I've been sitting on a number of pictures in my phone for several years because I was always too lazy to figure out how to get them off of the phone, at least until today.

So, story time.

I start with the one time I was upgrading my PC (I think) and I failed to properly connect the floppy drive connector to the floppy drive. This is probably the only device in a PC where this is even possible these days, but I managed to do it 'cause I couldn't really see well enough to tell. A bit of smelling burning plastic later and my PSU looked like this:

Oops. I haven't actually tried using it again, although it would probably still work if I removed the damaged part.

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Some time later (a few years?) I got a new case (my old one was extremely loud) and iirc a new Motherboard, RAM, and CPU (i7-930). The case you see on the left is my old one (cleaned out).

Judging by all the crap in my room, this was probably the summer before my senior year of college. I don't think I still watched much SC2 even back then, but I needed some noise while I worked.

This is the new case (front). The color gradually changes through the spectrum.

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Like all good universities, mine had an abandoned medical complex nearby (through the woods and across a creek). I had no interest in actually going, but through peer pressure and a lack of things to do over the weekend, I somehow found myself wandering through a condemned, abandoned mental facility in the middle of the night with 6 other people.

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Very cleanly, imo. I had one of those winter masks on that covers the front of your face from below your eyes to a little below the chin, so I wasn't directly breathing any of that in. By the time we left, one of the girls there was saying her lungs were burning a little.

There was also a ~4 story high metal ladder they convinced me to climb. The base of it happened to be fairly close to a several story drop, also. Don't let go?

My roommates and his friend had poked around there before and his friend (the type you aren't sure if really brave or really stupid) had flipped a bunch of switches. They'd figured out that they could turn the power on to a large industrial exhaust fan in another room and then turn that on elsewhere (or at least I think it was turned on elsewhere and not after a certain amount of time.) He enjoyed that trick to scare people, but I already knew about it beforehand.

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You may recall that giant snowstorm that went through the east coast of the US a couple years back (2 feet of snow in back to back weekends.) Unfortunately for me, most of my work came from online classes which were unaffected by this. I did manage to dig out between the two storms (took ~2 hours since I had cars on either side and couldn't really dig well), which gave me enough time to hit the grocery store before the next one rolled in.

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A friend of mine went to our University his freshman year and then transferred to another school after that (probably to save money since our school was overpriced, but at least I had a scholarship). He came to visit a couple times a year, visits which typically involved alcohol. One snowy/sleety night, he was very drunk (although I think still mostly awake)

I guess they stole the cart from the nearby Safeway (grocery store). After that picture they went and pushed him around campus (it was probably 2-3am and mostly sleeting by the time he was outside).

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Car troubles. Craton has a LOT of car troubles. My car has been in the shop 3 times in the last 2 months and is going back in there likely this week (although this time because I got rear-ended, not because of falling apart old car). I noticed this fog light hanging under my car one day when I came out of the grocery store. I ended up duct-taping it to the front bumper and not getting it fixed for several months. Duct tape fixes everything.

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And finally, this is when my car hit 100,000 miles on the dot. I drove around my neighborhood to get the last mile. I'm up to ~116,000 now with a commute of 250 miles a week. My internship commute (which I was driving when I hit 100k) was 300 miles a week, but it was a much easier drive. Fuck traffic.

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Aerisky

United States12129 Posts

May 24 2012 00:18 GMT

Oh good god that medical complex place seriously looks like your stereotypical evil-guy-torturing-hero-and/or-innocents place (or zombie creation labs or something along those lines)...so creepy-looking. Also looks like something out of SCP maybe. Nice stories, glad you managed to figure out how to get them onto your comp/internet :D coolio!

When I read the title, I couldn't help but think of the terrible terrible cell phone pic of seohyun with the guitar though haha

Craton

United States17303 Posts

May 24 2012 00:55 GMT

Those were in the basement. The other floors looked more normal. Near those pictures was a boarded up tunnel, but I don't know where it went. Two of the guys I was with tried to get it open, but they couldn't get it to budge. Iirc they said it hadn't been boarded up when they'd come the last time, so security for the grounds probably had it done 'cause of all the college kids that wandered around.

Another building near that one burned down at some point. I think it was a few months or maybe the year before that outing. Some of the buildings also had asbestos warnings on the doors, but I didn't see one for the building we were in.

Aerisky

United States12129 Posts

May 24 2012 00:58 GMT

On May 24 2012 09:55 Craton wrote:
Those were in the basement. The other floors looked more normal. Near those pictures was a boarded up tunnel, but I don't know where it went. Two of the guys I was with tried to get it open, but they couldn't get it to budge. Iirc they said it hadn't been boarded up when they'd come the last time, so security for the grounds probably had it done 'cause of all the college kids that wandered around.

Another building near that one burned down at some point. I think it was a few months or maybe the year before that outing. Some of the buildings also had asbestos warnings on the doors, but I didn't see one for the building we were in.

you have a pretty sharp memory, maybe it was the excitement then/pictures now, but you sure remember the details :D asbestos x_x guess the one that burned down didn't have too much asbestos in it maybe lol

That snow is crazy though, here in california we don't even have seasons (hyperbole) and 50-60 degrees is freezing (at least to me)

Juliette

United States6003 Posts

May 24 2012 01:43 GMT

We need more Craton in fishnets. :p. but i really like this idea and the stories. Its great to remember some reallly fun times. Or creepy... ^^.

Craton

United States17303 Posts

May 24 2012 04:00 GMT

On May 24 2012 09:58 Aerisky wrote:

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I dunno, they were pretty notable moments.

The snow was extremely abnormal. It was the biggest snowball in more than my lifetime. We normally only get a couple days of snow a year and even then it's usually light and a lot of time doesn't even stick, but for whatever reason we got a ton. There was even more snow than those back to back two-footers, but that was just a couple inches here and there. Schools were out for like 2 weeks.

Last winter we didn't have snow at all the entire season, iirc.