As I said previously this flight was my first full flight following a reinstall of FSX and the OS. That was my first mistake.
The flight is relatively straight forward, CATHEDRAL 1 DEPARTURE PSP V388 PDZ V186 DARTS which I had previously flown a number of times without problem. The trickiest part is I suppose the departure Takeoff RW31R, fly 310 deg to intercept PSP R 268 then right to PSP then PSP R 104 to EMRUD at DEME 10, right back to PSP then V388 etc.
After take off I monitored the HSI & soon realised that I had tuned in PDZ & not PSP VOR, I corrected myself just in time to make the inbound turn to PSP. Tension levels started to climb
(it's only a simulator after all but it gets to you)The flight plan had been set up on the GNS 530 GPS so autopilot was going to take care of the right turn at EMRUD back to PSP. Wrong, whilst I was resetting EZDOK, which was giving me uncharacteristically heavy turbulence effects I realised I was turning LEFT instead of right back to PSP, Too far gone so I let it do it's thing. Something is not quite right with my set up hhmmmm. I manually set heading back to PSP and V388 not realising that I had forgotten to set DEWAY after crossing PSP
in the flight plan. It was not long before I was trying to figure out why I was heading towards high ground 
& not following the valley which tracked about 30 deg to the right. Pinggg 
, I realised what I had done & turned right to resume correct track to DEWAY. In the confusion I had inadvertently climbed to 11000ft, SOCAL Departure gently asked what the heck I was doing at 11000ft, I descended to 10000ft. 
Surely the rest of the flight will go without a hitch!
If you want more I am beyond the point of shame having developed a extremely thick skin since flying on PE.
Just in case you're thinking I am a complete idiot I did fly KPSP to KONT today without a hitch Perhaps someone can post the link to that flight?
There's a million things that can take an easy flight and make it hard.