself today, but I did yesterday, and I am down 66 lbs since surgery and 121 lbs since the end of last August.  Still a long way to go, but it is progress.  Anyway, that is all I had to say.

Car Stuff

The Rabbit (aka Klopfer) is quickly approaching its 100,000 mile service. Need to call Dick's Autohaus to schedule an appointment to have it done there (why pay for the stealership to do the work?) Since I have the parts, will probably go ahead and replace all four rotors and sets of pads at once, if I can get the damn bolts off this time. I also have OEM front fogs lights on order from ECS Tuning to finally install even though I have had the appropriate switch on the car for over a year (and a year fog with the current tail lights).  The plasti-dip on the front badge came off when I washed the car last week, so I am going to use some actual paint this time when I black it out.  I will also (when I have time) priming and painting the rims black with wheel paint since the finish on the rims is looking pretty bad and there is some curb rash on them.

The Jetta SportWagen is almost out of it's bumper-to-bumper warranty range, nearing 36,000 miles since November 1st.  This weekend I installed my birthday present from Chrissy, OEM front fog lights ordered from OEMPlus.  They look awesome, unfortunately, I thought I had the appropriate CECM to plug them directly into to the controller and have them work.  The rule of thumb used to be, if you had the multi-function display in your dashboard, you had the high-line CECM which is compatible with front fogs.  Apparently, that is no longer the case, and my car has the low-line CECM, so doesn't have the proper pins for front fog lights.  Because of this, I then had to re-work the wiring some and use a relay to power the fog lights.  I am not 100% satisfied with the wiring right now, but it is safe, and will suffice until I get around to reworking it a bit.  This is why we ordered the rabbit fog lights from ECS rather than OEMPlus.  The OEMPlus kit is designed to plug directly in like they do in the factory.  We know the Rabbit has the low-line CECM, and the ECS kit uses a relay in its wiring harness already, so I won't run into the same problems.

I have also now ordered the dash cubby for the JSW like the European cars have, and the driver's side taillight with the rear fog in it, to further convert the car to euro-spec.  I almost never have to use the rear fog over here, but occasionally it is nice to have on 213 in the mornings or the Bay Bridge.  Also, it works better for getting tailgaters off your ass then tapping the breaks.  Just flip that on for a second, and it makes them think you are tapping your brakes, but doesn't have the risk of collision of tapping the brakes.

This coming weekend we are going to Dubs on the Boards in Wildwood, New Jersey, but won't be showing off the car, just going to check out all the other cars.  We will also be going to H20i in a couple of weeks down near Ocean City, MD.

Lastly, I still need to take some good photos of the JSW for the garage portion of my website, but it won't be happening today.  Overcast, rainy, and the car still needs a bath too.  Maybe Saturday if it is nice, since I will want to give the car a bath before driving to Wildwood.

Haven't updated in a bit

Well, I know I have been slacking again and not blogging.  I have been updating Twitter and Facebook though.  I haven't even been on Google+ lately.  Not enough hours in the day I tell ya!  So here is a run down of recent news.

Since gastric bypass surgery, which was July 5th, I have now lost over 60 lbs. The exact amount is around 63 or 64 lbs.  I can't remember exactly what the scale said yesterday.  That brings total weight loss in the last year to about 110 lbs.  Still a long way to go though, and I need to start doing more "land" exercise vs water aerobics, which leads into my next item...

I bought a bicycle.  Of course, most people would say "Oh, big deal."  Well, it isn't exactly easy to find a bicycle for someone of my size.  LivingXL sells them, but I was able to find out who actually builds them and order directly from the factory with the exact customizations that I wanted.  The company, Worksman Cycles, is based in NY and does all construction there.  After all was said an done, including shipping, my bicycle was around $700, but it is very sturdy.  Of course, that brings us to riding a bike again for the first time since high school.

Everyone always says "It's like riding a bike, you never forget".  My version, "It's like riding a bike.  You remember how to do it in theory, but in practice it is very awkward and takes time to get used to again, and don't be surprised if you fail."™  Fortunately, on my first few trips, I have not crashed and burned (despite Chrissy's best efforts by not tightening the handle bars enough).  I am becoming more comfortable on the bike with each shift of gears and each revolution of the pedals, but it is still not like it was when I was younger.  Of course, I also had less mass to balance atop the bike back then.

Now, as for what I am eating these days, with my 1/2 cup (at max) holding stomach...not much.  Breakfast every morning is a protein shake made with vanilla ice cream flavored protein powder, milk, and either blueberries, strawberries, sugar-free chocolate syrup, or a combination of the later two.  Lunch is as much as 1/2 a cup of food, usually left over from dinners.  I usually have a yogurt sometime during the day as well, and dinner will consist of various protein and vegetable combinations.  I have had crab cakes on multiple occasions, although 1 G&M sized crab cake will last 3-4 meals for me, so it is much cheaper when Chrissy and I do end up eating out.  Last night (and for breakfast this morning) I had Egg Drop soup, since it has a decent amount of protein, and sometimes solid foods still don't sit right in my stomach.

I also consume 12 oz of liquid every day just for my vitamins and calcium supplements.  They are isotonic, so they are absorbed into the bloodstream better.  I have to take 1 cap of vitamin and 2 of calcium twice a day.  Add 2oz of water per cap-full and I have a mixed fruit flavored vitamin cocktail to take twice a day.  I am also on a sub-lingual B-12 supplement and a chewable iron supplement.

I guess I should mention the hurri-quake (or quake-icane) somewhere in this blog post.  The Earthquake hit while I was on the third floor of my building at work and scared the crap out of me.  Never felt an earthquake that big.  Now, the Californians all laughed at us because it was a "little" earthquake.  Well, my only response to that is, it was more than big enough for my liking.  Then Irene came up the coast, and parts of the Eastern Shore were under mandatory evacuation orders.  We weren't and stayed here through the storm.  Besides a slight bit of water leakage into the basement, we weathered the storm fine.  I picked up some basement crack sealing stuff online and will be working on that sometime soon.  They were small leaks, and hopefully we won't get any more hurricanes any time soon, plus this weekend is kind of busy, but it will get done.

I guess that is all for now.  I haven't been doing any exciting trips like my sister, and sadly, I haven't even had my Nikon out for a while.  I have been meaning to take some nice photos around Chestertown, but just haven't gotten enough motivation to do so.  I do have some car work to take care of and will probably blog about that when it's done.  In the meantime, follow me on twitter, and if you know me, friend me on Facebook (I ignore requests from people I don't know).