Work blah blah blah, work blah blah. Most stress filled week ever, didn't even have the piece of mind to write anything down. Enough of that though.

My parents (or actually mom) got me one of those little metal 3-axis helicopters for my birthday. I had a cheap 2-axis one from Fry's (can't remember how I got it, can't imagine I paid for the thing) but it doesn't fly very well so it' sitting on a shelf at work collecting dust. This 3-axis guy really works! You can hover in place with ease, forward/backwards/turn while moving either way, etc. It takes some work to learn to fly, when you want to go forward you also have to dial in some more lift or it just dives. Unfortunately, it's... let's say brittle. I smacked a wall with it and one of the little drive gears lost half it's teeth. Unlike the blades that are easy to replace, the gears will require me to completely disassemble the thing. They're cheap on eBay but it's going to take a while to get here from Hong Kong and even longer for me to rebuild the thing. My eyes don't seem to want to focus on those little tiny parts. Old. :(

Saturday the lights in the bathroom died along with all the plugs in the back bedrooms. The breaker wasn't tripped and when I had the power on I was reading an unsteady 80-90V at what I thought was the first plug in the series. I started opening p all the outlets and on the 2nd to last one I found this wonder:

Yea, that's a house fire in the making. Isn't even aluminum wire, there was actual copper under that mess. I cut out the bad stuff, stripped it fresh and used a real wire nut to bind it. The wire nuts they used are junk, they're really soft material and deform when you put any sort of pressure on them. I'm sure they're "up to code" and saved someone a buck on the cost of building the place. At least now I know that that whole circuit is OK, and I know I'm imagining it but it looks like the noise floor on the radio is down about 1 s-unit on average (this is the circuit the radio is on). That's probably just a coincidence.

Today after a walk to Starbucks and some other random crap I can't remember we went to the pistol range. We've been watching "Top Shot" and after the .22 episode I had the urge to do some plinking. The woman went with, her second time shooting a pistol in 6 years. Some sort of record. Another guy was taking video so it gave me the idea to do that too. I don't have the Browning down here so I had to put the .22 upper on the Kimber. After we finished with the .22 stuff I put the .45 upper back on and the woman actually tried a few shots out of it. She was just as good with the .45 as she was with the .22, and was doing better than the ghetto rats a few lanes down.

Whew! So where to start about the last 4 days of goofing off. Thursday I rode down to Santa Barbara, with a couple of detours. First off Hwy 1 was closed south of Monterrey (previous mud slide damage?) so I had to detour back out to 101. Not wanting to just go out the same way I came in I took G16 and G20, two small country roads that lead me out to Greenfield on 101:

From there I wanted to head back to the coast so I took the road through the military base and got back to Hwy 1. While at a gas station on the way I met a guy named Jay riding some uncomfortable looking Ducati; he's lost his tech job up in Seattle and is riding down the coast to visit friends. He's leaving his bike in San Diego and flying to PHX for a wedding then flying back to get the bike and ride home. He's pretty hard core about the touring, he didn't have camping gear he's just sleeping places he can find (parks, rest stops, etc). Saving cash while he's on unemployment.

On the coast about 6 miles south of where I got back on Hwy 1 there was another slide; we were fortunate that it just happened and they were still letting cars through. We were the last south bound group they let through, everyone else was going to be detoured out to 101 via the road I had just spent 2 hours on (which also had lots of washed out sections on it).

With the detours and sitting at a road block for a while I ended up getting into Santa Barbara really late but I still hooked up with Ally for a tour of the campus and her college pad. (picture of Ally two years ago her graduation... I can't believe it's been 2 years already.) I can't say that I like UCSB, it's mostly concrete slabs and roads, not a lot of trees or personality and all the students seem like spoiled rich brats (Ally excluded since she may be bratty at times she's definitely not rich). She's still a major nerd too, we were walking around at 8:30pm and she was surprised that there were so many people on campus, she's never been at the school after dark. Always studying, what's that going to get her? Maybe that's why she's going to Spain for a year, benifits of good grades. She spent her summer in Germany and is having trouble readjusting to life in the states; the culture here is bothering her. Sorta like Vareck I imagine.

After a night in a Holiday Inn Express (damn motel 6 was full) I went back up the coast to Santa Maria where one of the woman's barn friends bought a ranch. Spent more time than I intended lounging around on their deck enjoying the weather. Her husband is pretty much like a rich successful version of me. He did programming for military systems back when he had a day job and now he just spends his time motorcycle touring, shooting, hoarding gold and silver, etc. Good life if you can get it.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some details but you get the idea. Pictures of the ranch and the full map of the route:

Saturday I took the wheels off the bike and took them to the shop to have the tires I ordered while in the Austin airport installed. The old rear was pretty squared off from all the commuting, the tire stood up by itself... that's not right. I also installed a new chain and sprockets. The chain kit I ordered last year was wrong, the '07 and up Vstrom uses a 118 link chain, the older ones use a 116 so the chain in the kit was too short. Fortunately I checked the length before I went to the shop so at least I didn't have to run back on top of having to buy a new chain. Unlike the KLR chains the Vstrom chains are too big to use the clip style link so I had to rivet the chain master link; I had the correct tools but had never done it before. I'll be checking that master link a lot for a while, I just don't trust the job I did.

Saturday afternoon the woman and I went for a walk and on the way home we saw that someone had abandoned a turtle in an aquarium behind the dumpster by the apartments (you can see behind the dumpsters from the walking trail, we weren't searching around looking for treasure). The woman knew she couldn't keep him but leaving him to die in a scummy tank wasn't nice either so we carried him over to the drainage area and released him into the creek. It's true that he may die, but at least he has a chance to live, death was assured in the tank.

Today I went to Chabot with the guys from the Rifles Only class for a mini-reunion. Apparently all of us have fallen off the shooting wagon, we all sucked pretty bad with the rifles. Two of the guys had their wives/girlfriends there and I ended up instructing them on how to shoot kneeling/squatting/standing and the basics of working off a barricade. They only knew prone and were excited to learn more 'useful' stuff. The one younger chick (maybe 24?) ended up splitting her pants open while doing squats. Those ultra-tight jeans were not meant for physical activity.

While I was at the range the woman made pheasant pot pie for dinner. Tasty.

Another month, another trip to Austin. The flight was only half full so no issues there, traffic was light and the office was dead since most the engineers were in some sort of training class with legal. Hopefully tomorrow we can get done what I came here for after a bit of chit-chat. Usually the couple hours in the office on the first day is when we catch up on stuff and then the second day is the real work.

Instead of eating at the hotel I went to Seth's house to hang out and make him feed me. His wife is out of town and he's watching the 3 kids so dinner was just pizza, but their local delivery place is pretty good. They're both doing well, he got a promotion at work and now makes his CA salary in TX (so 40% better adjusted than he was making in CA) and she now has runs a group of 200. 200! That's an ass load of IT people, wonder what they all do? I'll have to drop in next time when she's in town and see what's going on. VP indeed.

Hotel wifi just died on me just now, had to switch to the spring modem. That's odd. Glad I put the 3g widget in my pocket before I left the room. If only this iphone could tether....

The rental this time is an '11 civic and although it's a nicer 'drivers car' than the usual corolla; seems to handle better and isn't so wishy-washy feeling although it's a bit noisier. The tires look like they're 16" vs. the 15" on the corolla and the shocks are stiffer. The bummer part is this one is also jacked up like the last rental. Instead of suspension problems this time it's electrical, the center stack lights are dead, the 10" wide blue LCD will not dim with the rest of the dash lights (ended up putting a piece of paper over it to keep it from blinding me), and the tail lights are completely out. Some random woman at a stop light told me the whole back of the car wasn't working unless I stepped on the brakes. Wonder if the turn signals are out too? I better check that in the AM.

I'm sitting in the hotel bar working and having a glass of wine and there are some drunken convention people here. One of the chicks wanted to prove she's in shape so she got on the floor and knocked out 40 actual push-ups. I don't know that I've ever seen a chick do real push-ups, much less 40 of them. Oddly a bar floor is not where I thought I would see that. We also now know she's turning 34 on Thursday. Here's a hint, if the deaf guy sitting across the room can understand you, you're talking TOO LOUD.

My plan for the rest of the week is to get home (duh) then I'm going to try to go for a motorcycle ride down south. One of the woman's barn friends that I've met a few times just bought some huge horse ranch down in Santa Barbara so if they're going to be there at the end of the week I may stop by. Not all that interested in horses but seeing their new summer home might be interesting. Also down that way is UCSB where Allison is going (woman's old landlord's kid) so that's a possible stop to crash whatever she's doing. Seeing how she's a sophomore and taking the GRE already I assume she's mostly studying. Nerd! :) Eric has also provided a huge list of things to go check out by LA that aren't tourist standard so if I'm moving faster than usual I'll have things to do.

Only one update per week, you can tell work is still killing me. Working every evening now too, this had better be worth it. Had one of my guys quit on me, he's got enough cash saved up to take a few months off and then get a new job. The market for actual unix people is going nuts right now, punk kids with 5 years experience are asking for $120k, and apparently getting it. I wouldn't be surprised if we lose a few more contractors in the upcoming months; we're not able to convert them and there is better money out there than working as a contractor via Taos/Astreya for us.

Saturday morning I went down to the clays place for a lesson and after bruising the crap out of both my hands again with the Mossberg I took the Browning Cynergy out for a test shoot. Much nicer. :)

There is a lot of confusion around this particular shotgun. First, Brownings are made in Japan and all future shipments are delayed until further notice. Second, the actual shotgun I tried to buy was a demo unit (little cheaper) which wasn't a big deal since they were still going to give me the Browning current promotional cash-back deal on it. However, this actual gun was a freebie given to the range by Browning; they had one of their rental guns break and because of the Japan thing they can't get any more of that model so Browning sent them this one which is nicer than the rental units. The shop didn't want to sell me the freebie since Browning gave it to them and they (Browning) would know they sold the freebie when I went to get my rebate. The shop called around and found another one in-stock and since they already quoted me the price on the demo unit they're going to honor that on the brand new one. I get $200 off for the 'demo' which it no longer is, and $150 back from Browning and then another 9% off for their "April tax-free" promo. Wee! Now it's just a matter of waiting for it to show up.

Last night we went to dinner with my parents at Nola's to check out the remodel and their new menu. The restaurant had toned down the wacky New Orleans decor but they added in a metric fuck ton of TVs everywhere; no where could you look at a flat surface without being bombarded with ESPN. In the bar that's fine, but around the restaurant? It's not a sports bar, but they must be catering to the drunken frat boy crowd from Stanford.

One of the gifts mom gave me for my birthday was these wood chip canisters that you fill with various types of wood chips (naturally) and put in the grill. We tried the mesquite one tonight with a lamb rack and it really does make it smell like you're grilling over wood and not using propane. I figured it was just a gimmick but I've got to admit that she did well with this oddball gift.

Today I put the buddistick antenna I got last week in the car along with the old radio, the laptop and the old motorcycle battery (with an Anderson power pole adapter naturally) in the car and went to the park to try it out. Rather than use the tripod and a bunch of guy wires, I used the clamp mount and hooked it to the 30 lb steel umbrella stand that dad made for me 10 years ago for use at the autocross tracks. Works perfectly as a mount for the stick, no way that thing can fall over and its' faster to setup than a bunch of wires. I used a single 17' counterpoise wire this time, going to make up some more wires with ring terminals for next time. The single radial works though, I was able to make some contacts and it works at least as well as the stealth stick on the roof.

The woman went along for moral support and she was supposed to help out by using the kite line winder to lengthen/shorten the counterpoise for me but she got busy doing other crap (and staying warm in the car) so I just kept moving it around myself. The lawn chair is almost the right height to let me use the back of the wagon as a desk.

Left work on Friday feeling like someone had been punching me in the head all day. Horrible, horrible work. Feels like the last days at NVDA, I'm losing my mind. I'm in a political fight for my life, I'll either be demoted or looking for a new job here soon and the worst part is that I've not actually done anything wrong. Some people say I'm just not doing anything right. Too bad those people don't actually know what we do day-to-day. :(

Tried to go for sushi on Friday to console myself and we found this:

That's not a good sign. "restaffing"? David (guy at work) said one of his friends knows someone who works there and said that they stopped paying their staff. We knew something was up when they were giving 'cash discounts'. Not paying their bills? About to fold? Something is up, really hope they do reopen as it's the only sushi place that's walkable from the house.

With sushi closed and my brain a smoldering heap of confusion we debated on trying something new or just giving up all hope and eating at McDonald's on the walk home. Fortunately we wised up and tried a szechuan Chinese place in the same shopping center. It was tasty... but... about half way though my spicy beef dish I pulled out a 2' long hair. Ugh! I doubt anything could have survived that spicy dish though. :) The waiter saw me pull it out, rushed over, took the dish away and gave us a menu to choose something else. I had to point to 3 different things before he would finally nod 'yes' and take the order. Apparently I wasn't picking white people compatible food the first few times. It's easier when they just have a white people menu instead of giving us the real one then rejecting choices we make. The second dish was even better than the first. They handled it well so we'll go back without hesitation.

Saturday was a pretty lazy day, I didn't go to the clays range but we did go to the fancy faucet place to pick out the bath fixtures. With that done we're ready for the remodel. Guess I forgot to mention that another contractor came out last week and gave us a more reasonable bid for the bathroom so we're going to have it done. We've done the design, nothing to do now but wait for the stuff to come in.

Today we drove to the coast and visited the goat farm, this time for the full tour. Couple of hours of looking at goats was more than I would want to endure but the woman had fun playing with the baby goats then spending way to freakin' much money on goat cheese and organic eggs.

After goats, we had a sandwich at the general store in Pescadero before heading home and turning 100k on the wagon.

First grilled pizza of the season tonight, then a walk, then some WoW, then to prepare for the horrors of work tomorrow.