Vic's been working on her mural - she's basically started all over again after ignoring it for a year.

We watched the MotoGP race from Assen (yes, those cretins at Speed show it on Sunday, even though it's run on Saturday. Every year), and were disappointed to see Vale crash out, and the poison dwarf take over the lead in the championship. Of course, Stoner's starting to look like he's going to win every single race from now on.

As we can now see the sky, despite a reported 1420 fires still burning in Northern California, we decided to have a barbie in the evening.

The smoke from the fires has been worse again. The AWOS at the airfield has reported the visibility down to 2.5 miles, but I saw clouds for the first time this week on the way back from dinner.

I replaced the wheel on the bottom of the screen door that Tilly has broken by continually crashing through it. I use the nylon ones, as they're cheap, relatively easy to replace (it takes longer to get the door out) and they act as a fuse - if I put brass wheels in there, who knows what would break instead.

I checked with the AWOS at the airfield and it's reported the visibility as "missing", then 3 miles, then 5 miles, then 7 miles (it was getting dark by then), so hopefully this'll be blowing through soon.

We had talked about going flying with Vince, but the weather was just stupidly windy and changeable, so we gave up on that idea and just had dinner with him.

Vic took Twinkle to the vet, where unfortunately she died from the infection :o(

I called the office at the airfield and got the gate code, but it'll soon be back to being too cross-windy to fly again :o(

After work, the wind had dropped a fair bit, so I went to the airfield, and took the assorted spiders that have set up residence in the Rans (since I washed them out the other week) for a ride around. All in all, it was a pleasant evening, warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt, and my landings didn't suck as badly as I thought they would. I saw the local powered parachute guys playing, and flew over Vince's at Freedom Field for grins, but he was probably out flying himself.

Vic brought home Twinkle from the SPCA - she was surrendered due to an infection after a cat clawed her, so Vic'll nurse her back to health. She was the first guinea pig born here, back in December 2006.

I went to the airfield to see if I could figure out the gate code, or get it from the guys at Atkin Air. They were closed, and I tried for about 10 minutes to get in without luck, then gave up and went home.

Today was the release of the new version of Firefox. They'd hoped for a million downloads, but it seems they got over 8 million in the first day, some sort of a record. I installed it on my machines, and it's nicer than v2, which seems to have slowed down for me recently.

While I waited for her to come home, I played a little World of Warcraft. I've got my hunter up to level 64 now :o)

The solar panels hit 2000KWh generated today. You're welcome.

We stopped at Cycle Gear on the way home so Vince could look at vented jackets, then headed home to have our first barbecue of the year... I've been lazy.
Tilly wasn't too happy about the smoke from the barbie, but she got over it, playing in her paddling pool while we ate, bless her.

Vic took her baby rabbit over to some new foster parents, who have rabbits, so they can socialise it.

I had hoped to go to the airfield and fly, but the wind was blowing at 7mph right across the runway, so I scrapped that idea.

In the evening, I watched Battlestar Galactica - they've finally got to Earth, but it's all fallen apart and there's nobody there. I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but that wouldn't be taking it seriously, would it?

After work, I played with the brakes on the DRZ, and tightened up the throttle cable a little, then headed over to Vince's to go for a little trip in his wobbly. I must be out of my mind :o)

Vince's wobbly is something he built himself, and slapped a wing on. It's got a Rotax 912 on it, and cruises at about 45mph and 2gph - pretty similar to the Rans I have, but his'll carry 2 people, doesn't burn 2 stroke oil, and has a much less intensive maintenance schedule. I flew it a little, but it's hard trying to work out what you want to do, then how to do it... I don't have the training on one of these, but Vince reckons it's about 10 hours. Seems like fun, but he wants to build something more like this, and wants me to build one too. We'll see - it would fit in the van and on the roof, so I could take it with us when we go further afield with the hang gliding.
We flew over the house, and I flailed the camera over the right side to take some pictures. Only one was of our house, and it's not too bad.
We flew twice, parking the plane when it was getting dark. We then went for a pizza, and I got home just after Vic - she'd stood around waiting for the wind to drop again. It's forecast to be blowing a gale until at least Thursday now...

Vic wasn't at home when I got there, so it seemed like she'd gone flying after all. Tilly was overjoyed to see me, as she'd been alone for about 3 hours.

Vic got in shortly afterwards, as they'd just been standing around waiting for the wind to die down. We were just unloading the car and suchlike, when Vince flew over in his wobbly, much to the amusement of the local kids.

We watched the MotoGP race from Catalunya. It's a shame the Spanish fans didn't invade the track like they did for Alex Criville back in the day, as then maybe Valentino is his gopping leathers could have won it from the poison dwarf. Still, 2nd from 9th on the grid is a pretty decent showing.

I worked on getting Ubuntu 8.04 installed on an old laptop that I'm going to give to Heather, then Tilly and I went to the Bear dog park, but only for about 45 minutes, as she started limping a little on that troublesome right front leg. It doesn't seem to bother her, but it bothers me, watching her, so we went home so she could take it easy.

I watched Battlestar Galactica - at last, space battles. It wasn't too bad an episode, either.

In the evening, we went to a get-together for some of the volunteers at the SPCA, but Heather wasn't there, so I couldn't offload the laptop onto her.

In the evening, I played a little World of Warcraft, helping a couple of warlocks get their epic donkeys. There were several wipes, where I didn't think we should have wiped, but what do you expect with a party of 3 warlocks, a hunter and a priest :o)

The baby rabbit has been exploring. Vic found it in the guinea condo, then later running around the floor tormenting Tilly, who's not allowed in there. To her credit, Tilly didn't go into the critter room, she just watched the squeak toy run around on the floor.

I spoke to Sarah at Stephan's Autohaus, and they said to bring the van in at our earliest convenience.

I received the front mudguard I'd ordered for the DRZ, and fitted it. It's a shame that it doesn't look like the handguards are going to fit :o(

Vic brought home a 2 to 3 week old rabbit that somebody found just eating grass - we'll see if it survives long enough to get adopted.

Ken from the hangar at the airfield called and asked me to show the hangar, so I went over there after work and sorted that out. They're an interesting couple - he's a corporate jet pilot, and she's a flight instructor at Auburn. They're working on aerobatics, so they're parking their new to them, pretty little Pitts Special in our hangar, having moved it up from Salinas.

While I was there, I washed the Rans. Still too cross-windy to fly :o(

The van is leaking ATF. Again. I'm pretty discouraged about this, but it'll go back to Stephan's Autohaus so they can hopefully get their gearbox rebuilder to fix it yet again.

In the evening, we watched the MotoGP race from Mugello. So, Rossi's back at the top of his form. There are mutterings about him signing with Yamaha for another year or two, so I just hope he can keep this up - I'd hate to see him retire as an also-ran.