February 25th

We went to dinner with Gwen and Walter, and when we got back, Tilly had got on the kitchen counter again, and this time she'd had her whole head in her cookie car, and had eaten as many as she could fit in her tummy.  I'm planning something to scare her, so she stops getting up on the counter.

February 24th

We went out to get a takeaway for dinner, and the Mook jumped up on the kitchen counter (most likely via the seats on the other side, as we've seen her do that) and ate half a loaf of bread.  We didn't realise she'd done it when we came in, even though she ran in to the kitchen.  We figured it out when I found the paper it had been wrapped in, and a bunch of crumbs.  I don't beat that dog enough.

February 23rd

I was pretty tired after yesterday, so we went to lunch, then picked up the stuff so I could change the oil on the Jeep.  Then I changed the oil on the Jeep.

February 22nd

After doing my daily stuff in Warcraft, I went over to the airfield and took the plane out for a bit.  Well, I say a bit - Danny expressed surprise at how long I'd been out, and I used a bunch of gas.  I never bother noting times, I use the Hobbs meter, which, unless I've made a mistake, showed I'd flow ~1:45 :o)  I had tried to take more pictures from the plane, but I set the camera to "manual" to get it to focus on infinity, and it seems to have taken the settings from when the hangar door was closed, so everything came out overexposed.  Oh well, there's always next time.

February 19th

We went to the EAA member meeting, where Tony talked about the suspension systems he's built to help the Super STOL guys get from landing in ~65' to landing in ~25'.  Yike!

February 18th

We watched "Ender's Game", which was actually pretty good.

February 17th

Today was President's Day, when Americans celebrate Abe Lincoln's birthday by going shopping.

I played around with the pictures I'd taken yesterday, and made this.

Otherwise, I was pretty tired, so I just did stuff around the house and played Warcraft.

February 16th

It was a really nice day, so after playing Warcraft while it warned up a little, I packed up my junk and went to the airfield and took the Flightstar out for an hour or so.  I set up my happy snap using CHDK to take pictures, but it looks like it's focused on the pod rather than the outside world, so meh.  John was available in the evening, so we went and met him for dinner.

February 15th

It was a cloudy and windy day, so I tinkered with a few things in the garage... notably insulation on the doors, and refitted the MPPT solar controller in the van.  John was about in the evening, so we went to dinner again.

February 13th

John's in town on business, so we met up for dinner.

February 10th

As it's been gray out for several days, the backup batteries on the rain sensor were dead.  As it wasn't raining, I pulled the ladder out and swapped them.

We also watched "The Bucket List" - I quite enjoyed it, even though it was in NarrowScreen.

February 9th

Another rainy day, so we just stayed in playing Warcraft.  We did have a quick run out to buy supplies.

February 8th

It's been raining a lot, so I stopped thinking about actually doing anything, as most of the stuff I wanted to do in the garage would be too cold.  In a sudden burst of wanting to achieve something this weekend, I went and put the motor back together for the hot water pump in the bathroom.  The motor runs just fine, so I put the little gearboxy thing that is actually the pump on, and managed to melt one of the cogs.  I think that's the problem then,the gearbox doesn't spin properly.  I doubt I'll be able to get a new gearbox for it, so I'm probably going to end up having to get a new one, but at least I know what the problem is now :o)

February 5th

We went to the EAA board meeting, where I picked up a few things to do, including organising something for the November membership meeting.  Hmmm...

February 2nd

After what would have been a normally quiet day yesterday, I was pretty tired out, so I just played Warcraft and read most of the day.

I've got most of my taxes finished - there are just a few forms to fill in by hand, but it looks like I'll owe money, so I'm in no rush :o)

February 1st

Being a new month, here are the solar statistics:

Power billed

Power generated

I'm feeling a fair bit better, especially after I get up and all the crap in my lungs works its way to the bottom again.  Vic wanted to look at chairs in IKEA again, so we took the van over there.  This time we bought the one next to the one she'd liked last time, which wasn't the one we'd gone to see.  Aaanyway...

On the way home, we decided to go and blag a test drive in an electric Smart, as I've had some stupid stuff running around in my head for a while.  It's like driving a little go-kart that doesn't burn fuel.  I liked it, but was upset that the really cool orange colour in the brochure they have isn't available.  At all.

That lead us to stop at the Chevy dealer, where I test drove an electric Spark, which isn't available in the smart green that the gas version is.  As I was stuck with the sales guy, I didn't have as much fun in the Spark, but it looks like it'd be a lot more practical.  If I decided we needed another car, which I'm really not sure we do.

When we got home, we put together Vic's IKEA purchases.  I don't understand why people say this is difficult, I really don't.

January 31st

Having spent the night in my own bed, and having taken a lot of cough medicine, I was feeling a bit better.  After work, I managed to put up a new light fixture in the guest bathroom, but that sort of thing's easy here, what with the plaster walls and Mickey Mouse electrical connectors :o)

January 30th

I still wasn't feeling well, so I stayed in my hotel room and worked from there.  Around lunch time, Dave offered to run me back to the van so I could head home, and I took him up on it.  It was a good run home, as there was pretty much no traffic.

January 29th

After a night of coughing, and I was still sick, I decided to skip the conference and just work from the hotel room.  At the end of the day, I went out and got some cough medicine and fruit juice, and had a slightly better night.

January 28th

I got up early and walked to the office for a day working.  At the end of the day, I was feeling pretty run down so I headed back to the hotel early, rather than hang out at the bar with everybody else.  I ended up going to bed pretty early, but I didn't sleep well, I spent the night coughing my lungs out.

January 27th

I got up stupidly early and drove the van down to San Francisco for the tech summit.  There was something weird going on, as the traffic on the Bay Bridge was the worst I've ever seen it - I was pretty much queueing from Emeryville.  After work, Dave drove Andy and me to the hotel (I left the van in the car park next to the office) so we could all go to the sales dinner.  It was in the 21st story "Starlight" room, with a great view of the city.

January 26th

I had been planning to go to San Francisco for the tech summit, but I decided to postpone my trip until Monday morning to save a night in a hotel.

This gave me the time to take out the Chili Pepper Appliance under the sink in the bathroom - it pumps water from the hot feed into the cold feed until it starts to heat up, meaning you wait maybe a minute for hot water while this thing runs, rather than 3-4 minutes with water being wasted down the drain.  Anyways, it's started making a lot of noise, but not actually pumping anything.  I took it apart (it's already broken, what's the worst that could happen?) and everything looks fine - the motor spins freely enough, the valves aren't stuck etc.  At some point I'll put it all back together and try to test it to see what's wrong, give up and just buy another one.

January 25th

I decided to look at why the inverter in the van isn't working.  I pulled the power wires going in to it, and plugged it in to my test battery, and it worked, so it was obviously a wiring problem, which I tracked down to a disconnected wire to the negative battery terminal - in all of the unplugging and replugging for the solar panels, it must have somehow got forgotten :o)  I like easy fixes, even when it annoys me that the problem happened in the first place :o)