All the testing I could do made everything look fine, so I'll have to think about that.

In the afternoon, I went over to Scott and Becky's for Taylor's birthday party, and the annual celebration of Becky's 29th birthday :o)

I finally finished installing the cruise control system in the van. I need to wait a while for the glue on the speed sensor to dry, so I haven't been able to test it yet.

Gwen came over again and joined us for the roast beast in the evening. I managed to slop the ash from the barbie all over the floor and myself while cleaning up, so I figured it was as good a time as any to give it a clean.

At home, I sanded, and threw some paint on the step for the van.

Vic stopped at a couple of rest stops on her way home, so ended up arriving back from Hat Creek at about 6am. Tilly and I left her to sleep while we went and did other stuff - I worked on the step that Vince had made me for the van, and got it primered and ready to spray. Well, it fell over, so I'll need to wait a day or two for the primer to dry, then sand it down first.

When Vic got up, we went for a late lunch, and ran into Kirk, Krista, Tim and Michelle at the pizza kitchen, so we ended up staying there for a few hours catching up, and talking about hang gliding a lot, as Kirk flies.

I pottered around the house, and eventually went to Vince's to supervise him making a step for the van to make it easier to get into the upstairs bunk. He's welded some rusty steel together, so I need to clean it up, prime it and spray it, but it's basically done. Cool. We were sitting in the garden playing with Tilly when Vic called and said she'd had about an hour in the air, and had had a great landing. She was going to get all packed up and head home, to arrive late at night, or, if she stopped for a kip en route, early in the morning.

The rest of the day was wasted just bumbling around the house / garden and playing with Tilly - a full time job in itself.

I then crawled around under the van and got the gray water tank Vince and I made all fitted up. It looks lower than I'd expected, but I don't think I've lost much ground clearance.

In the evening, I cooked on the barbie, but Vince was at the airfield for a party there. Screw him, that's what I say. still, Gwen came over and joined us.

I spent some time fiddling with my new laptop, installing a 2Gb SODIMM, then killed time until I went to the airfield so I could take the Rans out. First I had to reorganise the hangar, as somebody's dumped a powered paraglider in my space. Not happy. Still, I eventually managed to get the thing fueled up and take it out and have fun.

In the evening, we went to Roseville Downtown Tuesday Night and saw the classic cars and suchlike.

We went to see Star Trek, and it's excellent.

I finally got an unemployment cheque :o)

In the evening, we watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It's OK, but seems overly long.

In the evening, Vince came over and I decided to barbecue, but had a hard time getting even paper to light. Eventually it all worked out fine, but I'm wondering if the >100F temperature had anything to do with it.

In the afternoon, we loaded the hang gliding onto the Subaru and headed to Freedom Field so Vic could practice ground handling in the wind. That promptly died off. Still, I got to run Tilly ragged. We think she was suffering from the heat, as after lying down under Vince's truck for a while she got up all gimpy and was obviously not happy. 5 minutes later, she was up and running around again, wanting the play ball. After chasing around like an idiot again, she got gimpy again, so spent the rest of the afternoon on her lead for long periods to force her to calm down. Vic went for a flight with Vince in the wobbly, but it was a bit bumpy, so I declined a ride :o) We packed up and dropped Tilly at home to sleep it off and went for pizza.

• I received a letter saying I was approved
• I received a letter saying I was denied
• I received a letter saying I was approved
• I sat patiently waiting for a telephone interview that didn't happen
• I still haven't had any sign of benefits, despite filing over 6 weeks ago

I spoke to Sara at Stephan's Autohaus about the van. The gearbox isn't leaking from the pan as I thought, but one of the major seals. Bummer. As I'd asked them to look at the engine oil leak, too, they've found that it's just the valve cover gasket, but they've also found the drive shaft boots are torn. I should be getting it back some time next week.

I then went for a 10 - 12 mile cycle ride, arriving home tired. After that, I spoke to Vince, and we met up for dinner.

I finally got the return packaging for the DirecTV receivers, so I got them packaged and shipped. At this rate, I'll have all the extraneous crap out of the house by Xmas. 2016.

In crawling around under the van, I'd found that the gearbox was leaking, so I spoke to Stephan's Autohaus, and we dropped it off there to be looked at.

In the evening, Vic went and picked up Amber and Brownie from their adopters, who had them living in squalor in their garage.

We ran Tilly again when we got back to Vince's, then headed home.

In the evening, Vic and I went to the monthly SPCA volunteer dinner meetup, then came home and loaded the car up for hang gliding tomorrow.

After I had another begging phone call from DirecTV (no, I'm happy with no TV, thanks), Vince and I got together and went to Lowe's for supplies. Then I let him do most of the work of building the gray water tank for the van. We stopped just short of mounting it, and barbecued dinner.

For some reason I've suddenly had a lot of interest in the remaining computer monitor. Interest, mind you, people haven't been showing up to buy the damn thing.

I called DirecTV and cancelled the satellite service - now we're in the summer, it's not worth paying for TV, Krod Mandoon notwithstanding.