Anza-Borrego Cruise

Saturday was the Cruise to the Anza-Borrego Desert Sate Park. We were supposed to have at least 10 cars and about 17 people, and I had convinced Angela to come since other wives and girlfriends would be there. Well we showed up at the Marie Calendars about 15 minutes late just to be the first car there; it had been overcast with a few sprinkles on the way down from Ridgecrest so I figured we might be down a few cars. About five minutes later two more cars, one of them the organizer, arrived. Apparently at the shop where the group from LA was meeting it was a downpour, "The weather in Orange looked like we were possibly about to experience a 100 year flood" was one of the comments on the forums. After we ordered breakfast a fourth car came and that ended up being the last peron to show up; however his car failed to start after a trip to Autozone for coolant (bad battery I think). So five of us (in three cars) went on the cruise. The weather was pretty nice the whole rest of the day, driving twisty backroads through a bunch of small towns. We ended in San Ysabel at the casino for the $5 prime rib and some gambling (we got a free $15 each on a card as a promotion and we ended up keeping $15 of that in the end, so no loss :) ). After that was over Angela and I headed to San Diego for the night since we were so close and stayed with her brother and drove home the next day. A good little cruise, about 600 mi round trip with the driving we did in San Diego.

In the New Year

We have been busy. We spent last weekend in San Diego, the weekend before that in LA doing some shopping and getting the car tuned. This weekend there will be a cruise starting in LA and going out to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, then who knows where. I think it will end somewhere near San Diego. Two weeks in February we will be in LA for a class that Angela is taking for work. The weekend between those is Valentines weekend so we might go somewhere for that. And for work I will be doing so much training next month that I will only be working on my project 7 days over the whole month.

Random pictures from last weekend:

Holidays

The holidays were wirlwind of travel for us. First it was off to Albuquerque to spend an evening (20th) with friends:Then, the next morning we headed up to Angela's parent's cabin:
It snowed a little while we were there.
That's the road coming out...the paved road. We had to drive to Santa Fe the day before to get the plow truck and we were pushing snow with the front bumper of the Trail Blazer down this road. We also did some tubing while we were there, everyone quit after I did a spectacular dismount...I don't know why. On the 24th we headed down to Silver for Christmas with my family. It snowed some there also, but it was a blowing snow that made the road really slick. We got a tow dolly while we were there to tow Angela's car back to California. We got back on the 28th at about midnight and I went to work the next day. It was a long but fun trip, around 2000 miles of highway.

The joys of the 100k+ vehicle

That would be a bad water pump. Its been squealing for a while and started leaking a few weeks ago. New pump: $140, Thermostat: $25, Antifreeze: $26, plus $30 in new tools and $100+ in tool rental deposits. Sheesh.

That is one big water pump too!

Finally, some pretty sunsets

Generally the sunsets here have been really boring, the best ones were when the sun was red from all the smoke from the fires. During the last week though we have had some clouds and some really beautiful sunsets. These were last Saturday after I got back from my hobby shop run.

New Truck

About a week ago I was at the RC races watching and thinking how I need to do this... Well after the race they said they would be racing again next Sunday (usually its every 2 or so) and I thought ok, I can get my old truck together with some new parts by then. So I got online and found a hobby shop in the area (that means within 2 hours of here) and made a list of parts that I would need to get. Saturday I went, intending to buy all the parts needed or for +~$100 a new truck that I knew had its own class in racing here and that I have liked since it came out. After looking a while, I ended up with the new truck and some new higher capacity batteries. I got home after making a stop at the motocross track and junk yard and opened the truck up. Its a nice, big off road truck, ready to run, with lots of suspension. I was ready for the races...then I read something (I forget what) that made me look at the batteries I bought, bad news, they were a newer type than the 14 year old Radio shack batteries that I had and were not compatable with my charger. So I tried the old batteries, the truck looks really cool running around, but the batteries were only good for about 2-3 minutes and I needed 5. Well maybe I could get my Nitro car running, it just needed a tune and I could probably get away with running it in the novice class. When I was about to go run it I realized that I had to charge the glow plug heater, but where was the cord? Long story short, I found the glow heater charger about 30 minutes before the race and its a 4 hour charger. So I ended up going to the race and just watching. It was good racing and the weather turned out being a lot better than it was supposed to be.

Halloween

The question came to my mind about 4-5 days before Halloween: what sort of costume can I get/make in a town that lacks a real Wal-Mart, has a Big-K and a soon to close Mervyns (the only real clothing store in town). The reason that I needed a costume was for a party that I wasn't really expecting. I looked a bit on e-bay, but shipping probably would have been to slow. I looked into Halloween stores; I would have pretty much had to drive to LA for that. So I just decided to go with a costume I had been wanting to do for a while - ninja.

Given I had nowhere to get the good parts of the costume (weapons), I figured I could at least get a long dowel at the Home Depot for a bo ... wrong, the biggest dowel was 1/2 inch and 4 feet long. Time to head for the plumbing section :) I ended up with a 10' section of 1" PVC. Once cut down and partially wrapped in tape it is nearly the dimensions of an actual roku-shaku-bo (rough translation: 6-foot-staff).

Next was the outfit. I had seen ads for Todd's Outdoors having costume stuff so I headed that way - not so much with the costume stuff really, but he did have 2 swords. I looked around the store and found some black pants that looked like they would be good and a few other small things. And no, I didn't get the sword, I didn't feel like paying that much for part of a Halloween costume. For the top I found a long sleeved shirt that looked like it had the right cut off at the arms and removed them. I intended to do more with it, but as it was i only finished the costume 15 minutes before I left for the party. I bought some black fabric at Wal-Mart for the other things - head band, face mask, belt, shoes.

All in all it came out pretty well, by the end of the night the pieces of cut material had all frayed at the edges, but it still looked pretty good.
This costume should get used again and I know several upgrades that I want for it.