I spoke to Sara at Stephan's Autohaus, and apparently the van's still leaking a little ATF, so they're going to fix that and test it again before we get it back, hopefully by the end of the week.

I managed to get a PC ordered for a volunteer at the SPCA who asked me to sort one out, and then promptly slipped and broke her leg. It should be there in a week or so, and I'll go and set it up so she can at least surf for porn while her leg heals.

Fred came over to say that we can't go camping at the weekend as they've turned off the water to the camp site due to a leak. I suggested that we could just drink beer, but apparently they want everybody out so they can dig everything up. Oh, and the old PC we gave him to replace his broken PC has stopped working, so I'll see if I can get that sorted out, then stop him from ever touching it again.

My World of Warcraft subscription expired today - I'm going to leave it for the moment, at least until it starts getting cold and rainy, and I'm bored.

I fiddled with the YSR, and put a new lighting coil in, but the results are the same. That would suggest that either the regulator's fried (the manual says if you can't figure out why the charging's not working, replace the regulator) or the battery's so dead that it won't take a charge. Hmmm...

After work, I scurried over to the airfield to meet Jack, as he's suddenly desperate to see me fly the Rans. On the way over, I called Vince, and he met us there. I managed to get the doors open and get the plane out, and was taxying up to the runway when Vince arrived in the pattern. I took off, followed him around the circuit and landed behind him before taxying over to say "hi" to Jack. We then took off and flew around a little until I headed back to land just as it was getting dark - I might have stretched it out another 5 minutes, but I think I timed it pretty well :o) I stood around talking to Jack and his son, Trevor, before we all humped the doors closed again. Yup, they need fixing, and badly - I don't think I could have closed them by myself.

DirecTV seem desperate to upgrade us from our current DirecTiVos to their new DVRs. I've not really cared up to now, but they're shutting down the MPEG2 HD channels, not that we watch any of them, and going to MPEG4. Looking at our account, it seems that we're getting complimentary HD, so the upgrade will allow us to watch Animal Planet, Speed and SciFi in glorious high definition. Oh, go on then. They should be out in about a month (eek!), and can't just mail me the receivers because they need to change the dish, too.

There's been a load of talking on the Vanagon list about aftermarket cruise control kits. I've thought about it, but when I stumbled across the kit on clearance on the interweb, I decided to buy one. Not only was it $55 rather than the list price of almost $200, but there was a $5 off coupon if you were picking it up yourself. Off I went to pick it up... only the first place I went didn't have it in stock, so they sent me to the next one down the road that had one. Off I went. Only to find that the one unit they had there was a return. With hundreds of parts, I wasn't about to hope that everything was there, so they redirected me to another shop locally with 2 in stock. Off I went, into the ghetto. The last shop had them, but couldn't find any mention of my order in their computer. So we agreed to let me have it at the web site price (the in store price was quite a bit higher), and I cancelled the order when I got home. I then went to pick up the other stuff I'd ordered at my local shop, only to find that they'd lost all record of it, so I decided to give up and head home. Still, I have a lot of work to do to fit this kit, from the looks of it.

I went out into the garage and started looking at the lighting coil for the YSR. I was trying to see how the old coil was wired up only to see that it wasn't wired in on one end - d'ya think that might be why the battery isn't charging?
I soldered that up, and put everything back together again.

In the evening while filling the Subaru, I went over to the airfield and put some fuel in the Rans in case they ever fix the doors. One of the rail support brackets is broken, meaning that with my luck I'll pull the door off the rail if I try and open it. When I got home, we loaded up so Vic could leave early to go hang gliding in the morning.

Jack called from the airfield to say that the hangar door was broken again - apparently he caught the guys who fix the doors there, and asked them to look at it, and they proceeded to break it off part of the track. They're aiming to come out tomorrow morning and fix it. Again.

Being too tired to do anything, I played a little World of Warcraft, and managed to get my druid up to level 62.

In the evening we watched the WSB race from Donington. I don't usually watch the WSB races, as this week, for example, race 2 isn't being shown until Tuesday. That and the name change in the schedule to "FIM racing" means the Tivo doesn't catch it under "motorcycle racing" :o( Anyways, I'd read that it was a wet weather crashfest, and sure enough, it was... most interesting to watch. With the temperature over 100F here :o)

I sat and played with the strut mounts for the van, and got those, along with the rear roof rack mounts all sorted out. Now I just need to build the roof rack and all's well. After that was finished up, we went to Freedom Field to meet Vince and Larry - a hang glider pilot who's bought a Quicksilver - for lunch. A late lunch, as we waited for a customer of Vince's to show up with a leaky engine.

I spoke to Stephan about the gearbox in the van, and it seems that the Tiico option isn't an exchange - they'd send my gearbox out to get it rebuilt, and that'll take a while (their rebuilder is on the East coast somewhere). It appears that the current gearbox rebuilder and the torque converter builders want another go at it, so I've suggested a written 10,000 mile warranty, with a guarantee of a rebuild by somebody else (probably Tiico) being paid for in the event of a failure. We'll see what happens next - Stephan's hoping to talk to the guy this afternoon / tomorrow morning, so it could be going in as soon as Friday :o)