I am fried. 5 hours of stupid TPS reports yesterday and a bunch of panic fixing stupid filer problems my 'storage admin' setup before he left on vacation today. I really want t rest but the in-laws are here and they're making an ass load of noise. Ugh.

The bike's mileage is officially down to 45mpg. It started at 55, dropped to 52-ish when I put the screen on it and now at 40k miles it's down to a solid 45. It could be the really worn chain and sprockets I'm still running, or the wheel bearings that are still the factory set that although I have replacements for have never actually replaced, or it's just that the motor is getting tired. 40k is a lot of miles on a single cylinder 80s technology dirt bike. Doesn't seem to be burning any more oil than usual and the oil analysis still shows it's healthy, so those are good signs. Maybe it's just my aggressive riding after the Alps trip?

This is good. I'm sitting about 50' from my desk out in the courtyard using a laptop to RDP back to my desktop mac. I don't have to worry about any snow leopard issues with legacy apps since the 10.6 laptop is just acting as a terminal. It's also very nice out here in the shade. Now I just need a slice of lemon pound cake and it's just like working at starbucks.

Amusing, but now it's getting cold out. Inaccuweather says it's 69F out there. Just yesterday it was showing 80s all week.... guess that's why it's called that.

Looking at Dennis' detox menu it doesn't look that bad. Probably not enough food for me when I'm working out but otherwise it looks tasty. Crazy expensive though, I don't eat that much food (dollar wise) in a month, much less a week. Ramen is still cheap and doesn't upset my gut so it's a staple and drives the total cost of ownership down. :)

Went to the range yesterday and practiced with the bow a bit. It was crazy crowded again, some sort of kids event. Who knew kids and archery went together so often? My real lesson is tomorrow, and I'm thinking by next time I'm headed to the range I'll be able to try some of the 3D targets.

Today we went to the farmer's market to pick up some random fruits and veggies for next week. Grapes are really good when they're fresh out of the illegal's truck. :)

While the woman ran errands, I put those last skid plates on the Jeep. The passenger side mount is a little tweaked so when I popped the bolt out the axle settled back about 1/2". Doh! I finally managed to get it moved forward by wrapping a rope around the axle and the front bumper and then kept twisting the rope around with a stick which pulled the rope tighter and eventually it moved the axle. Tricky.

A picture I took a while ago but keep forgetting to post. I just thought it was amusing how much lens comes out of the camera at full zoom.

Oh, and I watched part of the first transformers movie (or I assume it's the first because it was on showtime or whatever and they're pimping it a lot so there must be on in the theaters now too). Anyway, it sucked. Major suckage. I understand they have a lot of special effects, but otherwise the movie was boring. Even the hot chick wasn't on screen enough to save it. Boo.

So like Dennis, I'm trying to figure out my food allergies. We think we've narrowed it down to the shredded cheese. In Europe I ate all sorts of cheese, but it was all natural real cheese and not the chemical crap that they have here. As a test we've been getting on real cheese from the deli with no chemicals and I've not had any problems. Last night we tested the theory and I made some ham and cheese quesadillas using some of the regular shredded cheese that's suspected to make me sick. I felt a little funky after but we thought it might just be mental because I kept thinking something should go wrong. About 1am I woke up with massive cramps and after about 30 minutes in the bathroom purging my bowels, we're pretty sure it's the wacky cheese. The main problem is though we don't know what the chemical is that causes the problem. Could be any of those 'natural colors' or 'natural flavors' they add, and since they don't list them out it's hard to tell which ones are in other foods that might make me sick.

I went to the range on Tuesday and forgot to write about it. First trip out with the new bow and I got the sight all setup for 20/30/40/50/60/70 yards. I was running out of time toward the end so I sorta faked it with the 70 yard target. Fired one, it went high. Tweaked the sight, fired again, hit the top. Tweaked it again and wham, right where it's supposed to go. This thing is so easy to shoot well.

Spent a bunch of time tonight (and today) working on my presentation for tomorrow. Hope it doesn't suck.

Yesterday sucked, 12+ hours at work. Today was pretty good though. I got the differential serviced on the Jeep (so far no leaks!), looked for a lamp for my office (no luck), cleaned up all my winter gear that had been piling up in the garage, vacuumed the house and made some awesome ribs on the BBQ (after spending an hour or so cleaning up the grill itself). On our after dinner walk we found a turtle walking along the access road next to the drainage ditch. The woman was very excited to 'pet' it, although I don't think they like having their shell rubbed. Either way she made sure it got down to the water before any of the neighborhood kids saw it; they're mostly little animals so it would be unlikely they wouldn't harm it in some way. Bummer I didn't have my phone or camera along.

Going through the rest of my back issues of Men's Health I found more good recipes. One for scallops and another for making your own bacon (cured instead of smoked). The woman is up for me trying the scallops even if she won't eat them but she's drawing the line at me curing my own bacon in the garage. If it didn't take 3 weeks I could probably get away with it. :)

No range time today obviously so I'll have to go during the week or on Saturday.

Still a busy, busy week. Getting stuck doing something every night isn't helping me feel less stressed out either. I got a call from the archery shop yesterday and they wanted to sell the bow that I had been looking at and had on-hold (without a deposit). I told them I would be down to get it that night, so they had to order one for the other guy. After a lot of test firing on Saturday and Monday, I did end up picking the Turbohawk, the one that's been out for all of a week now. It's basically a 'recession special'. They took their really high-end bow, replaced the CNC machined aluminum riser with a cast magnesium riser but otherwise left all the good stuff there. It saved $300+ off the price but it still performs just as well and that's what is important. They're predicting huge sales and they're probably right. Why settle for mid-range performance when for a 25% price bump you can get high-end performance that would normally require a 100% price bump? Anyway, here is what it looks like (without the rest, sight or quiver):

Shooting it in the store at 20 yards was almost too easy, I've already damaged some of the arrow fletchings because I was hitting them with follow-up shots. Now I see why they good guys have lots of small targets rather than one big one. You get good and you end up hitting your own arrows that are already in the target. I'm working Saturday but hopefully Sunday I can go to the outdoor range and get it dialed in. Even in it's reduced power mode (set to 60# now while I'm getting used to it) it's way, way, way faster than the old bow.

Saturday was a busy day. I went to the 4x4 shop and picked up my remaining parts and installed the nerf bars. I also noticed that the front diff is now leaking, and true to form Chrysler didn't use a gasket so when I tried to add the front plate without draining the fluid and dropping the whole diff cover I caused a leak. Doh. Gotta get the $4 gasket and then put $30 worth of synthetic gear oil in. That will teach me.

Also on Saturday we made the BBQ pizza. The dough took about 5 hours to make, most of that time it was sitting rising or resting so it was only about 30-45 minutes of actual work. We did the whole thing on the BBQ and it turned out really well. Too much salt in the recipe though, we'll cut that down next time. I had

Parents were in town tonight so we went to the good pho place. Turns out it is cheaper and tastes better. Bummer we have to drive to it.

4x4 run for next weekend was canceled. The trip leader's jeep is down, and he broke a tooth (which has nothing to do with the trip other than he's in pain at the moment). Bummer all around.

More strange dreams last night, I just couldn't remember them as vividly as the previous night.

Strange dream last night, I dreamt that I was in China on a business trip with Liz and for some reason we kept ordering mini-fridges for the room, and large TVs. No idea what that was about. Then I went for a walk in the countryside and stopped at a market and bought a cell phone from William Shatner. Um, what?

So much for updating the 4x4 trip stuff last week.

I had Friday off, so dad came down and we tried to go for a ride. We got up to Boulder Creek for lunch and then mom called and my great aunt was just admitted to the hospital. End of ride as dad left and went back so they could see her alive one last time. She's got some crazy bone cancer and no one is expecting her to live through the weekend. The hospice people were supposed to come today, which means that she's not making it out of there alive. She'll be cremated and flown to TX to be with her family so no ceremony here.

Before dad showed up in the AM, I took the Jeep down to the shop to have the gas tank skid plate installed and the little spacers put under the springs. Then I took over (ha!) and did the easy stuff, the steering box skid plate and the diff plate. The steering box plate came with this funky nut-on-a-stick. You have to drill into the round tube in the bumper and you use the stick to hold the nut 10" or so inside the tube so you can snug the bolt in. Pretty tricky.

Some before and after shots... and crap, I just realized I blasted the pics of the old skid plate before I downloaded them out of the camera. Doh. Well trust me, it was beat to hell and had 3 major 2" wide 9" long scars in it.

Nothing says "I don't want a hole in my gas tank" quite like 3/16" plate steel. Probably bounce a bullet off this bad boy.

While under there I pulled out that trailer light wiring stuff, if I suddenly have the urge to tow the jeep behind and RV I'll have to put it back. Here is the discard pile of bumper plastics, broken side steps and unused wiring:

After working on the Jeep and whatnot on Saturday we went up to Alameda for the annual BBQ at the Miens' house. That was pretty good but you can tell the crowd is getting older since most of us took off before 8:30. One of the kids had some sparklers but that was it for fire works. I must say, they've dumbed down sparklers a lot. Instead of a metal stick with that iron whatever stuff around it, now it's a paper stick with 3" of burning stuff that goes in 1 direction. Sorta like a mini road flare.. "safe" sparklers? Lame.

Today after Starbucks and a whole bunch of WoW (rogue up to 29th level now) I cleaned the rifles (which as I brought up to Don I haven't fired in 6+ months, they've just been dirty since the last time out), and tidied up the house a bit. Dinner tonight was BBQ 'steak'. We found a freezer burnt roast of some sort and I cut it into steak shaped pieces and marinated it. Worked out better than I had thought and there was a little bit left to cut up for a sandwich tomorrow.