Ch-ch-changes!

Well, that progressed quickly. It's been less than a week since my relocation, and things are already starting to take off at a rampant pace. I just got home from my first day on a new job. I won't go into details, but I will say it's a part-time position, that could turn into more with time and effort. Regardless of the amount of hours I work, I'm just glad to be working again. Fortunately, after explaining my medical situation, I was assured that they would work with my needs.

While I adjust to a new location, and invest myself in a career opportunity, I haven't forgotten about my pre-imminent return to YouTube. I'm still mulling over details, in order to determine how I incorporate it into my schedule, and if I can justify uploading videos recorded from an aging PC. As I've been playing with the DW20 mod pack, I notice that the more I expand my base's processing, power, and storage systems, it continues to affect my computer's performance. CPU bottle-necks are no fun. I'll see if I can come up with a solution, or at least a stop-gap measure or two, in order to deliver the first few videos to those who might be keeping an eye out.

Stay tuned, folks.

-ReDrew89

Realizations

Hello, folks. Checking back in with an update on current happenings. I've been keeping myself occupied for the past few weeks, playing a bit of Minecraft Feed The Beast, with the Direwolf20 Mod Pack. I've been having a great time, and have actually gotten a bit of help from my younger brother, who recently purchased a Minecraft account. With my background in IT, setting up a "LAN" game to work over the public Internet is trivial enough as making sure my router has the 50000-60000 port range forwarded to accept connections. (If you have no idea what that means, don't worry, it's not terribly important.)

With respect to my injury, my hand seems to have healed well, and I have an appointment to have the cast removed tomorrow. Hopefully, everything will be working well enough that I can resume work after I move to New York with little to no problems.

Back on the topic of Minecraft, however, I've been playing quite a bit with the FTB/Direwolf20 mod loadout, and have realized a few things. One, ThaumCraft is ridiculously addictive as a mod. Two, my PC is a bloated whale. Fortunately, things have remained "barely" playable, averaging at roughly 20 frames per second in the Overworld. My concern, however, is that as I add more complex automation to my world, the performance will continue to suffer. This isn't to mention the difficulties that are added when I host for my brother to connect. I've been monitoring the performance of my PC, and while I believe there are a few things I can try to improve performance, nothing is ultimately going to solve the problem, other than these two options:

1. I need a newer PC (See Below)
2. I need to consider dedicated hosting (See Further Below)

Option 1 - New(er) PC

I've been using my current PC for less than a year. While I imagined it would do well enough for the short-term, it seems that, with resource-heavy mods, and my penchant for doing things more extreme than necessary, it isn't quite cutting the mustard. For those who have a bad memory, here's what I'm currently using:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800+ Manchester @ 2.0GHz
RAM: 4GB (4x1GB) DDR 400 (PC3200)
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 4350 PCI-E w/ 1GB VRAM

Not exactly this generation of computer components. (Not even this decade, mind you.) I have parts picked out for an incremental upgrade; just the motherboard, processor, RAM, and graphics. I shopped with a budget of about $300, and managed stay just below that mark. Here's what I hope to upgrade to:

CPU: AMD Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition Deneb @ 3.4GHz (Quad-Core)
RAM: CORSAIR 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1333 SDRAM
GPU: PowerColor AMD Radeon HD 6670 PCI-E 2.1 w/ 1GB VRAM
Board: Foxconn A88GMX

All of these parts are listed on Newegg. I do have a couple minor items on the list, as well. Namely, some thermal compound for the CPU, and a slightly larger case fan. The total, before shipping and taxes is $288.94. Naturally, with things going as they have been, I can expect to wait until I've secured full-time employment before I can afford to spend this amount.

Option 2 - Dedicated Hosting

This is a more feasible option to consider, as it is less expensive, and has additional benefits. I've been looking at hosting packages on CreeperHost.net, and I would imagine that, for myself and my brother, the "Slime Package" for $12.11 USD per month, would be more than suitable. This would off-load hosting pressure from my current system, and would likely make the game run slightly more smoothly, as most of the world tick and processing would be on the dedicated server's hardware. I'll discuss it with my brother and see what he thinks. I'm sure that, once both of us are working, we could easily split the bill on a server. 

I'll Just Leave This Here...

Special Thanks: Clarence Yapp (SoundCloud)

More News About My Life

Well, I figured I would put this off a bit longer, as it's not really anything that most of my readers and (former) YouTube subscribers will notice after it's said and done. However, in the interest of keeping people informed, I think it's worth mentioning.

On June 10th, I'll be relocating from my current residence in Central Pennsylvania to Northern New York State. The past year has been rather crazy, and I'm hoping that the move will be an opportunity for a fresh start. My biggest concern in all of this is the fact that, with the injury to my hand, which I discussed in last week's post, finding treatment in New York, from a physician that understands my case, will be a bit difficult. I have an appointment scheduled on the 3rd of June to have the cast removed, but I'll need to have surgery again about 4 to 6 weeks after that, to have the steel implant removed. The doctor here has requested that I consider making a special trip back to PA for that surgery. With the price of gas, however, that's easier said than done.

At this point, I'll go ahead and make further mention of the donation button on the right. I don't like asking for a hand-out, but I also realize that it's sometimes best to let those kind and generous people in the world (how few they may be) to provide some help. All of the money donated between now and July will be used to help with my moving costs, with whatever I have left used to help me get back to PA in late July for my appointment, if needed. Anything left after that will be used to help me in a full-time job search in New York. Again, I have no expectations, no goal to reach, and nothing much to offer those who can donate. However, I will say that your help will be greatly appreciated, and will no doubt provide further motivation for me to resume my YouTube production, once I'm completely mended.

That's all I really have to say, at this point. Thanks for reading. :)

Still Alive...

It's been a while... Sorry for the disappearing act, guys. Real life has intervened in a big way, lately, and I haven't had the time, or, more importantly, the ambition, to do much of anything related to the internet, other than looking for ways to make a decent income. On that note, I'll point out that the donation button from my last post has been permanently placed on the right. Now, I don't expect anything, but any amount that could be donated would be greatly appreciated.

Regarding my disappearance from YouTube. I ended up deleting my channel, again. Reasons? Well, I can't say. I call it an "internet identity crisis", where I had difficultly reconciling my motives for creating content on YouTube, and the reality that I wasn't exactly meeting my expectations. Those expectations have been adjusted, and I hope to get back into the game with YouTube and video game Let's Plays, in the semi-near future. Stay tuned for more information!

In real life, I'll share a bit of inconvenient news. Around the beginning of April, I broke my left hand. It was a fairly serious fracture of the third metacarpal (the bone that connects the middle finger to the wrist), which required surgical reduction, and insertion of a steel rod to hold the bone in place while it heals. Fortunately, everything is going well. Since the surgery, I've retained nearly complete use of my hand, aside from overly-strenuous activity. I'm actually able to touch-type this post, with no discomfort. I'm in a cast for the next 3 to 4 weeks.

Also, tomorrow is my birthday! I will be turning 24.