Axodys 10C Edition

We've had an old Dell Latitude E6400 laptop sitting under our downstairs computer desk for three or four years now and on a whim I decided to see if would even boot up. It got part way, but as I recalled it had been dropped by the kids a few times and there was probably hard drive damage. I have a few old 2.5" mechanical SATA drives lying around so I decided to swap one in and see if I could install Windows 10. The fact that the laptop seems to be pre UEFI ended up preventing me from booting up off my Windows 10 installer flash drive installer. So at that point I decided to just install a copy of Ubuntu MATE in order to get it into a workable state while I wiped it down and cleaned up the kid-grime on the exterior. That install went smoothly and really didn't take all that long despite installing on a mechanical hard drive rather than SSD.

Once I had the Latitude up and running again I decided to see if I could find a couple appropriate so-dimms that would allow me to upgrade it to more that 2GB RAM. As luck would have it I was able to track down a pair of 2GB RAM chips in my stash of old parts without too much of an issue and those worked fine. The one caveat I had forgotten was that for a certain class of Core 2 Duo laptops from this generation¹ their motherboards are only actually capable of addressing 3 out of the 4GB total. So while it's an improvement to do the upgrade it's not quite a big as I had hoped.

I also did some further Windows 10 installation research after the fact and it sounds like it is possible to install that upgrade, but the successful people performed the installation on top of an existing Windows 7 installation. That method helped ameliorate the driver support difference as Windows 10 will try to continue using any existing Windows 7 drivers that don't have a Windows 10 replacement. I may still pursue this angle as this Latitude will mostly be seeing use as a spare laptop and potentially a game machine for the younger kids and there are far more gaming options on the Windows side of things. It would also probably be worth it to pick up a cheap 128GB SSD now that I know the hardware is running fine overall and before anyone starts using it again too regularly, but we'll see how it goes.

1. Also true of some MacBooks from the same era.

Last week ended up being pretty incredible for WSU Athletics:

• Nick Rolovich was announced as the new WSU football coach.
• Borislava Hristova became WSU basketball's all-time leading scorer (1,969 at California) with most of conference play left to add to that total.
• Two WSU women's soccer players, Morgan Weaver and Averie Collins, drafted into the NWSL.
• WSU men's basketball sweeps 8th ranked Oregon and then Oregon St.
• Klay Thompson jersey retirement with Warriors teammate Steph Curry and 10,000+ WSU fans in attendance!
• Steve Gleason receives Congressional Gold Medal for his work to help those with ALS and to find a cure.

So tons of stuff worth reading about and filing away for posterity. WSU soccer was one of my favorite sports to attend during my time at Pullman and it's been awesome to see them slowly but surely grow into one of the most consistently excellent programs at WSU. It was cool to hear that Klay Thompson made a joke about the only press coverage when he played being Vince Grippi ¹, whose work for the Spokesman I've been a fan of since his time working the high school beat and particularly once he started covering the Cougars. I'm also really happy to see WSU basketball on the upswing again after the post Tony Bennett² downturn.

1. And Ferris girls basketball assistant this season.

2. Who I have all the respect in the world for, but always felt pretty jaded about compared to Cougar Nation at the time and I think a lot less bitter when he predictably left.

The last three or four days have been pretty interesting for area high school and college hoops. In the GSL it was rivalry week and while there were no major upsets there were a lot of surprisingly close games. League leading Central Valley narrowly defeated University 50-49 in the Stinky Sneaker competition, Ferris beat Lewis & Clark 61-54, and Mount Spokane handled Mead 64-48. At this point the GSL 4A ranks have Central Valley solidly in first (7-0), Gonzaga Prep in second (6-1), Mead and Ferris tied for third (4-3), with University just a game behind them (3-4). Tuesday's matchup with Ferris at Mead will be huge for further establishing the standings with University almost assured of picking up a win against North Central (2-12 overall right now).

Switching gears to the college front: after a really rough stretch in northern California last week, WSU bounced back in a big way with a stunning 72-61 home win over 8th ranked Oregon on Thursday. Then Saturday they celebrated the retirement of Klay Thompson's jersey with a big 89-76 win over Oregon State. I felt great about Kyle Smith's hiring last spring, but I did not expect the level of Pac-12 success he's already managed to coach this team to (3-3 going into next week's games at Utah and Colorado). Athletic Director Pat Chun continues to make all the right moves when it comes to hiring coaches and bringing a ton of excitement and positive attention to Pullman, WA.

I finally got the urge this week to get back to completing the classic computer rpg The Bard's Tale after taking about a six month hiatus. Part of my motivation was to be able to move onto other games and projects. There are a bunch of old CRPGs that I want to try out, but I still had good old BT hanging over my head. There's no reason I couldn't just start any one of those, but I don't like the idea of leaving this one unfinished after putting in quite of time early last summer. And having all my characters maxed out and ready to go will make it easier to get going in Bard's Tale II: Destiny Knight when I'm ready to tackle that one.

The funny thing is I think there's a good chance that I can knock it out this weekend. I have just about a perfect party with three high level monks, two maxed out magic users and a third one that I'm in the process of maxing out the Wizard levels on. This is also going really quickly because I know the optimal grind encounter in the third level of the catacombs and my party can complete it in one round. So tonight I've focused on using that to level up my characters as quickly as possible.

I'm definitely at the point in my life on this game that I'm going to use all the information and tips I can find on the internet to make this go as quickly and smoothly as possible. I'm not interested in exploring and figuring this one out completely on my own at all. I enjoy playing this game, but I've invested a lot of time into it already and I'm ready to wrap it up and move on to new adventures.

LC battled hard and refused to go away at the end, but Ferris held onto their lead to come away with the 61-54 victory over the Tigers. The girls also won their game 52-49 which has to be their first rubber chicken victory in several years if not longer. LC didn't leave the Arena completely empty hand as their fans earned the spirit award and took Chuck back home.

Ferris's theme this year was basically 50's rock and roll (Rock around the Chuck maybe?) so the boys coaching staff opted to wear our white team polos, jeans, and leather jackets. I have a leather jacket I could have worn, but I wasn't totally feeling it. Then earlier this week it occurred to me that I could wear my Ferris letterman jacket¹ since its style is of that era and it seems to be rare for high school kids at Ferris to get them anymore. I brought my jacket, but didn't put it on right away because I was second guessing myself all day. Happily when I got into the Spokane Arena I saw right away that our girls head coach Scott Ward was wearing his so at halftime of their game I went back out to my car to grab mine.

Changing my jacket shouldn't have been a big deal, but it did lead to some unexpected pregame stress. Going back out to my car meant I had to go through the metal detector again at the back gate again. Not a big deal since no else was getting processed at the time, but I did have to empty my pockets of keys, phone, and wallet. That was completely uneventful and I zipped through and back to watch the start of the third quarter. About twenty minutes later in our locker room I reached into my jeans pockets and discovered to my surprise and dismay that my car keys were missing. I was thinking maybe I locked them in my car by mistake when I switched jackets, but I was pretty sure that I had put them in the dish at the gate. I messaged Mary to let her know the situation and try to figure out if I could coordinate with her to have her drop off my spare keys. The logistics of that would have been ridiculous, but fortunately as I was messaging back and forth with her I realized that I hadn't lost them afterall- I just put them in my back pocket with my wallet after the metal detector. D'oh!

1. First time in almost 30 years!

After perusing my recent email tonight¹ I discovered that Comcast finally has some new internet offers that we're eligible to switch to. They're also offering some kind of free Roku box competitor they call Flex that has built in 4K support², but if it doesn't offer Disney+, Hulu, or Plex I don't think it would be worth the hassle.

We've been paying about $66 a month for 85Mbps³ for almost six or seven years now. The new bundles offer a variety of different options that include bundling with some level of basic cable or special one year deals. I was talking to my thirteen-year-old son about how I shop for these things and his eyes immediately gravitated to the big 200+ Mbps options. I was trying to explain my mindset about the right combination of price and performance, but I don't think he fully got it.

At this point I think it's really down to two choices for me. Take the one year offer for 100Mbps for $45 a month (a $20 monthly savings) bumping up to $55 after a year or go with the 200Mbps for $55 a month for one year and then $70 a month from then on. The latter option would give us a nice speed bump at our current rate, but the cheaper option is still an improvement while saving money. I don't think we're really in any danger of maxing out our current connection so I'm leaning towards the cheaper option, but I think I'll let it percolate in my brain for a while and run it by Mary. The thing is even if we go with the cheaper option now we'll always be able to update it down the road as necessary so I think I'm already pretty convinced.

1. A task I typically neglect for days at a time because it's mostly offers rather than actual correspondence from people that I care about.

2. Not relevant to us as our 1080p television is still serving us well and I'm highly skeptical about the ability of anyone in my family to actually appreciate the difference when viewing from a normal distance. In fact we regularly watch ripped 480p dvd movies son that TV and nobody notices or cares.

3. Officially 75Mbps, but 85Mbps when I tested it toady.

My Gonzaga Basketball fandom is in a weird place this year. The team is unexpectedly good after four starters and currently holds a number 1 ranking. I've been able to watch several of their games so far, but I've probably missed at least half of them. I admire the team's makeup and effectiveness and yet I also feel like I take their success for granted and don't fully appreciate them like I should.

As good as Gonzaga is this year, the incoming 2020 recruiting class is arguably their most talented set of guards ever. With the team we should have coming back next year I'm pretty confident we'll be able to make a real run at the national title. And that's certainly a possibility this year as well if we can stay healthy through conference play. Intriguingly the WCC as a whole seems to be on the upswing with Pacific and Santa Clara joining BYU and St. Mary's with records above .700 and 13+ wins. Based on that alone I will be shocked if the Zags manage to get through league without at least one loss.

But despite all of this season's success so far I haven't watched as many games as I usually do. Sometimes it's not possible on Thursdays because of my basketball coaching and family schedule, but often I just haven't thought about it in a while. I really like this year's team and the way the players are playing, but I kind of miss having one or two dynamic personalities like we've had in the past. Perkins drove me (and a lot of other Zag fans) crazy over the years, but I absolutely miss what he brought to the team. I think Timme and Watson¹ could be those type of guys in the future when they crack the starting lineup (and next year's recruiting class has a ton of swagger and personality as well), but right now as great as this team is it's missing that for me.

So long story short, I guess I'm a jaded fan of an awesome but unassuming team, and I'm not happy about it and what it says about me.

1. Who has been hampered by a should injury that I'm guessing will require off season surgery to fully correct, but has still tried to fight through the issue and contribute.