I ran out of time and energy for a while to keep some updates to the site.
Sadly, I slipped up and started smoking again so it looks like I’m going to have to start that process all over again.
Also of note, I’ve started a new job working the help desk at a local software company this week. For those of you that are googling me from there – /wave
I have had some random hardware issues here and there with this PC that I suspect are related to over heating. I might post some pictures of my modifications at some point. I moved it to a more ventilated case and reconfigured the fan locations to pull more heat away from the components that get the hottest.
My hard drive crashed over the summer. Prior to getting the above mentioned configuration working well, my drive started to make the dreaded “click-click-whirr” sound and the BIOS couldn’t see it. I did manage to get it to boot a few times afterward, but it inevitably would lock up at some point so I stopped.
My girlfriend, the sweetie she is, gave me 250gb drive to replace it with and I successfully transferred all of my data. I still have the odd problem with the computer, but that’s mostly related to the wireless device and network.
As a stark contrast from last years lack of snow for the month of December, mother nature has dumped 40cm of snow on Ottawa (and the rest of Canada for that matter).
I started the morning yesterday with a migraine which I took something for and crawled back into bed. By the time I finally went outside (a little after noon) everything was buried under a thick layer of white.
Naturally, the plows had left a nearly 3 foot tall snow ridge at the end of the driveway. I quickly assessed that there was no way a car was going to get in without a large amount of excavation and it occurred to me that my roommate would be coming home with her 4 year old after a day of work and would want to do just that – get into the driveway.
I bundled up with many layers, pulled on my boots and braved the two hours of shoveling it took to find the pavement underneath. Having spent most of the last decade living in high-rise apartments it’s been a while since I’ve done this. My everything is sore today, reminding me of how sedentary working in the IT field really is.
On a side note, I have not seen a single mouse dropping nor sign of the little rodent since my encounter the other day. Titus has maintained a fairly continual vigil of guarding the laundry room since the weekend, so perhaps the scent/sight of cat combined with the reduced amount of available mouse-goodies in the area has kept it at bay.
I’m partially disappointed since I had rigged up a live-capture system with the hopes of trapping the pest in order to relocate it’s residence. I can’t complain in the sense that at least it’s not hanging around my food stores, but I know it must be still around somewhere.
I wrote yesterday about the uninvited house guest we have. Because of this I was doing some general cleaning for sanitary reasons, and to discourage the little critter from hanging around in the basement in general.
Well, the little sneak must have been hiding nearby, as I turned away for a moment, it made a daring dash up the side of the shelf to the rafters and into the corner. I got a good look at it but was unable to do anything about it. By the time I got a chair and flashlight to follow, there was no trace of the rodent or where it had escaped to.
The upside to this encounter is that my cat, Titus, also saw the escaping creature and immediately got very excited. He is now dutifully keeping watch from the top of the shelf it has been running around on. I’m hoping that the fresh scent of cat will make the mouse thing twice about visiting, or that he might actually do his job and catch it! (I have my doubts)
Tomorrow I will have to go to the store and get some traps. Assuming Titus gets bored of his post and vacates the shelving unit, I intend to set up something as documented on this blog – a humane trap which uses gravity to capture the mouse. It might not work, but it’s certainly worth a try in the meantime.
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