May 25th

The fence guys finished up the fence, and did the bit between us and Walter over the back while they were at it.  Yay, all done for now.

May 24th

We're getting the fence between us and Jim replaced, and after a few false starts, they arrived and started work.  Tilly was very upset about people stomping around in her garden, but calmed down a lot once she'd got to inspect their work.  She wasn't a fan of having to go out on the lead though.

I've saved the parts from the Snoopy mural that was on the fence, so I can figure out something to do with it, rotten wood and all.

May 21st

I started the day by changing the (leaking) radiator on the Jeep.  With Vic's help manhandling the thing in and out, it took me ~2.5 hours, from picking up tools to being done, including tidying everything away, and I'm calling that a success for now.  In the afternoon I went to the airfield and washed the plane, then took it for a flight.  It seemed to be running a little hot still, so I'm thinking that was down to the >90F air temperature as much as anything.

May 20th

After dinking about in Warcraft, I went to the airfield - Ken had suggested that the pitch on my prop needed changing, so I tried taking off ~1 degree.  It seemed to climb OK, but the extra RPM meant that the cylinder head temperatures got quite high, which was upsetting to have to watch.  When I got down, I set it back to where it was before.

May 18th

I'd taken the day off as a comp day, so obviously it was too windy to fly.

May 17th

It was the EAA membership meeting, so I went over to the airfield and cooked burgers, then listened to Richard Pearl talk about his crash last year (it was a cascade failure - one dumb decision after another).  Luckily, other than a scratch on his harm, he was unharmed, and hey, that's what we pay insurance for, right?

May 14th

It looked like it was going to be bumpy, as there were cumulus clouds popping up around the place.  I pulled the front of the Jeep apart to try and find the coolant leak.  I couldn't see anything leaking out, but I'm pretty sure it is the radiator, so screw it, I'll get a new radiator and replace the replacement that we had fitted just over 2 years ago (that comes with a 2 year parts warranty).  I put everything back together so Vic can still drive out while we're waiting for the parts to come in.

In the afternoon, we went out to the airfield so I could change out a dead strobe bulb.  The plane was on the other side of the hangar, as the Mooney's gone, but at least it's still at the front :o)  Everything went swimmingly until I turned the power on, and the engine tried to start.  There was a loose wire (found the screw on the floor), so I got to deal with that too.  Anyway, strobe replaced, wire reattached (and taped up so it won't try and start the plane if it were to drop off again) and everything seems to work.

May 13th

I started the day at the airfield, where Scott gave a presentation on the scrapping of the WWII air force (there were a load of Mustangs at McClellan).  Gary said it had been very bumpy, and he flew as the sun came up, so I gave up on flying and went home and worked on the EAA web site.

May 7th

I pottered around the house until it started to cool down, then went to the airfield and went out for a flight.  It was pretty windy, but fairly constant, so not too bad.

May 6th

I got up early and headed to the airport for the EAA pancake breakfast.

We then flew out to Sutter for their open hangar day - we've decided to do some flyouts as a group this year, and 12 people in 6 aircraft went.  I flew with Ron in his Columbia 400 - it's nice to see how the other half lives.

Back at Lincoln, I installed the repaired strobe controller, only to find I have a dead bulb.  I chatted with people, heckled Steve working on the Thunder Mustang and eventually went out for a few circuits - it was getting bumpy as there was a front on the way in, so I cut that short.

May 4th

Happy Star Wars Day!

I switched the houses from trying to warm itself up to trying to cool itself down.  It's supposed to be cool over the weekend, but then it'll probably be hot until November :o)

May 3rd

I went to Lincoln for the EAA board meeting.  There's still a lot of annoying stuff going on with the city and the ground rents for the hangars, and I'm looking forward to not having to deal with this any more.  By the sound of things, there's a non-zero chance that the city will screw up the airport completely and it'll become a ghost town.

May 1st

It's a new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

April 30th

I didn't feel great today, so I just played Warcraft and caught up on TV.

April 29th

The wind was gusty, and I didn't feel like fighting with it, so I just wasted the day around the house.