May 29th

Today was Memorial Day, when Americans remember their war dead by going shopping.

I went and met Shane, Liza, Randy and PJ for lunch, then Randy, PJ and I went to the airport to go and fly around Beale Air Force Base.

May 28th

Russ and I headed back to Las Vegas so he could fly back to Long Beach and I could fly back to Sacramento.

Russ has PreCheck, but I got through security before he did, so that was money well spent :o)

May 27th

Vic dropped me at Sacramento International and I took a Spirit Airlines flight to Las Vegas to meet Russ, Mum and Dad.

We went to the Mob Museum before heading to Binions for dinner.

It was interesting watching the tourist helicopters fly down the strip at ~30 second intervals.

May 25th

We watched "Conan the Barbarian."  Despite the better effects, it wasn't as good as the original.

May 23rd

Tilly's been selected for the "Precision Cohort" at the Dog Aging Project - let's hope our almost 16 year old dog hangs on long enough to deliver much more data.  It sounds like we're getting a DNA test, and then there'll be more cognitive and physical tests, plus some blood tests and so on next time we're at the vet, I believe.

May 21st

I picked Randy up on the way to the airport where we met Shane and Liza to fly to Auburn to meet PJ for lunch.

On the way back I wanted to fly past Far West Lake, so we did that, but getting back to Lincoln we had to avoid this idiot who seemed intent on getting in our way :o(

May 20th

I started the day at the airport flying Young Eagles - I flew 3, pretty much the same route every time.

Chris was also flying his (recently repurchased) gyro, and Chris O and PJ also came over from Cameron Park to help out.

When we were all done, Chris and I collected Shane from the hangar and went to lunch, then Shane and I went over his gyro in preparation for his annual inspection due at the end of the month.

Back at home, we replaced the expansion tank on the water heater.  Apparently those things only last 5 or so years, which I was unaware of.  The interesting thing is I've (now) figured out that it failed ages ago, it's just when it started to rust through that I realised it needed replacing.  Now I can tell when the pressure over flow starts running from time to time that it's time to start shopping for a new one.

May 19th

The replacement exhaust muffler for the van showed up yesterday, and I had today off (for a wellness day off thing that everybody else took last Friday,) so I pulled off the old one (with the cracked header welds) and installed the new one.  The old one has a lifetime warranty (almost 7 years but only  ~20K miles) so I'll send that back - I'd hoped for a direct replacement, but nobody has them anywhere to I've ended up with something similar :o(

May 13th

I've not slept well for the past couple of nights so I wasn't feeling great.  I decided to just stay in and not do anything to make things worse.

May 11th

I swear I felt this.

May 9th

Chris came over to see Tilly, and picked up the 360 camera while he was here.  Chris and I went out and  got dinner while he was here anyway.

May 7th

I met Randy at the airport and flew up to Auburn with John in his Citabria to meet Chris and PJ for lunch.

On the way back we flew over a car event that Marty had told us about.  Well, I saw it, Randy didn't :o)

May 6th

I'd been asked to fly Young Eagles at Sutter, but that got cancelled on Thursday due to the weather.  Sure enough, the day started out raining, so Chris and I agreed that for today's adventure, we'd drive.  We met in Folsom - Chris had PJ with him - and drove to Eagle's Nest to tour Sanders Aeronautics with the Auburn Aviation Association.  We saw their Sea Fury air racers, 232, Argonaut and Dreadnought, along with stuff like a Corsair, a Tigercat and a Lodestar they're working on.

May 2nd

I went out and looked at the oxygen sensor wiring on the van and realised that the spade connector I've always wondered about is there because somebody broke the female connector before.  So I just wired in another spade and figured that this is now future me's problem.

May 1st

A new month, so here are the solar stats:

Power billed

Power generated

April 30th

Everybody was busy, so I decided to get some work done on the Van.

• First up, the last oil change had a report of cracking on the fuel lines, so I looked at those and they looked fine.
• I've been hearing what sounds like an exhaust leak, so peering at it I found that the inlet had cracked the welds.  The "stainless steel" exhaust has a "lifetime warranty," but looking into it the shop I bought it from doesn't have any in stock.  I can send it back for a refund, but I believe I'll still need an exhaust to drive the thing.
• I wanted to replace the oxygen sensor in the catalytic converter, so I took that out.  When I went to plug the new one into the loom I could see that the struggle to get it out had pulled a wire out of the connector.  It looks like the connectors are no longer available from VW, and a duplicate would take a month to get here from China.  I'm planning to use a dumb 4 pin connector to replace the whole thing and just get on with my life.

Having broken too many things, I gave up.