Monday, December 27, 2021

December 26th

Dad had complained about not being able to swing the camera around in the Insta360 videos, so I created a quick one around the dam on the Far West Lake reservoir.  it's about 1 minute 22 seconds long, and some 1.8Gb in size, so it took about an hour to upload to the YouTub.  Where they immediately went to work over compressing the whole thing.

We met the flying gang for lunch at In 'N Out.

Sunday, December 26, 2021

December 25th

It was raining, so we spent the day inside.

We watched "Venom: Let There Be Carnage."

December 24th

As Xmas is on Saturday, we got the Friday off.  Yay, 3 day weekend.

I met Shane at the airport so we could look at this parking brake thing he's been playing with.  The wind was gusting to 21 knots almost straight across the runway (220, the runway's 150 degrees) and we didn't have to fly, so we didn't.

At home, we watched "No Time To Die."

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

December 21st

I went and got the COVID booster shot.  I'm still not magnetic, but I'm hoping my balls don't swell up.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

December 20th

Vic's new PC arrived - it's a pre-built HP system with an RTX 3060Ti, and after a few hours copying data from her old Alienware Alpha, we had it playing Warcraft with everything turned up to 11 at 60fps (the fastest speed the monitor can display).

Monday, December 20, 2021

December 19th

I went and met Shane and Liza at the airport so we could drill a couple of holes and put his throttle unit back together.  We also checked my wiring of his old headset, and that worked, so we put that into his Team Wendy helmet.

It was pretty crappy, but the AWOS was saying 1700', so we took off to go for a little flight.  Our little flight ended up being even smaller than we'd hoped before heading back, but I did get to grab a short section of video of my flying alongside him before we headed back.



Sunday, December 19, 2021

December 18th

I was on call, so I got to keep the queue at work cleared out.

It was foggy today, so we drove up to Auburn to meet Chris for breakfast.  He was late, but flying back from Tahoe, so we didn't give him too much grief.

After clearing out some stuff at work, I went to the airport to help Shane tinker with the parking brake on his gyro.  After trying for ages to drill a hole in a bracket, I said "it's almost like this is stainless steel."  Shane pointed out that stainless isn't magnetic, and sure enough when we tested it with a magnet, it was stainless.  He's gone to Home Depot on the way home to get some cobalt tipped drills.

I tested my new Lightspeed headset, and it seems to work.  It'll be nice to fly with it when the fog lifts.

Shane has been fiddling with helmets as well, and managed to completely screw up a headset trying to get it apart to install, so this evening I sat and rewired it.  I thought I'd done a pretty good job until I went to put some heat shrink over the joins (that were already heat shrinked) and realised that the heat shrink I'd put over the wires was too small to get over the new bundle because it all had heat shrink on it.  Still, I guess that's what electrical tape is for :o)

Saturday, December 18, 2021

December 17th

It was an exciting day.

First of all, I'd bought a refurbished Lightspeed headset, but it had arrived with all the refurbished parts just missing.  A brand new refurbishing set arrived today, and I installed that.  Just need to test it now.

Then my Sky Cowboy helmet showed up, so I spent a little time installing the David Clark headset into it.  They don't have instructions, so we took a bunch of pictures while doing it.



Thursday, December 16, 2021

December 16th

Vic had her surgery check up today, and it sounds like she'll probably pull through.

I screwed around with the Insta360 footage from the weekend and created another YouTub video.



December 15th

 We watched "Jungle Cruise."

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

December 14th

After we'd caught up on some TV, I sat and played with the video from the Insta360 that I shot on Saturday.



Monday, December 13, 2021

December 12th

It's raining, so we picked Shane up in the car and met Chris, Bill and PJ for lunch.

In the evening, we watched "Black Widow."

Saturday, December 11, 2021

December 11th

I've now got an Insta360 camera, so I took the plane out for a little spin to test it.

Shane was out at the same time and aiming to fly over his house, so I lent him the old GoPro 7.

Chris got dropped back at Lincoln, so we had lunch before he headed back to Cameron Park.

The camera's worked well, now I just need to play with the footage.

December 10th

I went and picked up the carb balancer from Ken, then met Randy at the airport and helped him finish up the annual on Chris' gyro.

Thursday, December 9, 2021

December 9th

Vic was feeling a lot better after a night's sleep, so we even went out and got lunch and brought it home - she wanted to get out of the house for a bit, but she's not allowed to drive for a while.  Probably the drugs she's on, we think.

In the afternoon I went to the airport to help Randy finish up the annual on Chris's gyro, but we still need to do the carb sync - his wife called to remind him of an appointment he'd forgotten, so I sent him home and cleared up before going home too.  The plan is to finish up tomorrow.

December 8th

Vic's operation was today, so we were up in the dark to get her to the hospital at 05:30.  After the initial check in talk, I was sent home.

About 09:30, while I was in the shower, they left a message to say she was out of surgery and in the recovery room, so I headed over to the hospital to pick her up - they'd said it would be about an hour in the recovery room until she could go home.  I waited in the parking lot until about 10:45 and called them to see how she was doing, and they said she'd probably be out at around 11:30, so I drove around for a bit, then went back and sat playing games on my phone.

At about 12:20, they called to say to pick her up at 12:45, so I waited a while then drove over to the pick up area.  There they called to say she wasn't doing great, so they'd call me when she was.

I had a little old lady with a walker come and ask me if I was a Lyft driver, which I wasn't, but I told her they're supposed to have that stupid pink moustache.  I'd probably have run her home if I'd known when exactly Vic was going to be discharged.

I got a text from Vic to say she was coming down around 13:30, so I stopped playing games on my phone and watched the door until she arrived around 13:45.

She was feeling nauseous when going around corners, so we drove home very carefully, and she went to bed.  She was very sore.

The vet had called her phone, rather than mine, and wanted to talk.  I called them, and it seems Tilly has an elevated alkaline phosphatase (ALP) level - normal is between 5 and 160, and she's at 300 and something, indicating possibly liver cancer.  We had a long chat about quality vs quantity, and I figured we don't want to risk putting a 14 year old dog under anaesthetic to do an ultrasound when the treatment for liver cancer wouldn't be great.  As it seems her ALP level was around 250 in January 2020, I'm not particularly worried about cancer getting her before just dumb old age does.  We'll just keep an eye out for abdominal discomfort and jaundice which would suggest liver problems that we should look into.

December 7th

We took Tilly to the vet for her annual inspection, and he was very happy with her condition "for a 14 year old dog," which is comforting.

December 6th

I've taken the week off, and today was supposed to be Tilly's annual inspection, but the vet cancelled it on Friday night, after the office was closed.  I then got 2 different reminders about appointments, one for 08:40 (the original appointment) and one for 10:00, so I was thinking that maybe they'd just moved us to a different appointment, so I called them as soon as they'd opened, and ended up making a new appointment for Tuesday.

Sunday, December 5, 2021

December 5th

There was a screwup about the space in the hangar, so I ended up meeting Todd at the hangar to sort stuff out.  As the cloud base was about 100', I ended up driving up to Auburn to meet Chris for brunch.

When I got home, we took Tilly to get her picture with Santa.  She was not impressed.

December 4th

I started the day at the airport for the EAA pancake breakfast.  It was a little foggy.

Chris showed up with Tim, and we spent a few hours getting his gyroplane ready for its annual inspection - hopefully next week.  I also got the rest of my 100 hour service done and out of the way.

Friday, December 3, 2021

December 2nd

I went to the EAA IMC/VMC meeting on its new home of the first Thursday in the month.

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

December 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats.

Power billed
Power generated

November 30th

At the weekend we'd discovered that Chris's annual inspection was due on his gyroplane at the end of the month, so he flew it to Lincoln and dumped it in our hangar before it got dark.  I went and picked him up and took him to Granite Bay so we could meet his wife for dinner, and she could take him home when we were done :o)