Category: journal

The State of Things

Laura Highcove

So yesterday, after a particularly tough day at work, I decided to risk putting my computer together. The motherboard showed up at some time on Tuesday without the need for the signature that so delayed my first shipment. I guess replacement parts aren’t considered as valuable as the original shipment?

Anyway, I pop in all the parts, hook them up, all the time thinking ‘Man, I am going to press this power button and the darn thing isn’t going to turn on.’ A problem which has plagued me on more than one occasion, but was particularly dreaded this time, not only because of the previous problems, but because I was generally just too tired to stick my face in the case and try and figure out which wires I had crossed, or accept the possibility that something else was broken.

So I finish up, put the case in place, and low and behold, the power turns on when I hit the power button. (Ah technology.) The motherboard blurb pops up on the screen as I stick in the Windows 7 disk I have. It loads for five minutes and everything pops up all fancy as is Windows wont.

I tell it, it’s going to install Windows for me, and it displays the drives on which this is possible. All of them, except for the one on which Windows already is. I stare, for a moment, at the only 2gigs remaining free on my C drive, wondering where the heck the ‘reformat and install on this drive’ option is…

Well as far as I can tell, there isn’t one. So I figure I’ll have a better chance trying the only other install option, which is an upgrade while Windows is running. So I pull out the CD, restart, and get the fun ‘You’ve changed something, you have to reactivate.’ message. I try to get past it only to find out that the ps2 keyboard and mouse I have plugged in (when a computer has no OS, it has trouble reading usb keyboards and mouses as what they are, so I have a backup.) do not work. Nor do the usb keyboard or mouse.

After a few moments of disbelief and a restart (just in case) I shut down the computer and pull out the hard drive that has the C drive on it. I then proceed to my husband’s computer, where lots of fun and boot drive setting later I clean off the drive with a shift-delete. NOW I put the hard drive back into my computer and get the installation going.

When it’s finally ready for human input it starts up and of course there’s immediately the message for ‘activate windows’. I click on the activate, forgetting that I have not yet installed the drivers for my motherboard, meaning the Internet does not work and the gosh darn OS blue screens on me. Once I ignore the activation thing I actually get to Windows, am able to install my drivers and everything is peachy.

So the moral of the story is: Everything works forever except Windows 7 is dumb in some ways that will likely never matter again.

You never know

Laura Highcove

You never know what the world will throw at you. On Tuesday I had to WD40 a broom.

So I’m still on my old computer. My motherboard came in DOA so I had to send it back. It went out on Tuesday, so I am expecting the replacement sometime next week. It’s really the first DOA anything I’ve had in the…three computer’s I’ve built over the years, so that’s a pretty decent record. I’ve also never gotten dead pixels on my monitors. /knockonwood

Now if I can just survive the rest of the week without becoming waterlogged from all this rain…

Happiness

Laura Highcove

If there’s any one thing that I can be truly happy for, it is that I don’t attract flies like horses do.

Also, spending over a grand on new computer parts!!

Intel Core i5 processor
MSI P55-GD65 motherboard
GeForce 9800 GTX (x2)
Corsair DDR2 2GB (x4)

Too much stuff I would have to replace on a pre-built since I have plenty of hard drive space (1.5TB + 2 more of varying sizes), like my steel tower with easy open handle on the side, and I would’ve had to upgrade the video card anyway. So I would’ve been buying the chip+motherboard and the software? Now when the day comes that I have to just buy a whole new computer (if I ever get around to creating that server I wanted) I might just pull in a pre-built.

Otakon 2010

Laura Highcove

So as my husband pointed out, this is actually my 11th year of going to Otakon. That makes me feel so old! But I still remember Otakon of 2000 when my friend Anne decided with some of her other friends maybe two days before the con, that we were going, and getting up at 4am to drive up there on the Friday of the con, and having a hotel outside the city, and not being able to find parking, and walking a mile in a downpour. It’s a wonder I ever went back.

So if you want to see all the pictures, I had Picasa make one of those instant web pages here.

As for my swag pictures:

So in the back are Hope and Lightning figures. My favorite characters from FFXIII. I also wanted to get an Ashe, who I felt was the only really worthwhile character from FFXII (except Balthier, though I didn’t really like him) but alas, I didn’t see her. In the middle is my Otakon badge. The rest of the stuff was actually from our day at the Towson Mall the day after the con. A Pride and Prejudice comic (yeah it’s weird, plus I’m so used to seeing the characters from the A&E series that I can’t remember who is who.) the latest Mercades Lackey book in paperback, a fancy covered notebook, and yummy treats from Harry and Davids.

A print from Otakon’s Artist Alley of all the Eevee evolutions. It’s just so darn cute.

I’m a fan of Flaffy, and since we had a free print to pick out (Buy two, get one free and James got the other one.) I picked this one for fun.

Stuffed animals galore. In the back, the blue, pink, and green things are from Shugo Chara! One of my most favoritest series. Then Lugia, who I did not see a plush of the entire weekend until our last trip through the dealer’s room when we technically weren’t supposed to spend any more money. The green thing is Ai-kun from Macross Frontier. One of my other favoritest series. Then of course growlithe and lapras.

Lots and lots of manga. No need to list out all the series as you can read them if you really want to know.

And if you’re interested in seeing my room immediately post Otakon: Clicky. The ‘ghosting’ and any crookedness you see is from my using the panorama option on my camera. It automatically takes three pictures and puts them together. Doesn’t work as great on things this close, but it served my purpose.

Magneto’s powers

Laura Highcove

I was at the store (Fun n Games) a few days ago and somehow it came up, how cool it would be to have Magneto’s powers. I figured that having them around the barn would be even nicer as it would allow me to open and close gates without having to actually be there.

But then I started paying more attention to the things I do around the barn and how many of them could be done with some handy magnetic powers.

All of the doors in the barn could be unlatched and slid open or closed  allowing me to do so from across the barn in order to let horses out or keep them in their stalls for turn-in and turn-out.

As said before, all of the gates to the paddocks and pastures could be opened and closed. Little tugs on the horses’ halters could have them come in and go out without them actually having to be led.

Fences could be repaired and maintained with a bit of metal bending, perhaps even removing rust. (Dunno if Magneto could do that, doubt the all powerful mutant would ever bother.)

Some halters with metal in the proper places could actually go out and put themselves on horses’ heads, allowing me to bring in the horses I needed for lessons without having to go into the field.

Finding thrown horseshoes in the pasture would be trivial.

Picking up leftover scraps from the farrier would be likewise.

The tractor is entirely metal and so I could run that with the spreader or water the arena with no need to actually be on it.

After thinking about it, the power would be much more useful than I would’ve thought.

Tori in Spring

Laura Highcove

So when I first got my horse, Tori, she was extremely underweight. Her previous owner was going to have a baby by the end of the month and apparently feeding the horse had fallen a bit by the wayside. Well now that she’s in Deb’s barn, she’s been getting plenty of food to put weight on all the right places and she’s really starting to look great again. I’ve also just started framing her, and this is maybe a week in on that.



Stories told again

Laura Highcove

One of the things that always kept me from wanting to ever think about getting any of my stories published was always that I thought I wasn’t original enough for it. All of my stories’ plots are typical. They’ve been done before. Well after seeing Avatar I had a revelation. ALL the stories have been done before. I mean I knew it, but this movie really made me realize it.

I mean Avatar’s basic story is “guy and girl meet and guy is lying to her but eventually comes to love her but she finds out and he has to prove himself”.

The point is that good writers can take those basic stories that we’ve all heard before and give new life to them. They can take the characters in these predictable plots and make unpredictable things happen to them. So while Demonslayer may be typical “woman gathers a group to fight against the forces of evil”, I would hope that I have embellished the characters and the world enough that the story is still worthwhile.

And then there is the ‘500 Kingdoms’ series by Mercades Lackey (The first book is The Fairy Godmother) where she actually gives a reason why the same stories are told again and again. I just had to mention this since I was breaching this topic.

My…horse?

Laura Highcove

So ever since I was a kid, I wanted a horse. When I was in high school I was able to pay for lessons for maybe a two year period. I loved the time there and I even planned on going to college for equestrian studies. That fell though and I went to college for computer science, but I digress.

For a long time, one of my life goals was to eventually have a horse. For some reason I always assumed I would have to have a yard big enough for the horse to live, and have my own little barn. I think because the cost of boarding a horse seemed so daunting. While in college that dream drifted away.

It wasn’t until we moved back to Blacksburg that I even got back into horses. The miracles that led me to a job at Advantage Ranch then seemed to continue into getting me my own horse.

One of the riders at the barn, Rachel, has always been very nice and expains things that I still have not yet learned about horses. When I found out how much a made, show worthy stock horse would cost, I knew I’d never be able to afford it. She suggested that maybe I get a foal and raise it, which would spread out the costs instead of a lump sum.

So I started, not very seriously, looking for a foal on dreamhorse.com. I found some cute ones, as I really didn’t know what else to look for at the time, but I shied away from ever actually going to Deb and saying “Would you find me a horse?” Mostly I was unwilling to get a horse for myself while I was not bringing anything monetarily to the household.

Eventually I found a pretty colt, almost leopard, for a decent price and the ad had up four generations of his genealogy. I thought there might be some decent breeding in there (I mean if they bothered to post it) so I sent it to Deb.

She brought me in to talk about it, and while that colt ended up being nothing special at all, I happened to be in the office when in the process of looking for a horse for another client, her contact mentioned a mare that was for sale. Her owner was having a baby and selling her. Her sire was All Hands on Zip, a rather prestigious stallion that is also the sire of Rachel’s mare, Ella.

The price was the top of my price range, but still within it, so I asked for more information over the next few days. She ended up being a ridiculously colored 10-year old who had been shown and even earned some points (meaning she placed) in events in which I was interested.

Matthew eventually agreed to the purchase, and it ended up that Deb’s brother was going to Florida (where she lived) on a business trip, so even getting her home ended up being much cheaper than it could have been.

Deb was impressed with her when she saw her, the vet exam went fabulously and a week ago, Tori arrived home.

And on top of all of the things that fell into place to bring this mare home to me, Deb has offered to teach me to teach beginner lessons so that I can even have a little bit of an income. It won’t be much, but it will be actual money. And in working there I am paying off her board and for my lessons so except for the fact that it’s freaking 20 degrees every day, I am entirely happy with my life.

Pictures:

Pictures from her old mommy:
Riding
All the color

Picture once she arrived:
Bad lighting

She is not used to the cold:
Cold