Tuesday morning I finished wiring up the playa scrambler. Midafternoon, I took a break to go visit Opscode for a couple hours. Then I came back and got down to business with what I thought was the last couple of hours needed to finish off the trike.

It’s a complicated machine, with three separate chain loops: one connects the motor to the rear axle, another connects the pedals to the front ratchet box, and the third, the longest, connects the front ratchet to the rear axle. Over and over, I’d get it all rigged up, take it for a test ride, exult in the thrill of its decent speed and astonishingly responsive steering, then stop with a sudden horrible noise and discover that the long third chain had popped off one or more of its sprockets.

I won’t bore you with the long, long list of hacks and kludges and clever tricks I tried out to solve each of the never-ending series of problems, but if you ever get a chance to look at the trike in person I’d be happy to show you. Some are obvious. I never got a test ride to last more than a block or two before failing. After working for eighteen hours straight, it was time for the trucks to leave; I hastily welded on one more chain guide, rolled the trike up onto the trailer and went to bed.

That lasted a couple of hours. Wednesday evening I came back to clean up the disaster I’d left in the shop, then I pretty much went to bed again, but not before emergency overnighting four small sprockets. Assuming they arrive during the morning on Friday and not the afternoon, I’ll take them with me and try to fix what will hopefully be the last set of problems on-playa.

Today I got up feeling about as wrecked as if I hadn’t slept. Ran some errands. Got a bit more than half of my “to do before leaving” items checked off. Spent two hours building a solar-powered phone charger out of bits from my parts box. It doesn’t actually seem to work and I can’t figure out why – all the components work individually… my brain is so fried I can’t really debug it properly. I’ll take it along anyway; maybe I can fix it once I get there.

and then… for some reason i decided to try to finish the playa coat project I abandoned when work on the trike started to get intense. I did not exactly succeed – the garment is missing its pockets and collar, the tailoring isn’t great, the inside is a mess of raw unfinished edges, the cuff stitching is laughably uneven, and the lower hem is just a quick pass with a serger – but it’s finished enough to keep me warm without looking too much like an unfinished project.

now it’s 1 AM. time to crash.

flight leaves 3:15 pm tomorrow. will I be ready? Of course I will. what choice do I have?