Here’s the fruits of today’s work. I’ve built an adapter board (the silver thing inside the mainboard cover door, on the right bottom of the picture) that allows a new style display to work on an old style laser. The old style displays are hard to come by, and this will allow for easier replacement of that design. I found two pins shorted on my board. Apparently, the non-conductive solder flux became conductive. Wack.
The weekend is here. I don’t have any plans really, I might get on the bike tomorrow or Sunday and go off on my own and explore a bit. I’m enjoying being out here, but I am rather looking forward to moving on down the road a ways.
Rainy here today. Supposedly more rain to come this weekend. Work is proceeding well, despite my string of mess ups and failure to make things work first time around today. I liked the grey day today, however, cooled things off. Picture was taken from the laser shop, looking west. The mountains are on the other side of the Great Salt Lake somewhere. They didn’t have that much snow yesterday.
So, things are going pretty well here in Utah. I’ve been really busy with a couple of different projects. I messed up a board today, and let out the magic smoke, but I have the problem in check and moving forward. Nice to have a full machine shop to play in too.
So, I made it to Utah on Sunday. 638 miles spaced over 14 hours. On the motorcycle. Made it all in once piece, too, no less.
The cats did not know what to think. Spike found my tailbag on the floor and took up residence and watched me pack the bike. I packed both more and less than I thought I would, but it was loaded well and the bike still handled well.
The trip was a lot of fun. I left out of Los Alamos on Sunday morning around 6:10 AM. It was about 45 degrees out, and I debated putting the liner in my leather jacket, but I figured it would warm up. 150 miles later, around 9 AM, I was realllly wondering if it ever was going to warm up. I stopped in Pagosa Springs to top off the tank and take a break. The ride so far was pretty good. Getting into Colorado, the road got more twisty and the speed limit jumped to 65. I’ve said it before, but… those Colorado drivers know how to party.
I stopped again in Durango to get a bottle of water and take a break. I really wanted to go north out of Durango and go through the mountains. I had considered stopping in Ouray and camping for the night, but on Wednesday, road conditions were ‘snow, slush, wet’, and I really was not in the mood to deal with that. I’ll give that a shot later in the season for sure though. I’ve been up there a number of times, and I love it. I’d really like to retire in a little town like that. About 20 miles out of Durango I stopped off on top of this hill and took some photos. If you have Quicktime, you can explore a 360 degree panoramic here. I pulled off the highway and rode down this dirt road a ways to get to this vista. The front end of the bike is really light with all the stuff on the back, and I had hell steering it on the gravel. Maybe I’ll consider lowering the front end a tad before I head out again.