Signed the final paperwork, worked out additional protection, purchased a few additional bits to get us started, and took her for a test drive.
The truck doesn't even feel the weight of it, very much unaffected.
I did feel, even with the special hitch, some very minor buffeting while traveling on the I-17. Not bad though. So we are ready to get into it... our first trip is next Thursday at Wickenberg.
So when I was installing the "Chevrolet Onstar" application on my phone I had to name my truck. It is so much larger than my Colorado and so much larger than my 1500 I just typed Beastmode without thinking. Then the saleswoman said "let me see your app to make sure all the functions are working correctly"... it was so embarrassing.
No modifications for this truck, yet. I am thinking about filling in the CHEVROLET letters in the tailgate like I did with the other truck. I thought about roof running lights but I was not 100% satisfied with the job that was done the last time. The lights themselves were good, and worked, but when he put everything back together he missed guides for the seatbelts. That was kind of disappointing and I don't want that to happen with "Beastmode". So I will contemplate adding them later.
One nice thing this truck has is SiriusXM. Love it.
It does NOT, however, have a full suite of speakers. Just the three up front. I would like to add at least two speakers in the front doors. Will see how that goes.
Well, while I REALLY REALLY liked my 1500 WT model, I felt like I made a mistake because it really wasn't the level at which I wanted the truck to be at. So I made the decision, with my wife's permission, to go back to the dealer, trade in my 1500 and move up to a 2500 HD with 4WD.
So the NEW new truck is a 2500 Custom with the 6.6L L8T gas engine, 4WD, 20 inch wheels... it is a beast, if I am honest. Part of the deal was that they would install running boards, but that has to wait until next week when they get the parts in and can schedule service time. Meanwhile getting into her is like climbing Mount Everest. This truck is so tall that the HOOD is above my shoulder level, and I am a 6 foot, half inch tall man.
We are also starting to look at campers and trying to figure out how to make that work and for Sandi and I to be able to wander off for days at a time (with the dogs).
OK. I am terrible at this game.
I've beaten Diablo III a number of times at varied difficulties. It is to the point that I can fire up any character and beat Diablo then go on to beat the angel of death.
I CANNOT beat a SINGLE (mid-level or above) Boss character in Diablo IV. I can beat some of the early on ones but as soon as I get a decent level, say 20 or so, I am doomed. You get locked in some little room with nowhere to go, and you just cannot take the bosses life, and the longer you go the more offensive attacks it hurls at you. I've died about 5 times now trying to beat just a mid-level boss.
Starting to not WANT to play the game.
LED lights are in, but I am not super-confident of the fit for the guard... but time will tell. Got my arm stuck on the driver side headlight. :D The windshield washer reservoir took up a lot of space, making it hard to get in there.
I ordered a flush guard for the hood, looking forward to getting that. Still looking at running boards.
So I am making minor tweaks and changes to the truck to get it "the way I want it."
First was to replace the tall wire antenna with a flexible stub antenna.
Second was to add colored lettering to the tailgate ... CHEVROLET now is in a pretty, deep blue color (truck is white). Colored the chevy symbol on the front grill to a blue. Planning on adding a blue "stripe" to the center of the hood, probably a 3M tape.
Third, bought (and had installed) roof running lights.
Fourth, I have LED headlights on their way (possibly delivered tonight) to replace the halogen bulbs.
After that possible running boards. Been looking at them but haven't found a set that appeals to me yet.
The truck itself is averaging (well, with MY driving it is averaging) around 19 miles per gallon, mixed city and highway driving. I know it can do better, I am not being particularly careful in my driving and can be somewhat of a lead foot.
Transmission shifting is great, motor itself is pretty awesome, love the sounds it makes (V8 lovers probably need not apply).
The ride is surprisingly good, though not as nimble as the Colorado was. It is very roomy, even being a double cab, and even easier sliding in and out of the drivers seat... easier than the Colorado I mean.
Love the center console that flips up... I leave it down mostly so that Heidi (my dog) can stand with her front legs on it as I drive... she likes to see what's going on. She is generally relegated to the back seat, which I cover with a towel due to her water and mud proclivities.
The acceleration, not that THAT should be a reason to choose one engine over another, is actually pretty darn good! It really PULLS like a V8 with maybe a very very minor ramp up for about a half second after you let go of the break. Turbo has to spool just a wee bit first, but once it does... zoom! Almost max torque at just 1500 RPMs!
Passing on the highway, which IS something I do a lot of, is easy as pie... never strains, never a worry, she just gets up and goes.
One of my favorite things to do though is to roll down my windows when I am driving through my neighborhood so I can hear the turbo spooling. I've owned several turbocharged cars (mini, honda, saab) and none of them sound like this beast of a turbo... my truck kind of sounds like a diesel city bus driving down the street. :) I enjoy it. Does not rumble deep and low like a V8, it is a different kind of sound, but as I said, I appreciate it.
At some point my old PC finally started dying. I figured it was time. So I went with a new machine (same outer box, and other similarities, I kept my new-ish AMD graphic card). Since my new AMD CPU supported Windows 11, I decided to install W11 Pro. My reason was specious and sort of silly, mostly I just wanted to be able to play Diablo IV which, as it turns out, I am terrible and die frequently. Here are the specs...
Device name DADS-PC
Processor AMD Ryzen 5 8400F 6-Core Processor 4.20 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.6 GB usable)
Device ID 4C47F1B8-4495-4B01-A96B-036082A04F1A
Product ID 00330-80033-45108-AA439
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display
And my graphics card is a Radeon 7800 XT
Runs very nicely. I really do miss linux though. Not sure how long I can bare this. :)
Meanwhile, I traded my faithful 2021 Colorado in for a 2024 Silverado Double Cab WT.
She has the TurboMax base engine, which is quite an engine!
I've replaced the antenna, added blue letters to the tailgate, am having running lights installed tomorrow, and have ordered new, LED low beam bulbs.
We also bought Isaac a new 2025 Malibu RS. Very nice car.
Other things done, we had to replace our hot water heater, again. I don't remember if this was the 3rd or 4th time since we built the house. But now we have a fancy new componentized tankless, gas heater. Seems to work well, been told it will last better. We shall see.
My mother, Bessie, passed away early Tuesday morning, August 6, 2024. She was 88 years old.
The previous week my brother suggested I come visit, as she had gone into hospice care due to atrial fibrillation, and a pretty constant high pulse. I arrived on Friday, spent time with her Friday, and Saturday. Early Sunday morning we received a call from the care center that she had taken a sudden turn for the worse.
It appeared that she had had a stroke. It didn't help her breathing, which was already labored due to fluid buildup in her chest and abdomen (from the heart arrhythmia) and she began to decline rapidly. For Monday and even early Tuesday she was aware of us and would nod to answer questions and squeeze our hands. But later in the day she began to be less and less aware and it really felt like she would probably pass that night. And she did.
I think the only solace is that she was probably not very aware when it happened.
She will be missed.
It has been pretty solid, like 23.10. Ubuntu's implementation of gnome is very nice and wayland is working very well with my 7800XT card. No complaints at all.
I did, for fun, enable the extension "Burn My Windows" which allows you to enable a variety of special effects upon window creation and destruction. They are very efficient, being native shaders. They are pretty cool too. :D
I watched an interesting KDE6 review the other day. I feel like I need to experience it, install OpenSUSE or something and try it out, despite how stable Ubuntu has been. The only problem is I never really LOVED KDE and, while they have actually made some improvements around the decoration aspects that always bothered me, I am hesitant to try it. The reviewer said "if you didn't like KDE before, you probably won't like it now" despite the improvements.
So anyway...
I had already tried to upgrade from 23.10 to 24.04 about a month ago and ran into several issues (which I promptly forgot about once I reverted to 23.10, so don't ask). Today I took the plunge and upgraded again. I figured Ubuntu has had a month to iron out some minor issues.
So the install was relatively quick (I have a pretty good internet connection) and after the install and reboot Ubuntu came up fine. It DID however break my wine setup, so I had to install a few components to fix it (there will probably be other issues)... it did not honor my dpkg architecture settings which indicates amd64 and i386. I had to tweak it after the fact, but... after installing a couple extra things I was able to use wine to fire up a non-steam, Windows game. And in fact I think there must have been some more AMD driver improvements because I swear the game actually ran smoother than on 23.10.
On steam, I fired up the frequently fickle World of Warships and it ran great.
I think it is (at least so far) safe to say the upgrade was successful. I don't record much, I will have to install OBS and see how that works, and while I am sure it is just fine, I need to fire up some of my development applications.
A difference of one month, in this case, was pretty significant. I am now rocking a safe, long-term version of Ubuntu. Oh, and it is running gnome 46 as well, a minor upgrade from 23.10 which ran something like 45.x...
I picked up a very nice AMD RX 7800 XT graphics card with 16 GB vram.
Now, I run Ubuntu 23.10 and when I replaced the card, I assumed I would have to reinstall because of all the posts I read online that basically said a lot of bad stuff about the AMD card.
But, put it in, rebooted, Ubuntu came up like normal, except logging into gnome I found I was running Wayland and, to be honest, so far I have found it to be smoother and pretty nice in general. When I opened Steam back up, it automatically installed some updates, I fired up a couple of games and they worked fine.
So, I am guessing I will stick with wayland and my AMD graphic card for now to see how it goes.
I am considering purchasing new parts to build a new PC. I've been on a Mac (M1) and Linux (first gen thread ripper and Nvidia graphics card) for many years now. One of the reasons I am considering it is simply, Windows 11. Now, I am not saying I am fond of Windows but, the truth is all my old games were really written FOR windows. I haven't played Skyrim in years. I can play a good number of games on Linux thanks to steam and thanks to Glorious Eggroll and his versions of Proton.
On the Mac, I am much more limited. The M1 architecture is still not being accepted for most gaming companies and while Apple has done some wonderful work with emulation... well... you know.
SO! I am considering a new build, even though I cannot REALLY afford it. The current build I have spec'ed out is around 1800.00 USD. And it will be the first build I've done with an Intel CPU in about a decade.
The other thing is two of the games I DO play on my mac and cannot currently get installed (easily) on my linux box are Star Stable Online and Diablo III. They would run perfectly on Windows.
Not to mention, thinking Diablo IV might work on the Mac as well, I purchased it early. But they have no plans on making it compatible with Mac OS or Linux so I am again, stuck with a pricey game I cannot play. (Hey, I know, that is MY fault, not the game company's fault).
Anyway, that's my update!
