I decided to drive out to LA for Joystiq’s reader meetup on Friday. I know it seems like a long trip for a meetup, but they made some convincing arguments. One of my motivations for moving to the coast was to be able to attend events like this with other bloggers. They were in town for E3 and Mahalo sponsored their meetup at the office in Santa Monica. Despite the 30 minute dead sprint set up with Conrad, it went off without a hitch. I took the last of the Hack-A-Day shirts with me so some lucky (oddly sized) people got those as well.

I had to get the truck back together before I could leave Vegas though. I hadn’t fixed it from when it became a “project” yet. I bought a new ignition switch (here’s the old). That fixed the starting issue. I guessed at the belt length for the power steering pump. It seems to have worked after my surgical adjustment with a broom handle. I reoiled the K&N filter for good measure. I took it for a shake down run Thursday night (and for a squishee). Everything seemed in working order and I headed for Santa Monica Friday morning. It was a nice trip. About 95degF the entire time with the windows down. Some new electrical weirdness happened. I had checked the turn signals the day before, but as I drove I noticed the dash indicators would both flash if I turned right. After I stopped I checked them again. If I turn right, both front signals flash and the right rear. If I turn left, both rear signals flash and the front left. Ugh. I’m pretty sure the switching brains are in the column… not looking forward to tearing that apart… or figuring out what vehicle it came from.

The big treat of the weekend was seeing Barb’s friend Alfred perform Friday night. He’s got a 16×16 button MIDI controller that was the prototype for the Monome project (here’s the first Monome video). I can’t wait to see another set and I am hoping to get him to play Toorcon this fall.

I’m still in LA, but only for another day I think.