Jennifer's 365 Project

So today is the last weekday of our week long vacation. The weather has finally started to cool from upper 80s to a comfortable mid-70s. Plus, there's rain in the forecast! Who doesn't love rain and thunderstorms?

Of course, it wasn't raining around lunch time, which meant grilling!
And enjoying some tasty lunch out on the deck. Weather be damned!
I even finally made some cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning that I'd been dragging my feet on all week.

Plus, it didn't start to rain until the evening, which is certainly my favorite time for rain. No thunderstorms though. Oh well. Maybe next time.

So with the new computer put together I started monitoring the temperature of the CPU. I read several reviews of the stock cooler that came with the AMD FX-8120 (processor).

Idling my computer was at about 51 degrees Celsius. That's a little higher than I'd like. In fact, it's about 20 degrees higher than I'd like.

So I ordered a replacement cooler and it arrived today. 
I ordered the V6GT cooler by Cool Master (I've had a lot of good experience with their products in the past). As you can see, it's a beast. It comes with two fans on either side of the cooling fins that get secured to the motherboard.

Idling I'm now at around 30 degrees Celsius and under a full load the highest I've hit is 49 degrees.

Suffice it to say, I'm happy with the massive cooler. Even if it does take over a large portion of the case and hangs over several of the RAM slots (it was a pain to get everything situated right and not rubbing against each other).

And they get a gazillion birds now. Dayzee doesn't even care about them.
My dad even showed me some interesting papers he recently acquired from his cousin. They were my great grandfather's performance reviews and ship information from when he was a sailor in Europe. Of course all the documentation is in Swedish or Danish, so my dad has been slowly translating everything.

Fantastic day! I've also now got tickets to the Michigan Renaissance Festival so I'm looking forward to going there in a few weeks with everyone.

Late in the afternoon I decided that biscuits sounded like a good idea. So I found a recipe online that didn't use buttermilk (since I don't have any) and got mixing.
The biscuits were large, and not too bad. I'm sure if they were made with buttermilk they'd have been more rich, but that's ok.
I also made some stir fry chicken (one for me and one for Chris since we eat different things). I even made some quinoa (which was totally not needed since I'd already made biscuits) just because.

We decided to leave the computer case box out for a little so the cat could enjoy it. He loves crawling in it, hiding in it, and most of all (apparently) using it as a new bed in the sun.
I spent a chunk of the afternoon hanging out, watching Avatar on Netflix (based on Comfort and Adam's recommendation and yes, it is a pretty amusing show) and playing some Guild Wars 2.
Chris also used the bread machine today and made his first loaf of bread.

The bread machine also makes mini-loafs of cake.

I see some adorable tasty cakes in my future.

Of course, I'm really terrible at trusting fish is done when it's done, so I overcooked it (as I do all fish I make).

The marinade really did help. The salmon tasted pretty good (as long as I didn't think too hard about the fact that it was salmon). I think I might actually try making it again sometime.

I tinkered around with the computers today a bit. I have an old wifi card I was trying to get to work in Windows 7 with not much luck. I'm also working on getting two older boxes up and running.

It was a pretty low key Saturday, which is fine by me considering it was too hot out for me to want to do much.

The parts for my new computer arrived today. Anytime a shipment of computer parts arrive it's like Christmas morning. Lots of packaging and unwrapping to do.
Chris says my new case is like a mini-fridge (it is a tower as opposed to a mid tower which is what I normally buy).
The assembly went faster than expected. Each time I build a new computer it seems like more and more components become snap in/plug and play. I'm just happy that I haven't had to manually set the voltage for the processor with (jumpers on the motherboard) in ages.

It also helps to have all of your data stored on a different hard drive than your operating system. No waiting to transfer files!

That doesn't look like much does it? That's the view from the couch where I laid down after work.

Headaches are annoying...

We've been doing a lot of this lately. He just kind of naps on the file cabinet next to my desk.

I'm glad we've finally come to an arrangement and he's not doing stuff like this anymore.

What can I say? The game is still new....

Took a stroll downtown after work and saw these in the Grand River.