More distractions.
It's been a few weeks, things have somewhat leveled off, and here I am doing a lot of distracting-type things to push forward.
Firstly, I got a few things done on the GT-Four. Nothing major, but the A/C is now working fantastically thanks to one of my coworkers. This is great, considering the fact it's starting to hit the hottest part of the year here(we can see triple digit heat, but it's relatively rare). On top of that I had tint put on last weekend. Here's a shot of that... don't mind the dirt; I had some quality time with a car wash the next day:
Additionally, I've put 2500mi on the beast as of today; I do a fair bit of driving for work and it shows. 35,400 on the clock.
And, as promised, I've got some pictures of the statewide Toyota meet that happened back at the end of June. However, I grossly underestimated how friggin' hot it was going to be and I was likely suffering from heatstroke so I didn't take that many pictures.
I had the only genuine GT-Four at the meet. However, I parked next to someone who actually converted their USDM ST202 Celica GT into an ST205. This was actually fairly slick as they cut away the stock subframe except for some mounting points, made a subframe adaptor using CAD, and swapped in the ST205 subframe. While there were some drawbacks(the owner had to remove the fuel tank to use a fuel cell in the trunk) it was very neat to see.
The primary car club I'm a part of, the Rocky Mountain MR2 Owners Club. Most of them have SW20s with a couple of AW11s. MR2s were likely the most represented model at this meet.
While my current plans preclude me from getting one, I had some serious MK3 Supra envy. I'm pretty sure I caught a few of these guys doing some envious glances at the GT-Four in return, haha. Two of these were 1JZ swaps.
A beautiful first-generation Celica that captured just about everyone's attention. The owner inherited it from his father who had recently passed away.
Other than the 'Four, I've been putting some quality time into the desktop. I decided to scale back my plans a fair bit to put towards savings for the car stuff I want to do next year(getting a newer daily driver to keep miles/wear off of the GT-Four; ideally the Celica will be a weekend cruiser while I have a daily). Here's where I'm at right now:
Case: Corsair 750D full tower(formerly CM Storm Scout 2 Advanced mid-tower)
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K with 4.5GhZ overclock
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 240mm closed loop water cooler(formerly Noctua NH-U9B-SE2 92mm tower air cooler)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V-PRO(formerly Asus P8Z77-V-LX)
RAM: 32GB Corsair XMS3, DDR3 1333MhZ
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300W 80+ Gold 1300W
GPU: EVGA GTX 780 Superclocked (going to a GTX 780 SC SLi setup; card is on its way). This was the big change; I was planning on going for a GTX 980Ti SLi setup, however the cards are nearly $700 each on Newegg. Even with selling my 780 for about $250, that's still $1150 in GPUs. Contrast that to the second 780 I picked up for $230... I'll still be able to run games acceptably on 1440p and save nearly $1200. I'll stretch a GPU upgrade at least a year or two out.
Expansion: Rosewill 5.25" multi card reader/USB 2.0-3.0 hub, Venus 5.25" quad 2.5" HDD quick swap drive bay, USB 3.0 addon card, 4-port SATA RAID card.
Drives: Kingston 240GB SSD(OS), Samsung 256GB SSD(programs), Intel X25M 160GB SSD(more programs), 2x Hitachi 1TB 7200RPM 2.5" HDD(scratch/recoding drives for gameplay footage), 2x WD Blue 640GB 2.5" HDDs(music and misc storage), 2x Seagate 4TB 3.5" HDDs(misc storage/programs), 1x WD 750GB HDD(primary document storage)
Displays: 2x HP LA2306x 23" 1080p monitors, 1x Asus 24" 1080p monitor, Samsung 22" TV(1680x1050), Dell 20" 1680x1050 monitor, Dell 20" 1600x1200 UXGA IPS monitor. Planning on upgrading to three QNIX QX2710 LED Evolution ll DPmulti(2560x1440 27") and using the HP/Asus monitors as secondaries. Sitting on a hex display mount I found on Amazon.
Peripherals: IBM Model M 1390120 keyboard(very rare early 'silver label' version), Logitech G700s gaming laser mouse, Philips SpeechMic Pro(work castoff, used for LP recordings/commentary), Microsoft LifeCam HD5000 webcam, HP Color Laserjet 3500 primary printer, HP Deskjet 1510 secondary printer/scanner.
Audio: This will take a bit of explaining as far as how I actually run this. I'm using an audio HDMI passthrough from my GPU to a Pioneer VSX-520 home theater receiver; the TV HDMI output is going to my Asus 24" primary monitor. The receiver is going out to a set of Yamaha YHT-470 home theater 5.1 surround sound speakers and subwoofer. The result, while very expensive(about $300 in components when found used), far surpasses the typical 'PC surround sound in a box' solutions. This also mirrors the setup of my home theater system as the receiver is a lower end version of the model I'm running(a fortunate pawn shop find, actually).
Here's the desk setup:
The desk was custom built by my stepfather and I, providing ample workspace for my admittedly overkill desktop as well as space to work on side client PCs. I was getting tired of having to take just about every PC/laptop repair project I had out to my dining room table because I lacked the space to actually work on it in my office. It's definitely proven itself to be a great workspace so far.
And, finally, I'm not sure what caused me to do this, but I contacted my ex last night and apologized to her. There were some things I did wrong, and I felt I should at least say it. Surprisingly enough she was cordial and we carried on a short conversation, although I know that it would be foolish to establish much of a rapport with her. While I have remained friends with some of my old flames, this wasn't a great breakup, and I just wanted to make sure there was some peace and civility left as we do run in the same circles and I might end up running into he during my vacation. That isn't likely, but I wanted to get that possibility out of the way. She did mention she was dating someone, so she's moved on anyway. Her to another flame, me to my PCs and cars. No, I don't feel like I'm able to date anyone, so I think going for the material goals in life is a far more fulfilling route than pursuing some abstract concept like a relationship which just never has worked out for me. Ah, well. You win some and you lose some.
Firstly, I got a few things done on the GT-Four. Nothing major, but the A/C is now working fantastically thanks to one of my coworkers. This is great, considering the fact it's starting to hit the hottest part of the year here(we can see triple digit heat, but it's relatively rare). On top of that I had tint put on last weekend. Here's a shot of that... don't mind the dirt; I had some quality time with a car wash the next day:
Additionally, I've put 2500mi on the beast as of today; I do a fair bit of driving for work and it shows. 35,400 on the clock.
And, as promised, I've got some pictures of the statewide Toyota meet that happened back at the end of June. However, I grossly underestimated how friggin' hot it was going to be and I was likely suffering from heatstroke so I didn't take that many pictures.
I had the only genuine GT-Four at the meet. However, I parked next to someone who actually converted their USDM ST202 Celica GT into an ST205. This was actually fairly slick as they cut away the stock subframe except for some mounting points, made a subframe adaptor using CAD, and swapped in the ST205 subframe. While there were some drawbacks(the owner had to remove the fuel tank to use a fuel cell in the trunk) it was very neat to see.
The primary car club I'm a part of, the Rocky Mountain MR2 Owners Club. Most of them have SW20s with a couple of AW11s. MR2s were likely the most represented model at this meet.
While my current plans preclude me from getting one, I had some serious MK3 Supra envy. I'm pretty sure I caught a few of these guys doing some envious glances at the GT-Four in return, haha. Two of these were 1JZ swaps.
A beautiful first-generation Celica that captured just about everyone's attention. The owner inherited it from his father who had recently passed away.
Other than the 'Four, I've been putting some quality time into the desktop. I decided to scale back my plans a fair bit to put towards savings for the car stuff I want to do next year(getting a newer daily driver to keep miles/wear off of the GT-Four; ideally the Celica will be a weekend cruiser while I have a daily). Here's where I'm at right now:
Case: Corsair 750D full tower(formerly CM Storm Scout 2 Advanced mid-tower)
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K with 4.5GhZ overclock
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 240mm closed loop water cooler(formerly Noctua NH-U9B-SE2 92mm tower air cooler)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V-PRO(formerly Asus P8Z77-V-LX)
RAM: 32GB Corsair XMS3, DDR3 1333MhZ
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 1300W 80+ Gold 1300W
GPU: EVGA GTX 780 Superclocked (going to a GTX 780 SC SLi setup; card is on its way). This was the big change; I was planning on going for a GTX 980Ti SLi setup, however the cards are nearly $700 each on Newegg. Even with selling my 780 for about $250, that's still $1150 in GPUs. Contrast that to the second 780 I picked up for $230... I'll still be able to run games acceptably on 1440p and save nearly $1200. I'll stretch a GPU upgrade at least a year or two out.
Expansion: Rosewill 5.25" multi card reader/USB 2.0-3.0 hub, Venus 5.25" quad 2.5" HDD quick swap drive bay, USB 3.0 addon card, 4-port SATA RAID card.
Drives: Kingston 240GB SSD(OS), Samsung 256GB SSD(programs), Intel X25M 160GB SSD(more programs), 2x Hitachi 1TB 7200RPM 2.5" HDD(scratch/recoding drives for gameplay footage), 2x WD Blue 640GB 2.5" HDDs(music and misc storage), 2x Seagate 4TB 3.5" HDDs(misc storage/programs), 1x WD 750GB HDD(primary document storage)
Displays: 2x HP LA2306x 23" 1080p monitors, 1x Asus 24" 1080p monitor, Samsung 22" TV(1680x1050), Dell 20" 1680x1050 monitor, Dell 20" 1600x1200 UXGA IPS monitor. Planning on upgrading to three QNIX QX2710 LED Evolution ll DPmulti(2560x1440 27") and using the HP/Asus monitors as secondaries. Sitting on a hex display mount I found on Amazon.
Peripherals: IBM Model M 1390120 keyboard(very rare early 'silver label' version), Logitech G700s gaming laser mouse, Philips SpeechMic Pro(work castoff, used for LP recordings/commentary), Microsoft LifeCam HD5000 webcam, HP Color Laserjet 3500 primary printer, HP Deskjet 1510 secondary printer/scanner.
Audio: This will take a bit of explaining as far as how I actually run this. I'm using an audio HDMI passthrough from my GPU to a Pioneer VSX-520 home theater receiver; the TV HDMI output is going to my Asus 24" primary monitor. The receiver is going out to a set of Yamaha YHT-470 home theater 5.1 surround sound speakers and subwoofer. The result, while very expensive(about $300 in components when found used), far surpasses the typical 'PC surround sound in a box' solutions. This also mirrors the setup of my home theater system as the receiver is a lower end version of the model I'm running(a fortunate pawn shop find, actually).
Here's the desk setup:
The desk was custom built by my stepfather and I, providing ample workspace for my admittedly overkill desktop as well as space to work on side client PCs. I was getting tired of having to take just about every PC/laptop repair project I had out to my dining room table because I lacked the space to actually work on it in my office. It's definitely proven itself to be a great workspace so far.
And, finally, I'm not sure what caused me to do this, but I contacted my ex last night and apologized to her. There were some things I did wrong, and I felt I should at least say it. Surprisingly enough she was cordial and we carried on a short conversation, although I know that it would be foolish to establish much of a rapport with her. While I have remained friends with some of my old flames, this wasn't a great breakup, and I just wanted to make sure there was some peace and civility left as we do run in the same circles and I might end up running into he during my vacation. That isn't likely, but I wanted to get that possibility out of the way. She did mention she was dating someone, so she's moved on anyway. Her to another flame, me to my PCs and cars. No, I don't feel like I'm able to date anyone, so I think going for the material goals in life is a far more fulfilling route than pursuing some abstract concept like a relationship which just never has worked out for me. Ah, well. You win some and you lose some.