Friday, February 28, 2014

MGS - Phase 1 - Day 6

Fast and furious. I had only 35 mins for this training.

1) Squat58120
2) DB Split Squat112 - 25120
3) Back Extension220 -25120
4) EZ Bar Curl38 - 1090
5) Farmers Walk330 sec90

Went good. No coffee this time :)
Went to 45 kg for the EZ Bar Curl. I intend to try 50 next time. With some help of course.
On nutrition... I cheated a bit today... not proud of myself. Half a cup of Pepsi and some chips...

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Silence is golden

As in the song... Silence is golden.
As I was saying in the previous post regarding the ACX installation (of which BTW I'm very pleased), there was a rattling sound in my case which was not so right.
So today, I opened the "monster" again and went berserk by unplugging all case vents. Now I'm left only with the vent from the CPU and with the ACX.
The operation result is incredible, the laptop idle vents are louder :)
The obvious drawback is that the temps went up about 5-7 degrees in normal load situation, but I'm totally OK with that since they are very reasonable (under 60 for video card and under 50 for the CPU).


Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Eve - Level 3 missions and Caracal revival

Finally I am doing level 3 missions. My Drake is behaving wonderfully, I can clear everything with ease.
I have Missile Launcher Operation lvl 5 in research for the moment, then switching to some drones skills.
The cash inflow has grown, but I still forget sometimes to recall drones from the field...


My Drake at the end of a mission.











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When I finished the lvl 2 missions and started lvl 3 I got a chain of lvl 2 missions to do, starting with "Clearing a Path". The ugly surprise was that I can't do that with my drake so I had to switch to my Caracal which is not fitted at all.
The solution? Strip the drake and fit the Caracal:

3x HML + Scourge HM
3x Large Shield Extenders II
2x Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
2x Ballistic Control System II
1x Power Diagnostic System II
1x Shield Power Relay II

I know the fitting is not optimal, I just copied the Drake one, but the results are ... OK. I mean the shield barely drops under 95%. Good enough for me.



Lost in space.

MGS - Phase 1 - Day 5

A good and a not so good experience this day...
First the program

DAY 1
1) Low Incline Bench Press58120
2a) DB Mil Press36 - 860
2b) Inverted Row36 - 860
3a) Rope/Band Face Pull210 - 1260
3b) Diamond Pushup1AMAP60

Basically it went well, just that I feel a bit weaker than in July 2013 when I did this program first time. I blame it on my tempo or the focus on it, there is a clear difference in the execution pattern.

The pushups are the killer, need to improve that, and I'm talking about the diamond variant... Normal pushups I can easily go above 40-45 if I'm not tired.

Now the bad... COFFEE... Yeah, I drank some coffee before going to the gym (at 10 PM) and it was definitely not a very good idea... After the gym I was able to sleep only at 2 AM and this is not good.

Other than that things are fairly good, a bit of ICS issues, hernia under radar. Gotta take care of the food intake, no carb at all upsets the bowels too much so I have to find a proper balance point.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

How To - Installing Accelero Xtreme 3 on Radeon HD 6950

In this post I will simply describe my 2 hour adventure of changing the default cooler on my VTX 6950 video card to the "little beast": Accelero Xtreme 3.

First a bit of "rig" presentation, my main machine is not so old, latest major overhaul was done in 2011:
- case: NZXT Phantom Black
- mobo: MSI Z68A GD80 G3
- CPU: Intel 2500K
- RAM: 16 GB HyperX
- SSD + RAID 0 2 TB
- Video: AMD Radeon HD VTX 6950
- Power supply: Seasonic X660

There are some other parts here but not important for the moment.
In the case I have installed 5 vents which are pretty silent, then we have 1 on the Seasonic (dead silent), 1 on the CPU Cooler (silent also) and finally the culprit which started the revolution... the 2 noisy vents on the 6950.
The problem was especially audible during the evenings/nights when there was silence in the house and when gaming. Plus, the temps... I had 55-60 in idle and 70 - 85 while gaming (depending on the game).  And the sound was ... hair dryer style.
For a while I managed to some extent with the help of MSI Afterburner but lately even that was not enough.
So I decided to do something and I had to choose: buy a new video card or a better cooler. $ involved I decided to buy the ACX and have some fun.

And behold, the system as it is:

A bit dusty.
Blackish.
But it does the job.
Cable management could be better.











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As a good little "engineer" I cleaned first everything (my wife was kind enough to borrow her 1300 W hair dryer). Lots of dust as expected (last cleaning op was done more than a month ago).

The second step after this was to take down the video card and tear down the stock cooler:


Rusty and dusty.














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I got the ACX out and put it side by side with the card.

A real monster.
But I like it.
The feeling of holding 1 kg of pure cooling WIN is nice :)











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Another pic with ACX turned over and with all the radiators and stuff.

Nice finishing, shiny toys.
The video card was cleaned, the chip is looking much better.












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Next I stripped down the radiator from the VRMs and cleaned that zone too.
















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After cleaning the memory chips and the VRMs I applied the sticky glue and the radiators (lucky there were plenty of them included in the ACX package).

Not a perfect alignment for all of the radiators, but good enough for me.













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Following this I turned the video card over and checked the back plate and the foam isolation. All was good, things still shining.

Good match, the back plate was not touching the board, thanks to the spacers.












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After this I fixed the main ACX body and started screwing things ... in a good way and a bad way...

As it can be seen the fitting was too tight, I actually managed to bend the metal to touch the board... Bad, bad boy.
So, I unscrewed the things a bit until nothing was touching the board (at least 1 mm space) and the cooler was still rock stable on the chip.
















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A comparison image with the old cooler and the new one mounted.

 Quite a difference.














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And a final image with the whole thing inside the case, lucky I have plenty of space.
















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So this it, my little adventure. The final outcome was two folded.
First the temps have dropped in average with 15-20 degrees C both in idle and full load. Without any increase in sound level! I'm quite impressed with this, no more broken nerves due to high noise when gaming.

As a little side effect I observed now that there is something rattling in my case, aside from the normal low level hum of the vents and air passing thru, so there will be a new session to find the "cricket".

Adding a little "sound" video with the current level of noise.




Monday, February 24, 2014

MGS - Phase 1 - Day 4

't was a good day to work out (yesterday as it is). I was not so tired, got coffee "loaded" in the system so I did pretty well.

DAY 4
1) Deadlift38120
2) Romanian Deadlift26 - 8120
3a) Incline Hammer Curl38 - 1060
3b) Neck Extension315 - 2060
4) Incline sprint320 sec90

Deadlifts were done with max 70, slowly and controlled.
The hammer curls with max 17.5, not more because then I have to sacrifice the form and I'm past that.
The DOMS have arrived so all is good.
The food was low carb yesterday, and today it will be no carb and IF:
4 meals starting at 12:00 PM
- chicken breast + broccoli + black olives
- whey shake + cocos
- chicken breast + mushrooms + avocado
- casein shake + nuts + some peanuts butter
I'm not sure if I will visit the gym today, it all depends on the DOMS, but I might do it because next is chest + some upper back + some shoulders ... or maybe not. I'll see.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Eve - Exploring frustration and vice-versa

Yeah, as the title says I wasted 1-2 hours with the exploration career quests.
All was good until I had to actually warp to the scanned site... and I don't remember anywhere to be said that I have to change the probe spread formation to pin-point formation... After I discovered that simple fact all was good.
I haven't actually tried exploration in a normal system, maybe I will after I complete the career quests for all areas.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Eve - Capsule life

Yeah, one of the beginner mistakes I did in the past was to travel through low sec with my Drake... so the first was lost to a pirate. And I'm still a noob.
No more of that sir, capsule is good enough to travel if the big ship is not needed.
As a noob carebeer I was able to make yesterday 1.5 mil ISK from missions. Still learning...


MGS - Phase 1 - Day 3

As they say sometimes... a bad day for science

DAY 3
1) Military Press38120
2a) Neutral Grip Chin Up36 - 860
2b) Suspended Pushup36 - 860
3a) Pronated Band Pull Apart28 - 1060
3b) Triceps Dip1AMAP60

Was not such a good day, energy level was low, I feel pretty tired... job, family.
I manage to do the stuff on the list (+some extra for triceps since it seems a bit too low for me). I added some abs training but not much, the dizziness was getting too much so I stopped, did a bit of cardio and then I ran home to drink the shake.
Feeling better now, hopefully tomorrow will be better after some rest.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

A simple flower

Not much to tell, first post in this category.
An ephemeral flower which bloomed this winter in my house.
Right, it's an orchid flower.
I have thousands of photos to sort and re-touch...

Eve - ish, or so is called, after 3 years

After almost 3 years I decided to give Eve a new try. You know, reading stuff about the latest expansions, watching some nice vids with the latest battles made me wanna jump the space-wagon.
So, I reactivated my account, thanks to an old friend (Tibike).
And here I am, back in a Drake fitted as-good-as-it-gets for this level. Thanks again to mister T for the pro-tips and fitting and ISK flash flow :D
The plan (what plan?) is to do some PvE for a while (get T3 and T4 standings) to get the hang out of the game (again...).
So far so good, I like what it looks like after the latest updates and it remains for me to discover the new aspects most liked by a carebear like myself :)
The main char is at 3 mil SP, no rush tho.
On a related note, the game runs @60 FPS with max details ... but the videocard stays at 70 deg C and it drives my ears crazy...

L.E. My Drake current PvE fit, thanks to Tibike.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Starbound - Glitchy thingie down

Yesterday evening, I managed to pull together the second boss, the yellowish robot and with the help of my great kids we defeated it. It was a long and funny fight, Brian went down, but me and Maya stayed afloat, using red regen vials.
So, we got the processor and I managed to create the robotic crafting table -> starmap MK3 upgrade.
We emptied our pockets and we jumped to the Gamma sector, and ... voila: Titanium ore all over the place.
Today I intend to harvest some more and then create 3 sets of armor, so we have a higher survivability rate in Beta and Gamma sectors.
Pics soon to follow.

On a different note, I got Dungeon Keeper 2 for me and Maya, and we started the single play campaign. The goal is to go multi-fun :)

MGS - Phase 1 - Day 2

Second day (was yesterday in fact), a bit more stress, as everyday is "legs day" :)

1) Squat38120
2) DB Split Squat112 - 25120
3) Back Extension120 -2590
4) EZ Bar Curl38 - 1090
5) Farmers Walk330 sec90

For the squats I went to max 55 kg, ass down to the floor, slow descent, quick ascent. Using a waist strap, since I'm trying to limit the impact on my incipient inguinal hernia (got it from the days when I was squatting like a fool with 110 kg ...). 
The DB squats are in fact lounges, pretty effective tho, I went with 2 x 17.5, knee to the floor. 
For the EZ bar curl, max was 42.5, with almost perfect form, the tempo was a bit faster since the concentric motion is hard to keep it at 3 seconds for this weight. I blasted the end with drop sets. 
Farmers walk ... I hate it but sometimes I do it :) Otherwise I switch to a more practical approach for me, for traps, with BB shrugs and DB shrugs. 

Yesterday was a high carb day, so my body was pretty happy, except my SCI ... was feeling quite unwell in the tummy... After the gym was feeling OK tho, just the sleep pattern was altered a bit due to hormonal activation. 

Today, it's a no-carb day, IF. Will go 4 meals (3 hours apart): 
1 - eggs, a bit of green lentils, broccoli
2 - protein shake (whey, cocos, cinnamon, a bit of chia, psyllium)
3 - pork, spinach, tomatoes, garlic
4 - casein powder + peanut butter/seeds mix

 

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Starbound frenzy

So yea... around 50 hours "sinked" in this little gem. And I was not alone, no sir, my kids were bumping around. Got them accounts and stuff, and the server is on my machine, so we are having fun in the beta sector right now. Will post a screenshot soon with our citadel.

Currently I'm working on summoning the second boss, the little robot. I'm blocked on the overall development side by the lack of titanium ore in this sector, so I need to unlock the next one.

Pretty nice game after all, having fun, couple that with the little ones playing along, yeah, we are good.

L.E. And a screenshot with a part of our home base.

MGS - Phase 1 - Day 1

First post in this area...
So a few intro words about the current situation:
- age: 36 (almost 37)
- training since: 2010
- actual real gym workouts start time: January 2012 - so 2 years and some more since I'm hitting the gym in a regular fashion
- height: 169 cm
- weight: 74 kg
- training time: 3-4 times a week, 1 hour sessions, sometimes includes 15 min cardio (HIIT)

Right now I'm following a specific program, in 3 phases, with a specific split, so a muscle group is hit 2 times a week.
First day, a combination of pecs, shoulders and upper back. I was breathing heavily after 35 minutes of training. The actual exercises were:

SETSREPSREST
DAY 1
1) Low Incline Bench Press38120
2a) DB Mil Press36 - 860
2b) Inverted Row36 - 860
3a) Rope/Band Face Pull28 - 1060
3b) Diamond Pushup1AMAP60

*Note: I did not invent this method, I just adapted it from a book, so it matches my style.
It can be seen that stuff is super-setted there, so the effort is quite big if followed exactly and with a good tempo. 

Since the gym was overcrowded (big time) I had to do the bench presses on the Smith machine (up to 95 kg). Other than that it was ok, the diamond pushups are still a killer, 25 was stretching my already tired body to the limit. I know I can do more, so next time 30 is the mark. 

I ended it with 15 min of HIIT on the stepper, simulating the stair master behavior. 
Good workout in the end. 

A different start

I started this blog as an alternative to my main one (http://negaterium.wordpress.com).
This one will cover more mundane aspects, like sport, photography, gaming, etc.
So it begins.