Every seven years Intel allows their U.S. employees to take a seven week sabbatical. This is my second sabbatical, and we decided our kids were the prime age to take a U.S. tour in our RV.

"The Big Trip," as our kids have been calling it, was to begin on Friday June 17th. After packing up the RV and getting ready to load the bicycles on the back, I went to move the RV forward a few feet. It wouldn't start. Turn the ignition key and *click*. Nothing else.

At my dad's suggestion, I uninstalled the battery from the RV and took it to Baxter's to have them test it. The battery checked out strong. I called AAA (we've had AAA Plus RV for a while but never had the "opportunity" to use it until now) and had them tow the RV to McCoy Freightliner in north Portland.

Saturday afternoon around 1PM they called and the RV was ready to pick up; the starter was bad and needed to be replaced. So we drove out, picked up the RV, and completed our packing.

Our original Friday late morning departure finally occurred Saturday around 6PM. Given the length of the trip (six and a half weeks) the 24 hour delay was in line with traditional Ketrenos "get on the road" delays.

Watch out America--we're coming!

Kathleen started making Ukrainian Eggs, called Pysanka. You can see how all our eggs turned out in the album Ukrainian Eggs / The Eggs.

After 72 days, I have the Lotus back. It took a while, but Ron Tonkin appears to have done a great job getting it all together and back to perfect condition.

I once again find myself smiling every time I get behind the wheel

Now -- to take a couple classes at a high performance driving school.

Marina's birthday was on a Sunday this year, so on Saturday instead of pancakes, I made the kids ebilskivers.

For anyone interested in making them, you need an Ebilskiver pan. You can then follow this recipe to make them.

The shutter assembly in my Nikon D100 seized up. Searching the Internet reveals that it would cost around $400 to have it repaired. Taking it apart is a lot cheaper.

If I can't fix it, I can buy a used D100 or D200 for ~$200 on craigslist.

As I've been sitting w/out the Elise, I started Googling around the Lotus forums again, like I was doing for months before I bought the Lotus.

And, as before, I started reading the various forum posts about supercharging the Elise. So I can more easily find the links in the future, here are the three I'm periodically think about:

Stock

As is from the factory, my Elise is spec'd at 189HP, but folks on the forums are posting a WHP of ~168.

Blackwatch Racing Lotus Supercharge

~$3300k (+$600 for ECU reprogram) +$1000 estimated install. Many reviewers talk about the ease of doing a self install. Looks like a great weekend project! WHP ~225.

Sector 111 Katana 2

~$4k, including ECU reprogram. +$1000 estimated install. Requires install from authorized shop to qualify for 1 year warranty. Stage I is talked about having a WHP of ~216.

Lotus Factory Supercharge

~$8k installed. The 2008 Elise with the factory supercharger comes in spec'd at 218HP. The forums show a WHP of ~195. I'll need to call the dealership to get an accurate quote.

Right now, based on what I've read on the net, I'm leaning toward the Blackwatch Racing Lotus Supercharger. But it'll likely be a long while before I ever get around to doing that upgrade.

After hunting around for the above information, I found a a post on Lotus Talk titled Overview Supercharge/Turbocharge Solutions that has all the details and information you need.

The Ron Tonkin technician called me today. They got the Lotus back from the alignment shop. He took a long look at it and he is "...just not happy with the color. Its definitely Yellow, its just not the *right* Yellow. Its more of a mustard yellow."

My Elise is supposed to be Saffron Yellow.

So, a couple more days to disassemble, repaint, and reassemble. They're trying to get in touch with one of the factory paint technicians in order to dial in the right color match. He's hoping to have it ready by end of next week, back to me by Labor Day weekend.

We'll see.

Killer at Large, indeed.

Tony Horton posted it on his wall, George liked it, and it showed up in my News Feed. So I watched the trailer.

You should too. Click on the link and then click 'Play'.

And then you should do something about it. Exercise. Change your diet. Take control of your life, and move it in the right direction!

I called up the service technician at Ron Tonkin to get an update on the Lotus. When I spoke to him last week, the plan was to have all the newly painted parts assembled, have the Star Shield (the mylar protective coating) installed, and get it all cleaned and ready to be picked up by today sometime.

Well, that was the plan. Here's the new plan:

After re-assembling everything, they found a crack in the windshield... I don't know where that came from, but they found one and needed to replace the windshield. To replace the windshield on an Elise you need to loosen the bolts on the clam, which resulted in the shims dislodging and falling out, which took more time to get back together again. That happened instead of getting the mylar installed.

Mylar install is now scheduled for Friday. Monday it then needs to get all the wheel alignment setup. Then clean, buff, polish, make sparkle, etc.

The short -- it will be at least another week before I get to drive the Elise again.

This past weekend was the annual St. John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church family campout. With the a few light sprinkles and claps of thunder in the evening to make in interesting, the weather was very nice; cooler than last year, but warm comfortable.

Since my Nikon is still broken, the only camera I had was my iPhone... you can see the few pictures I took in the Family Campout - 2010 album.