September 27th

We pottered around the house until Tilly came back from her sleepover (very tired - I'm not sure that she slept much at all), then discovered that there's something wrong with Mum's camera, in that it's overexposing pretty much everything.  I can make it better by setting things manually, but that's not really a solution for a point and shoot camera.  She's taking my SX210 for the moment.

We drove to San Francisco (very slowly, the traffic was appalling) so I could go and do some work, and Mum and Dad can finish up their holiday in the city.  Work, yay.

September 26th

I spent the morning taking apart one of Mum's old cameras to replace the IR filter with visible light filters that'll turn it into an IR camera.  It works OK, but the pictures are out of focus, so I need to tinker with the CCD to lens distance to fix that.  It's OK though, as it looks like it needs more visible light filtering anyway.

In the afternoon we drove down to Los Gatos to have dinner with Vic's family down there.

September 25th

We went to Old Sacramento.  Well, eventually, as there are a bunch of detours that don't seem to work.  Having wandered around, we went to the railway museum.

September 24th

In the morning I toddled over to Sacramento and took the Sport Pilot written test.  It took me longer to ride over there than it took to do the test, but I passed (90%, yay).

We went in to the Galleria (again) to get the security tag taken off Mum's new trousers and to get some coffee.

In the evening, we went to a build it how you like pizza place.

September 23rd

We went to the Galleria so Mum could change her yoga trousers.  In the evening we went out to Ruth's Chris for steak.

September 22nd

We went in to Folsom, and wandered around old town, then went to the outlets.  Mum got some different yoga trousers, and were got maybe the worst service I've ever had at a coffee shop.

September 21st

We went to the Galleria and wandered around the shops.  Mum managed to get some yoga trousers.

September 20th

We went and did a photo session that Vic had won at a charity auction, then picked up Tilly and headed to Apple Hill to see the sights and taste wine.  Tilly was quite tired by the time we got back, thankfully.

September 19th

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day.  I had a meeting at the airport with the LRAA about their web site, and managed to not pick that up, and Dad got to go flying with Richard in his Mooney while he waited for me.  We met Mum and Vic for lunch, then pottered around Best Buy for a bit.

September 18th

Mum and Dad came in from the UK.  Their flight to Los Angeles was delayed, it was touch and go as to whether they'd get their connection to us, but they made it.  Tilly and I picked them up and brought them home.

September 16th

We went to the EAA membership meeting to watch the CalStar chopper arrive.  Lots to do coming up, it would seem.

September 15th

We had what seems to be the first power cut in years.  It reset all the mains-attached clocks, including the sprinkler controller, which fell back to its default program and started 30 minutes later.  Doy.

September 13th

Vic was at her 30 reunion, so I put the DRZ back together (I've decided I want the proper plug in connectors before I go any further), then waited for her to get back.  Then we watched the excellent MotoGP race :o)

September 12th

I got up early and headed to the airfield for the poker run.  It wasn't as well attended as last year, but we look to have at least broken even.  When I got home, my SDR had arrived in the mail, so I then tinkered about with receiving ADSB on the tablet I use in the plane.  It's too smoky (and I was too tired) to fly (a couple of planes in the poker run had given up on getting to Auburn because of the smoke), so I'll test it in the air some other time.

September 11th

I sloped out of work early and headed home.  It took me over 45 minutes to get to the Bay Bridge, confirming my theory that the human race is doomed, as we can't even perform the simplest of tool-based tasks (merging, in this case) without shitting all over ourselves.

September 10th

I got up stupid early and drove to the office.  I was crashing the night at Dave's, so we went for pizza and talked about our electronics projects.

September 7th

Today was Labor Day, when Americans celebrate the union movement by going shopping.

I spent most of the day fiddling with my RFID project, and it's not working the way I want it to.  I'd thought about stacked relays, but that doesn't seem to work either.  Bummer.

I went out to the airfield and tested the prop pitch - it seems OK.  The wind was coming from the North, so it was pretty bumpy, so I packed up and went home.

I watched "Dumb and Dumber To" - meh.

September 6th

We went out to get some supplies, and when we got home I changed the batteries in the ELT for the plane (the batteries needed replacing as of the end of August).  I pulled off all the bodywork on the bike to try and figure out where to put an RFID setup, and realised that my design wasn't going to work quite how I expected it to.  I'll have to do some tinkering, methinks.  Still, I did some soldering on the RFID setup I'll use, and most of that fits into a single box now.

I went to the airfield and took the plane out.  I wasn't getting anything like the rpms I wanted, so I repitched the prop to 0.025", and that made very little difference.  I took it to 0.033", and it was better, so I set it to 0.42", and left it at that as I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes by this point.  There were 3 powered parachutes playing around over by their landing circle, so hopefully that's a thing now.

September 5th

I started the day washing the solar panels (for probably the 3rd time this year), cleaning out the dryer vent and cleaning and refuelling the humming bird feeders.  Exciting stuff, eh?

I did some soldering, and went to the airfield to re-pitch the prop on the plane to try and reduce the EGTs a little.  When I got there, Richard and Charlie were finishing up tinkering with Charlie's RV.  He took it out for a taxi trial, and when he got back I ruined his day by pointing out a bubble in his new tyre.  I re-pitched the prop to 0.02", and headed home.

At home, we watched "Gone Girl".  Jeez, psychopath much?

September 2nd

I went over to Lincoln for the EAA board meeting.  Sadly I couldn't get out of everything, so I have some stuff to do.

September 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

August 31st

We were just sitting down to watch "Torchwood" when Rich called to ask us to pizza.  We'd eaten, but we went over for a chat anyway.