Friday, January 24, 2014

January 23rd

So Tilly's figured out that she has to sit to cross the road, so she sits when she wants to cross the road to go a different way.  Today, we ended up walking on the other side of the road, so we walked to the point where she was lost - her tail went down, and she was starting to look worried.  I suggested we go a different way to get back to a road she knew, and she perked right up.

I found an OS/X install image for a bootable USB flash drive, so I downloaded that, copied it to my flash drive and re-installed Jen's Mac, and this time restoring from the Time Machine backup worked just fine.  Yay!  Of course, she doesn't need to pick it up until next week, but whatever.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

January 22nd

Jen had asked me to look at upgrading her Mac, and ever one to look at new stuff, I agreed.  I started out backing it up, then installed Lion.  When trying to restore her user account, it barfed, and wanted to restart from the recovery partition, which then wants the Apple logon stuff back to home base - I don't know what that is :o)  I tried restoring everything again, and that didn't work, so now I have a box that won't boot.  Joy...

We went to IKEA, and wandered around so Vic could look at chairs for the critter room.  On the way back, I saw a Five Guys burger place - I've never eaten there, but I've heard good things, so we went in.  The burger was pretty good for a fast food restaurant :o)

January 21st

In the evening we went out to dinner with Jen, Gwen and Geri.  It's the first time I've ever ordered the sodding great big dessert there (we all shared it).

Monday, January 20, 2014

January 20th

Today was Martin Luther King Day, when Americans celebrate the life of a civil rights pioneer by going shopping.

After playing Warcraft for a while, I wrote up my notes about Gary's Pietenpol, and did a rough writeup for the web site.  I emailed that to Gary for his input, then we went to dinner with Vince.  When we got back from dinner, Gary had replied pointing out as few typos (Notepad doesn't have a spell check function), so I sat and got the web page all sorted out.  I'm hoping to do a new plane every few months, so there'll eventually be others there, but somebody has to be first :o)

January 19th

We got up and sent Vic's cousin Mark on his way to Napa to meet a friend for wine tasting, then packed Tilly into the van and headed to San Francisco to go to bURNING vAN 2014 at Ocean Beach.  There were probably 40 vans there at one time or another.  Tilly got to run and play in the sea until she was tired out, and we got to talk to people about vans - there was a lot of interest in the tie-dyed tent :o)

When the parents and I were at Ocean Beach last year, there was an old pug in a little red wagon being towed up and down the sidewalk by his owner - it looked like he had a back problem.  Well, good news, we saw him again, barking away because his owner was sitting and talking to some other people :o)

January 18th

After Vic cooked breakfast (bacon and crepes), I went to Lincoln for the historic aircraft day, and to meet Gary and take pictures of his Pietenpol Air Camper.  I set my phone to voice record, then asked him a bunch of questions about it, so I could write up a little bit for the EAA web page.  Ray, from Oroville, arrived in his Waiex, and it was decided that we'd all go to lunch.  There had been talk about me taking Vic's cousin, Mark, up for a flight, but he wasn't feeling up to a new adventure.  After dropping everybody off at their respective aircraft, I watched Gary do a circuit, then took the Flightstar out for a couple of circuits.  I rushed to get everything put away and headed home so we could take Mark to see Vic's dad, then go to dinner with her brother, David and his girlfriend.  Mark and David haven't seen each other for ~35 years.

January 17th

Vic's cousin, Mark, was coming to visit, so we sat up and waited for him to get to SMF, get a car, get lost, then finally get here.

Friday, January 17, 2014

January 15th

We went to the EAA members meeting, where I got roped into being on the board.  Rather than being in a cold,. drafty hangar like last winter, it was at the Cattlemens restaurant, so the weather's been unseasonably warm :o)

Friday, January 10, 2014

January 9th

After work I headed into the garage to sort out the electric window switches in the van.  The switch wiring has 2 purple and black wires, and 2 brown wires, and doesn't make any sign of them being a problem.  I swapped the purple and black ones, and it didn't make a difference, but swapping the brown ones reversed the switch, so that now the passenger and driver's side switches were both reversed.  I swapped the motor wiring, and everything works fine.  I put it all back together and called it done.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

January 8th

I got around to talking to the people about the electric windows, and they think if I reverse the wires to the motor, the passenger side switch will work correctly.  I think if I reverse the wires, the driver's side will work incorrectly, but I guess I'll try it.  I have a feeling that I'm going to end up with multimeter in hand figuring out how this all works.

In the evening, I pulled the passenger door apart on the van, and wired it up as suggested.  As I thought, the passenger side worked, but the driver's side was then reversed.  Then John came over and took us to dinner.

January 7th

In the evening, I went and met the president and the vice-president of the Lincoln EAA chapter to talk about the web site.  They want to push its use a lot more, and I made a few suggestions for what I want to do with it (and what I could use help with - i.e. content).  Oh, and they want me to be a board member.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

January 6th

I left home at stupid o'clock and headed to San Francisco.  I backed out of the garage, wound the driver's side window up and immediately blew a fuse.  I'm calling that a coincidence for the moment :o)  I stopped and got some spare fuses on the way in to work.  I managed to slope out a little early, and it made a massive difference in the commute - there were far fewer stops and slow downs, and no fat women screaming abuse at me for not letting them push in front of me in the traffic.

January 5th

I spent the day tinkering with the electric windows in the van... I fitted the motor to the driver's side door, ran all the wiring in, made up the connectors and tested the driver's door - everything worked fine, so I put it all back together (though there is a change I'm going to make next time I'm in there).  I tested the passenger door, and the switch works the wrong way.  This doesn't make sense to stupid little me, as the wiring runs from the passenger door switch on the driver's door to the passenger door switch on the passenger door to the motor, and that works just fine.  I'm thinking there is something wring with the switch itself (like the picture's the wrong way up or something, but I'll have to wait for some response from the sellers about that.  Doy.

Saturday, January 4, 2014

January 4th

After doing my Warcraft dailies, and watching some TV (yes we have TV again after the holidays), I went out and started tinkering with the van... I'm fitting electric windows.  I've started on the passenger side, and spent a while figuring out where everything fits.  I've cut the new hills in the door panel, and was hoping to get it all zipped up again, but you need to start the wiring from the driver's side, as the connectors are all made up for that.  Bugger.  So, I've just dropped everything in the back and put it away for the day.

January 3rd

After work, we watched "The Wolverine".  It was OK, but I did see a few plot holes.

January 2nd

I was still unhappy with the time lapse of the catapault, and I'm told you can't really see it firing at the end, so I used a different piece of software to do the lapse, and shot a short of it firing.  Here it is.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

January 1st

Happy New Year, everybody :o)

OK, the solar statistics for last year:
Power billed
Power generated









So, in 2013 we generated more power than we used.  Of course, I won't get a cheque for the ~$35 in power we gave Roseville Electric :o(

I drilled the 2 holes in the Da Vince model out to 1/4", set up the camera and finished building it.  It happily threw a bluetooth adapter (the closest thing to hand) 10' or so, so we'll call that a success.

I built the timelapse, but the quality isn't as great as I'd hoped.  Still... here it is.

December 31st

I had the day off, so I set about building up the Leonardo Da Vinci catapault that Russ and Deeps got me for Xmas.  While creating a timelapse :o)

It was all going swimmingly until I found that there was a piece missing - luckily it was just a 1/4" dowel, so Vic picked one up on her way home from work.  Then I found that the (Canadian) model was using metric, so the dowel I had was slightly too big.

While Vic was at work, I went out to the garage and put the van back together.  That went pretty well too.

In the evening, Jen came and picked us up, and we went to see "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug".  It was excellent on the big screen :o)

December 30th

After work we watched "The Lone Ranger".  It had its moments, but I can see why it bombed.