Monday, August 5 2019

Dear Journal,

This week, I'm hoping to get started on building a new computer. Well, I should say rebuilding. The computer has been sitting in the basement for a few years, but I'm going to relocate it to the upstairs wall and mount the parts on plexiglas. The downstairs computer has served us well. We bought it when Marissa was interested in doing graphic design, since she would need a machine powerful enough to run the adobe suit, but it quickly turned into just another computer for video games. We had both of our PCs set up in the upstairs bedroom on a long table she made from wood reclaimed from a bowling alley. It looked cool, but it was impractically heavy, and truth be told every time I sat at the table I feared that it would snap and crush my legs.

Like I said, it was supposed to be a workstation, but eventually we just used it for video games. Marissa and I used to sit at the table and play Counter Strike. We had headsets and everything, and we were pretty good - we could usually hold our own in a match.

Eventually I got sick of owning a PC. I was craving a little more minimalism in my work station, and a giant glowing, flashing, whirring box just wasn't cutting it. My PC was a lot older - I bought it the summer after graduating college entirely with graduation money. I really didn't know what I was doing, so I just went as high end as possible. After we got rid of my computer, there was little reason to keep Marissa's in our bedroom, so we moved it downstairs. There, sitting on a concrete floor, it's been faithfully running a plex server. Occasionally I play video games on it, streaming from my upstairs raspberry pi.

This week, I'm hoping to take it apart, measure everything, and start planning a wall build. I haven't looked inside Marissa's old PC in a while, so there could be some surprises waiting. Some parts look good mounted on a wall no matter what - like a motherboard or an SSD, but for all I know the power source could be a giant, hot gray box that looks so awkward on plexiglass that I reconsider the whole thing.

All the computers in my room are a work in progress. The PI workstation and the wall mounted router were huge improvements, all to the end of having a reliable home network that's easy to rewire and access.

Ambitious home network plans aside, this week is pretty normal. Back in the office today after a relaxing weekend filled with cooking, cartoons, and good beer. This morning I'm dropping off our car so we can finally get the AC fixed. Rodney has been a good sport about it, and he doesn't mind having all the windows open, but sitting at stoplights or being stuck in traffic is pretty brutal.

After work, we're all going to Hy-Vee to stock up on some miscellaneous things, then we're going home to heat up dinner. Tonight's dinner is 100% locally sourced leftovers. We've got chicken, potatoes, saucijzenbroodjes, a few slices of pizza, and just to round everything off I'm going to make a dutch baby for dessert.

Let's have a Monday!