Visit from the parents

Yey, I had some more visitors last weekend. My parents came to see me for the weekend. We drove up Death Valley to see Scotty's Castle. (Tip: do not trust yahoo maps to get you there with the address on the website) We finally got there around noon and our tour was at one. It was a really cool tour, it was to bad the castle was never totally finished because it would have been quite a place. When it was constructed it cost around $1.2 million - without being finished. There would have been a giant pool out front that was never quite finished. The place was self sufficient with its own hydroelectric power plant and it sits on a natural spring that put out quite a good amount of water. This was about 1/4 of what would have been the pool. The "windows" allow light into the mechanical rooms below the castle.This was a view from the other side of the pool. To the right of the castle there is another set of bunk rooms that were rented out when the castle was a home along with the stable/garage. Over to the left there is a building with some generators in it and the clock tower. Then behind the clock tower there was enough firewood hauled in to last the castle until 2011. More pictures can be found at http://s149.photobucket.com/albums/s73/wolverine350r/Scottys%20Castle/?start=all if you want to see them.

By the way, fuel up before you go - it was well over $6/gallon in Death Valley.

The Good, the Bad, and the Expensive

This last week was full of good and bad. The good: Angela was in town all week, it was a three day work week, we got to have a lot of fun together (wedding registry, time trials, just going places). The weather was fairly nice too.

Bad: The fuel pump in the truck was dieing (good - I was able to pick one up when I picked Angela up in Ontario and replace it in about 3-4 hours with some help when I got home). Continuing with the bad - the next day the truck decided it had enough, and I lost reverse. I have read you also generally lose 2 and 4 also, but I haven't driven it. I think I am looking at $1600-$2000 for repairs.

I don't exactly trust the TA to go through the desert for 2 hours, so we rented a car to take Angela back to the airport.

It was a pretty little car, nice blue, 6 speed auto, power everything. The mileage wasn't very impressive though, we got 27.5 to 28.5 mpg average over the rental. Our Accord we rented here on the site visit averaged 32 ish if I remember right, and the Elantra we rented for a long trip to Denver averaged 38 mpg over that trip. The second thing about the VW was that I couldn't get comfortable driving it no matter what I did, definitely cross this one off the list of cars to look at for the future. At least it was essentially free to rent it with the gas savings versus the 16 mpg of the truck.

Here are some fun California gas prices, these two stations are across the street from each other.


In Ridgecrest it varies from $4.32 to $4.46 for regular.

Unreasonably hot!!! With sunshine.

I wonder what it will say when we get to 115. . .with sunshine. . .

Like a Wonder Bra

Not to much has been going on. I bought an X-Box 360 yesterday, but need my profiles from the one in ABQ before I can use it. Work has been ok, there is a lot of training that we have to do as new hires and I am trying to work my way through it while seeing what there is to see.

Today I thought I would take the Trans Am out even though I still have yet to get the new registration sticker in the mail. I went and had it washed for the first time since before I moved, I have never had so many complements in the car. Then I headed out of town a ways - there is supposed to be a race track just north (the dirt oval type), I found the town, but not the track, it was probably further off the highway then I was going to go in the TA. I took some pictures and came back home.
Did I mention that the small town, pop. ~27, is the hub cap capital of the world? And home to this lady.

"Hybrids are like peanut butter cups." - and that is my favorite quote for today.

I bet some of you are wondering about the title of this post...The car wash was by "Making Strides Against Brest Cancer." So there you go, later I got a call that I won something in a drawing; it was a gift card for dining - sweet! Its been a pretty good day so far, and I might go see "Iron Man" later too.

The $136.3 Million dollar Whoops

Airman Forgets to Lower Wheels, Crashes $136 Million U.K. Fighter Jet

A Royal Air Force top gun crash-landed a new $136.3 million Typhoon fighter — apparently after forgetting to put the wheels down during a training exercise in California.

The state-of-the-art jet was badly damaged as it skidded along a runway on its belly at 130 mph.

"Everything points to the pilot forgetting to lower the wheels, which does happen from time to time," an RAF insider said.

Another possible cause of the accident is landing gear failure — but none of the other 48 Typhoons in service has been grounded with such a problem.

The top gun and his co-pilot from 17 Squadron climbed unhurt from the 1,500-mph jet. They were taking part in a major war games exercise at China Lake air base in California where aircraft can train with live weapons because of the remote location.

The mangled jet will be brought back to Britain to see if it can be repaired.

From FoxNews.com

They fail to mention however that it also did a good amount of damage to the runway here.

Stuff!!!

I got all my stuff today and the place is a mess, but its way better than it coming on the 21st like its was supposed to.

New Place

Here are some pics of my new place.
Garage:

Living Room:
Kitchen:
One of the Bedrooms (the other is the same):