Ka Diary
– 62,335 – 13/03/2005 – Winter
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t’s
been a while since my last Diary entry but there have been mitigating
circumstances. There are a few reasons such
as that Charlie and I have set up a tropical aquarium and after just a few
short weeks, our first few fish had babies so we’ve work to do. The little guys and girls need regular
feeding!
The
second reason is more associated with my work: after many years of working
towards an objective, a goal and a position, I have now achieved it. Like most things you are waiting for and
looking forward to, there are some caveats associated. It’s not as good as you think it will be
although there are exceptions to this rule.
The long and the short of it is that I’m spending less time at home
feeling up to working on my website and more time out on the road.
Oh,
and there’s the small matter of the release of Gran Turismo 4 plus our Italian Job Road Trip.
Kermit
was treated to his 60,000 mile service and Ford Racing Suspension, I’ve been treated to a PlayStation
2 and an Xbox (decisions, eh?).
We’ve had winter sun, snow, hail, sleet, rain and wind.
I’ve
detailed the Ford Racing Suspension here,
but lets just say that it’s superb. We
also had to have Kermit’s track control rod replaced at his recent service and
this, in conjunction with everything else we had done, gave us a rather large
bill even taking into account the fact that he’s driving “as new” after the
work. There’s more expense to follow
after we get cruise control fitted
in mid-March.
Although
I’m titling this entry “Winter,” as I write the worst of the snow seems to have
passed us. That said, one should always
watch the forecast since we’ve had snow in April, May and even June before. But for a fortnight, various parts of the
United Kingdom had snow although most of it passed by York and Pontefract, my
usual haunts. There was just the one
morning where road conditions were exciting and I have to report that with the new suspension set up and the Falken tyres, Kermit’s handling is somewhat snappy in bad
conditions. As a disclaimer, this is a relative
assessment and the standard Ka on standard sized wheels and tyres is very
docile. But now that he’s been lowered,
I suspect it will curtail our plans to take him to the Arctic Circle.
The
Italian Job road trip is just that - an overland road trip to Italy.
Charlie and I have been working towards this over the last few weeks and
there’s a lot of planning so as to make it a successful trip. Our route will avoid the Alps and bring us
into Italy just about via Monte Carlo (a detour through the city is in order
of course). We’re staying in the
foothills of the Alps before bringing the kid home.
With
the road trip dominating our thoughts, we’ve invested in a couple of
upgrades. One is an electronic cruise control system, which will save
my right foot during the long drive to Italy.
The other notable upgrade isn’t entirely just for Kermit, we’ve bought a
Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver,
PalmOS software and European-wide maps for Charlie’s Tungsten T3.
Although this combination proved itself to be immensely capable of
keeping up with some hairy twisty roads and with me “accidentally” (cough)
taking some wrong turnings and has figured out a new optimised route without
too much difficulty, Charlie needed her PDA back so we’ve gone to the Dark Side
with a PocketPC device. It should see
us to and from Italy without major problem.
