Shane, Randy (and his friend Nick) and I flew up to Oroville for lunch. As we were too low, there's not much of an ADS-B trace for us, in either direction. We went going East of Beale, and came back going West along the Feather River.
As Shane's given me the Inst360 back, we agreed that I could use the footage of me taking off behind him last weekend. So, totally computer prepared...
Shane and I went and flew a couple of his friends up to Auburn to meet loads of people.
On the way back, we went down the Bear Creek canyon to Camp Far West Lake reservoir and home.
I got home to my Xfinity bill, and it's gone up $3. I found that I can get 600Mb/s (rather than 100Mb/s) for an extra $2, so I went for that. My current modem can only do ~250Mb/s, so now I get to go shopping for a new one :o)
Tilly's off the anti-nausea medicine, and doesn't seem any different, so I think that whole episode is behind us. She did get to shout at the painters next door when she finally noticed them through our kitchen window. We've closed the blinds so she can't see them any more.
I met Randy, Shane and Liza at the airport and we flew to Auburn for brunch - PJ flew in (rather that drive as usual) in his Zenith :o) It was a lot less windy than yesterday.
We flew back down the Bear Creek canyon - a helicopter obviously saw us on his ADS-B and flew along chatting on the radio for a short while :o)
I passed 1,000 hours of flight time on my way back to Lincoln :o)
Randy and I looked at my still squeaking brakes - the only thing I can find is a missing bolt in the wheel that I'll have to replace. There are 5 more, so it's not a big deal :o)
I met Shane at the airport and checked my brakes, then put everything back together and flew to Auburn to meet Chris, Jackie, Bill, William and PJ for brunch. It was blowing a gale at Lincoln, and I'd have stayed and played around with it if I weren't running a little late. I was at ~1200' by the middle of the runway, with a ground speed of 25kts on my GPS :o)
I flew over Ken's on the way home, but he wasn't out to wave at me :o(
Today was Martin Luther King day, when Americans celebrate the civil rights icon by going shopping.
I picked up a poster print I'd ordered like 2 weeks ago, that'd been sitting at Walmart since Monday but wasn't able to be picked up until Saturday afternoon.
After that I went to the airport and totally rebuilt the brakes on the plane with new O rings. Again. I'm hoping this time I've fixed everything and it'll all be sunshine and rainbows from here on out. I also helped Shane install a new webbing tie down for his cyclic, to replace the awful sprung wire one he had. That actually took a lot longer than I'd anticipated.
After getting a new gas meter installed (our past 2 bills were below $5), I started the day at the airport installing a little hat on the bendix for the plane - the old one came off at some point.
Shane, Lisa, Randy and I then flew up to Auburn to meet Chris and PJ for brunch.
I've lent the 360 camera to Shane and Lisa to try out, so we all flew back down the North Fork of the American River canyon on the way home.
John came out to meet us in Lincoln in his MGB - it arrived on Thursday, and he's looking to get some miles on it. With the Miata / MX5 engine and supercharger, it's very quick :o)
I picked Randy up on the way to the airport, and we flew to Oroville to meet the Chrises, Bill and William for lunch.
When I got home, the memory for Vic's new computer was here (HP wanted $100 to go from 8Gb to 16Gb, and I bought 32Gb outright for $80) so I installed that. I've put the spare 8Gb (4Gbx2, obviously) in the media centre PC, so it now has 16Gb too.
Tilly's back to waking up to go out at night (as she was before The Event) but at least I don't have to go out with her any more :o)
I had the day off to get some stuff done, and after I'd cut the grass, dropped off the recycling and been to the dentist, I went to the airport and tinkered with the brakes a little - it's occurred to me that they're always on slightly, so I've been tweaking cable tension and piston preloads trying to fix that. They still squeaked when I went out for a flight, but I'm telling myself they're better. I've ordered the O rings for a(nother) total rebuild, but they won't be here until the weekend.
Tilly slept through the night, and seems a lot more normal. She does seem to spend most of her time with her head tilted to the side now, but that's a small price to pay :o)
In the evening, I attended an EAA meeting on ground reference manoeuvres, which was maybe a little less wonderful than I'd hoped :o)
Tilly's eyes don't seem to be wandering as much, but she's still a little discombobulated, meaning we were up at around 04:00 for an hour or so :o(
Supposedly the first 2 - 3 days are the worst, so things should be noticeably better real soon now.
In the evening I went to an online EAA meeting about the Taylor Aerocar.
Tilly slept fitfully last night (as you would if you were spinning the whole time) and I had to carry her out to the garden when she wanted to go and pee, but she seems a little brighter today, in that she's walking around the house. She's managed to shake a few times without falling over, and I swear her eyes aren't scanning as much as they were last night.
Everybody was busy doing something or other, so Vic and I had breakfast, then went for a little flight over Camp Far West Lake Reservoir to see the water running over the spillway. We were too low for the ADS-B to catch us :o)
When we got home, we did some tree hacking in the garden, then let Tilly out to inspect our work.
In the late afternoon, Tilly started stumbling around like she was drunk, and didn't want to settle down. When I went and looked at her, her eyes were scanning from side to side. I had a horrible feeling that she'd had a stroke, so we started calling emergency vets to look at her.
We eventually got to the Loomis vet, where they figured out that she has vestibular syndrome... basically her brain is telling her the world is spinning - like vertigo - but this is apparently coming from some brain damage (it's official, Tilly's brain damaged!) so her eyes keep moving to try and keep up, which makes her brain think the world is spinning and so on.
She's on anti-nausea medicine (biiiig dose) and apparently this'll sort itself out within 2 weeks and her brain will start using the horizon to tell her which way is up. In the meantime she's banned from stairs and swimming pools, in case she falls in.
For grins, here's a map of everywhere I flew last year (most multiple times)...
I went to the airport and flew to Auburn to meet Chris and PJ for lunch. I was a little early leaving, so I meandered a little :o)
I flew straight back, and Shane and Liza were at the hangar. We did Shane's first oil change on his plane :o)
Vic took the car in for its 22,500 mile service (a wheel rotation and some checks - the bill was $20) and the latest software update that limits charging to 80% (which I was doing anyway). The guidance from GM was to not charge unattended or inside (tschya, right) or to run the battery below 70 miles. Those limits are now gone. It'll also run a bunch more diagnostics until we get a brand new battery, hopefully in the next few months.
Again, this is because of 15 battery fires in 140,000 vehicles. I like those odds.
I had the day off work to celebrate New Year's Day.
Randy and I went to the airport and tinkered with the planes - I took my wheels off and exercised the brakes hoping to reduce the squeaking. I'm going to order more O rings and try rebuilding them again if this doesn't help. He was replacing his air filter. Shane joined us, and was tinkering with his parking brake stuff - I've replaced a bolt on my parking brake in anticipation of getting the 3D printed parts to use Shane's new system when he's ironed out all the bugs :o)
We went to lunch with Ken, then headed home as the weather wasn't great and I, for one, was still tired after flying 3 hours yesterday.
We got up early and met everybody at the airport for a group flight to Lampson - I'd show the ADS-B trail but it didn't see us much past Sacramento.
Vic and I went in my gyro, Shane and his daughter went in his gyro, and Randy and Shane's wife went in Randy's gyro. In the air, we met up with Chris in his gyro, and Damon and his son in their Aerotrek and PJ in his Zenith were around, just at 6500'. Bill and William showed up in their RV-6, and Rob and Ernie in Rob's RV-14.
It was pretty cold, but we all coped (a few with heated gloves.)
I pulled together a quick video of us following Shane - the app did everything through it's tracking function, which works really well. If you squint, in the background you can see Chris and Randy screwing around.
A new month (and year!) so here are the stats...
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| Power billed |
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| Power generated |
The California Public Utilities Commission is talking about an $8 per kW fee per month for solar power. In 2021 I generated $445 in electricity. I have 2.5kW, so they'll want $240 of that. I'm barely expecting to break even on the solar panels, but if this goes through I won't be replacing them when they fail... it's nonsense.
I went and met Chris at the airport - I'd intended to fly, but he pulled forward the time he was going to be there, which sort of screwed me up. We replaced the pads in one of his brakes - he only had 1 set - and tinkered with a couple of other things. While everybody was there, we got Richard's plane moved to the back of the hangar where it should be so Bill can get his plane out, then we all went to lunch. After lunch, Shane and I tinkered about with his parking brake modification - it works, but we think we can make it better with a few modifications, so we're going to try that before installing it on everybody's planes :o)
We spent the New Year eating KFC and watching "The Matrix Resurrections," then trying to get Tilly to stop shouting at the fireworks and go to sleep.
