Wednesday 1 September 2010

Hardware Reset II

Out with the old and in with the new. 

Further to my previous post, I have had a pretty busy time at work with some rather late nights and dinners.  In between all of that, I managed to upgrade my HDD from a 120GB to a 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue.  The upgrade process was pretty painless having familiarised myself from the RAM upgrade.  The longest part was reinstalling all the software!  It has been much better now rather than having to worry about capacity constraints.

Also, my recent trip to Orange was a rather different experience.  Venturing past the Blue Mountains (Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth would be proud) the drive was done through some heavy rain.  Unfortunately, the roads were narrow, and a semi-trailer going in the opposite direction kicked up a rock which ended up cracking my windshield.  Shops opening on weekend were somewhat limited, and the local auto store didn't offer a sound solution to a crack of 15cm.  Also, I was meaning to change my "semi-slick" tyres after the trip and we experienced icy and snowing conditions!  Smart one!
Thankfully, we got back safely, and my windscreen was fixed (I knew the one free windshield annual extra would pay itself one day!).  Furthermore, I changed my tyres as well (rego also hitting soon, so may as well).  I decided to give the Bridgestone Adrenalins a go from the perspective of being semi-performance.  Compared with the stock Michelin SX-GT's the ride is much firmer (could be the sidewall being stiffer or the tyre pressure) and feel slightly less grippy.  I've only clocked around 70kms on them, so they probably could do with a few more to run them in properly.  Time will tell.

Of course as true testimony of my devotion to my car, I did ran a Mothers clay bar over my car - which managed to lift off the specks of brown sap which had been there for about one year.  Admittedly, the car was silky smooth after that, like a brand new car.  This was quickly followed by some Meguirs Gold Class Wax.  All that elbow grease, I hope the drag on the car was reduced haha!

Finally, blogger templates needed a refresh of course.  It was time for a different look, and the coffee theme was apt given the four I consume a day!