November 30th

I started out playing with the new fondleslab, and got it working so that it can finish doing its setup before I went to work.

November 29th

I started out the day playing with the new smoke alarms... I have 3 set up and working, 1 not working and 2 still in their boxes.  The non-working one still didn't work, so I tried the others, and they didn't work either.  Joy!  I called Nest, and the guy wasn't really much help, so I suggested I restart everything and call them back if that didn't work.  I tried setting static IPs for the Nests (I can get the MAC address from the router, so they are joining my 2.4GHz network), but that didn't help, so I called them back.  This time I got cut off when they were passing me through to a specialist, so I called back again and got Heather.  After a few tries of doing this and that, she suggested renaming my 5GHz network, as I was pretty sure my phone was on that, and the Nest Protects only talk on 2.4GHz.  Good to know - I've seen the thermostat switch to 5GHz.  That got the 2 alarms I'd unboxed today to work, but the last one still didn't work.  They'll just send me a replacement.  Off the phone, I got the alarms installed on the roof - in the hallway, art and critter rooms that's just a set of steps, but in the kitchen I did my usual climb on top of the fridge, crawl along the ledge thing and installed the new alarm there.  In the bedroom, I needed the long ladder, which I don't like using at the best of times.  Anyway, it's done now, so all I need is the new alarm and I'll install that in the guest room and I'm set.

My new fondleslab (yay! Black Friday sales!) arrived, so I left that updating and charging and went to work.  I played with it a bit after work, and it sees our network as not connected to the interweb, so I left it for the night.

November 28th

After being woken up a few weeks ago by a smoke alarm beeping for a new backup battery,  I've bought new smoke alarms, as apparently they only last 10 years, and I've been here for 16.  Anyway, they arrived today, so I got started installing them.  You do all the WiFi setup to the first one, then they should be able to sync themselves.  I got 2 set up, then the next 2 would fail when "adding to your Nest account".  Sounds like a problem with their account system, so I ended up calling them about it.  We managed to get one to work, but the next one wouldn't, so we agreed to leave it a few hours like the error message suggested.  Just as well, as I needed to get set for work anyway.

November 27th

The new battery for the Roomba came in, so I took that apart and replaced the old one.  Without charging it, I set it out to vacuum up the pet hair, and it ran for about an hour and half before the battery died (vs about 5 minutes on the old battery), so I think we'll call that fixed.

November 26th

I started the day trying to figure out what to do with myself, as it was raining, then remembered that I get to work today.  Oh well, hopefully the weather's better on Friday, when I should have the day off.

November 25th

I'd intended to go flying, but the forecast showed the visibility disappearing down to 2 miles (illegal to fly VFR), even though it didn't look too bad from the house.  In the end, I changed the reversing bulbs in the van for some little white LED panels I've had in my "projects" box for a while, as the last time I reversed at night, I couldn't see anything behind me.

We watched several episodes of "Vikings", including several repeats of a damned Buick advert _each_break_.  We've decided that advert costs on the History channel's streaming service are low, and that we should advertise something.

November 24th

I took the washing machine apart again to fix a rattle created by my leaving a clip loose, and found where the left over screw went :o)

We went to the airport and took the plane out for a bit.  Didn't go far, as it was starting to get foggy around us.

In the evening, we watched "Get Out".

November 23rd

Thanksgiving.  Turkey armageddon.    I was in charge of potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, and in between working and taking the washing machine apart to clear a blockage (and what a blockage!), managed to not totally ruin them.  We watched "The Great Wall" while eating, and that was pretty good.  I was most grateful that it didn't turn into a damn love story.

November 22nd

I got a text from Todd, apparently the hangar doors are fixed :o)

November 21st

I took Tilly to the vet's for her annual.  She had a few injections, and spent the afternoon sleeping.   She was stiff in her legs where the injections were when she got up, so I spent a few minutes worrying about her, but she's fine.

November 20th

I went to the eye-quack.  I need new glasses again, and spent a while walking around with dilated pupils - I always hate that.

November 19th

I'm covering our APAC enginerd, who's on holiday for the next 3 weeks, so I pottered around doing pretty much nothing, then started work at 14:00.

November 18th

I started the day going over to the airport to meet Dennis to sell him one of my old Rotax 503s.  I preflighted the Flightstar, then found one of the hangar doors is totally jammed, so I can't get the damned plane out.  When Dennis arrived, we loaded the engine up in his car, and then he and his friend Jerry went for experience flights with Ken in the gyroplane.

I bailed out and went home to get ready, then met Russ in Sacramento to go and see Guns and Roses at the Golden 1 stadium.  I'd like to thank the Sacramento taxpayers for building a new stadium for the billionaire Maloof brothers' basketball team, as it's actually a pretty nice arena.  There wasn't a backup band, so they started at 20:00 and finished shortly before midnight!

November 15th

I went to the EAA meeting, where we voted for the board next year.  I'm not on it :o)

November 14th

I went back to the airfield to try and get the flywheel off the 503.  The penetrating oil hadn't helped, so I started adding heat to the flywheel until it popped it off.  Yay :o)

November 13th

From talking to Ken, the guy who's looking at buying one of my 503 engines doesn't want or need the flywheel to the gearbox, so I figured I should pull that.  Vic got me a 3 jaw puller assortment, so I took that over to the airfield and got it all hooked up and tried to yank the flywheel free.  No dice.  I've got it as tight as I can get it by myself, so I sprayed some penetrating oil on it and left for the evening.

November 12th

I started the day doing some updating on the EAA website, then I went to the airport to talk to Bruce for the newsletter.

I then met a guy about one of the gearboxes I have for sale - he took it, but later discovered that he'd left a part in the hangar.  Oh well, he can pick that up later.

I went over to the powered parachute flyin to see what was going on, and to watch some of the guys leave for a little flight.  I took the Flightstar out for a bit, but it was cold and bumpy, so I wasn't gone for long.

November 11th

I started the day at the airport, cooking breakfasts.  We had hoped that the guys from the powered parachute flyin were coming over to join us, but they flew later because they'd had to wait for the for to burn off.

I took a load of tools with me, to work on the gearbox that's on the 503, and that came off really quickly.  There were a bunch of gyroplanes there, as everybody was waiting to see Larry fly his Tangogyro, but a check engine light grounded that, so I went up in the Flightstar for a bit.  It was pretty cold, so I was unimpressed when a guy in a Mooney asked us to extend to allow him to do a 6 mile instrument approach - I could have got in and landed in the time it took him to get there.

In the evening, I spent a little time getting Kodi working as the default media centre application working, so we'll see how that works out.

November 8th

I took the van to get the wheels balanced, and rotated while we're at it.

When they bring a vehicle in to the bay, they beep the horn to alert their cow-orkers that they're coming in - the guy who drove the van in liked the horn, so he beeped it over and over again.  It's such a friendly little sound, after all :o)

The balance was only off on one wheel, so I now have a new weight to paint, and I need to do the centre caps again now they've been off.

November 7th

The Proofpoint buyout press release went out, and we had a meeting with the Proofpoint manager and HR person.  They seem nice, but for the moment everything'll continue as it is now.

November 6th

We had an all-hands meeting at work to find out we're being bought out by Proofpoint.  Sadly it's not for billions of dollars, so I won't be retiring any time soon.

November 5th

The clocks went back, so I got up at an ungodly hour, and ended up changing all the clocks in the house.

After wasting time around the house, I went to the airfield to see the guy about the engine.  He seems interested, but we couldn't split the engine from the gearbox, so I'll sort that out and call him back.  Of course, by the time we'd finished cursing at it, it was too late to fly (it now gets dark at 17:00).

November 4th

It's started raining, so I'm thinking summer's done with.

I've been corresponding with somebody who's interested in buying one of the old plane engines I have.  I was supposed to meet him at the airport in the afternoon, so I headed over there early to get some safety wiring done on the plane before he showed up.  Well, he didn't show up, so I ended up going home.  He called to say he was having some problems with a pickup he was doing in Folsom, but that he hoped to get over later.  Later came, and he called again to say he was picking up an ultralight, and the truck he'd rented had thrown it's reverse gear, so he'd been spending a lot of time and effort getting that sorted out, so was going home.  Fine, we'll try again tomorrow, maybe.

In the evening, we watched "War for the Planet of the Apes", and it was pretty good.  I'm hoping they'll leave it there, as the trilogy tells the story of Caesar's life, but I'm pretty sure they won't.

November 1st

A new month, so here's the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

In the evening, I went to the EAA board meeting, where things and stuff were discussed.