Staff Pics from Work

Charlotte's was recently selected to appear in Vows Magazine (the industry publication for bridal world). We all had to show up an hour early and wear black last Saturday. The pics actually turned out pretty cute.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Hi all! We hope you're warm, happy, and have plans to eat too much with friends/family today!

We decided to host a dinner for any other couples who are recent transplants to Portland as well. As it turns out, there's only one couple coming. Steve and Katie moved here from North Carolina in August. Steve is a lawyer and Katie is a professor at a local college. They had friends out here already, but didn't have any plans for Thanksgiving. They said they'd just been planning to stay home and have a chicken. I told them that we were making tofurkey, so they may still want to bring the chicken.

Adam's making his honey-roasted fake turkey, roasted vegetables, and mashed potatoes. I'm making cornbread, vegetarian stuffing, and my mom's peanut butter bars. Steve and Katie are bringing okra (this will be an experiment for both of us), apple pie, and wine. None of us are particularly into football, so we'll probably play board games instead.

In other life, Adam is finally winding down the end of his semester. He's working on two exegetical papers, and then goes straight into finals. He's pretty much holding on by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin, and counting down the days until he gets a couple of weeks off for Christmas.

Charlotte's is pretty much same-old, same-old. We're already beginning to get fully-booked on the weekends. There was minor drama last weekend. We were hosting a trunk show for Aire Barcelona on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, Suzanne had me call the designer for the tracking numbers on the boxes. It turns out, the dresses were still in Utah and weren't scheduled to reach us until the following Monday. Obviously, since our trunk show was on Friday and Saturday, Monday just wouldn't work for us. Most of Thursday was spent arguing with Aire that they were going to upgrade to over-night and pay for it themselves. Krysta was finally able to pick up the gowns from the FedEx hub late Friday night, however it was definitely not our most successful trunk show. I'm sure part of this was also due to the fact that Aire is one of our most couture (read most expensive) designers. On the up side, I did get to play with my most expensive dress to date, $4500!

Last weekend, I had a family of African descent. They were hilarious! The mom spied the dress she wanted her daughter to wear on another bride, so I had to steal it from someone else's appointment. She loved the gown, it had "The Drama" she was looking for. She had to practice dancing in it. On the surface, it was an ideal appointment, loved the dress, loved the veil, loved the jewelry, found bridesmaid dresses. They wanted to get everything taken care of so they wouldn't have to worry about it all later. I'm like "Awesome! Let me get the paperwork." The mom responds with "Great, and then we'll start talking price." And my heart sinks.... They're going to want to haggle. We don't haggle. The gowns cost what they cost, we only mark them up what the designers say we have to price them at. Eventually, I gave them a couple of discounts, on bridesmaids, on accessories, and they left happy... Three hours later! That was a marathon appointment, but it was one of the most fun experiences I've had at the store.

After five years with Verizon, Adam and I finally switched cell carriers. We realized that we were paying as much for calls and texts with Verizon as we would be for full smartphones with web and data with T-Mobile. Adam being the tech-guru that he is, has been researching phones for the last six months. We both got Samsung Vibrants and actually managed to find brand new, un-opened ones on ebay, saving us about $300 from what T-Mobile would charge. T-Mobile also has the option of a no-contract plan, which is also less expensive than something that would lock us in to two years with them. Win-win!

We have officially hit winter here in the Northwest. This last weekend we actually had some snow, and of course, the entire city panicked: "Get your chains, stock up on food, estimate hours for your commute!" Total accumulation: 1/2 inch. But it has been ridiculously cold, not reaching above 30. We've been walling ourselves off in the second bedroom around the space heater.

Looking forward to the holidays. Love and miss you all! Christian out!

My Husband is Awesome

I asked Adam to remind me to take my soda out of the freezer before my show.

He attached a note to Nestle's collar and sent her over to me saying "Hey Cori, did you get your rockstar out of the freezer?"

Then he created an even in our Google Calendar and invited me to "Cori getting her rockstar out of the freezer."

This is what happens when Adam doesn't want to do his homework.

Busy Busy...

The Charlotte's crew @ brunch
Adam's new office in the second bedroom
the reading nook and Adam's books in 2nd room
My bookcase in the living room. Can you tell we like books?
Ok! We've had a lot going on the last few weeks!

Adam is on his third (fourth?) full week of classes. He's had two tests about which he feels relatively confident. There've also been multiple book reports, handouts, memorization projects, and TONS of reading. He (and I) is still trying to figure how to juggle this new workload along with Starbucks, interning, and family. For a while, it was like he'd been hit by a truck, but now he's beginning to find a rhythm, has developed a schedule. He had to take a pretty hefty pay cut, Sbux couldn't justify keeping a supervisor who only worked 20 hours. Not only has he been dropped to barista, he's being paid what a barista who'd been there just over a year would be paid. Not cool. On the up side, his financial aid check just came through. Thank you, God!

Work at Charlotte's has been interesting. The owner has been in a bad mood for about a month and know one is sure entirely why. We did all have a really good time at the Race for the Cure last weekend. Krysta took everyone to a fancy brunch afterwards. I like to occasionally pretend I'm a Foodie, and I know this place used top-shelf ingredients. I don't know if it's just that my palette isn't refined enough to appreciate the subtlety of heirloom tomatoes versus regular ones, but everything tasted very bland to me. Ah well. This morning Krysta called me into her office to tell me that she was going to put me in charge of our new Prom line come this next spring. Starting the 6th, I'll be going to marketing meetings, making contacts at local highschools, and developing procedures for how we're going to run this line. I'm excited, it's a new challenge!

Lunacy is still very interesting. We've had a very tense patch where it felt like no one could make a decision, but I think we're finally on a forward trajectory. I still love the artistic side, reading plays prepping for shows, I'm currently writing our season brochure for next year. The business side is just not something I want to add to my stress over. There it is.

Church has been pretty stable. We just passed our 1st anniversary as a separate service. Adam will be preaching on his birthday at the Portland Rescue Mission, Village has taken over the service there on the second Friday of each month, and Adam has to preach in public at least three times this semester for his classes.

Life is busy! We love and miss all of you!

Stuff

Once again, it's been way too long since I posted. Sorry friends and family!

This last month, Adam and I went to Family Camp with our church. A long weekend at the beach with twenty people from our service and hundreds from the rest of the church. We had tons of potlucks, campfires, and hanging out talking. Nestle, apart from once again consuming more than her fair share of sea water, loved being around so many people. She adopted several of the people in our group, had to check on them as much as she checked on us, and got to play with more dogs than she has since leaving Omaha.

Work has been fairly typical, albeit extremely busy. Krysta had to scold me for getting too much overtime last pay period, somehow I'd ended up working 50 hour weeks without either of us realizing it until I added up my hours. In a few weeks, the whole store is participating in Race for the Cure. We're only walking three miles, but it's a store tradition and we're all excited to spend some time together outside of the store. On the other hand, I have definitely encountered some of the more tense aspects of our business. Last month we had a bride who's seamstress cut off the gown's train when she wasn't supposed to. We managed to get the girl a new dress, but it didn't arrive until four days before her wedding. I've also had a trans-gender bride, and several with scars from cutting laddered up and down their arms. I've learned to monitor my reactions and listen before speaking, that's for sure. I still love the people I work with, have never been in an environment where I don't dread a shift with anybody. At the moment, I'm a little worn down, low on energy recourses, but on the whole, this is still the best day job I've ever had.

In October, I'm in a staged reading of Cymbeline with the Portland Actors Ensemble. Staged reading means that we have our scripts onstage with us, set/costumes are minimal, and so is rehearsal time. This opportunity is great because it is a paid gig, gets my foot in the door with PAE, and involves minimal time away from Adam or Charlotte's.

I believe I'll be in a show for Lunacy Stageworks in February. We're doing a show that I've been in love with for six years, and one of the benefits of being on the board of a theater company, is not only can we produce a project close to my heart, I can pull some strings to have my favorite role! It's actually been really gratifying how much everybody else has loved and jumped on board with this show as much as I have.

We're getting ready to re-start the fall session of our lifegroup as well. We've lost a few faces and are anticipating adding a few new ones. We may also be adjusting our schedule/format, based on what everyone feels like they need. I think Adam and I are both busy enough to feel a little relieved at relinquishing some of the leadership of the group, letting decisions be a little less guided. Although, Adam's change in schedule with Starbucks has so far been nothing but a blessing. Yesterday was the first Sunday since we moved here that he hasn't had to work (apart from ones he's officially requested off, naturally). It was a little bazaar getting to spend the whole afternoon together. We actually got to do Sunday lunch with other church couples and then attended the church's production of "The Importance of Being Earnest."

I'm definitely more optimistic about this fall and winter than I was last year. I'm going to force myself on a strict cycle of vitamin D and B12, potentially even a little dose of tanning beds when I get desperate. While I love the milder winters, I don't want to deal with the depression like I did last winter. However, we're definitely more grounded, we have friends, as a couple and individually. While Adam's school is throwing a new wrench in our schedule/finances, I feel like we're developing an amazing support system here and that feels like such a blessing.

Celebrations

Woohoo! So the 23rd was our 3rd anniversary. Somehow it worked out that we were able to schedule three days off together, and we headed out to our favorite beach: Cape Lookout. It was raining/misting off and on all day on Sunday, so we got our campsite set up as quickly as possible. On the upside, Monday was beautiful. So beautiful that Adam and I were stupid and got completely fried! His poor feet have been so swollen, and my entire backside was almost purple. Ahh well, we just don't do celebrating very well. I think our gifts to each other say a lot about who we are. Adam gave me an Amazon giftcard to feed my book addiction, and I gave him a sake set to further his appreciation of fine alcohols.

We've also realized that this last Saturday was our one-year anniversary of moving to Portland. We've had more stress and struggles here than we've had anywhere else, but I don't think either of us regrets having made this change. There's still a lot we haven't explored in this city (and state), but we're getting there ;)

I did the summer PATA auditions a few weeks ago. I was ambiguous about my performance, but I got an email this weekend from Curious Comedy Theater asking me to audition for their 2011 season. I haven't seen any of their shows, but they do improv and sketch comedy. The people that I've talked about it with said they do good work. I'm also loving being on the board at Lunacy Stageworks, we're currently working on choosing which shows we're producing in '11. Apart from finalizing our non-profit status, we're a season-opener gala from being up and running.

As soon as I remember where we unpacked the USB cord, I'll upload our pictures from the Cape Lookout trip.

~Christian Out!

I'm alive!

Been a while since I've blogged, so I thought I'd start with letting you know that I am in fact alive. Not a whole lot of news to report... but since it'd been quite a while I figured I should probably get on and do an update... even if there wasn't all that much to update.

I'm still working at Starbucks... doing roughly 32 hours a week there, as well as about 20 hours a week interning for Village Baptist Church as the Emerging Culture Intern. That's going well... I enjoy the work I'm doing, and it'll be great experience to have on my resume once I graduate.

Speaking of graduate... If you hadn't heard I'm going back to school in the fall. Most of my classes will be done through Ozark Christian College as distance learning... and I'll have a few classes that just weren't possible to take as distance learning that I'll be taking up here and transferring to OCC. I'm still working out some of the details on what that looks like exactly. When I start back to school I'll be dropping down to about 20 hours a week at Starbucks and keeping the hours at the church about the same.

Marv, Linda, and Cammie are coming to visit for the weekend... they'll be arriving sometime tomorrow and staying until Monday... then next Sunday Cori and I will be heading out to the coast with our dog for a few days to go camping for our anniversary. (the anniversary will be on that Wednesday - the 26th)

That's about all I've got at the moment. I'll type more in another 3 or 4 months! (hopefully sooner... but I'm attempting to be realistic to avoid disappointing anyone when it doesn't happen)

- Adam

Looking Forward to Spring

That's right, it's almost May and apparently not yet spring in Oregon.... Umm, ok.... Either way, we're finally getting to enjoy not drowning every time we go outside! We've been leaving the door propped open at work, and it's light till after 8!!!

I've been cast in the Swing Cast of the Original Practice Shakespeare Festival. I'm performing in their showcase on May 16th, and in "Much Ado About Nothing" on June 13th. Apparently, I get to do some stage combat and have to go to a couple of fight rehearsals!

Fun Stuff: Adam and I are planning a camping trip to the beach for our anniversary. He's already excited, I'm a little skeptical as to how conducive the weather on the coast will be to camping. Either way, it'll be fun. Krysta, the owner @ Charlotte's, has volunteered to take all of us river rafting this summer! I have no idea where they go for that around here, but it's been a good 13 (?) years since I've been rafting of any kind so I'm thrilled.

Next month Adam registers for his classes, both through Ozark and the couple he's taking off-site at Western Seminary and Portland Community College. He's nervous about his work load, but planning on doing some reading ahead over the summer. I'll try to get him to post soon with a more detailed update of where he's at with plans and life.

Woohoo

I have a new computer. I have a new computer. I have a new computer... La,la,la! It's an Acer and has a pretty kick-ass processor and graphics cards. Since I primarily use my computer for email, writing, and watching tv/movies, having a great video card and lots of space to run/store things was pretty high on the priority list. Adam did the homework and found out that Acer does some great tech at an equally attractive price so we ordered it last weekend and it arrived yesterday. He's a little jealous of my shiny new toy, especially since he put in the tedious time getting it set up and hooked into our network, etc. But, a plus for him is that he now gets his HP laptop back exclusively and can take it to Village whenever he goes. I just watched an entire episode of "Parenthood" without it lagging or pausing to buffer once! We just downloaded our entire combined itunes library, which is apparently 98 solid 24-hour days of music and audiobooks. That's a little obscene, but barely makes a dent in my available memory! Good times.

Blerg

Ok, so I kind of suck at being consistent with this right now. Sorry! I think it's been a month since my last post, which means some massive catching up to do.
My work stuff: I did finally get my own business cards for Charlotte's which is the first time I've ever had anything professional with my name on it. Pretty cool. The website is in process of being updated, but I've seen the picture they're using and I approve. Otherwise, work has begun to develop a pattern. I seem to go through two week periods where I can't sell a dress for love or money, and then another two weeks where my brides are awesome and I have more paperwork than I can keep up with. There are certain people I really enjoy spending hours upon hours with, and some people that I just spend hours upon hours with. On the whole though, there's nobody that I actually dislike or don't get along with, which is fantastic. I've gotten to the point where certain jobs or responsibilities have been regularly delegated to me long enough that all the other consultants know I'm the one to ask about those areas.
My theatre stuff: Well, the Original Practice Shakespeare workshop was awesome. It reminded me how much I really do enjoy Shakespeare, especially up on its feet like it's meant to be. This is one of the few companies for which I would be willing to break my "I've got to get paid" rule. I have some more workshops and audition stuff to do for them before I find out whether I'm in or not, but the director's comments to me were great. I didn't get a part with Willamette Shakespeare this year (which I'm attributing to my rigorous and inconvenient work schedule right now). However, the director asked me to audition for them again in the future, which I'm happy to do. I was also invited to another audition this weekend, but to be perfectly honest, the show didn't really sound like something worth me taking time away from work and my family. At this point, I've gotten a screen test and 3 auditions out of doing the PATA's in January. Can we say worth it?! Definitely planning on doing the summer ones again in June.
Adam's work stuff: For a while now, Adam's been clashing with one of the other supervisor's at Starbucks, over big and little things. Well this other supervisor recently transferred to another location for the majority of their shifts, leaving more mature/capable people behind. This also means that Adam's schedule may be shifting a bit in the future, which is great because.... Hubby goes back to school in five months! I was finally able to do our taxes yesterday, so Adam spent a good portion of his day off today doing FAFSA and Ozark applications.
Adam's Church stuff: Adam's intern application has been passes through the church board. He's currently just waiting on meeting with the church's intern director who's been in Cali for a death in the family for a while. He officially has a desk in Renjy's office....which he can use only when Andy and Josue aren't using it. A number of the other life groups for our service are finally up and running, gratifying and encouraging! Adam checks in with the other leaders almost weekly and is always working out which groups to put new people in. Our group specifically has been doing really well. We've cut back to meeting every other week, but everyone has been really positive about the group and seems to be blessed by it. A number of them came to my Oscar Party this last weekend and we had a blast being the movie nerds we are together.
So yeah, that's where we are right now. Oregon is still rainy and coldish, although I did get to wear my flipflops to church this last week. :) Other awesomeness: we've rediscovered the joy of homemade milkshakes. My thick peanut butter fudge with chocolate chip bits are fantastic and Adam's had some delicious success experimenting with Via coffee shakes. We've also discovered how amazing Five Guys french fries are, and the web-based show The Guild (which mocks people who play World of Warcraft and is awesome!!!). Check it out at www.watchtheguild.com for season 3, seasons 1 & 2 are available at Netflix online, or on Adam's computer. The fact that he can laugh at his own nerdiness is beautiful.
At this point, I think Adam would ask for prayer in ironing out the details of his classes and that he would feel God's direction clearly and fulfillment in following them. I've been struggling with a suffocating exhaustion lately (no idea why, definitely not pregnant, don't think I'm depressed or sick) and it makes everything else harder, so prayer for that.
On that note, off to bed. Christian out!

'bout time, eh?

So, I guess it's been a while since we've updated this. In the last few weeks, I've started and quit a nanny job, picked up 15 hours per week more than I'd been told I'd work at Charlotte's, attended the January PATA auditions, and started hosting a life group! We're not over-achievers...
So yes, while the family was here over Christmas, I got a call from a family to interview to nanny for them. They had an almost 6 year-old girl and almost 4 year-old boy. The boy was home with me all day, but the girl was in full-day kindergarten. Anyway, I did not last long. These kids were extremely high-maintainence, needed to be engaged with me the whole time, could not play on their own. There were also really competitive with each other, and kinda neurotic. The mom left me a schedule of what a normal day looks like that was three typed pages long! Oh, I forgot to mention, the boy was also extremely allergic to eggs and all tree nuts.
On the upside, I only worked for them for a week, when Charlotte's offered to bring me on full-time. Needless to say, I was not sorry to say goodbye to the Gilleys. And I now work Tuesday through Saturday at Charlotte's Weddings. Still working towards cards with my name on them, but next week I get my picture taken for the website!
Two weeks ago I did the January city-wide PATA auditions. They were rushed, and I was a little shakier than I like to be when I audition. But I guess they were decent because I did get two calls out of it! Last week, I did a screen test for a casting agency that handles a lot of commercials and tv/movie extras here in Portland. At the end of February, I'm doing a callback workshop for a company called Original Practice Shakespeare. It combines Shakespeare and improv, so I'm excited.
At church, Adam is still working out the official details of his internship, but he's been taking on more responsibility. This last week, he's attended a couple of leadership/planning meetings and is excited about things the church is doing. He's also meeting with several small group leaders to get their groups up and running. The group that we're hosting has been meeting every Thursday for about a month now. They're wonderful people, and we've both enjoyed getting to know all of them better. We've also gotten connected with some other great people at church. Adam has found all kinds of computer nerd compatriots. I've found some girls to go to movies with. A couple of weeks ago, I attended Ari's first birthday party. They got him a mini-cake that he could dive into. He pretty much high-fived it and was so grossed out by the frosting on his hand that he wouldn't touch it again.
We also finally got Adam (another) new car. It's a 2000 Chevy Malibu with 120,000 miles on it. So far, we're very happy with it.
We're currently waiting for what feels like the 20 W2's we should have coming in from both of our multiple jobs over the last year. We've also been told that spring usually starts to hit Portland around mid-February. Looking forward to that! While we only had 1 day of snow, having two solid weeks of rain, 1 day of sun, two weeks of rain... can get wearing! We're also stoked to be able to hit the beach again, get Adam started in school, have me at 1 job longer than a couple of months.... and the list goes on!

All Shiny!

So I heard back from my friend... he thought it was a Bios problem and recommended that I upgrade the Bios on my computer. At the moment I'm all done installing Windows 7 and updating drivers. I'm installing video games now, and through all of this there's been no blue screens! So I'm up and running... below you can see my computer desk with my new monitor and the glowy computer down on the floor to the left.

For those interested, here's all the components that went into the computer... forgot to post with the last blog.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S 2.83 Ghz Processor
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L Mother
XFX Radeon HD 4870 1 GB Video Card
8GB Corsair XPS DDR2 Ram
WD Caviar Green 500 GB Hard Drive
MSI DVD R/RW
Azza Orion Case
Azza Dynamo 650W PSU
2 120mm Case Fans
1 90mm Case Fan
Windows 7 Professional
Samsung 932BW 19” LCD

The Shiny (or not so shiny) New Computer (Part 2)

If you haven't read Part 1 yet... don't read this... scroll down and read Part 1 first.

Here's what things look like after I installed the video card. This does what you think it would... handles anything related to video for your computer. Mine is an XFX Radeon HD 4870 1GB. Most likely, you don't need a video card like this in your computer. It's made specifically for gaming and handling the graphics that come with it. I have a full GB of ram on the card dedicated solely to graphics, and it has a 256 bit graphics processor. As of right now that should be able to handle any graphics heavy game on it's highest graphics settings without any problems. I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes.

This one's after I attached all the wires where they need to be in

the case. It looks a little less clean than it did before, but it'll actually do something now so I'm ok with that. All that's left at this point is putting the case back on and powering up the computer to install the operating system.

This last picture is of the side of the case once I put the side back on. I have clear panels on the side of the case so that in the event that I feel like looking at my parts while the computer is running I can do so. On the more practical side, you can see a fan in the side of the case. Most don't have extra fans like this... just an exhaust fan in the back. To help with all the extra heat some of my parts put out my case has an extra fan on the side, space for another one below it, and a fan that pulls air in through the lower front part of the case as well. To keep these from being too practical, they do glow blue while running.

At this point in the build, it was about 2 AM and I was pretty tired. So I went to bed to come back in the morning to deal with turning it on and installing the operating system in the morning.

Turning it on went well. Everything did what it was supposed to and the computer came on. This meant that all the wires went where they were supposed to in spite of it being 2 in the morning while I was plugging everything in. Thus far everything is shiny. The not so shiny part... when I started installing Windows 7 I got a fun blue screen telling me there was an error of some sort. Many blue screens later I talked to a friend who does IT stuff. He suggested that this was probably a RAM problem and that I should run a memory test. At the moment I've run the test with some fun results. For those of you who know what such things mean I'll share.

4 sticks of ram in: Computer freezes at 5% into first test
3 sticks of ram in: Computer freezes at 7% into first test (I have tried every configuration placing ram in different slots)
2 sticks of ram in: Computer retstarts at roughly 50% through first test (again I've tried every configuration of ram in different stots)
1 stick of ram in: Every stick passed with no errors, and every slot has passed with no errors

I'm not really sure what the results mean. It seems like it says that all my RAM is good. My thoughts are that this could be a problem with either the motherboard or Bios, but I'm not entirely sure on that. I'm waiting for my friend to get back with me so I can share the results. I'll try to post more on what happens with this once i get the problem figured out and the whole computer is shiny. Perhaps I'll get Cori to post on her thoughts through the whole thing... most of them probably not quite as interested in the details as mine.

To everyone who contributed... Thank you very much! I'm sure that I'll have the kinks worked out shortly and have a computer that will make other video game nerds drool. I couldn't have done it without your help!

- Adam

The Shiny (or not so shiny) New Computer (Part 1)

So... I had hoped to wait to post this until the computer was all shiny and up and running and all that... it's taking a bit longer than I had hoped, so I thought I'd go ahead and post how things have gone so far.

This is all of my parts still in boxes waiting for me to open them up and start playing with them.

At this point I was a bit giddy... still a little sick from my recent bout with the plague and having just gotten home from a full day at work. It's somewhere around 10:15 and Cori is forcing me to eat dinner before starting to build. So I threw in a pizza and came back to my parts while the pizza cooked.

Here's the inside of the case with only the power supply installed. At this point it's basically a big empty box with a whole bunch of wires in it.

The next step was putting in the hard drive and dvd drive. They both go over on the right hand side of the case and didn't really add a whole lot to how it looked, so I figured for now I'd let you use your imagination on what this looked like (you'll be able to see them peeking out in later pictures) and move on to setting up the motherboard.

This is the motherboard with only the processor installed. Motherboard is what connects everything in your computer and lets them talk, allowing them to become a computer rather than just a bunch of separate parts. T

he processor is the shiny silver square about halfway down on the right side of the board. Mine is an Intel Core2 Q9550S. It's a quad core processor that runs at 2.83 Ghz without overclocking. With overclocking I've read several reviews with my processor and motherboard where the processor has been successfully overclocked to 4 Ghz, and my friend Scott who works for Intel said one of the guys he works with has gotten it up to 7 Ghz with a top of the line cooling system. As of right now I have no intentions of overclocking... the 2.83

Ghz should be fine for me... but in a few years when I feel like I might need an upgrade it's good to know that the option is there.

Here's the motherboard with the CPU (proce

ssor) fan and Ram installed and with the board placed inside the case. (In case you felt a little jipped earlier you can now see the DVD drive on the bottom left, and the hard drive in bottom middle of the picture.) The fan keeps the processor from overheating

. This is important. You may remember Cori and I mentioning the death of her laptop this summer... that was do to a melted processor that overheated. It would make me very, very sad were this ever to happen to my processor. The ram I've installed is 8GB of Corsair XPS DDR2. This and my processor should let me handle just about any program (or multiple programs) that I feel like running at any given time without a problem.

I can apparently only have 4 pictures in any given post... so we'll call this part one. I'll go type up part 2 now.