Hello,

Thank you so much for your mail. I am glad the bike is in good shape. I'll take the bike for the firm price which $900. is very okay with me. Please, send your full name/address and telephone number so that payment can be arranged and sent to you this week

I await your response soonest.

Best and kind regards,

So I replied:

Hi there,

> Please, send your full name/address and telephone
> number so that payment can be arranged and sent to
> you this week

Before I send you my details, how are you going to pay me? How is the bike going to get picked up, or do I have to take it somewhere to be shipped? If it's going to be picked up, you could bring cash. If I have to ship it, you'll have to arrange to pay that. Where are you?

cheers,

Your move, punk :o)

On a brighter note, while I was doing some grocery shopping, the chick called to say she'll take the YSR. She's going to send me a deposit cheque, and pay the rest when she comes to pick it up. Most excellent :o)

Well, without spoiling anything, it's nice to see the guy who won race 1 win race 1, but it's a shame he had to win like that :o)

Anyways, she showed up, and while we were looking at it in the garage, Chloe knocked over the mountain bike onto the train set while crashing around. It's effectively destroyed the thing, as the bottom board has come apart. Oh well, I get to start that over again :o|
She's going to think about the YSR, and I've given her a day before I call the next guy on the list...

Now, the YSR has attracted a couple of scam artists - the first one, I just signed up for every spam newsletter I could find after the local FBI office pointed me to the The Internet Crime Complaint Center.
Basically the scam goes that they send you a fake cashier's cheque for a lot more than your item costs, and you arrange shipping and send them the change. The idea is that your bank will almost immediately deposit the money to your account, but take 30 days to figure out that the cheque is fake. Oh, and they always want you to use Western Union to transfer the money back to them, as it's almost untraceable.

I've decided to play with the latest idiot. I wonder if I can get him to send a cheque to the FBI office? Stay tuned. So, here's his message:

Hello, Am keenly interested in purchasing your bike Get back to me with your firm price if its still available. Whats the general condition of this bike? Can you make yourself available for the shipping company when they will come for the pick up? I will be needing the address where the bike is located to determine how much the shipping fee's will cost. Best Regards, Johnson

I waited a suitable amount of time, and, knowing they don't even read the adverts, reponded:

Hi there,

> Get back to me with your firm price if its still
> available.

Per the advert, it's $900.

> Whats the general condition of this bike?

It's an 18 year old, $900 race bike. It's in average condition for such.

> Can you make yourself available for the shipping
> company when they will come for the pick up?

I can probably be available, given enough notice.

> I will be needing the address where the bike is
> located to determine how much the shipping fee's
> will cost.

95747

We'll see what happens next :o)

The weather looks to be getting sucky for a few days, so again I sloped out of work a little early, and went to the airfield. This time I did an hour in the plane, and rather than just do circuits (there were several planes already doing this), I flew around the outskirts of Lincoln - I usually head East, so I figured heading West would make a change :o)

In the evening, I went to the SPCA for a mentor meeting - of all people, I'm on the list of new volunteer mentors :o)

No flying, as the wind was 10mph, across the runway. I think I learnt my lesson yesterday :o)

Later in the day, I went to the airfield and did a few circuits in a 7mph wind at 220 degrees. The runway's 150 degrees, so this was a little exciting :o) The tail wheel's got all stiff again, so I'm thinking I need to take a closer look at that. There aren't any bearings or anything there, so maybe I've overtightened something getting it all back together. Oh joy, I get to lift the tail again... it's about 70lbs.

I got home, tired, and went to work updating Mandy's blog. Oh, the fun, it never stops.

I'm not trying to be funny, but wouldn't you think that when you've covering the aftermath of what happens when everything goes wrong and you're too low over a populated area, it might be an idea not to hover at 300' above a populated area, in case something goes wrong?

My constant argument with people who express concern for my flying is that this goober was:

• Flying aerobatics over a populated area - illegal
• Flying aerobatics below 1500' without special permission from the FAA - illegal
• Flying low enough over a populated area that he couldn't get clear in the event of an engine failure - illegal

We left and went for lunch, then I went over to Rich's to see the trailerpotamus and beat Josh at basketball (he's 7). On the way home, I was bothered by the helicopters circling near where I live, and then the closed off roads and rubberneckers. Seems the plane crash was around 1/2 a mile from my house.

I thought it was probably one of the local dumbasses who fly too low over Roseville trying to stretch a glide to get to the golf course after an engine failure, but according to the story on CNN, it was even dumber... he'd been doing aerobatics over a built up area at a height of 200' or so. Greeeeeaaaat... people think I'm crazy enough as it is :o(

So, Debbie and I walked the dogs down to Starbucks to see the burnt out house (she was visiting with Otis, and was totally unaware of the whole thing when I got in). Apparently nobody on the ground was hurt, and only 2 houses have damage, so that's a blessing.

The funny thing with the puppies was that they'd named them after a bunch of the volunteers, and "Dug" was the first one adopted :o)

This is why the tax system is so unfair here - the tax year ended on the 31st December, but they're still changing the tax that you have to pay? That's ridiculous.

I'd be happy if they implemented a flat tax, where everybody pays the same percentage of their salary. From the numbers I've heard, that would need to be around 10%, as there are a lot of really, really rich people who pay significantly less, percentage-wise, than the rest of us. It would, of course, mean that accountants and tax software wouldn't be needed by the entire population, and I think that's a good thing... useless third of humanity and everything.

The new TV arrived, so I spent some time tidying up wires and getting the VCR out of the stack of equipment. Everything's digital, baby, digital :o)

I also put in a little work on the train set, and I've started laying out some track. Now I just need to check if the corners are too tight, and the hills are too steep :o|

After that, I spent some time tidying up the garden, then Chloe and I went to the airfield to fit the compass to the plane.

2 boxes of photos left to scan. From 6 boxes, so I think I'm doing pretty well.

What this means is that if you think I have incriminating pictures of you, I've probably already found them :o)