Forgot to say yesterday... music not to have playing when you roll through downtown Holister: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF8c3BjFWsw

Rollin' with a .17 isn't exactly gangster style, but the 'bodies' in the cooler is worth something.

That's weird, I did the last update at 9:21am too. Must be a habit. Anyway, no update for a week, hadn't realized I had gone dark for so long so I'll try to catch up here with some pictures and text.

First up is easy, it's a picture of the woman and her barn mates after the last show. The trainer is the big one in the middle.

Next up is a shot out the lunch room window at the new data center building. We did the last walk through last week, by this time it should be completed and ready to turn over on the 1st so our networking guys can start their part of the bring-up. The big downtime move is still scheduled for the Thanksgiving holiday so at least I won't have to make the drive to my parents. The woman may go back to see her parents at that time rather than at giftmas so perhaps we can spend the giftmas holiday together without all the family overhead/drama/BS that usually ruins the otherwise perfectly good time away from work.

Saturday Scott and Lina came down and wanted to go wine tasting in Livermore (no doubt the reaction to our previous wine tasting adventure which they were not a part of). Livermore wineries are way less pretentious. Other than Wente the rest of those we went to were small and really friendly, and the tastings were cheap! We ended up with 5 new wines we liked, and oddly the cheapest wine of the bunch was one of the best. We ate at the underdog wine bar again, food was good as usual. It's almost starting to sound like a habit.

Sunday I went rabbit hunting down at the BLM land I went to last time. This time I spent less time walking around and more time actually hunting, and managed to get 3 rabbits (out of 4, one was just a little too fast for me). I could have gotten more had I stayed longer but I was happy with the take as it was and wanted to get home at a reasonable time. I also worked on doing my 'butcher in the field' trick, so rather than field dressing them and then butchering them at the house (having to dispose of the carcass at home and whatnot) I did it in one motion while in the field. I need a better knife, perhaps an actual fillet knife, but otherwise it worked out pretty well. Used a lot less water too in the processing since I didn't have to fully clean up the parts that I wasn't keeping. Doesn't sound that important but when you have limited resources in the field anything you can save is something you don't have to pack in to start with.

This is a picture of the Panoche Hills as I got closer. It doesn't look so much like it in the picture but this is pretty dramatic, you drive across a flat plane for 15-20 miles and then this rises out of the ground.

This picture is just inside the hills where I was hunting, but it's actually so much more. I had hiked away from the Jeep into this brush chasing after the rabbit that got away and at this point I decided that he was gone and that I would give up and head back. As I started walking a rabbit jumped out about 15' in front of the Jeep out of those bushes in the middle of the parking circle. I had the .17 and dialed the scope up and sure enough he was just sitting there looking around, a mid-sized cotton tail. There were no rocks or trees or anything to brace against and I didn't have my shooting sticks with me so I went into a kneeling squat position like they taught us at Rifles Only and tried to sling up as best as I could with the carry strap on the rifle. I didn't have my range finder but based on the targets I had seen on the hill behind me I had guessed that the range from the Jeep to here was 100-150 yards. I had forgotten the dope for the 50 yard zero that I now had on the .17 so again I just sorta winged it, no hold-over and fired.... the rabbit dropped and didn't even twitch. When I got closer I could see that the shot hadn't hit him in the head but about 2" below in the back/shoulder. Back at the iphone I did the ballistics work and found that the drop at 125 yards is 1.24" and at 150 yards is 2.92", so if I was accurate on my hold then the distance accounts for the low hit. Felt good to just rely on my skills under stress to analyze the situation and make the shot.

One side effect of the bike wiring project is that my LED voltage gauge now reads higher. It was always on the edge of falling below the 'green' zone at idle and never went to the high side of green while running like the KLR did. So, either the gauge was just getting marginal power being tapped off the tail light feed before and now it's happy via the relay from the battery, or perhaps the grounding on the whole bike is better now and it's actually running at a more appropriate voltage all the time?

Today the woman had another schooling show; much larger than last time with at least 40 horses/ponies running all over the place. One class (that she wasn't in) had 20 ponies in it. She did pretty well getting a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th place in her 5 classes (not in that order) and ending up with "reserve champion" in her division (meaning she came in 2nd overall). Not too bad. Here is a picture I sent to her parents earlier in the day.

After coming back from the show I finished the projects I started this morning, that being installing the boxes in the back of the Jeep and getting the software based TNC working so I could repurpose the 2200H from the car into a second packet radio. It was surprisingly easy, I remembered I had a rigblaster left from my echolink project so I just reused that and with some jumper wire changes... presto! Now I can do APRS all the time on one radio and use the other for packet BBS and actually talking on for the weekly nets. I still have to come up with another 2m antenna for the attic, using my emergency j-pole tacked to the wall probably isn't optimal.

The Jeep boxes went in fairly easily, except for the bolts. They want you to run them up through the fenders and into the box instead the other way around so that the nuts are inside the box. Makes sense, otherwise someone could just spin the nuts off and the boxes would fall out. Not that big of a deal, I'm not using them for security in a soft top vehicle but I did it anyway. Major PITA, the woman had to work inside while I pushed up on the bolts from the outside; took all my strength to get those damn plastic fender liners to compress enough for the bolts to reach. I may re-do the whole thing taking the liners out first then putting them back over the bolt heads once they're installed. The boxes have way less space in them that I thought but at least it gives me a flat surface to put things on back there when I'm sleeping, the rounded fenders wouldn't hold squat.

Beef, California yuppie style and Texas BBQ style. Both tasty!

Today I went to Yolo county for a black powder shoot with the old crusty guy I met at the back at the intro seminar. This one had more discussion about the rendezvous and what takes place. Mostly it's a multi-day shoot/camp/hang out event with people in period costumes (from 1827-1840). Apparently there are many ways people camp: motel, RV/5th wheel, regular camping and primitive camping. In the primitive camps you can't use anything newer tech than 1840 so no flashlights, no nylon tents, no camp stoves, no teflon cookware, etc. Lots of canvas, wool, cast iron and wick lanterns. Sounds cool to see. The shoots are called 'trail walks' and they're like the field archery or sporting clays shoots where you walk around from target to target and deal with different sizes of target, terrain, etc.

At the actual shooting part I put about 25 rounds down range and for the first part I couldn't hit crap at 50 yards. Off the sand bags I'm lucky to get 3" groups and after the old coots analyzed my used patches they determined that they're too thin and I'm burning them up. Even I could see that once I recovered a few. They suggested I go from the 0.015" patches to the 0.018" (I bought several thicknesses). Suddenly the amount of soot in the gun went way down and I started hitting the 3" swinger 5 for 5. Woot! The 0.018" patches aren't burnt at all and look perfect. Looks like 70gr of powder, the 0.018" patch and the 0.490" ball is the magic combo for this rifle.

During the 4 hours of driving up and back today I realized that my left side radio mount won't work. Because it's only mounted on one side it acts like a whip and amplifies every side-to-side movement of the Jeep. Even with some foam between the arm and the window frame it would vibrate so badly that I couldn't read the display, plus it was annoying as hell. It's probably also bad for the electronics to constantly be scrambled about. So.... I went to another position off-center in the center console. I had to add in a little metal plate to raise the base up 1/8" but otherwise it was a simple 2-sided tape install. It's a little harder to use the big knob on the left side of the radio but it's easier to get at the volume/squelch and it's oddly also easier to see. I guess we're used to looking inboard of the vehicle and not so much outboard to read displays? I thought about putting it up on the window frame above the mirror to keep it out of the sun (and view) but it's harder to glance up there and read the display and I was afraid it would start vibrating again since I would have to build a little arm mount to put it on. A test drive over the railroad tracks and across some bad road by the house shows that it just sits there and doesn't wobble.

Had dinner with Seth and his woman last night (in Austin). Their household is pretty chaotic with the 3 kids running around. At one point they 'lost the baby' and everyone went running around the house trying to find the kid. He wasn't dead in the pool so they calmed down a little after that, but only after they found him sitting on the stairs did any sort of calm fall. The house is too frikin' big if you can lose people who are right in the middle of it. Otherwise it's the same old, same old in Austin the last few days.

OK, maybe not same old, same old... I'm not getting Chick-fil-A at all this time. The flight was late yesterday so I skipped lunch to make up time and today we're going to Rudy's for lunch. My streak is broken.

The interesting news is about my own personal psycho. I've been trying to sell dad's bike on CL this last week and we got a response from a guy in LA saying he wanted it. Dad talked to him and told him if he sent a cashier's check up he would hold the bike for the guy, but until then we would continue to show the bike. I had a few more hits on it and one guy (we'll call him 'psycho') said that he wanted it but we would have to work on the price. He went into all sorts of details about how expensive it would be to repair, how the KBB price was lower than we were asking, blah blah blah. Typical CL bottom feeder, they come out every time you try to sell something but unless you're crazy desperate you don't deal with them. I told him I was going to be out of town for the weekend but that he could see it Sunday when I got home. In the mean time, the check from the LA guy showed up so I emailed everyone letting them know it was sold and I would let them know if the deal fell through.

At this point psycho starts to call and email me saying "we had a deal!" and that I couldn't sell it to someone else. I told him we arranged a viewing, that's not a 'deal' and since he wanted to talk price and this other guy paid the asking price (which was pretty low already which is why he just paid it) that dad was going with the firm offer with a check in hand. The psycho kept saying that cashiers checks are all scams and we should forget about the other guy and take his cash. I told him no and figured that was the end of the story.

Monday the guy calls and leaves a long winded message about how he's going to the bank and getting the money and for me to call and give him directions to come get the bike. I ignore him. He calls again, and emails saying he's ready to come down. Around 3pm he sends another email all angry now that he's wasted the whole day waiting for me and if I don't call him with info that the deal is off. Great! I don't call him. Later Monday night he emails saying that if I don't call him to setup something on Tuesday that I'll never hear from him again. Great! I ignore him now hoping he'll go away.

Tuesday he calls twice (once while I'm on the plane, once in the afternoon) leaving really long messages each time. I delete both of them without listening. Maybe he's moved up to threatening me, who knows. So far today, no calls and no emails. Perhaps he's figured out that when I said "it's sold" it really meant it was sold?

Tomorrow at 10:30am the LA guy will arrive at SJC. Dad is going to get him and take him to the RV to sign paperwork and then to the bank for money (or maybe they'll just go to the bank, I have no idea). In any case I have to get the bike over to the RV either tonight or tomorrow AM before work. Neither are attractive options but once dad gets paid for the bike I get paid for my car and I get his bike out of my garage. It wouldn't seem like it takes up a lot of space but it does; lotta other junk in the garage that's all fit in there just right so having something out of place is really noticeable.

Survived the weekend in Calistoga wine tasting, eating at Ad Hoc and Solbar, and the woman's "zoo keeper for the day" thing at the wildlife sanctuary place. All images can be found here.

I should mention that on the way home we had to stop by some random guy's house and pick up $25 worth of RV tow bar parts for dad. He took advantage of us going through Santa Rosa to cast his CL net wide.

Since we got home with a few hours to spare, I finished up the bike wiring job and got the APRS beacon mounted. The wiring looks pretty good for a first attempt and everything works as I wanted it to with the exception of the PIAA lights. The relay trips for them but I don't have a 20A blade fuse to put in the holder so the lights don't actually come on. Not a big deal, I'll get one at some point.

Two pictures from a previous update, the new coffee table and the woman showing off where her tack trunk lives at the new barn.

Next is the woman showing off the wonderful birthday gift I got her. She loves it. :)

To get that angry bird (she doesn't play the game, just likes the noises they make) and a USB serial adapter to replace the one that failed I got one of the car share Smarts from work and tried it out. I already reported it to the foo guys but this car has the worst transmission I've ever seen. It shifted so poorly that I reported it as broken to the rental people. Now I can't understand why anyone would buy one they're so un-drivable. Anyway, the strip club is right by Fry's so I thought I would take a picture of the car somewhere other than an Eco-friendly gathering or wherever hipster douche bags drive them.

Finally tonight dad dropped off the modified bracket and I could mount up the control head to the 710. It works perfectly, doesn't look out of place on the dash and is pretty usable left handed. I've got the local repeaters programmed into it and have APRS setup and working on the B channel. GPS works and now all that's left is to program in the other 30 channels I've identified as important for around here.

The garage looks like some sort of explosion at a Radio Shack, well no because they don't sell stuff like this, so an explosion at HRO. It's gotten better since this picture was taken, I was just trying to get everything out where I could see what I had then start organizing.

Two wiring projects this weekend. First was the 710 install which is complete except for the bracket for the head unit. Dad's doing some fab work on that now and it should be done tomorrow. Two screws to install that and then the display mount gets double-sided taped on and I'm done. I've actually had the radio powered up and everything with me just holding the display in my hand, haven't programmed it or anything but I know the power, antenna and speaker are good to go.

The second wiring project was to get the new power harness done for the vstrom. It may look like a random assortment of wires but in fact it's a custom length negative wire bus with a relay setup for 3 switched and 2 constant-on positive feeds. I haven't done anything with the actual wire in the bike yet, I knew I had a few more hours of chasing down shitty wiring and replacing it ahead of me and didn't want to tackle that tonight. I've got to pull the tank too so maybe 3 hours or more. It's a fun project though.

I got all the time to do this install by not going to my cooking class. :( Just too much going on so I opted to skip it. Instead I went up to my parents super early on Saturday and swapped the car for the bike (after spending some time Friday night pulling the 2200H and it's assorted wiring out). They're happy with the Suzuki as the tow vehicle for their new RV and I picked up dad's Triumph to bring down here and try to sell. The consignment place he had it at was a joke, it was filthy and they had let water get in the exhaust and it rusted and 'leaked' all over the swingarm. Going to take some work to clean that mess up. I took it right from the consignment store to a gas station, the front tire was at 16 PSI and it was handling like a dump truck.

Last night we went to Ikea to get a new coffee table. The woman found one she liked that was the right size/height/color and it was $55. Can't beat that. Date night at Ikea, but I didn't get meatballs (damn line was too long).

I should mention there was a trip to HRO in there to get a barrel connector to lengthen the antenna wire in the Jeep, 2 trips to various auto parts stores getting connectors and us going to the Fremont Art Festival for a few hours (it was huge, but crowded and the vendors were lame).

They need 2 lines at the checkout in the cafe. Not 'cash' or 'credit' but 'have payment ready' and 'doesn't have payment ready'. These chicks are so annoying, they get their fancy coffee drink then get to the counter to pay and seem totally unprepared, it's like they don't know why they're there. Only after the get to the counter do the start digging around looking for money or whatever. Let those clowns stand together and be shocked when they reach the counter and let those of us who are aware of what happens at a cash register just pay and go.

Yesterday I picked up a Kenwood D710 and a GPS widget so I can upgrade the Jeep radio setup. Turns out there is a HUGE space inside the Jeep dash under the steering column and it's super easy to get to. Two screws and this panel comes out and you just reach inside. It's normally used for the satellite radio box but since I don't have that it's perfect for ham gear. It's also got super easy access to the top of the dash so running the face place is no problem either.

With all of this new radio gear I've taken the first steps in selling off some of the old stuff. I actually put the IC718 on fleabay last night. I had no idea they took 9% of the sales price, no wonder people are always playing the shipping scam game, that's a huge chunk of money they extract for their brokering service. If it doesn't sell there perhaps I'll put it on consignment at HRO... naaa, it will sell on fleabay eventually. There were 3 on there and my starting price is below the current bid on the other that's reasonably priced so the loser of that may just wander my way. Why there is someone selling a new one on there for $100 more than you can mail order one for I have no idea. Why would anyone overpay for new stuff from an unknown source when you can just get them from HRO or whatever cheaper?

Tomorrow is the game cooking class in Placerville, then I'll head to my parents to drop off my car (which they're buying to turn into a tow vehicle on the back of their new RV) and pick up dad's Triumph which I'll be selling on CL for him.

I've switched over to this (now 1 rev back) macbook air after on-site replaced the SSD. So far no issues, but I can't really tell that it's much different other than having a really sharp edge which makes you want to carry it latch-side up. The screen is larger though, all my windows now have a 1" or more boarder around them. Probably should fix that at some point.

I got my helmet and bike locker access for the bike share program at work yesterday and have already taken 2 rides. The first I went over to DA2 for a meeting and it cut the travel time in half. Handy. Today at lunch I just went for a ride around the neighborhood instead of going for a walk. The bikes are 'cruiser' style with semi-skinny tires and really upright ergos so they're comfy to ride and do have 3 speeds to help get up the parking lot ramps. What's interesting is that although they have 3 speeds they have only a single sprocket in the rear. The gears are inside the hub somewhere. Maybe that's common now but it's the first I've seen of it since I still ride around on vintage 1991 hardware at home.

I'm using the IC7k to check into the local 2m net and for all it's spiffy magic it's not a very good 2m radio. It's having trouble leaving the squelch open too long after the repeater stops sending tone so I get a burst of static after the courtesy tones every time. Not the end of the world but it's annoying.