October 27th

It was windy today:

so I didn't feel I was missing out on any flying :o)  I went and fixed a few loose electrical connections in the van, then looked at the sliding door central locking.  After a lot of investigation, I figured out that when you actually open the door, it moves the lock actuator, so when you then try to lock the door, it doesn't know where it is.  This is an artifact of how I connected the actuator, so I spent ages trying to get that to work, until I broke the steel rod that does all the work.  Luckily I have some welding rod, so I made a new rod out of that, and it seems to have fixed the problem.

I cut the grass in the wind, and called it a day.

October 26th

I have a list of things to do this weekend, so I started on the van... a while ago I repurposed the "key left in" buzzer as a "lights left on" buzzer, but now the ignition switch is getting old, it keeps thinking the key's in when it isn't.  And then the alarm won't arm and lock the doors.  So, I went out to look at motorcycle jackets, and while I was out, I bought a couple of diodes.  I've wired the lights and the ignition switch through diodes to the buzzer - this way the key won't turn the lights on, and the lights won't make the van think the key's in.  1 down...

I went to the airfield and run a new ground in, as I've had a few glitches from the EIS.  I decided to change the tyre on the front wheel, and managed to break the wheel taking it apart.  I went over to see if Vince might have a wheel, or even half a wheel from a similar break, but he doesn't, so the plane's down until I can get a new wheel.  It was incredibly tight, so Vince reckons it was most likely cracked when it was put together, but I swear I heard it crack.  He reckons I'd be fine to put a big washer on it so I could fly tomorrow, but I'm hoping a new wheel can be here during the week, so it's a lot of shag and hassle for 1 day's flying.

October 20th

I ran around trying to spend money and failed.

I went to Best Buy and looked at the TV I've been thinking about, and while they match online prices, they don't match anybody who sells the TV for less than they do.  I'm thinking "unauthorised" dealers can sell the TV at a profit, but below the price that the manufacturer wants them to sell it.  And I'm not likely to pay Best Buy an extra $400 (plus tax, of course) for nothing.

I've been thinking about getting a new motorcycle jacket, as my old Scott jacket is ~20 years old.  Cycle Gear has the one I like, but not in my size.  They have as many as you'd like in XL though.  At least it saved me from having to choose what colour to get.

I went to the airfield and tinkered around with the plane, then went for an hour or so aloft.  When I got back, Jack and Danny were just arriving, so I stuck around to see Danny's new navigation lights, which are pretty bright, especially his landing light, which is a hand held LED torch duct taped to the frame :o)

October 19th

I started the day playing Warcraft while I waited for things to warm up a bit, then went and ran some errands while wending my merry way to the airfield.  After trying some plastic polish on the screen of the plane (it's better, but the marks that were created by probably gas dripping on the screen before I bought it are still there) I went up for a flight.  It was bumpy, but I stayed up about an hour.

October 16th

I went to the EAA chapter meeting, and Frank talked about the CozyJet.  He saw it on EBay with 38 seconds left, and bid on it :o)

October 14th

I started the day stupidly early by driving the van in to San Francisco to spend the day in the office.  I got to drive over the new Bay Bridge, but it's partly surfaced in concrete, so you can be forgiven for missing the fact that it's new.  It seems to have fixed the traffic getting out of the city on to the bridge though... you now get to sit in traffic by Emeryville.

When I was on my way back to the van, I saw a Brammo Empulse on charge at the electric charger in the parking lot:

I'd like one, but the freeway range is listed at ~55 miles, so I'm not sure that'd be much use for me.


In related news, the van did just under 18mpg on the trip there and back (over 200 miles, including a bunch of slow traffic), so I'm guessing that the oxygen sensor has fixed my mileage problems.

October 13th

I started the day again playing with the mirrors on the van - I've bought (and installed) some 3/8" x 7/8" x 1/16" rubber washers, that look like that's what they were made to do.  Hopefully this is the end of the problems.

We watched the Sepang MotoGP race, and enjoyed it despite the poison dwarf winning.

I changed the oil in the Jeep, managing to throw the new oil all over the engine (I'm blaming this on the 5 quart container - I've dug out an old 1 quart container to decant oil into if we're doing this again), then cut the grass.

In the afternoon we went over to the airfield and barbecued.

October 12th

I started the day playing with the mirrors on the van again - the passenger mirror has been flopping in and down as I drive on the freeway.  I figured that the rubber isn't thick enough, so I added another layer of inner tube, then went to the airfield - the mirror still moved, but not as much.  I washed the worst of the crap off the plane, then went for a flight.  It was pretty bumpy, so I didn't do much at all, and ended up landing and chatting with the guys.

I went home and then Vic and I went out to dinner, as she wasn't working this evening.

October 7th

On my lunchtime bicycle ride, I almost ran into a tree that had fallen on the trail in the latest wind storm.  Glad I didn't ride on the 20+mph days now :o)

In the evening we watched the movie Flight that Sean lent us.  It was pretty good, and kept us guessing about what was going to happen right up until the end.

October 6th

I played about with the mirrors on the van, as the passenger door mirror folds in on the freeway.  I put a piece of rubber cut out of an old innertube in the mechanism, and hoped that'd fix it.  I also cleaned up all the contacts and got the horn working.  I tried putting a relay in there (it's a ground-switched system), but that didn't work, but it's a relay I'm unsure of - I didn't think I needed a 60A relay, so I've just taken it out for the moment.  I met Vic for lunch, then went over to the airfield and flew for about an hour.  The passenger side mirror folded in again on the way there.

October 5th

I spent the morning tinkering around with putting tar roof sealant in the front doors of the van, to help deaden sound, then met Vic for lunch.  I went from there to the airfield, where I went for a dart around in the Flightstar.  I was on downwind and spotted another Vanagon at the airport, so I stopped and said "hi" to Mark, then talked for about an hour :o)

October 4th

Vic got me some washers in one of her hunting expeditions, so I finally finally managed to get the passenger seat mounted in the van.  Yay.  I cleared all the tools away and vacuumed up all the crap that's been all over the van for the past 2 weeks :o)

October 3rd

It's been bloody windy today, to the point where I decided against cycling at lunch time:

After work, I managed to get the seat mount all built up and ready to go.  Of course, I need a few washers to finish it off completely, but I'm almost done.  I'd like to think I'd have finished it all last week if the seats had both been OK.

October 2nd

I finally decided to do some soldering for the running lights on the DRZ, and at the same time soldered in the new capacitors for the subwoofer.  The sub's working, and I got the DRZ wired up and back together.  Now if the vibration damping I've added doesn't stop the HID from failing, I'll at least have 2 pretty bright LEDs, so I won't get a ticket for not having a daytime headlight :o)

While I was doing all this, the replacement seat for the van showed up.  I've taken it out of the shipping box and put it all together, but that's all I had time for.

October 1st

A new month, so new stats:

Power billed

Power generated

And the DMARC stuff:

After work, I managed to get the remaining shelf back in the van, so now I'm just (still) waiting for the replacement front seat so I can get that mounted, and I'm finished for the moment.

I tried to get the running lights wired in on the DRZ, but didn't have enough of the mini spade connectors I'm using, so we went to get some of those while the mosquitoes took over the garage.  There's always tomorrow.

September 30th

Working all days sucks, doesn't it?  I have to wait for the evening to get things done.  I tried (and failed) to get the remaining shelf back into the van, so I started looking at some extra running lights for the DRZ.  I got them all figured out, but was getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes, so I called it a night.