Work Travel - LA, California

Once again it falls to me to travel for work. Today I travelled to LA, California in preparation for a weeks work, and I have to say the 11 hour flight is one I could have done without.

Aer Lingus made the flight all the more enjoyable with a personal TV system available, offering a selection of TV programmes, films and music.

It's a bit annoying travelling at this time of year, as the daylight disappears so soon, but I'm informed that it's never that brilliant in LA anyway - not like midsummer here when it hardly gets dark. But, no doubt I will try to make the most of it over the incoming week....

Tax book

The tax book for the car actually arrived today. So now its officially in my name, even if it is to the wrong address. That'll be the next step ;)

Beach fun

Tonight we had some time to kill, so we decided to visit the beach. It was completely empty, and all semi-hard, wet sand. So I let the impreza go, and boy it was some serious fun.

Did the whole thing in second, which was a bit weird, as I had to be over the 2500 rpm to get the turbo. It was a completely different experience than I had been expecting - I'd been expecting to go round in circles, but there's just too much grip for that, even in the sand.

Great.

Tax

At last I have a tax disc. We had to jump through some hoops to get this disc, but the car is finally registered in my name, and I have a valid tax disc.

Today I have insurance, MOT and tax. Great!

Thanks to the hideous brother-in-law for getting it all sorted for me!

Sideways - dry

Only very slight drifting, but definitely a landmark. Tonight on the way home I had an opportunity to overtake nicely round a roundabout, as someone went off right. In second I floored it, and felt the tail go slightly before I had to turn to exit the roundabout.

Very reassuring, the amount of grip available

Boot and numberplate lights

Today I tackled the problem with the rusted rear numberplate lights. The plate that holds them tight to the underside of the bumper had completely rusted away at one side.

I had considered getting some sort of new plate and screwing it all together, but I figured out that if I used the original 2 plastic mounting holes that were now unused because of the rust, I could cable-tie the remaining metal to the bumper.

It's not very beautiful, and certainly temporary at best, but it's definitely a lot better than it was!

When I had the boot open for access I noticed that the light in the boot wasn't working at all. After inspecting the bulb I saw that it wasn't the problem, so I turned to the switch. It seems that corrosion had stopped the switch from closing properly. So I pulled the switch out, and gave the contacts a good clean. All working again!

Perfect wind

Tonight we decided to take the kids to the beach, and I thought I would pack the kites too. Due to the inclement weather we have experienced all "summer" we have hardly been at the beach at all.

Tonight however was superb - the wind was completely steady, and just at the right speed for my 4m buster.

May the pleasant post-summer evenings continue....

Oil change!

At last the car turned over the anticipated 2000 miles. This meant that the running in oil should be changed for fully synthetic oil.


So I went ahead and got a new filter from Subaru, and some fully synthetic oil, (although I am not completely convinced this is the correct oil) and got it changed today.