Sunday, April 29, 2012

April 29th

I started the day doing a little painting, then I went and hacked at the grass - it's been a while since I cut it, so the lawnmower was struggling in places. Still, Tilly's a lot happier, as I can't hide her ball in the long grass.

I tinkered with the YSR, and it looks like the problem I have at the moment is the warning light - electrickery runs both ways, so all the lights are coming on.  I'm going to think about it, but diodes should help there.

When Vic got back from the SPCA, we grabbed lunch and watched the Jerez MotoGP race - it was a pretty good race, even if Rossi didn't win it.  Oops, spoilers :o)

We went to the airfield so I could replace the fuel vent hose, and we went up for a bunch of circuits.  When it started getting busy (and there was a powered parachute, apparently without a radio, running against the circuit direction) we landed.

April 28th

I had a bunch of running around to do, so, as it was a nice day, I took the DRZ.  I ended up at the local Ducati dealer, to look at the new Panigale.  I got a piece of cake and entered the competition to win tickets to the MotoGP race at Laguna Seca.  I also picked up oil filters for the DRZ (they're a Suzuki dealer, amongst others - it's where I bought the thing).

I played around with the YSR, trying to get the LED turn signals to work, and decided to try a resistor in there.  I picked up a couple of 10W, 100 Ohm resistors, then went to the airfield and pulled the plane out for some circuits.  The wind was 40 degrees off the runway, and 10mph gusting to 15mph, so it was a little exciting :o)

Friday, April 27, 2012

April 25th


Tilly ate half a tennis ball yesterday evening, so we got up a couple of times in the night so she could go out and be sick.  She wasn't particularly interested in her breakfast, but she ate her dinner OK, so I'm assuming she's on the mend.

April 24th

In the evening we watched Hop.  I'm not a fan of Russell Brand, but the movie was OK.

April 23rd

We did some paint patching, then put the family room back together.  There are still a few things to do, but it's nice to have everything back where it should be.  Tilly's been very good about having everything disrupted for a while, but she's obviously happy to have space to roll about on the floor again.

Vince dropped off the YSR tank, and it looks a lot better on the inside than it did.  It needs to spend a few days curing, so it can't all go back together just yet.

Monday, April 23, 2012

April 22nd

We got some painting done, then went to see Don's band play.  Somehow I screwed up, thinking they were on from 2-4, when they were actually on from 1-2.  Still, we got to see the Pyronauts play instead.

We got home wondering what damage Tilly had done to all the stuff laying around from the painting, but other than moving a roll of masking tape, she'd been good.  She was probably still tired from yesterday.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

April 21st

Today was Earth Day, so we walked up to the local thingy, with Tillamook.  Tilly would appear to have better spacial awareness than I give her credit for, as she figured out that we were near the dog park, and dragged us there so she could wallow in the mud for a bit.

When we got home, I dragged the entertainment centre to pieces, and threw paint on the wall behind it.  It's warmed up a lot, so the paint was drying quickly - here's hoping I've managed to get enough on that I don't need to do anything with it tomorrow - I'd like to get the baseboard painted and get it all back together sooner rather than later.

Friday, April 20, 2012

April 20th

I read this - how long before I can be Dug of Borg?

Ages ago, Vince had given me a fuel tank sealant kit for the YSR, as he figured he was never going to get around to using it on the BMW.  Well, it seems that the ethanol they're adding to the gas has eaten the epoxy  coating on the interior of his tank, blocking the fuel filters.  He called to see if I'd used it yet, and of course I hadn't.  So, we went to dinner, and he picked the kit up.  He's offered to do the YSR tank at the same time, so I pulled that, drained it and took off the fuel cap and petrol tap.  Yay, I get it done, without lifting too many fingers :o)

April 18th

Vic had dug a fair amount more into the trench in the garden, completely exposing the drain pipe, so I played with the YSR - it runs.  Nothing exploded, but I'm not convinced it's charging the battery any - with low load bulbs everywhere, it's hard to tell.  I think the test is to check the voltage, then go for a ride and check the battery voltage again when I get back to see if it's dropped.  I tested the regulator, and it seems to be putting out -3v, which is obviously nonsense, as my multimeter can't put out that much voltage.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

April 17th

I sat down and fiddled with the flasher relays for the YSR - basically the newer one needs a minimum load, as it'll make a single bulb flash, but not an LED.  I've put 10w incandescent bulbs in the front, and left the LEDs in the back and everything's OK.  I installed the regulator, and put everything back together - maybe I'll fire it up to test it tomorrow :o)

We dug a bit more out of the hole in the garden, and found the drain going from the roof towards the street.  I'm currently thinking we'll cut into this and use it as an overflow (it's not very deep) from the soakaway we've been digging.  The good news is that it doesn't look like we need to go that much further down :o)

We then sat down and watched Mission Impossible.  I don't know that Tom Cruise has many of these left in him, he's getting old :o)

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

April 16th

Tilly and I went out to play ball, and she managed to partly fall into the hole I've dug in the garden.  She was chasing the ball - she knows the hole's there, but she loses her mind when chasing the ball (she runs into walls, too).  I'm being careful not to get her near it, but we need to figure out what we're going to do with the hole.

Most of the water's drained out of the hole, so I can see that it's nowhere near the French drain.  Don't know where that is.  The thing is, I've dug the hole at the deepest point of the water collecting, so we need drainage there... I'm going to dig a trench and see if we find the French drain.  If we do, we'll connect with that.  If we don't, I'll just fill most of the hole with gravel and put the clay soil back on top as a soak away.  We've dug down about 1' on the whole length of where the new drain will go, and we'll dig further throughout the week.

April 15th

I dug my hole in the garden down to about 2', and it's still full of water.  So, the French drain doesn't run where I thought it did, or it's a lot deeper than I think.  Oh, and there's still a lot of water about.

I tinkered with the YSR, and got the 12V battery all wired up - now I have the 6V battery out, I can see that the problem would appear to be that the bloody thing's run half dry.  Maybe I didn't need to do anything other than fill it up after all.  Anyway... battery fitted, but the new flasher relay doesn't work.  I'm thinking that I'll build up a small test harness to make a single bulb flash, then figure out how the YSR setup is different.

I patched some more paint, and pained 2/3 of a wall... the wall's basically cut into 3 parts, so I've painted 2 of them.

In the afternoon, we went to a donor thing at the SPCA, in their new building.  They have big plans for it, but it'll be about 3 years before they'll be moving in, as there's a lot of work to be done yet.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

April 14th

So I went out and looked at the flooding in the garden, picked the deepest part and dug a hole as far down as I could - about a food before I would have had to paddle to get the shovel in any further.  After a while, the water level had gone down a bit, so I dug down until I hit solid ground.  And by solid, I mean I thought it was concrete or something, but I can still get a fork into it.  I'll wait for the water to fully dissipate before going any further, but there's the problem, methinks.

In the house I did some patching on the walls that have been patched, then taped and painted another wall.  I make that 3 walls to go, and 2 of those are pretty small.  Still, I'll have to move the entertainment centre to get the big wall done.

I did a little tinkering with the YSR, and I've decided that the flasher relay really isn't working.  I've put in LED warning lights to replace the 6v bulbs, and now discovered that the turn signal warning light light only when you're turning left (or right, if you rotate it 180 degrees and put it back in), but then all the bulbs are lighting.  I went and picked up some stuff, including an incandescent bulb for the turn signals, and a flasher relay that'll hopefully work.  And a battery - I was wondering if 4.5Ah would be enough, but the battery that starts the plane is 12Ah, and that's just fine.

Talking of the plane, I know what the capacity of the battery is because we went over to Lincoln, where I reset the compass (it's been vague at best since rebuilding the panel) and then did a couple of wide circuits - we were using 33, and there were skydivers, so my usual downwind leg would have been too close to their landing zone.  As the new freeway still isn't open, I flew over that - I figure I can easily land there if I have an engine failure :o)

After picking up my stuff on the way home, we stopped for dinner at a "London Style" fish and chips place that Gwen wanted my opinion of.  They don't do steak and kidney pies or saveloys, but the fish (no more descriptive than that, I'm afraid) was OK.

April 13th

After >2.5" of rain in <24hours, we had a flooded garden.  Joy.  I think I'm going to look at the drainage situation, as I'm sure this should have been running off by now.

April 12th

We had rain.  Lots of rain.  And hail.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

April 11th

Some of the parts for the YSR arrived, so after work, I ran out and installed the horn and turn signal bulbs.  Getting there.

After a little while playing Warcraft, I threw some paint at the family room.  Just one wall, so far, I have all the time in the world to do the rest :o)

Sunday, April 8, 2012

April 8th

We finished patching the paint in the kitchen, then untaped and moved everything back.  It actually looks pretty good, even though there are a few things I need to get to to patch slightly.  There's still a lot of painting to do in the rest of the house :o)

We then sat down and watched the MotoGP race from Qatar.  Well, we had to wait a little, as it wasn't finished, and the "live stream" doesn't allow you to go back ~40 minutes :o)  Still, it was a good race, so I don't feel bad about signing up for the whole year.

In the evening, we watched Immortals - not bad.  I wonder why there are so many Greek mythology moves all of a sudden?

April 7th

Vic was at some Easter SPCA thing, so I started the day playing Warcraft, then taped up the kitchen and started throwing paint.  When Vic got home, she helped me get up onto the ledges, and it was pretty much all done (first coat) in time to go and see the crazy cat ladies for dinner.

April 3rd

Vic rented War Horse.  I thought it might be something like this, but with lasers and rockets, but it's set in World War 1.  Of course, they didn't call it that back then.  Anyway, it was a decent enough movie.

Monday, April 2, 2012

April 1st

It was a weird, gusty day, so I gave up trying to convince myself to go flying, and we went and ran some errands.  I wanted to try and get some shoes while we were out, and the first place had 13 pairs of shoes in my size, none of which I liked.  Vic had 2 rows of shoes in her size - I think there were more than 13 pairs of high heels in stupid colours.  So she got shoes, but I didn't.

At home, I cut the grass, then we dug out a root that was breaking the lawn edging in the front garden.  Sheesh, that's a lot of work - maybe I should just let Scott take the tree down.

As it's a new month, here are the stats:

Electrickery billed
Electrickery generated

Sunday, April 1, 2012

March 31st

It was raining and / or windy all bloody day, so I tinkered with the YSR in the garage.  I've been working on removing all the 6V components, and installing 12V stuff I have.  I've put in an LED tail light bulb (that should probably be replaced, as it's not very bright) and LED headlight bulbs (that are surprisingly bright - I might put one incandescent bulb in for the high beam though).  I thought I'd found a wiring problem when the turn signals caused the head and tail light to go out, but it's just my little test 12V power adapter can't cope with the extra 20W of bulbage.  I've sat down and ordered LED replacements for the warning lights in the speedo (except the oil warning light, that I can't figure out how to remove) and the turn signals.  I'll add stuff in as stuff arrives.  As it was still raining, I installed a scooter brake lever - it's designed for a brake, rather than a clutch like I usually use, so hopefully it won't have such an overpowering piston size (it's not listed on the casing, I'll bleed it up overnight).

In the evening, we went out to a local bar and drank cider while eating little cheeseburgers.

March 30th

After work, Vic and Tilly watched Happy Feet 2 while I played Warcraft.  It seemed a little sillier than the original, but I don't think the target audience was really looking for plot holes.