May 30th

I did not sleep well, what with being in a tent, listening to Randy snoring and the 05:45 fly-pasts.  We packed everything up, then did a really thorough pre-flight, where I found a broken zip tie.  I went and grabbed a couple of ties from a guy in an open hangar at the end of the runway, and everything was fine.  I've now put a couple of zip ties in one of the pockets of the plane so this hopefully won't ever happen again.

After chatting with some guys, Chris took one of them up for a quick flight, then we threw his stuff back in his plane and headed out.  Tony had told us that the restaurant at Auburn is closed for a week, so we flew back to Lincoln and went to a restaurant on the main drag - the Spitfire Grill wasn't open yet.  After breakfast, we all headed our separate ways.

When I got home, Vic pointed out a tile hanging off the roof, so we got up there and took a look at it.  It came off easily enough, as the wood it was nailed to was rotten.  I've replaced one of these bits before, but I might get somebody to come out and take a look at the whole thing and quote me to fix anything that they can show me that needs doing, as I'm not a fan of working from the top of a ladder.

May 29th

Chris and I had decided to go to the Georgetown Fly-In, and we were going to camp there overnight.  I spent a little time getting all my stuff together, then headed for the airport.

I managed to get everything packed into the plane pretty well, and then I was early, so rather than meet Chris at Auburn, I figured I'd fly to Cameron Park and we could fly to Georgetown from there.  Just as I got to Cameron Park, he texted me to say he was running late, so I opened his hangar and waited a few minutes for him to get there.  We got t'other Chris' SportStar out, then pulled his gyro out and put the SportStar away.  The flight towards Georgetown was uneventful, but the airspace was busy there, so we got split up by other arriving aircraft.

I wondered why Chris was getting off at the end of the runway, rather than the first turn off, but when I got down there, it was because there was a plane waiting to take to the runway and back-taxi, so I had to fly a bit further and get off at the end too.

We got directed to a parking area at the front, just behind the Cal-Fire FireHawk helicopter, so we spent the rest of the day talking to people and trying to stop kids from playing with all the switches and controls.  T'other Chris flew over in the SportStar, but he was directed to park on the other side of the runway, because who wants to look at a SportStar?

When everything wound down, I went to put my tent up, and just as I got to the camp area, Randy flew over - he'd come after work, so we walked the flight line and sat around until it was too dark to do anything.

May 27th

The replacement weather station showed up and was installed.  Well, hooked to the wall - the old sensor package is currently working fine :o)

May 26th

I managed to pitch Vic's small tent (it's hard attaching the poles to the tent while they're under tension), so I'm still planning to try and camp at Georgetown :o)

May 25th

Chris is wanting to go and camp at Georgetown for their fly-in, so I tried putting up one of my old (very old - I brought them from the UK) tents.  The elastic is starting to age badly, but the biggest problem was not being able to get the poles through the fly sheet.  I gave up and threw it away.

May 23rd

Chris was wanting to take the RV-6A out for a proper trip, and I mentioned it to Bill, and he was interested in joining us.  The plan was initially to go to Half Moon Bay, but the weather there wasn't flyable, so we decided to go to Hollister instead, to see Chris' friend Jeff.  Part way there, Jeff texted to tell Chris he was going to Watsonville, so we diverted to go there.  We got there at 150mph before Jeff in his 100mph Cessna 140, and bimbled around the place until Chris got a delayed message from Jeff to say he was at Hollister, and the P-51 and L-39 based there were going to be flying.  So, we paused briefly to watch a gender reveal thing (they dumped blue powder from a helicopter) at Watsonville, then flew to Hollister just in time to watch them take off.

After lunch, we went and looked at the T-6 in Jeff's hangar, which is in much better condition than the very similar SNJ in our hangar, then flew back to Lincoln.

May 22nd

I picked Randy up on the way to the airport, then, as my ADS-B listener hasn't been logging any UAT traffic (again,) we flew towards the house before heading to Auburn to meet Chris for lunch.

At lunch, I checked to see if my listener had seen us, and it hadn't, so I rebooted it.  It never came back up :o(

Randy had a family thing, so we flew straight(ish) back.

I got to build a new RPi image for the ASD-B listener.  I used a different micro-SD card, as it's possible that the old one is throwing errors or something.

I have an odd wiring thing, where the socket by my desk has one always on socket, and one that's switched from the wall, so it can be a lamp or something.  The old surge protector I had was using the top (always on) socket, but I'm replacing it with a new one with two USB ports built in.  The new surge protector uses the bottom (switched) socket, so I took the whole thing out of the wall and swapped the power wires.  Obviously the switched socket was off, so I unplugged that first, then moved the always on wires to that (don't know which of my badly labelled circuit breakers goes there, can't be bothered to find out.)  I managed this without setting fire to the house or electrocuting myself (it's only 110v) in the process :o)

In te evening, we watched "Mortal Kombat."

May 21st

Today was "stuff arrives" day - first was my new office chair that I've been promising myself for about a year, but haven't got around to buying.  It took like 5 minutes to put it together :o)

Next was the new weather station.  I was hoping against hope that it would be the same protocol as the old one, so I didn't need to get up on the roof, and it was :o)  I set it up on my desk, going through the initial configuration and so on, then unplugged it and got it all ready on the wall, where setup would be uncomfortable.  It flashed once, then showed a black screen.  Uh... plugging and unplugging it several times made no difference, so that'll have to go back :o(

May 19th

I painted the blue wall in the office, mostly to find that the paint matches when you mix it properly :o)

Afterwards, I attended the Zoom EAA meeting with the NTSB guy again - more crashes :o(

May 18th

The weather station has been playing up recently, and yesterday it went all black screen of death, so I left it unplugged overnight.  When I plugged it in again, it flashed several times and there was a distinct smell of burning (and it's only 5V!)  I've ordered a new one.

I figured I'd patch the holes in the wall I'd hid behind the old console, but the paint looks different, so now I reckon I'm going to be painting the entire damned wall again :o(

May 16th

Randy came and picked me up and we flew to Auburn, where we met Vic, Tony, Stacey and John (who'd driven up from Walnut Creek) for brunch.

My radio worked just fine, but interestingly Randy said it hadn't been cutting out, rather it was getting distorted.  I'll have to investigate the resistance in the switch now.

After brunch, we wandered back.  It was turbulent in places, so I can only guess that Tony and Stacey were having less fun in the Legend Cub.

May 15th

I met Randy at the airport and we flew to Placerville to meet Chris, who was flying a kid for their Eagles program.

Randy had to get home, but Chris and I flew to Auburn for lunch.  I took a little diversion to fly over Don's house.  He didn't come out and wave :o(

When we were done, I meandered back to Lincoln.

I've been having problems with the push to talk switch, so Vic and I went back to the airport and replaced it.  This is like the 4th one I've put in, so I've brought the old one home rather than just throwing it away, to try and see why they're not lasting.  I'm starting to wonder if it's some sort of dry solder due to the vibration it gets.  We'll see.

May 12th

I went and got my second jab, so I'm expecting the mark of The Beast to start forming soon.  Still, I'm glad that's over and done with.

I managed to impress (I choose to believe) Vic by turning on the charger that she was standing by from my phone, when she'd texted to say she couldn't figure out how to do it.  It's the first time we've used EVGo, you see...

I the evening I attended a Zoom meeting of the San Carlos Flight Centre.  They talked about radio work.

May 11th

My new laptop showed up, so I spent the afternoon trying to remember all the stuff I want to install on it.

Vic's supposed to be working part time in the office, and part time at home - this is one of the reasons I've bought a new monitor - to free up some equipment so she doesn't need to cart all her stuff to and from work whenever she's working in the office.  She's been down in the Bay Area visiting her mother, so I took her work supplies stuff to pieces and built up her office with our stuff.  Now hopefully the only thing she needs to carry back and forth is her laptop.

May 9th

Chris and I agreed to meet up at Auburn.  It was pretty bloody windy, and I left Lincoln early.  I had thought I'd run around a little hill North of Camp Far West Lake, and then run up the Bear Creek canyon, but it was a bit too windy for that.  I just pottered back South and headed up as normal.

Wings was closed, which was an annoyance.  We walked over to the bar just behind the airport, but they weren't doing food until 12.  So we walked to the golf course, and found they were doing an event at $40 a head, and we weren't really dressed for it.  So we walked back and killed time until the food truck at the bar opened.

After lunch Chris headed back to Lincoln so I could give him some Dexcool for the radiator on his gyro, and we stood and talked to Tony for a while before heading home.

May 8th

It's the second Saturday in the month, so it was the Oroville display day.  I got up early and went to get some gas, then met Randy at the airport.  We'd expected it to be windy (forecast was ~11kts) but it was very windy, like gusting up to 30kts.  As neither of us was that bothered about going, we just had breakfast at Mary's and headed home.

I didn't do much at home, but I did manage to edit up a video of our flight over Folsom earlier in the week.

The bridge we pass is called "Hidden Bridge" because it's usually underwater :o(

I think my bright red hat is blowing out the colour in the video - I might try and find a darker one to see if it makes any difference :o)

May 7th

I had today off (it's a "Wellness Day" at the office,) so I caught up on some memes and dicked around with my work laptop.  I'd like to fix it, rather than get a new one, as setting a PC up is a PITA.

I found that it looks like the filesystem is ruined - it's saying the drive's "healthy", but "raw" rather than NTFS.  I don't know that there's a way back from that without reformatting it :o(

May 6th

My day started with my work laptop taking a dump, so I'm having to use my home desktop to try and get some work done.

The DMV are fun, aren't they?  My license expires in August, and they have this new Real ID thing if you want to get on a domestic flight.  I didn't really care, as I have to carry my green card anyway, but hey, you can scan your documents and apply online, so I did that.  "Thanks," they say, "now bring those in to the DMV and we can process your application."  <sigh>.  So, I went in, and one of the things the online application does is set you up with an appointment, so you don't have to wait.  I went in, and the guy at the appointments entry told me I needed to go to the main line, so I went and waited.  And waited.  There were only a few people in front of me, but they were all being told the wait was about an hour.  I got to the front and they asked what I was there for, so I showed them the appointment thing on my phone, and they said I should have gone to the other entry that was for appointments.  <sigh>.  Still, after about 15 minutes inside, I was all done.

Despite all this, I got away quickly enough to go to the post office and send my passport back to the UK  so I can get a new one.  I believe it'll be blue, and made in Poland.

May 5th

After work, I met Randy at the airport and we went and flew over Folsom Lake - I wanted to see the wildflowers, but sadly they're mostly done :o(  Still, shot some video of them, and we'll see how that comes out.

May 4th

May the Fourth be with you.

May 3rd

I noticed that since the last upgrade, my ADS-B listener hadn't seen any UAT traffic.  First step, reboot it.  Only it didn't come up again.  I ended up rebuilding the SD card to get it to work, then got the UAT listener to work again, so now I'm seeing data :o)

May 2nd

I picked Randy up on the way to the airport, and we flew to Auburn for breakfast - it was pretty bloody windy :o)

Bill was flying up to meet us, and Tony texted to see if we were there, so he came and joined us too.

It was pretty bloody windy on the way back (14kt, gusting 26kt) so Tony landed on the taxiway so he didn't have to taxi across the wind to get off the runway.  Randy landed and pulled off and stopped at the first exit to let his rotor spin down, so I flew up to the second exit so I could stop and let my rotor spin down too :o)

May 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

I picked Randy up and we headed to the airport.  Chris was there already, so we joined up to fly to Sutter for their display day.

The flight back was done at a lower level, so we didn't show up for most of it :o)