Meglet Rambles On

Posted in Musings by: meglet
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25 May

To-Do List: Done!

Warning: long, geeky wall of text ahead!

Going into the holiday weekend, I had “To-Do” list that just had a couple big items on it. Nothing outrageously insane, just some things I wanted to get done since I had an extra day off work.

Rebuild the 46 gallon bow-front fish tank and move the Cherry Barbs into it
Move the 40 gallon hexagon tank the Cherry Barbs used to be in over by the desk, then move the itty bitty fish from the 28 gallon tank into it
Build my new PC to replace the iMac, and install Windows 7

Rebuilding the 46 bow tank wasn’t too bad. I took the Congo Tetras that used to live in it back to the store on Friday, so I was able to get a relatively early start Saturday cleaning out the tank, getting rid of all the algae and any leftover slime. Within about 4 hours, I was refilling the tank, and ready to move the Cherry Barbs in. They immediately showed their happiness by swimming all over the tank and surfing in the filter current. One item down, two to go, right?

Oh, if only it was that simple.

See, the 40 hex tank that the Cherry Barbs just moved out of is 30 inches at it’s widest point, and the spot by the desk is only 24 inches wide. Plus, the spot by the desk is where the 28 gallon tank sat, with all the fish and plants that would be moving into the 40 hex. So, how to get another 6 inches of space? Move the desk forward 6 inches.

That’s right, move the desk. The nice new desk that I just put in a few months ago, with 3 computers, a couple keyboards, multiple external hard drives, and all the other assorted stuff that goes along with being a computer geek’s desk. Plus the added complication that to move the desk forward, I needed to find a new place to put the computer that sat between the front of the desk and the couch. Final solution: put the computer between the end of the couch and the wall-where the 2 CD racks sat-then move the desk up against the couch. And hey, since I’m moving the desk anyway, and planning to put in a different computer later this weekend, I might as well re-arrange the shelving and monitors and cables while I’m at it.

So now we’re up to: move the couch, take out 2 CD racks, disconnect all the computers, take the desk apart, move it forward 6 inches, move some shelves around, put the desk back together, hook all the computers back up, and find a place to put all the CDs and computer software that was stored on the CD racks.

5 hours later, the furniture is moved, the computers are back up, and I have gained the 6 inches necessary to move the 40 hex tank over by the desk. Plus, an extra 3 inches of space that will let me shift the recliner enough to actually recline! But now it’s 10pm on Saturday night, I’m tired, and moving the tank is about another 4 hours of work. Time to go to bed and start again Sunday.

Sometime between going to bed Saturday night, and getting up Sunday morning, I realized that when I move the 40 hex tank I will also need to put a different filter on it. And none of the spare filters that I have will fit, because the special stretched hexagon shape means the lip of the tank is extra wide. Off to the fish store for a new filter, grabbed some lunch on the way home, and now it’s tank moving time!

Or rather, it’s musical tanks time. Because both the 28 gallon and 40 gallon tanks have fish in them, so neither can be emptied completely, but the 40 needs to end up where the 28 gallon tank is. . . In the end, I drained all but about 10 gallons of water from the 40 hex, completely freaking out the 3 fish that were staying there for the move. Then pulled all the plants out of the 28 gallon tank, put the plants in a bucket, filled that bucket and another one with water from the 28 gallon tank, and put the 17 itty bitty fish in a bucket for a few minutes. That allowed me to drain the 28 gallon tank and move it out of the way. Moving the 40 gallon tank 15 feet across the room with 10 gallons of water, 40 pounds of gravel, and 3 fish still in it is not an experience I want to repeat. But I got it to the new place by the desk, then quickly put the plants in, added the water saved from the 28 gallon tank, and finally put the itty bitty fish in their new home.

That’s two items off the list, plus the bonus items of a re-arranged and more functional desk layout, and the ability to recline the recliner in the corner. On to item number 3 on the list, the one I was saving for last as a reward for getting everything else done: build a new Windows 7 PC to replace the iMac.

Remember those CDs I mentioned earlier? The ones that used to be on CD racks at the end of the couch and were in need of a new home? Well, their new home turned out to be stacks and stacks and stacks on my desk. Right where the new monitor for the new PC was supposed to go. Great idea: pack the CDs in the monitor box until I can find a new CD rack. Catch-22: can’t pack the CDs away until I unpack the monitor, can’t unpack the monitor until I pack the CDs away. Oops. Unpacked the monitor, set it on the floor way out of the way where I couldn’t trip on it, packed the CDs into the monitor box. Finally time to unpack the Newegg box full of PC parts!

Amazingly, putting the PC together went fairly well, except for a few small flaws in the design of the case. Like, the DVD drive rests ON the main power cable for the motherboard. A little twist-tie action and that was all better. Put the new PC in it’s place under the desk, hook up the new monitor, and hey, it all powers up on the first try, lucky me. So I grab my Windows 7 install DVD, and discover that the fancy “I’m going to hide the DVD drive behind a panel” case actually stops the DVD drive from opening. Bother. Fortunately, I have an external DVD drive handy, as well as a USB flash drive that I can use to install Windows.

I don’t want to talk about the next 3 hours trying to get Windows setup to load. Not Windows, just the setup program itself. It apparently has issues with my external drive, my USB flash drive, and (after taking the front of the case off) my DVD drive. I think I ended up creating a new installation DVD, and hooking up yet another DVD drive to install from, but by that point it was midnight, and things are a little hazy. Once Windows finally installed, I headed off to bed around 1am, knowing I would be getting up to a shiny new, working PC.

Apparently Murphy had a holiday today too, because I did, in fact, get up to a working PC. Except that little issue with the DVD drive not opening. A few minutes with a screwdriver and a swap with one of my other computers, and I had a different DVD drive installed that actually opened through the fancy panel. That means item 3 on my to-do list is complete, and it’s only 10:30am.

Since it was early (at least for me) and everything on my list was done, and I REALLY was not in the mood to clean up the mess I made moving tanks and furniture, I decided it would be a good idea to take the new PC I’d just built, get HDTV recording and Blu-ray working, and use it to replace my Media Center PC that was running Vista. Because building a Media Center PC worked so well the last time I tried it.

However, since Windows 7 really is everything Vista SHOULD have been, everything I needed for a Media Center PC was working and I had the computers switched around in less than 2 hours. Less than 2 hours after that, the old Media Center PC was cleaned out (I really should dust the entertainment center more often) and Windows 7 was installed.

Unfortunately, now that the tanks are moved, and the desk is clean, and the computers all work properly, I don’t have any more excuses to procrastinate about cleaning up the horrible, horrible mess that I made this weekend.

As a reward for finishing that really long, rambling description of my weekend, here are some bad iPhone pictures of my rebuilt tanks:

The 40 gallon stretch hexagon tank that sits at the end of the desk (with a few itty bitty fishy blurs in the middle:)