As I didn't cook yesterday, I cooked dinner, and Vince came over. We watched Meet The Feebles, which is... strange.

In the evening, I put the carputer back together. It still boots, but I can't seem to get it to do anything with the external monitor - the monitor fleetingly sees a signal as it boots, but I can't get it to switch to it, and, of course, with no way of knowing what it's doing, I can't figure out what it's doing. It's gone into the cupboard of distressed hardware and broken dreams while I think about it for a while.

I played some World of Warcraft and got my warlock up to level 80. I guess I should look at progressing my hunter or druid, but I've been busy mining for enginerding materials.

I installed Warcraft II on Vic's laptop, and she spent all day playing. Maybe she'll eventually roll up another toon on my online account (Cyndee was originally hers).

I sat down with a soldering iron and finally soldered a new power connector to an old laptop I have lying around. I'd taken the power connector off a dead laptop before tossing it out a while back, so it was just a matter of getting the motherboard out, de-soldering the old, broken connector and soldering on the new one. And putting it all back together. Strangely, it seems to work.
I took the carputer apart to look at the monitor connector on the motherboard, and it isn't going to be easy to solder a connector straight to it. I've left that in parts while I think about it.

I sat in bed trying to get Tilly to calm down and let me sleep for a while, and eventually shut her out so I could doze off for maybe 45 minutes. Vince called to see about going for a ride, as it was a beautiful day. We ended up riding up to Georgetown. We're guessing about 1800', but there was snow on the ground where the road's been ploughed. After lunch we rode home again, the DRZ is no match for his Beemer, but I had a good time. I should really try and get out on it more often. Vince has been flying his wobbly one handed and thinks I should be fine with a single seater, so I've resolved to call his instructor down in Lodi again and take a ride, to see if that's practical. If I like it, something like an ATF could be put in the van with the wing on the roof, next to Vic's glider. We'll see.

After Vince went home, I caught up on Battlestar Galactica - not a single space battle, and only 4 episodes to go.

Weird coincidences - when I checked my email, I have a message from Ken in Lincoln who keeps making noises about wanting to buy the Rans. If I like trike flying, maybe I'll sell it to him this time :o)

I played some World of Warcraft and having bought some parts, managed to build the epic flyer, and then got my warlock up to level 79. It's actually fairly nice being able to fly places quickly, just difficult to get, at 5000 gold for the training alone.

Tilly and I sat and caught up on some TV, then I played World of Warcraft until Vic got home from the SPCA.

A cable I'd ordered for my PC finally came in, so I could hack that about to make a laptop DVD writer work in it. I don't quite know why I felt I needed one when my work laptop and Vic's laptop both have them, but now my desktop has one too. I think it's pretty much maxed out now with stuff I can jam into the small case.

I think I'll have to start sorting through junk like the old DVD-ROM/CD writer to get rid of more stuff on Ebay, as I'm happy to swap money for space :o)

I started the day in the garage, getting the van mostly put back together. When we went to the gym, I picked up the ring connectors I needed, and after a little rest, finished up the wiring. The inverter works. The auxiliary battery charges. Nothing seems to catch fire. I took it out for a quick drive, and it still didn't catch fire, but I parked it up with exactly 160,000 miles showing.

As she's been cooped up because of the weather, I took Tilly for a long walk between showers - it'll have to do for now, as the Bear dog park is closed at the moment. To say nothing of too muddy to allow her to play in.

I finally got around to draining the hot tub, much to Tilly's annoyance, as she was shut inside. It was a great opportunity to uncover the drains in the back garden, too.

I've been reading about the latest stimulus bill, where the government is spending my money to try and get other people to spend money. For example, there will be a $400 tax cut this year that I earn too much for, and a credit for buying a brand new car that I also earn too much for. Not that I want a brand new car, but it seems that this is missing the point. Here's a plan - how about you spend the money in a way that creates jobs so that people can then afford a car without a tax credit. Besides, I've already paid to bail out the car manufacturers - don't they owe me a car already? And while you're at it, fix health care, as that's what's going to destroy the country financially.
It's also funny to see that the Republicans wanted yet more tax cuts, despite the fact that their tax cuts turned a surplus into a deficit in pretty short order.
Honestly, some people.

In the evening, I spent a little time playing World of Warcraft and got my warlock to level 76.

At home, we watched the latest Battlestar Galactica episode...

Spoiler Alert
So Ellen is the last of the final five Cylon, but WTF is Daniel?

I then started trying to fit a bar end mirror to the DRZ, and ended up breaking the mounting. So I made up a new one, and mounted it so it's below the left handlebar. This works pretty well, as I can see under my arm, rather than being able to check that my elbows are still intact. I'm going to give it a little while to see if I like it, and if I get hassled by the police - you have to have a rear view mirror, but this one isn't so obvious from the front :o)

We also watched Tilly watch Eight Below.

Spoiler Alert
No more Gaeta. I'm happy about that :o)

In the evening we went for dinner with a bunch of volunteers from the SPCA, and Vic stayed there while I came home and fed and played with Tilly, then managed to get my warlock to level 74.

The solar panels have now generated 5MWh. Not bad, methinks - that's about $420 worth of electricity :o|

Tilly slept the whole way home, which was nice.