Another sunny day and the solar panels generated almost 20KWh today. I could even break even for the month :o) That's cool, as next month, I'm going to fill the hot tub and restart that. I figure that puppy uses about 10KWh a day all by itself.

Surewest finally came out and set me up with a VOIP phone - hopefully this'll save me money while giving me add-ons like caller-id. At least it works with the TiVos.

After Tilly destroyed my glasses, I went and got my eyes tested (they passed) and ordered new lenses for a couple of old frames I have. They'll be a couple of weeks, so I'm using my closest prescription until then.

After all that excitement, we borrowed Jim's longassed ladder and finished mounting the hose to the eaves of the house, to wash the things off.

I made a start at running a hose up the side of the house so I can wash off the solar panels regularly to keep them running at peak efficiency. I've made up a couple of strips to hold the hose to the eaves of the house, but I didn't feel like hanging over the edge of the roof to drill and screw them in.

We went to Jeff's 50th birthday party - amazing, he doesn't look a day over 49.5. I got to listen to various armchair doctors suggest that I have everything from a bruised rib to a cracked rib to me being a pussy. The general feeling is that if it hurts for 3 or 4 months, it was a cracked rib. Joy.

I took the Subaru and went to look at a new, but 2007 Suzuki DRZ400SM at a local dealer. I spoke to the sales guy who said that they could let it go for $6200, then found an advert on Craigslist for the exact bike I was looking at for $6000, out the door. Hmmm.

I sat and soldered together 4 LEDs for one of the side marker lights on the van - they're almost pink now, due to the sun fading, so I thought LEDs would be better. They don't pass out much light, so I think this might have been a waste of time, but I did manage to burn my finger quite badly with the soldering iron :o(

I fixed (hopefully) a leaking sprinkler, then Fred came over and lent me his hosepipe, so I could use the pressure washer that he lent me last weekend to clean the driveway. Today was the local celebration of Earth Day, so I used a couple of gallons of gas and several hundred gallons of water to get some concrete clean. It's an interesting task - sort of like using a Magic Marker to paint your house. Still, it cleaned the driveway really well, removing the car polish and rubber marks from bump starting the YSR. Talking of the YSR, the pressure washer is more powerful :o)

In the evening, we went out to dinner with Heather, who used to work at the SPCA. We stayed out a lot later than we had intended to, so Tilly obviously thought we'd moved house without her.

I finished cleaning the hot tub, now I just need to replace the filters.

The solar panels passed 1MWh generated today, and after a weekend where they didn't generate much more than 6KWh, they're back up to 14KWh a day... we're approaching getting the month's usage back to 0 again. Now, if I just leave the hot tub off...

I took a look at the YSR's electrical problems - basically the battery's completely flat, and the lighting coil isn't working to charge it. Great. So, I'll have to find another stator / lighting coil to try - not such a big deal, as I had it running for a while, and there's an oil leak in there, too. /sigh.

We bought Tilly a frisbee, and spent a little while wearing her out in the garden... if it lasts, it looks like being a top toy, but she has a habit of running off with it.

After the excitement, I spent a little time on the YSR. I cleaned the carb up, then noticed that the new spark plug cap wasn't on the wire properly. Having fixed that, I bump started it on the driveway and it started right up. I can even kick start it, now it's getting fuel and a spark, but none of the electrics seem to work - I guess I'll have to look into that one :o(

Since the hot tub's been turned off, the solar panels are more or less keeping up with the house - we've used 1KWh since Saturday, when I noticed the meter was only reading 511KWh.

Tilly's annexed the chair in the bedroom as a new bed, ignoring her bed in the bedroom. Vic thinks this is because her bed is covered with blankets and bits of toys. I pointed out that Tilly had put those there, but apparently it's my job to tidy that sort of thing up.

While Vic fiddled around in the garden, I fixed (we'll see) the sunroof in the van, got the YSR all back together, only to find that it won't start - I tried to drain the float bowl on the carb, and it looks to be full of goo, so maybe that's the problem, eh?
I fixed (we'll see) the puncture on Vic's pushbike, and put the road tyres on it - the offroad ones are toast, so they're gone.

We tried (and failed) to get the wheels out of the patio door, then spent some time trying (and succeeding) to get the damn thing back in.

I spent a little time playing World of Warcraft, managing to get my hunter up to level 61. I'd forgotten how long it takes to level post-60.

Vic finally got home from her trip. Tilly was very very happy to see her :o)

The van basically behaved itself, but the sunroof's stuck. Also, she managed to drop the camera, and a quick look at it would suggest it's toast. This sucks, as, as anybody who knows me will testify, I hate shopping for new technology :o)

We had the tub open, so I could see if it's cold (it is), and Tilly got in and swam around a bit. I don't think she likes the cold water as much as the hot water.

I went to Scott and Becky's for dinner... that's nice, it sounds like Scott's as pissed off with his job as I am, and Becky's last day was today :o)

I laughed out loud watching The Colbert Report. He was interviewing R.E.M., and was talking about their new album. He said that a lot of people said it was a comeback album, and asked if when they hear that they want to tell them to go f*ck themselves.
Well, it made me laugh.

Oh, got the electrickery bill, and thanks to the solar panels, we netted 203KwH in March :o) I know I've been working on reducing our usage, but this is crazy good. Of course, this month, we'll be heating 450 gallons of water, and that'll make a large dent.

I've spent some more time working on my World of Warcraft problems, and installed a couple of Windows patches and a new nVidia driver. I was just logging in to see if that had helped, and downloaded a Warcraft patch as well - one of these changes seems to have fixed things, thankfully.

On the subject of Warcraft, I can't be the only person eagerly looking forward to this.

My Eee arrived from work... all I've done so far is charge it up and get rid of the Mickey Mouse desktop :o)

In the evening, Tilly and I went in the hot tub for the last time before I turned it off to cool down, so I can dump the water. She walked around the edge a few times, falling in, and swam around the middle a bit. She's not a very graceful swimmer - I have the scratches to prove it. When we were done, there was a load of dog hair floating on the surface of the water - I was going to replace the filters anyway :o) I literally wrung out her hair on her legs and tail - it's amazing how much water a dog's hair will hold. Add that to the "getting up 3 times in the night to pee", and I think this is possibly the last time she gets to go in the hot tub until next time I'm dumping the water - at the end of October, most likely.