October 25th

We started the day watching the frustrating MotoGP race.  I'm a Rossi fan, but the whole incident was a total mess - the few laps before it looked to me like Marquez was deliberately slowing Rossi down after the press conference where Rossi said Marquez was slowing him down.  Eh, what do I know?  I'm pretty sure Rossi's championship is over after the race direction penalty.

I finished off the pilot's operating handbook, and now it's a lot more legible.  I went to the airfield with a plan to centre the rudder pedals (I'd noticed that the pedals aren't level when steering straight).  Getting the nose wheel straight was pretty simple, but then I decided to get the rudder itself centred - it's off a tiny amount.  I undid the cables, but couldn't get them back together no matter how loudly I swore at them, so I went home.  Vic needed to run some errands, so we did that, and stopped at the airfield and got the cables all sorted out.

October 24th

I spent the morning clearing up stuff at work, then I made a start on typing up the pilot's operating handbook for the plane - the version I have is a bit of a mess, and it a poor quality photocopy, so I'm starting from scratch, and taking out the unnecessary stuff (engines, equipment I don't have and suchlike).

I went to the airfield and played with the fuel probe again.  Still no joy - it's reporting 3V when it should be reporting 5V :o(

I took the plane out for a flight around the patch, and ended up talking to Jack for a while when I got back.

October 20th

I went and got the van smogged.  It passed pretty easily - all the measurements were way below what it needed to score.  Yay.  I went home and paid my registration, so now I'm good for another 2 years.

Vic's been good, so I let her help me change the innertube on the bicycle.  I'm trying one of the snot filled tubes - the idea is that the snot plugs the hole before the tyre goes completely flat.

October 19th

I couldn't go for my bicycle ride today, as I had a thorn that's gone through the extra-thick part of the innertube on the front wheel.  Jeez.

I went to try and get the van smogged, but the nearest smog station had gone home early, by which time it was too late to try somewhere else.

October 18th

I started the day really early at the airfield, cooking breakfast at a Young Eagles event.  We (well, they) flew 45 kids after waiting for the cloud cover to raise above 1,000'.

After that I went home and we watched the amazing MotoGp race from Australia, then "Fast & Furious 7".  It rained again in the afternoon, so I felt better about not trying to fly.  Later on, we watched "One Day".

October 17th

I had been aiming to go to the Golden West flyin, but it threw it down with rain most of the early, early morning, and was threatening to rain again.  I went to the airfield anyway, to install new spark plugs (one I took out had the electrode completely blown away, but seems to have still been firing) and a power lead for the fuel level probe.  That's still not working properly, even though it's now getting a good, fat 12v.  I need to investigate further, methinks.

On the way home, I stopped in to try and get the van smogged, to be told that the DMV doesn't seem to have any data on the Executive Order that covers the engine conversion, meaning they can't smog it.  I'll try and find a smog station that doesn't look that closely, or I'll have to talk to a referee, or even look at getting a new damned engine.

In the evening, we watched "Avengers: Age of Ultron".

October 11th

We went to the Aerospace Museum to meet the EAA members and get a tour of the F-4 there.  After being given the impression that there would be a whole load of us, there were only 5 in the end, which was a little disappointing.  Aaanyway... Mike showed us around the whole ramp, and everybody got to climb into the cockpit of the F-4.  Four of us then went for lunch.

In the afternoon, I did a little tinkering on the plane, then took it for a flight.  As it was later in the day, the air was nice and smooth.

After dinner with Richard (his wife's out of town, so he gets to live like a bachelor for a change), we watched the excellent MotoGP race from Motegi.  Sadly anybody but Pedrosa didn't win.

October 10th

I got up early and headed to the airport, to join the others flying to the Ragwing Roundup at Sutter.  Hey, it was an excuse for a flight :o)  It took about 30 minutes to get there, with a decent tailwind (I saw a ground speed of almost 70mph!), but it took 45 minutes to get back again (again, I saw a ground speed of 36mph).  There were about 70 aircraft that flew in, so hopefully they'll consider it a success and do it again :o)

October 9th

We finally got around to watching the new Mad Max movie :o)

October 8th

Well, we survived the end of the world.  Again.

October 7th

It was the EAA board meeting, so I bumbled over for that, then stood around outside and talked to Jack for over an hour :o)

October 6th

The SD card on the Raspberry Pi that looks after DNS and DHCP took a dump, meaning I had to go back to the locked down (and slow) configuration on the router for a while.  In the evening, I rebuilt it (on a later version of Wheezy than it had been running), and even documented what I did, for next time.

I think it's a power problem, as the RPi's sharing a non-powered USB hub for power, so I've used a little USB battery as a UPS - if it needs more than the ~1A it can get from the hub, it can suck up the battery, and in the event of an(other) power supply, it'll be fine for longer than the router's UPS :o)

October 4th

Having pottered around most of the morning, I went over to the airfield hoping to go flying.  I pre-flighted the plane and pulled it out, then saw a fire engine driving up the taxiway.  That's not good.  There was a little crowd forming, so I went over and asked what had happened - Richard had ground looped his biplane on landing, and broken the undercarriage.  When Steve came over looking for levers, we asked him what he needed, and he needed a way of carrying 8' 2x4s, so we threw them in the van and went over to see what was up.  As we got there, they had an engine winch holding up the front of the plane, and they were just breaking the wheel off trying to bend it straight again.  There was damage from a prop strike, and one wing was creased, too.  Richard had a scratch on his arm from climbing out.  We eventually used the engine winch to drag the plane off the runway, so the circling 172 and Citation could land, then pulled it back to Richard's hangar (he used to be in with Jack, but no longer).  At this point, Tony showed up and we put the gliding mob's golf cart behind my plane (they currently have their glider and tow plane in our hangar).  He was flying down to Modesto to drop somebody off, and I didn't feel like flying my plane any more, so I hopped in and went with him.  I haven't flown at night for ages, so that was an experience, too.

October 3rd

We went over to the airport and installed the new fuel probe - hopefully this'll be the last thing I need to do until the next thing I break while screwing around with something completely different :o)

I had intended to go flying in the afternoon, but it was pretty windy, so I decided against that.

October 2nd

After a day in the office, I spent 4 hours driving home.  Joy.  I was happy to get home, and Tilly was happy to get the van back.

October 1st

A new month, so new solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

Today was the last day of the enginerding conference, so we had a team building exercise - a scavenger hunt around Fisherman's Wharf.

September 30th

Today was the 2nd day of the enginerding conference, so more listening ensued.

September 29th

Today was the first day of the enginerding conference at work, so I spent the day listening to people saying things about stuff.

September 28th

I spent the day in the office, complaining about how much less efficient I am without my home setup.