Tuesday, April 26, 2016

April 24th

I spent the day tinkering with a new passenger seat in the van.  First I had to pull out the old seat, then I started working on installing the new one - after several tries, I have something that sort of works, but drags the mounting hardware when the seat swivels.  Still, I'll get smaller hardware (allen heads are deeper than bolts) and use that - I'll probably take the seat out to copy the mounting for the driver's side anyway.

I then played with some solar wiring, and ended up getting Vic to help me get everything plugged in.  A bunch of wiring is hanging out, but it at least works - I don't think the solar panel was charging the battery properly, as it wasn't plugged in that solidly.

April 23rd

After it rained yesterday, there were puffy cumulus clouds all over the place, promising a bumpy ride, so I ended up spending the afternoon at Roseville Honda chatting with Rich.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

April 17th

I started the day at the airfield helping get the hot air dirigible out.  After 2 hours getting it all unfurled, inflated and flying, the pilot did one circuit, blew the landing, managed to not hit any parked aircraft and tore the envelope on one of the lights.  We then spent 2 hours folding it up again.  I went home for a while, then went back and took the Flightstar out for a bit.  It was a bit bumpy over the light and dark fields, so I concentrated on flying over green fields.  I flew over the Camp Far West reservoir, and it's still full, but the overflow isn't... flowing any more.

April 16th

I went over to the airfield to cook for the pancake breakfast.  It was a lot quieter than last month.

When I got home, I worked on getting the fridge back into the van.  There was a lot of trimming involved, but I think it looks OK.

Friday, April 15, 2016

April 15th

I trimmed up the last of the laminate, so now I can just wait for it to finish drying so I can start assembling everything.

April 14th

I trimmed the edges of the laminate for the van with the new router, and got the last of the laminate glued down.  Now I just need to wait for it to dry out and finish out-gassing so I can start final cutting / assembly.

April 13th

I went out and picked up a cheap edge trim router, to work on the laminate for the van.  I had thought about filing it down, but it's a lot harder than I'd thought, so it was going to take forever.

I did a pile of work for the EAA website.

April 12th

I went over to the airfield for a safety meeting about the NTSB.

April 10th

The weather sucked, so I tinkered around the house.  I've rebuilt the old HTPC, and upgraded it to Windows 10 and installed Kodi, with a view to upgrading the new HTPC at some point - hopefully before Microsoft start charging for Windows 10 :o)

April 9th

I went over to the airfield for the Lincoln Regional Airport Association annual membership meeting, and the follow up safety meeting (which was about ADS-B, from the FAA perspective).  After that, we had lunch and I ended up hanging out doing things and stuff for a while.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Sunday, April 3, 2016

April 3rd

I started the day playing Warcraft, then ended up getting some more of the laminate for the van sorted out.  I'm going to have to wait for a router bit to trim off the excess, but Dad's suggested I can file it away, so I might try trimming it down to a lot closer with the Dremel, then finishing it up with a file.  I have spare wood and laminate if it doesn't work out :o)

In the afternoon I went over to the airfield and gave the plane a bit of a wash - it was sunny out, so it was drying as fast as I washed it and it's got water spots all over it, but that's better than dirt, I guess.  I went out for almost an hour just playing about.  When I got back, James from the skydiving mob apologised to me for bawling me out for flying through their drop zone weeks ago - I didn't, and he figured out he was yelling at me for something somebody else had done :o)

To top it off, on the way home, I had a knob end in a Cadillac CTS trying to push me to go faster down the freeway (aaand that's what cruise control is for).  He pulled off at the same exit I did, and trying to run the tight 90 degree corner at the end at the same speed I do (with a set of Bilstein heavy duty shocks on the Van) he lost his bottle, overbraked and was all over the road :o)  He didn't push me to go any faster from there :o)

Saturday, April 2, 2016

April 2nd

After playing Warcraft for a while, I went out and did some trimming with the laminate I'm going to use in the van.  I started gluing some to bits of wood until I ran out of clamps - we'll see how things turn out.

I went over to the airfield and took the plane out for a bunch of circuits, as the weather was pretty nice.

April 1st

A new month, so new stats:


Power paid for
Power generated
In the evening, I did a bunch of cutting for the cabinet in the van.  I think I'm ready to start fitting things together to see how it all fits together.

March 31st

I watched the release stream from the Tesla Model 3.  I didn't get up early and go to the dealer to put down a deposit, so it's unlikely I'd get one before the federal tax rebates run out.  The Chevy Bolt is looking like a better deal in that case :o)

March 27th

I just spent the day pottering about with things at the house :o)