I called the employment department again, but they were off for Cesar Chavez day - not even the post office gets that one - maybe I should work there.

I went for a cycle, and got home all tired as usual. Still, it's only 70F at the moment, and I need to get used to cycling before the temperature hits 100F every day :o)

My new helmet has arrived, so I sat and played with that for a little while. I'll need to get out on the DRZ to test it out :o)

I ran a few errands, then ended up at the airfield so I could take the Rans out for an hour or so. It's quite thermally at the moment - I was flying along at about 850' and 40mph and there was a hugeassed bird above me, at a similar speed just gliding along in a thermal.
It looks like it's going to be windier for the next few days, so I probably won't get to fly again for a little while.

Surprise, surprise, I didn't get paid today - that's 2 months that I haven't been paid on time. At least I won't have to worry about that when I've had my last pay cheque.

I basically just tinkered around with stuff on the computer, looking at job listings in the area to see that there's basically nothing I would do for the pittance they're paying just now. That's good - I'm still aiming to take some time off.

I got a letter from the unemployment people saying that they wanted to interview me while I'm in the UK. You have to call to say that you can't make the appointment, but the machine basically says "we're too busy to talk to you" and hangs up. Outstanding.

Gwen came over to see Vic, and I fixed the wheel for her wheelbarrow - basically the tyre wouldn't bead up until I used a tie down to squash the tyre against the rim.

Jim came over, and we looked at a power connector in his PC.

It's all good.

It blew a gale all day - 25mph and up, and I collected bits of dead wood from the garden while Tilly lay facing into the wind with her face all squinty and her ears flapping.

I got around to booking a flight back to the UK to see people, and attend Nan's funeral. I'm thinking I need to get my suit dry cleaned.

When Vic got home from work, we went to dinner with Vince at a local Mexican place. I should probably stop eating out so often, being unemployed :o)

Ah, a beautiful NorCal spring day - it was in the low 70s by 10am, so I pulled the bicycles off the hangers in the garage, and we went for a leisurely 10 mile or so ride. It's the first time we've ridden this year, so we took it easy :o) When we got home and checked the messages etc, we decided to take the motorcycles for a run to lunch. We ate locally, then scooted up 80 and came back through Lincoln on 193 - it's a nice little run with some corners.

Vic went to drop off a guinea pig at an adopter's, and I played with Tilly until she was done chasing the ball in the back garden. As it was Earth Hour today, just before 20:30, we turned off all the lights and took Tilly for a walk to the local Starbucks, getting home just at 21:30, so we could turn the lights back on. Vic was pretty sure she's working tomorrow, so had an early night while I played with the computer. I ran across this piece about the sad state of affairs with the AMA motorcycle racing organisation. As an update, it seems that Jamie Hacking apologised and got away with a $4,000 fine. The author's making a lot of the points I made to the AMA when they sent me a questionnaire about renewing my membership. This sort of nonsense, plus their idiotic whining about riders' rights while refusing to stand up to noisy Harley owners is why I've declined to renew. I find it amazing that they'll report on small towns banning motorcycle events as if they've somehow succumbed to terrorism without pointing the finger at the pricks that have made the small towns want to ban motorcycling events - it's not because they don't want visitors, it's because they don't want the noise or the alcohol fueled trouble that a motorcycle rally entails these days.
Anyhoo...

In the evening, Vince came over with ribs, and after dinner we watched, and watched Tilly watch Bolt. I watched it for the dog, and Vic watched it for the hamster :o)

I spent a little time looking at job listings, and then reminded myself that I don't actually want to go back to work soon, so I went and dropped off the laptop at Fedex. Hopefully that'll get there tomorrow, and they'll send me my final cheque and I can put all this behind me as a painful memory.

It's a shame that they didn't tell me before I ordered the new helmet, but then, maybe I'll use the thing that much more now :o)

I called Vince and told him I was finally free of the shackles of "the man", and we rode over to Outback for dinner. Now I just need to figure out what to do with myself in the meantime.

As it's been sunny (but windy) for a while, I got up on the roof and cleaned the solar panels for, I believe, the first time this year. While I had the ladder out, I put new batteries in the outdoor temperature sensor for the weather station.

In the evening, I got to play a little World of Warcraft and got my druid to level 76. Vic called to say she was on her way home, having not got to fly at all - the wind was coming down the hill.

In the afternoon, I went to look at the hot tub, as for once it's not raining. Having managed to get Tilly off it (she lies up there when it gets warm in the sun), I discovered that the lid is full of water - the stitching's collapsed, letting water in. I guess I need to replace that before I bother cleaning it all up.

I wandered past the inverter for the solar panels, and ran it through the numbers only to find that in the bright sunshine at about 2pm, my 2.5Kw rated system was generating 3Kw. I watched it for a few minutes, not believing it, but sure enough it went between 3060W and 3056W for a few cycles. It's probably due to it being cold at the moment, so they're especially efficient at the moment.

I fiddled around with some LEDs for the instrument panel on the van, and got them working. I'd been thinking about blue, but apparently that's very hard on the eyes, so I went with red. My soldering was holding up just fine, but the LEDs wouldn't light. A brief test showed that one was wired the wrong way around, so I then managed to swap another one, so now I had 2 that were the wrong way round. I took them both off, and resoldered them, realising afterwards that I'd just made 4 joints, where I could have just taken the centre section and swapped it around, leading to 2 joints. Whatever. Now the light on the heater controls and the gear selector are looking at me, begging to get changed.

I found that the outdoor temperature sensor for the weather station needs new batteries when I saw that it had been 41F all day. Oh well, that's the last of the batteries to replace, so I'll put it on the list of things to do.

In the evening, we went to dinner with Fred and Marsha at an Italian place in Sacramento. They're regulars, but it was our first time there.

In the evening, we fired up the barbie and charcoaled a piece of steak, and watched the finale of Battlestar Galactica - finally space battles. And, by the looks of things, a spin off :o|

I started the day going out to look at some local motorcycle shops' sales, and ended up with nothing. So the hunt for a new helmet continues.

I then went to the airfield to tinker with the Rans - a couple of guys have been talking about buying it from me, and have put the pod back on and played with the seat. Without my permission. As this renders it unflyable by me without taking tools to it, I've been none too impressed, and it's taken me a while to calm down and get out there to look at it. That's finally done. While I was there, I washed the worst of the dust off it, but it was too windy to get it really clean - it lifted a wheel once, so I decided to put it away.

In the evening, I cooked on the barbie for the first time this year, and Vince came over to help eat the roast beast.

I also managed to get the oil and filter changed in the Subaru - it's a bit overdue, and now I need to start thinking about the timing belt change in 5,000 miles.

After work, I went over to Pat's - one of the SPCA volunteers, and fixed her PC. A bit. It's better than it was, but I have no idea what it's doing half of the time. Windows, eh?

At home, the tennis ball fairy left a new tennis ball in the back garden. We don't know where it came from, so we let Tilly grab it. We'll see how long that lasts, as she already has one. I got everything ready to get the door threshold thingy sorted out, only to find I don't have any glue. It's the type that you use once, then generally throw the tube away as it's all gone hard. I shouldn't have been surprised. I've dropped the bits into the hole, as Tilly's taken to licking the concrete that she can now get to, and I'm sure that's not a good idea.

One of the door threshold wood effect thingy's split recently - I thought it had worked it's way out of the plastic holder, but it had actually split in such a way that I need to replace it. So we jumped into the Subaru and drove over to IKEA and looked for a replacement. Interestingly they're painted aluminium now, so I don't think I'm the first to have one of the MDF ones split. Ehh... great :o( While I was there I picked up a pack of cheap floor laminate to try and fit in the van. Once we'd got home, I remembered that I wanted to go and look at helmets for Vic. We drove about 2/3rds of the way back to IKEA to go to PCP Motorsports and picked up a Arai Vector in camo green (she likes green) as it was on sale. I seriously considered getting a new Corsair, but they didn't have the colour I really want, plus I'm tempted to try a XD3 to go with the DRZ.

Straight from Sacramento, we went to meet some of the volunteers at the SPCA for dinner, then went home and entertained Tilly for a while before bed.

Today was Scott's 40th birthday, but he was at a Scout meeting. After the meeting, we met them for a late, late dinner. He was still in his man scout uniform (dork), so attracted a passing nutter - that taught him to at least take off the shirt (luckily he had a shirt on underneath it).

Finally got to see the second WSB race from Philip Island. That's a shame, as it was a pretty good race - better than the 1st one, I reckon.

I went and picked up a tablet PC that I'd seen on Craigslist that I'll hopefully be able to use as the new carputer in the van. Basically it was cheaper than any screen solution I've come across.
I then spent most of the afternoon installing updates, and deleting crap. Now I just need to make up some sort of mounting bracket.

I sat down to watch the WSB race from Philip Island. Well, race 1, anyway. Speedvision aren't showing the 2nd race until Tuesday, as they're busy showing NASCAR reruns. I hit the web to find that Spies won the second race - just as well after borking the first race after Yamaha paid all that money to bring him to the team.