D. Lee Jackson

New Computer Build Imminent

Posted on 2021-11-02 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Snail on Keyboard It’s getting to be that time once again. Software technology has caught up to the hardware technology available at my hands, making my Music Computer interminably slow. Allow me to detail the situation.

My Music Computer is a 5th-Generation Intel i7-5930K with 32GB RAM. Its C: drive, where most of its VSTs are stored, is an SSD drive. I have precious few VSTs stored on a PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive. At one point in its history, it was a very fast system. However, with the buildup of VST Instruments, KONTAKT Instruments, general processing plugins, and so on, my system is no longer so fast. I’m starting to get crackling audio, sound subsystem dropouts, high latency issues, and other symptoms of an aging machine. I’ve upgraded it as far as is practical, with no further path left to upgrade for me. I must build a new computer.

My build job is complicated by the fact that Intel is about to release their 12th-Generation Alder Lake series of processors, complete with new Z690-based motherboards with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 RAM slots. Very few PCIe 5.0 peripherals have been announced, and DDR5 RAM is thin on the ground so close to the announced November 4th, 2021 release date.

Of course, the upshot of all this is that predicted prices of the new stuff will be somewhat ridiculous for the time being, probably stretching into 2022. That makes pricing out a new system a difficult task at best. However, thanks to my son, I’ve been introduced to an online tool which makes this job a little easier. That tool calls itself the PCPartPicker.

PCPartPicker lists thousands of computer parts from across the spectrum and lets you select the ones you want. If you go a step further, it then presents you with a list of vendors it has found who carry the product, along with the price for the product for each vendor (shipping and tax included, if you’ve signed in and configured your state and local tax rate) and a “buy” link. You can buy your entire PC from one vendor, or you can spread it out among the cheapest vendors, or you can choose whatever combination you prefer. It makes pricing out a system much easier – no more messing around with spreadsheets and searching around with Google. The only drawbacks to PCPartPicker I’ve found are a) it does not yet include the Intel 12th-Generation Alder Lake and related products, so it is impossible to price out products that are listed as “coming soon” on vendor websites, and b) it does not include vendors like Provantage and CDW, who sometimes have lower prices (especially Provantage).

But I digress.

I have already purchased one component of my new build – a Fractal Design Define R5 mid-tower computer case – but, because of the uncertainties surrounding Alder Lake, I have no idea what I’m going to stick in it. I’m not even sure if I’m going to stay with an Intel CPU, especially if the prices balloon out of control. None of the Alder Lake CPUs get released officially until November 4th, but I’ve already seen online price gouging going as high as $1,800.00 for a top-of-the-line i9-12900KF, up from the announced MSRP of $629.99.

Overall, my son thinks the best time to buy is going to be between January 2022 and March 2022, but as I said earlier, my aging Music Computer is having so many problems that it may not hold on until then. I’m thinking that I may have to start the purchase sometime between Black Friday and the end of 2021. I don’t know how it’s going to fit into the house budget, but I’m going to have to squeeze it in there somehow (if I can convince my wife to go in on the purchase with me).

I’ll keep you updated on the build as new info becomes available.

It’s Robot Fighting Time! (Insert Trademark Here)

Posted on 2021-09-21 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

BattleBots Logo Our trip to Las Vegas was based at Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. I have to start by saying that I wasn’t very impressed by it. For starters, the two showcase restaurants it had were both “temporarily closed,” and their other food choices consisted of a hyper-expensive mini-food court that was only partially open 24 hours a day, a deli that had horribly restricted hours, and a coffee bar that served overpriced everything. The room we stayed in wasn’t bad, but it was missing amenities like a coffee maker and a microwave – ostensibly to keep you from camping out in your room and to get you to use the hotel’s fare instead, according to my wife. The room was also quite arctic, depending on where you sat, and this unfortunately included the area where my laptop was located.

The casino was even more disappointing. All of the table games had minimum bets of at least $10, which priced them out of our range. We were stuck playing either the indecipherable penny slots (which appeared to be mostly of Chinese origin), or video poker at a bar. The latter is thankfully the one place where I came out on top during one session, thanks to a little bit of help from the bartender.

As I mentioned in my last update, everything seemed spread out over a vast distance in Las Vegas. This feeling was exaggerated by the fact that we did not rent a car. Instead, we walked almost everywhere we went – to the BattleBots arena, to the Las Vegas strip, and so on – something I was definitely not used to doing. My body let me know it was not happy, too. I developed big blisters on both big toes, one of which took over a week to disappear completely. I regularly dragged several yards behind my wife, who had to stop and wait for me to catch up to her. By the end of the trip, I’d built up a tiny bit of stamina, but my wife still insisted on putting me in a wheelchair when we got to the airport and having a Spirit Airlines courtesy employee push me to the gate.

But enough about that. What was the BattleBots tournament like?

Sadly, I’m going to be limited by non-disclosure agreements in what I can say before the show airs this coming fall/winter season on the Discovery channel. I can’t talk about who fought whom, who won, or anything like that. I can, however, describe the atmosphere of the arena during the shooting of episodes of the show.

We attended sessions that ran about four hours long, either from noon to 4pm or from 6pm to 10pm (both time slots taped each day – we only attended one). Each session began with a Master of Ceremonies instructing the audience on how to react during the taping. Generally, that meant a lot of standing up, yelling, and applauding like mad. I couldn’t stand with the crowd due to my handicap, so we sat in the first row of the arena on the “red square” side each day so I could see the action.

I'm Cheering Several in the Thursday audience had made signs and/or had dressed up. That number increased toward Saturday’s sessions and included us in the sign making on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, I’d made a sign that referenced my inability to stand with the rest of the crowd when cheering. I likened my inability to that of a robot that couldn’t “self-right” after getting knocked over on its back. Hence, the sign you should be seeing me holding up – “I’m Cheering Even Though I Can’t Self-Right.” It got several laughs from knowledgeable members of the crowd, although it appeared to confuse the MC.

Fewer Egg-Beaters More Chairs On Saturday, we both got into the sign-making fun. My wife made a “modular” sign with glued-on mini-clothespins that allowed her to make up new signs as the action unfolded. I recycled my sign, writing something on the back of it that was in response to an incident that happened during taping on Friday. I can’t go into more detail than that, other than to say you’ll understand why it says, “Fewer Egg-Beaters: MORE CHAIRS!” when the episode comes out.

Oh, how I wish I could tell you more. We saw robots do things that had to be seen to be believed. Mechanical carnage like you’ve never witnessed in your life. Trust me, when the shows start airing in November or December of this year, you will want to see them. I know from talking to people who saw sessions that we missed that there are some “OH MY GOD!” moments even in the earlier episodes.

Watch for them. On the Discovery channel. Don’t miss them.

Of Toes, Recovery, and Flying to Las Vegas

Posted on 2021-09-10 Written by D. Lee Jackson 1 Comment

Las Vegas Sign To pick up where I left off in the last update, I did indeed have a Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in my left arm below the PICC line. As a result, I’m going to be on a medication called Eliquis for about the next 6 months or so. Eliquis is a blood thinner, so I have to be careful not to do anything that might cause myself to bleed. What a pain.

Anyway, my antibiotics eventually ran their course, my toe pain subsided, my PICC line was pulled, and I was discharged from Kindred. Way to wrap things up, eh? I came home on the 9th of August – a grand total stay of about a month across two hospitals. It took at least a week for me to re-adjust to life at home. I’ve since learned that almost all the gains I made in physical therapy for my left knee replacement have been lost. But, at least I’m no longer in a hospital.

This moves me along to the next portion of my update: a trip to Las Vegas to see the taping of the BattleBots tournament for the Discovery channel!

I did my best to keep my health in stable shape in the time between the hospital and our departure date, September 1st, 2021. I had to deal with a bout of Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs) in my heart, but my doctor put me on a medication that reeled them in. On the packing side, we hemmed and hawed over whether we were going to bring my monster i9-10850K laptop, since it and its packing case just barely met Spirit Airlines’ extreme outer dimensions (we did, and Spirit complained nary a bit).

The flight out was uneventful, although getting to it was anything but (pun intended). You see, I have learned that my butt sets off the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) bomb-sniffing booth at the security checkpoint. (It did this both going out and coming back.) I had to submit to a pat-down search – a rather personal one, at that – before I could go on to the boarding gate.

Arrival at Las Vegas was similarly uneventful, but then there was the walk from the gate to the exit. Ye gods, what a walk! If you’ll remember from above, I’ve lost all my physical therapy gains in my left knee replacement, and my feet complained similarly, not being used to such a grand distance nowadays. By the time we reached the taxi stands, I was thoroughly worn out and ready for some air conditioned seating on the road to our destination, Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.

Of course, once we arrived there, there was more interminable walking just to find our way through the casino maze to the well-hidden elevators. Everything seemed to be spread out for proverbial miles in Las Vegas.

When I continue in my next installment, I’ll cover the rest of the trip, including what I can of the reason I went – the BattleBots tournament!

Boy, Have I Got A Toe Story For You

Posted on 2021-07-29 Written by D. Lee Jackson Leave a Comment

Big Toe Folks, once again, I am in the hospital. This time, I’m in for a painful infection in the big toe of my left foot. The backstory is too long to post here on the main page, and if you’ve been following my posts on Facebook and elsewhere, you already know it. In the event you don’t, you can read my post, called The Ballad of Big Toe.

Here’s my situation as of Thursday, July 29th, 2021:

This morning was pretty normal, as far as a stay in a Long-Term Acute Care (LTAC) hospital can be. My wife showed up early, and we resumed the “Sorry!” Partnership tournament. (Note: she would go on to trounce me 3-0 during the day.) Late in the morning, we were paid a visit by my case manager, a physical therapist, a nurse, and a wound care nurse, together at one time. They discussed my case with my wife and me, giving me a tentative release date of August 14th. I’m hoping I’ll be out earlier than that, but you never know, especially with the way this cellulitis has progressed.

Shortly after noon, my son and his wife arrived. My son had his new viola case with him. Quite impressive, it was – unless I’m mistaken, it was built out of blue fiberglass and fashioned like a sturdy cello case, with latches all over the place. He’s quite proud of it, and I believe his wife (a violinist with a regular-style, more expensive case) is a tad bit jealous. Anyway, they stayed for a couple of hours and made life more enjoyable.

Late in the afternoon, I developed a bit of a problem in my left arm, just below my PICC line. A rather startling lump formed on the right side of the inner crook of my left elbow. The timing of it is rather suspect, because it formed as I was receiving my last IV of antibiotics (at least, I noticed it as the IV line was being disconnected from my PICC line). The lump is about an inch-and-a-half long by three-quarters-of-an-inch wide, and I think it sits right above a blood vessel. The night nurse looked at it and decided to give my case doctor a call: he ordered a venous ultrasound for tomorrow to find out what’s going on inside.

You know, just for once I wish something would act the way it’s supposed to with this hospital stay. Just once.