January 29th

It was cloudy most of the day, with Lincoln showing marginal VFR, so I stayed in and did nothing.

January 28th

I got up shockingly early and went to the airport to fly Young Eagles.  I would have thought it would have been too cold, but sure enough we flew 10 kids, of which I flew 3.

I had to do 1 more flight than the 4 seaters, as there was a kid who wanted to fly in the gyroplane - apparently I flew his sister last year :o)

Danielle, who I also flew last year in the gyroplane, was cooking lunch - she told me she preferred the Magni to Dan's RV-10 :o)

I went home and sorted out the CMOS battery on the Alienware, and while it's fixed that particular problem, it still doesn't want to boot.  I'll look at it some more tomorrow maybe, but I think it'll want me to sacrifice a chicken or something.

January 27th

The final part I needed to get the new monitor working (USB-C to HDMI adapter) arrived, so I got that all set up.  It's nice being back to 2 monitors, even though they're taking up a lot of desk space.  I haven't really got used to all the screen space yet, but give it time.

Interestingly, the DisplayPort from my desktop gives a better looking image than HDMI - I swapped them, and the better image followed the cable.

January 25th

We went to the airport and did the getting to be regular replacement of the push to talk switch on the radio.

January 24th

I pulled apart the PC I'd lent Randy, and sure enough the 3v CMOS battery was showing 1.7v.  I guess I'll order a replacement (it's a CR2032 with connections clipped directly to it, so I can't just replace it.)

January 23rd

Randy brought over a PC I'd lent him that now refuses to boot up.  I think it's the CMOS battery, but I didn't feel like taking it apart just yet, so Vic showed him World of Warcraft :o)

January 22nd

I met Randy at the airport.  We'd talked about flying to Oroville for lunch, but once we were in the air (with a 30kt headwind) we decided to just do a lap of Camp Far West Lake reservoir.

I was apparently too low to be tracked the whole way :o)

Shane and Liza came out and met us for lunch in Lincoln.

When I got home, I threw together a couple of videos...

My takeoff in the gusty wind

Flying over the Camp Far West Lake spillway

My landing in the gusty wind

January 21st

I met Shane and Randy at the airport, and after waiting forever to get onto the runway, we flew to Auburn to meet Chris and Jeff for lunch.

Only Chris and Jeff didn't make it, due to some problem with the gyro :o(

We pottered back, flying over Ken's house on the way for fun.

January 19th

I took the day off to go to the dentist, and as I'd be in Lincoln, hoped to fly.  Well, the visibility was less than a mile when I got there to fill the plane with gas, and when I was done at the dentist, the cloud base was still 300', so I gave up and went home.

I've got another monitor, so I spent some time pulling my desk apart and moving it closer to the window - I'd aimed to still be able to see the weather station on the wall, but even after moving the desk I couldn't.

Anyway, I got everything back together so I'd be able to work tomorrow.

January 16th

Today was Martin Luther King day, when Americans celebrate the civil rights icon by going shopping.

It was still grey and windy and rainy, so I did pretty much nothing.

January 14th

It was throwing it down with rain, so I pretty much gave up on getting anything else done.

I went and met Chris for lunch, and it was just cloudy and cold on the way home.

It's funny, I was out in the garden trying to figure out where this line of seeds and leaves and stuff came from before figuring out it was the high tide line from that side of the house flooding :o)

My Camp Far West Lake Reservoir video has had a crazy (for me) number of views... more even than Tilly bursting a beach ball, but not as many as Vic's most watched hang gliding video (from 2008!)

January 8th

The weather forecast was all over the place for today, and it started off by raining, with thunder and nearby lightning.  While it did dry up, I decided against flying just because of how changeable everything was.

I tinkered about with another Camp Far West Lake Reservoir video, and posted that up.

January 7th

I started the day working on a video from yesterday's flight...

We went out to the airport and tinkered with the plane some more - we got the wiring done and tested the radio frequency changing via the GPS.  We then got the dash back together and went to meet Chris, Randy, Shane, Liza and Jeff for lunch.

After lunch we went back to the airport and pulled the plane so I could test the hardwired ADS-B receiver, then when I saw that worked, we put the windscreen back on and tidied everything away and went home.

January 6th

I went out to the airport, and as it wasn't throwing it down with rain for a bit, took the plane out for a quick flight to look at the flooding.

I spent a few hours working on the dashboard for the plane, getting the old GPS wiring out.

January 5th

I went and met Chris for lunch.  When I got home, the wiring loom I'd ordered for the GPS on the plane had arrived, so I spent a little time getting that all sorted out and ready to go.

January 3rd

I've taken the week off, because I didn't know when we'd be able to get Don's gyro done.  The weather sucks, so I just worked out some wiring stuff I want to do on the plane when the wiring looms arrive - I could have probably cut apart one of the old sets I have for the proprietary connectors I'll need, but I figured this would be easier.

When Vic finished work, we went to see the new Smurf movie she's been looking forward to seeing.

January 2nd

There were another couple of loud fireworks in the evening, so it was another fraught night with Tilly.

Today was a day off work, as New Year's Day was on Sunday.  But I was on call :o(

I went to the airport and met Don, then Shane, at the hangar before Randy showed up and we did the annual condition inspection on Don's gyroplane.  Because he'd done so much work beforehand, we were done early enough for them to take a quick test flight before Don headed back to Cameron Park and we headed out for pizza.

I got home and cleared out some stuff for work.

January 1st

Merry New Year.

Sadly it had stopped raining by midnight, so the fireworks scared Tilly.  She went out and peed, then spent a while pacing around the house before I put her up on the bed with me.  It took a while, but she finally settled down and slept on and off until it was time to wake me up properly.  Yay.

Here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

Xfinity are still reporting the interweb is down, but my map popped to life around 07:10, so we're currently OK.

We went and met Chris, Shane and Liza for lunch, then I went and met Don and Mark at the airport to put his wheel back on, and to drop off my (updated) GPS.

Vic and I had been talking about my last Far West Lake video, and following her suggestions, I put together a new, much shorter one:

December 31st

I met Don, and later Shane (and Sara, and Shaymus,) at the airport so we could finish prepping his gyro for its annual inspection, then go to lunch.  It was throwing it down with rain to the point it was hard to hear in the hangar :o(

At home, the internet stopped working in the middle of a Zoom call with Chris :o(

Here's everywhere (I think) I've flown this year.