well today we went kayaking in sacramento river and had a nice bbq afterward. Short it was fun and fixie performed without any problems. It looks like the car is finally happy and running as it's supposed to.

Well if I get a visa, I guess it's time to get a roof rack for the snowboards and bikes...

after working for more than 10 years with sql based languages I discovered something new again. The case statement, which is pretty damn slow (table of a couple of million entries) but it saves me the time to work with some statistical software.

dinner for tonight?

cedar smoked lemon salmon with arugula salad.

short I love the wood planks I got for my BBQ and going to cook more often like this!

it's been quiete lately, which is mostly related to the fact that I discovered that Alexandre Dumas wrote a complete series about the adventures of D'Artangan.

And so I'm slowly fighting my way throw his books and love my ebook reader more and more and can't understand how I could live without it. I mean it's so great to lay at the pool and read gigantic novels in the sun, in such a tiny device.

done:

• the three musketeers

togo:

• 20 years later
• the man in the iron mask
• the vicomte de bragelonne
• 10 years later
  
• Loiuse de la Valliere

and that's just one author...

so all i can say if you like to read and like to read classic novel, get your self an ebook reader, but be prepared to go missing...

I just created a new blog, just to keep track to the stuff my passat does to me

It starts to get annoying. Now 'fixie' is leaking transmission oil.

Another 150$ for parts and 150$ for labor, cause there is no way I can do this my self. I actually have the tools by now and the procedure is not that complicated. But there is no way I can get the car of ground and it's going to be level.

So far this month:

300$ tools and power steering fluid
230$ parts for transmission and PCV system

Well I wanted to flush the transmission anyway.

while reading at the beach in montery and getting a nice sunburn I discovered a bird of prey. Most likely a buzzard or hawk. 60 Minutes later I finally captured it on chip...

a week now I was thinking about the perfect name for my car...

it was between jasmine and fixie.

Fixie it is! Since it developed a power steering fluid leak now and another leak, which leaks very very slowly a fluid I just can't diagnose....

Work done in the last two days:

• changed the light bulb
• stripped a screw, found a way to get it off and bought a new screw
• flushed the power steering fluid

it really starts to get expensive...

But at least now I can reset the check engine light my self and diagnose it my self. Yes I bought a code reader...

sure a week after I finally bought an eBook reader amazon announces the new kindle DX, which has the large display I wanted...

...but 500$? are you kidding me...

while browsing a toy store I found something which would be perfect for fabs...

Well the last 3 days were spent with ashley at her grand mothers house in carmel and now she is out for a conference and I'm driving down the highway 1 and chasing surfers in the hope to get a nice surf picture.

Current problem, they are all way to far out and I don't have enough reach and it's raining nonstop.

Well at least some pictures of waves and the beach we took...

the good news,

I got my car done today and registered, so I don't have to worry for the smog test for a year

the bad news,

my catalytic recyclers could be really toast and I need to get the car smoged if I sell it or if I re register it next year. So I need to start saving money for this repairs, I need 4 catalytic recyclers...


I also should by a ODB II connector, so I can reset the check engine light my self...

well this weekend we did the first real test with the car...

• going to jack london national park
• hitting the oil pan while parking, lesson: if you park next to a jetta, this thing is roughly 60 cm shorter than the passat, so don't measure the distance by it...
• driving in berryessa with a tip tronic and a strong engine is a lot of fun, Ashley sitting next to me enjoyed it and felt safe. But the car feels extremly heavy in the curves and the back tends to push a bit to much for my liking
• while passing other cars cops were more than happy to check my speed with there laser pistols for me, but did not pull me over. After all I was only slighlty faster than the speed limit and it was obious that I was passing a slower vehicle. You also could say I got lucky...
• the average gas mileage over 250 miles was 23 mpg (10l/100km). Which was highway/city/hills
• the dreaded check engine light came back on, right after I got gas again. I start to hate the electronical system in the passat.

now I really consider taking the passat to the race track on friday and get some track lessons and really learn how to handle this car.

well never mind, I ended up buying the sony and it works surprisingly well and is fast enough after updating it to the newest software version.

Sadly I could only get it in silver = reflects shiny things and not in dark blue, but already filled it up with 20 novels...

Basically a nice mixtures of Alexandre Dumas, Jack London, Oscar Wilde and Jules Verne.

The biggest difference to a book? It seems to read a bit slower and you have no real feeling of progress. Like switching pages and seeing were you are in a book.

---

Why did I buy it?

• cheaper than the kindle 2 by 150$
• i don't need space for 2k books on a reader, 10 - 15 books is all I need and I can always pop sd cards in it
• it comes with a cover
• i don't really like the kindle layout
• supposed to be more stable
• speed is fast enough, as long as the books are not pdf's
• not planning on buying books in the next 5 month
  

after testing several eReaders today with R.E.A.L eBooks (750 pages - 2000 pages) and not the standard 25 page example books on them, I sadly have to say...

- sony prs-505 is just to slow ( 4 seconds to turn a page? come on...)
- sony prs-700 is to shiny and expensive

now it looks like I'm ordering a kindle 2 to see how it works and in the worst case return it. But still 470$ for a stupid reading device, which will be replaced in 2 years.

- kindle: 359$
- protective cover: 44$
- drop it warranty: 70$

The good thing, I only hear awesome reports of the amazon customer service, but still I need to find one first to test it, before I buy it. Which means I'm going to buy books for 25$ for my montery trip.

Yes Ashley is working and I'm sitting at the beach reading. (And maybe renting a surfboard and chase sharks, or was it the other way around?)

so right now it's between the sony prs-505 for 269$ or the kindle 2 + warranty for 410$ (It's fragile and if you drop it you kill it, so warranty is recommended since it refunds the money in case of drops, once...)

price wise it's obvious that the sony wins, but it only works under windows, which means I need to install windows now, if I intend to buy books.

Let's look at some books:

title: clive cussler mediterranean caper
paper back: 9.99
sony: 7.19
kindle: 7.19
ebooks.com: 9.99

title: Worlds without end
paper back: 13.86
sony: 11.99
kindle: 9.99
ebooks.com: 22.99

title: white fang
paper back: 3.99
sony: 0.99
kindle: 0.00
ebooks.com: 3.99

Now white fang is a nice example since it's a free book and can be downloaded at the gutenberg project.

Sony books can be only read on the sony eReader
amazon books can be only read on the kindle
ebooks.com books can be read on both devices

Now I'm currently more interested in reading a lot of classics, which are free under the gutenberg project and to order books while traveling. It happens so often that I was on an airplane or at an airport and just wanted to grab another books, since I read all the other books. With the kindle I can just order it (If I'm in America) with the sony I need to connect to a laptop or so, but I can stock up before and have like 50 - 100 books before I go on the plane. So I could see the me using this feature once in a while.

Design?

I prefer the sony, a lot. Since it's smaller and has no keyboard. If they would produce a kindle without a keyboard, it would be perfect.

Subscriptions, it's possible to have newspaper subscriptions on the kindle, but you can write a program to generate your own newspaper based on websites for the sony, which would be free.

What would I like to have? The kindle, but why does it have to be so damn fragile...

What would be perfect? The sony ready with the connection to amazon.com, since I do all my shopping over this store and frankly like it. Also the sony store is kinda weak on books...

so the 'toy' is finally fixed and ready togo, well the skid plate is still missing, but will be installed soonish.

About the car?

* Volkswagen Passat GLX
* 2.8-liter V-6, 190 horses
* Power glass sunroof
* Rain sensor, automatic wipers
* Heated windshield washer nozzles
* Automatic climate control Air Conditioning
* Multi function trip computer
* Genuine wood decor
* Monsoon Sound System 8-speakers with amplifier - still no ipod connector...
* Driver and front passenger side airbags
* Side Curtain Air Bags
* 8-way driver and front passenger power seats, driver with 3 memory positions - can't figure out how the memory system works...
* Heatable front seats - after all it's cold in ca...
* Homelink with sun visor extension
* Leather seating surfaces
* ABS (anti-lock braking system)
* ASR (Anti-Slip Regulation)
* EDL (Electronic Differential Lock)
* Electronically controlled 5-speed Automatic Transmission with Tiptronic
* 6 disc CD-changer, trunk mounted
* children safety doors, I was successful in locking myself in the car...
* large trunk
* couple of dings, nothing major
* cruise control, to avoid speeding tickets

and it drives so much nicer than my truck. I totally forgot that car's can be silent and not making weird noises all the time...

doing some math tells me that I would break even after reading 100 books on a kindle. Which would equal to about a year of reading.

I really need to test this thing sometime soonish...

ok the passat is still in the shop and I get eaten by bugs in the house, but I hope to get it back tomorrow ready togo.

I keep looking at the kindle2 since i do not want to spend more money on books and than can't keep them if I have to move. But 370$ is a bit steep and I don't even know if I like it. I guess I wait for the kindle3 which has I 10" display (I hope...)

The financing will be most likely done by the selling of a certain item, which would make it the most expensive kindle ever...

Ashley and I are also browsing all possibility of visas. To get an H1B seems to be impossible. To get a O1 is unlikely, but most likely my only chance. So far we also thought about the possibility to move some were together. But that's one of our crazy? Idea's.


While writing this blog I killed 22 mosquitoes, help!

mhm ashley kept pointing out that the passat smells like stuff is burning and so i spent the last couple of hours trying to figure out what it could be.

The smell comes front the driver side of the car, so maybe this?

I'd bet you have the "oil seeping from cam adjuster" problem. The cam adjuster for the right bank is at the rear and directly above the exhaust pipe...if oil drips down it hits pipe and burns...the intake for the cabin air is right above it...so the fumes are sucked into the cabin when heater or AC is on and fan is blowin. I had same problem...Audi published TSB saying that PCV system should be replaced B4 replacing cam adjuster gaskets/seals or valve cover gaskets since clogged PVC can lead to increased crankcase pressure which forces oil by the seals...since it is way cheaper labor wise to replace PVC (and the parts to do so are about $90 online) I did this and oil seepage stopped...been almost a year and no problems!

does not sound to healthy (give me head ache) and so I guess I have to replace some more parts or live with the smell...