| September 30th |
As the
internet connection
was up, I played a little
World of Warcraft.
It was annoying getting constantly disconnected, but I did manage to finish a couple of quests,
which is nice. After that, I spent the rest of the day at the
SPCA. |
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| September 29th |
Back to work, with the internet connection going up and down like a
yoyo. The
ISP
did the usual "is it plugged in?" and "blame the customer's internal network" sort of thing,
but now it seems like they think it's the power adapter for the sender on the roof. I think
it's the sender on the roof. They're sending me a new adapter, so we'll see who's right.
I started resampling mp3s at 256Kb/sec, after finding in the manual that the occasional
skipping coming from the CD changer in the
van
is probably due to me sampling everything at 320Kb/sec. Oh well. |
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| September 28th |
Mum and Dad spent the morning packing, then we went to the airport.
Chloe's
missing them already, as she's used to people around all the time to scratch her tummy
when she wants it scratched :o) |
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| September 26th |
Spent more time on the
train set,
including building up some of the houses. Well, Dad ended up building them, as he doesn't
seem to get as annoyed at getting his fingers glued to them due to the poor design and
build quality of the kits - they don't actually come up square, which is more than a little
irritating.
In the evening, we trooped over to Scott and Becky's for dinner. |
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| September 25th |
A quiet day, but Vic did get her navel pierced :o) |
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| September 24th |
A bit more work on the
train set,
we have some more landscaping :o)
In the evening, we watched the pretty good
MotoGP
from Japan... the season's still getting interesting, so we'll see what the final
2 races have to offer :o) |
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| September 23rd |
We spent the day at the
SPCA...
there was a fair there, so Mum and Dad ran the popcorn stand while I did the usual
office and adoption work. Too tired in the evening to do anything :o) |
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| September 22nd |
More work on the
train set,
we have colour :o)
We went to
Petroglyph
and painted pottery. |
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| September 21st |
More work on the
train set,
we have scenery :o)
I also started working on the
Hawk,
pulling the fork apart for the new seal. I then ganked the seal up putting it on, so I took
it all apart again, and ordered a new one... it's been years since I did anything like that,
so I guess I'm due. I've put the fork back on the bike, sans seal, so it's safer than
balancing on a stand. |
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| September 20th |
We went to the
Jelly Belly
factory, did the tour and bought 8lbs of Belly Flops - the misshapes you can only buy there.
On the way back, we stopped in at the
IKEA
in Sacramento, where we bought next to nothing :o) |
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| September 19th |
Spent a yet more time working on the
train set,
the track's all down now, and we even ran a train around it :o) |
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| September 17th |
Spent a bit more time working on the
train set,
then we took Jim out to dinner for his birthday.
When we got home, we watched the
MotoGP
from Australia... a great race, and it was nice to see the riders finally have to change
bikes due to the weather (they used to stop the race, then restart it, so this is the
first time we've seen the riders use the flag to flag ruling). I was happy with the finish,
but apparently Hayden's team protested Rossi overtaking Stoner on a yellow flag. Nicky saw
the flag, but neither Valentino nor Casey did. The
MotoGP website
still lists the same points standing at the time of writing, so let's hope for the sake of
the championship that that sticks :o) |
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| September 16th |
I dropped the 'rents at the mall, and went to the
SPCA
for a while, until Vic sent me home :o)
Once home, I played
World of Warcraft
for an hour or so, then went and picked Mum and Dad up.
In the evening, we watched the most excellent
MotoGP
race from Malaysia... looks like the championship's back on :o) |
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| September 15th |
Now the
van
isn't in the garage and I have space, we made a start on redoing the
train set
from the beginning. It's nice to see it actually making some progress, for a change :o) |
|
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| September 14th |
I spoke to Stephan at the Auto Haus about the new engine for the
van,
and he said to bring it in. I drive the van in, and Dad followed me in the
Subaru
to run me home again. When we got home,
Chloe
seemed a little upset that her van's no longer in the garage :o) |
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| September 12th |
Vic went back to work, leaving the rest of us to watch stuff on the TiVo, shop,
cut stuff in the garden and sleep, depending on whether we were man or beast :o) |
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| September 11th |
We were all pretty tired after the weekend, especially
Chloe,
so we did a little shopping, and Vic checked in on her guinea pigs. We had another quiet evening, and
an early night, as Vic had to go back to work on Tuesday. |
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| September 10th |
We got up to find a smallish bear had broken into Scott's car and eaten chips,
kicked a tub of hot chocolate around and walked right past the
van
without waking us or
Chloe.
We all pooled our food to make breakfast for everybody, then rolled up the sleeping bags, dropped the
roof and were ready to leave. We watched the olde-worlde campers break camp, then headed for home,
where we had long hot showers and and early night :o) |
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| September 9th |
Everybody surfaced bleary eyed, and made breakfast. It seems we'd slept a lot
better than the peasants on the ground, as our beds were warmer :o)
We took
Chloe
for a long, long walk down to the car park over the beach (dogs aren't allowed on the trails or the
beaches), and just slobbed about for the afternoon. Chloe spent a lot of her time barking at Brody,
Brad and Chrissie's dog. She's usually fine with him, so it's probably barrier aggression because
she was on a lead. She slept a lot better that night, as she was so tired :o) |
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| September 8th |
Vic got called in to work for the morning at the last minute, so we spent the
morning loading, gassing and watering up the
van.
When she got back, we threw
Chloe
in and headed to Emerald Bay at Tahoe for a weekend's camping. The van did pretty well, but on the
long uphill drags it slowed down considerably - even when I left it in 2nd gear. It was cool, getting
there after dark, popping the roof, rolling out the sleeping bags and being done. We then got to help
everybody else pitch their quaint old tents. Chloe, by now, was going berserk, with so much to see,
and so much to bark at. After a chat around the fire, we all headed off to bed. It took us a little
while to get Chloe to realise that she was going to sleep on her bed, rather than share ours, but
eventually she did settle down and sleep. |
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| September 7th |
There were a few last minute preparations that needed to be done for the weekend,
so we went shopping :o) |
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| September 6th |
I spent the day running around like an idiot tidying things up for Mum and Dad's
visit :o) They got in late, so they got to meet Vic, and see the
van
:o) |
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| September 5th |
The hangar door got fixed at
the airfield,
I rode over on the
KLX
to let them in. In the evening, I went over with all of my stuff to make sure it works (it does),
and thought about taking the
Rans
for a spin until I found the radio battery dead :o( So, I pulled the plane over to the hose pipe
and washed the worst of the dust and spiders' webs off it. Next time, I'll take some soap and a
bucket, and properly wash the thing :o) |
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| September 4th |
Today was "Labor Day", when the Americans celebrate the success of organised
unions by going shopping. We celebrated by joining them :o) |
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| September 3rd |
I ran around doing various bits of shopping, including picking up an external
hard disc on sale, so I can sample CDs, do backups etc.
I met Mike and Vince for lunch, and found out that Vince's hand is healing pretty well, and Mike's
engine snapped a conrod and pretty much destroyed itself. So, if you're looking for a new boat
anchor...
I then spent a few hours dumping about 10Gb of music my new disc, and backing up machines. Beats
backing up to DVDs :o)
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| September 2nd |
I did some running around, then went to the
SPCA
for a while. In the evening, we took
Chloe
over to Scott and Becky's for Bug's birthday bash. She still spends most of her time outside
looking in the door at us :o) |
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| September 1st |
I got a letter from the anaesthetist from my tonsil operation back in
July.
Basically, it seems that they're not "in network", so I have to pay part of their cost. The
interesting thing is the way they calculate this - I pay 30%, plus a $250 deductible, so that's
actually nearly twice what my medical insurance paid. I'll have words with somebody about this
next week, I guess. |
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