This is 2026. Those who are familiar with me here, if they haven’t died already, may recall interactions with me going back to 2005. THAT’S 21 FREAKING YEARS!
You may recall more recently from “Social” -> “Relationships” or “Health and Fitness” that I lost half my family — my youngest brother (RIP 66) in 2022 and my Moms (RIP 98.5) in October 2023. We had all lived under this roof for more than 20 years, or rather my brother returned to us in 2010. I’m still getting over the loss. I have now approached completion of the task to clean up their respective bedrooms and preparing those rooms for use. I’m vacuuming! I’m ready to steam-clean the carpets with our old Hoover Steam Vac!
I built one “new” computer after Bro died using dated but brand-new parts first available by 2017 — NOT Win 11 “eligible”, but close to it and we’re beyond that now. How I acquired those parts dates back to 2021 when my daily driver “died” for having put a cannabis vaping pen into the USB port to charge, pulling it out on a dry, Santa-Ana windy January day after scuffling across the wool carpet. I acquired “spare parts” out of desperation to restored that PC.
When the panic of Windows 10 EOL loss of support arose in the earlier part of last year, I followed three of four simultaneous paths toward preserving my digital fortress here. There was the “Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC” path; then there was the “Windows 10 ESU” solution; the “UPgrade to Win 11” possibility; and finally — “build a more recent computer” option. So in this latter regard, I acquired a Rocket Lake i7-11700K and a Z590 Asus motherboard. The advantage of the mobo was its RAM option: I could use the G.SKILL RAM in the two or three SKY/KABY LAKE systems I have running (still). I’ve got a spare-a-pair of 16 GB 2×8 G.SKILL DDR4 3200 14-14-14 Trident Z sticks free and useable just for testing.
So — here we are. Three shrink-wrap retail Win 11 Pro boxes in the mix — never used. The hardware — ready to go. And for 10 months, these parts were sitting on my dining-room table — Moms’ high-end Pecan table — protected but cluttered. IT’S TIME!!
I started to inventory all my wonderful S***. Here — I discover that I’d acquired not only an SK Hynix P41 1TB NVME stick, but there were three (3) P31 2TB sticks.
I think this has something to do with being 78 with some minor deterioration in short-term memory. I have LOTS of WONDERFUL S*** on that dining table! I even have a StarTech 2x NVME PCIE card, still in the shipping wrap!
Time to get started — after I FREAKING SHAMPOO THE DAMN CARPET! TO-DAYYY!
Why do I share this? Because I can’t help it.
When I can trust the economy again and my investment portfolio seems more certain, I’ll look at Arrow Lake with the right motherboard. I thought I could “Let Go” of this . . enthusiast . . . hobbyist obsession — but — I just . . . can’t . . . do it!