Tag: Tesla

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Short Sunday

The time shift didn’t do much for us today. I tried not to sleep in too much so I could go to sleep in the evening. Summer got up to some coffee and I ate my leftover chicken strip, and then the brisket with the beans and chips from our trip. With the refrigerator mostly empty, I wanted to go shopping and cook a nice dinner.

Summer went to the gym with Eaddie and I got ready for a late start to the day. When they got back, Eaddie showered and left, and then Summer decided she wanted Chinese. All planning out the window, we eventually went to New China where they appeared to still have a steady stream of Hispanics coming in from church services throughout the day. The food was hot and fresh, and I managed to fill up on a few different kinds of broccoli.

After that, we wanted to take Muad’Dib for a walk around Bona Dea. Summer immediately had to stop at the trailhead, so I walked around the short ring with Muad’Dib, and then Summer just wanted to go on home. With her not feeling well, Muad’Dib and I just laid in bed to rest for a bit. I felt like I could take a nap, but didn’t actually fall asleep.

Dad wanted us to bring the Model Y over so their neighbor could check it out. He seemed to have done enough research that I don’t know why they didn’t just go test drive one at the factory, but I talked to him for a little while about it, then gave him a quick test ride. Muad’Dib had run over ahead of me, so I let him run back home as well. Then he and Summer went to bed pretty early. Eaddie was home for a moment, but left. I tried to pay our toll fees from our trip, but failed, so I’ll try again during the week.

Fine, I’ll do it myself.

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Smash and Grab and Go

We weren’t in a huge hurry to get out this morning, so we felt pretty well rested. Summer and I got up to take Muad’Dib out and get some breakfast, and we spotted three or four vehicles on the other side of the building that had shattered windows. It was probably foolish of us to think we were the first ones to discover this, because the front desk already seemed stressed when we went in to report it.

We ate, then went back upstairs to clean up and pack. Timing was just about perfect to get out for the eleven o’clock checkout time. While we were still in the area, I wanted to use my birthday reward for $10 off at Hawaiian Bros, so we stopped in Allen to get some food to take home. Then we decided to stop at Buc-ee’s in Melissa to charge for a long haul to Henryetta.

While we were at Buc-ee’s, we ran into some guys charging that evidently recognized us from the trip down. They were headed back up as well, and just recognized Muad’Dib while we had him out. We also saw a couple of Tesla company cars with roof-mounted cameras or lidar. I went in to grab some snacks, and then we made the long trek to our next stop at a QT station.

We ran into the other guys at the charger one last time, and then Eaddie and I walked across the street to eat at the Taco Bueno while Summer and Eli kept Muad’Dib and ate their leftover Hawaiian Bros. That worked out pretty well, and then Summer drove us to Alma. I let them all get ice cream at Braum’s before going to charge across the street. Then Muad’Dib and I walked back over and had just enough time to use the restroom before going back to get the car.

Eaddie had left her car at Witherspoon, so when we finally made it home, we dropped the kids off and unloaded their stuff. Summer and I reset the dog seat protector, then made it home to clean up before bed.

Flies again!

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Hope Dangles on a String

Summer had a race in Clarksville this morning, but declined the suggestion that we could all get up early to go with her, then continue to the greater Fayetteville area immediately after. She wanted to come home to shower first.

I am right, I swear I’m right. Swear I knew it all along.

We had plenty of time to get around, so I watered my plants before jumping into the shower. Once everyone was ready, we headed out and picked Eli up before hitting the road. We stopped at Dodge’s in Clarksville for some hot wings, and ran into Autumn just as we were leaving.

Scars are souvenirs you never lose. The past is never far.

We made it all the way to Lowell to charge. There was a queue before we could plug in, but there were only a couple of cars ahead of us and it went pretty quickly. I had never experienced that before, but it wasn’t bad at all.

And I’d give up forever to touch you.

I had previously texted Shawna and actually got a response that she wouldn’t be joining us for the concert. I planned to transfer the ticket to her, but I couldn’t do that until closer to the event, and even then she didn’t want it. Brandon was able to join us, so we planned to meet him for dinner.

I’ve got my defenses when it comes to your intentions for me.

Once charging was done, we went to Goodwill to kill a few minutes. We ended up grabbing a telescope stand for Dad, and then headed to Chuy’s to meet Brandon. There was a relatively short wait, and then service was pretty sparse, but the food was good.

My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me.

After dinner, we walked to the amphitheater with plenty of time to find seats on the packed lawn. I skipped the merch until after Dashboard Confessional. They did a great show, followed by a wonderful, much larger show by the Goo Goo Dolls. All I could do was think about how the evening was supposed to go.

I’m not the one who broke you. I’m not the one you should fear.

Brandon took off a little bit early. We left at the very end and got on the interstate without any fuss. We probably didn’t have to stop, but the car routed us to Ozark for a quick charge before making it home. I gave Muad’Dib a quick vacuum and washed his feet, and then they were all off to bed.

I wanna wake up where you are.

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This Ain’t It, Chief

I had a Soylent this morning when I got to work, and I think it really did help settle my stomach after the last few days. Joel said we could talk about HubSpot after I got settled in, so I went upstairs for a while. He eventually stopped by and we went down to the conference room to chat. I still really can’t tell what my day-to-day is going to look like, but it feels less based on specific projects, and more about just being ambitious enough to find things to improve. I could be way off base, but I haven’t really been given any other direction yet. I joked that it didn’t seem like this was an IT job, but I think it’ll be good for me. It feels like I’m moving in the right direction.

A little while later I went to MethDonald’s for lunch. The drive-through was packed, but even more people were standing angrily around the counter when I went inside. I had already placed my order online, but the app crashed and I couldn’t see the number. I eventually went to the counter myself, and a nice lady went back to make it fresh. All the while I watched as the druggies and teen mothers with barely any clothes paced back and forth, coming in and out the doors, to and from the counter.

My food was great, and the app ended up refunding me later in the day because it thought I never picked up my food. I made it back to the office and re-racked some stuff upstairs. Teisha came up and said they were shutting down at three, and luckily someone came to get me later because I had lost track of the time.

When I got back to town, I stopped to see Summer to see if I could finally install my yoke. I ran home to get the parts and tools, cleaned up the laundry room a bit in the process, and got back out there just before closing time. I had the process down, but the new connectors for the scroll wheels didn’t seem to have clips to release, so I ended up having to drive Summer’s car back home after they were closed so I could get needle nose pliers. I made it back, and Summer got angry because they hadn’t properly cleaned the pit. I finally got my old wheel loose, all the components moved to the yoke, and after a little bit of back and forth, got the yoke properly installed.

Summer headed home, exhausted and filthy. She sent me to Zaxby’s for dinner, and it took them over 20 minutes to cook our food. I had already planned to stop at KFC for some coleslaw, and they weren’t much better. That restaurant has gone downhill so far that it should just about be condemned. I listened as a young drive-through attendant yelled at a customer through the speaker. Then, who I presume was the manager, went to the window and yelled at him some more. He demanded his card back, then peeled out away from the building. Meanwhile, I appeared to be joined in the lobby by the special education class of 1975. I miss the glory days of going there for the lunch buffet with Allen and whoever else would join us.

I finally got home, and Summer had let Muad’Dib back inside without cleaning him. The frustration and disappointment and depression of the whole situationship washed over me, and he and I immediately left for a walk around the block.Of course I didn’t have a waste bag, so he pooped and I had to pick it up with a napkin I had in my pocket. We got home and I put him out back for the night, then unloaded my car before going to cool off in the bedroom. Summer came back to find me after a while, and fell to the floor in her own bout of frustration. I left her to go eat some cold chicken, then cleaned everything up and came back to put her to bed for her race in the morning. We laid down to talk for a little bit, but I’m really at a loss. Things are bad, but the fact that things are bad is making things worse.

Too much attention.

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Big, Bad Waffle

I hardly got any sleep again last night because I stayed up too late writing reviews, and then when I finally laid down in bed, my mind was racing. I eventually passed out and woke up to a bright orange sun peeking over the horizon beyond the lake. I didn’t take much time to enjoy that before taking a shower so I could meet the guys for breakfast.

I met Randy, Kyle, and Jim at Phil’s Family Restaurant across town, and it was a cute little restaurant in an old house. I ordered their waffle special, and it was a ton of food. The waffle was awful though, and had a rubbery pancake texture like it was just pressed into a waffle maker after it had already been cooked as a pancake. It wasn’t crispy on the outside at all, and they charged me an additional $1.29 for a tiny cup of peanut butter. The servings on the eggs and hashbrowns were enormous though. It said it came with two eggs, but there had to be at least four scrambled on my plate.

I think Randy was the only one that had anything scheduled today. I was pretty sure I told Maggie I wanted another class in the afternoon, but I didn’t get anything. Jim disappeared, and I don’t know if Randy took Kyle to sneak into another class, but I ended up heading back to my room by myself, but I stopped at Proglide Car Wash first because I was long overdue.

I ended up signing up for an unlimited plan because they had a $10 special for their best wash. When I got around to the entry, I saw that they had a guide that I was worried about hitting, so I stopped and talked to one of the employees. He insisted they had never had any trouble with Teslas, so I took the chance. I wasn’t super excited when the two of them then got some soapy sponges out to try and scrub off the worst parts. I’ve had bug guts with grit in them, and I didn’t want them to scratch my paint. I let it happen though, and made it through the wash without incident. I stopped to vacuum my car, checked the rims and paint, and then went back around for a second wash to get some more of the bird poop that it couldn’t remove the first time. The guy cleaned it off by hand, and then I finally made it back to the hotel.

I worked all day on Vine reviews to try and get my ratio up, and I’m still showing only 80% reviewed for some reason. I can’t seem to figure out how they’re calculating their number. Beverly Hills Cop II was on, so I watched most of that, followed by some of Beverly Hills Cop. That seemed counterintuitive, but what do I know? A storm started to roll in, and I watched part of the new RoboCop remake. Eventually I met Randy and Kyle downstairs and took them downtown to meet Todd at The Rooftop Bar for the ProMAS social.

The food and drinks, and the outdoor restaurant atmosphere was more my speed, even if our server appeared to be the only one serving the entire restaurant, but the guys wanted to move on to the Howard social across town. We went straight to H2O HAWG, the usual biker bar that Woody rents out. We were followed by Sam, the Jessieville coordinator that we had met at the previous place, and we chatted among a small crowd. Kyle, Sam, and I played some darts, and I won a Yeti mug in a drawing at the end of the night.

We got back to the hotel and it was a slow wind down for me. I tried to crunch some more numbers, but I could just never make it work out. Hopefully it all comes together in a couple of days though.

Wing and a Prayer

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On Second Thought

If I had known we would all end up at the high school, I would have gone straight there in the morning. Instead, we sat around the office for about an hour and then all individually drove over to help Jim move all of his Chromebooks from the library to a holding room. We expected rain, so we couldn’t take them to the shop like we originally planned.

After a bit of sorting and looking for damage, we were done and sitting around. Jim started imaging more of his laptops while everyone else left, so I just sat in the library and worked on the FortiAuthenticator stuff until lunch time. While we were waiting to go, Cheri called with an offer from Tesla. Then Teisha called with an offer from Bitec.

We thought we had a group for lunch since we waited for Kyle, but it ended up just being Jim and myself. He drove us to Mr. Cajun’s Kitchen and I tried their blackened catfish over red beans and rice. I thought it was way too expensive, but it tasted good. After that, I just stayed in the library until quitting time.

The drive home was a bit anxious. I stopped in Blackwell and again in Atkins for a slush since the Casey’s in town always seems to turn their slushy machine off when they have a free deal day. Summer was having a bath when I got home, but then she had to go to Morrilton to check on a truck that was leaking oil after service. I rode with her while the kids took Muad’Dib to the art walk downtown.

Summer was able to tighten the drain plug without any trouble, and we made it back home for some light leftovers. She did some work and we eventually wound down kind of late, considering she had a Conquer the Gauntlet race in the morning in Springfield, Missouri. I may have caught something from handling all the Chromebooks, because I felt a sinus infection creeping in all evening.

I thought by now, you would understand sonder!

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Along for the Ride

I picked Dad up this morning and we headed to Tulsa, stopping in Van Buren for a charge and some breakfast pizza. We got there about half an hour early and checked in, but they didn’t offer a loaner, and the demo vehicle I requested wasn’t available until later in the afternoon. Dad and I waited in the lobby for hours and waited for the estimated completion time of 1:30, which turned into 2:45. I ended up asking for any demo vehicle at all, and we got a Model 3 to take to the 50’s Diner for lunch.

I had a Monte Cristo and Dad got a burger. The onion rings were different and better than I expected as thin, small rings with only a light batter. As we were finishing, I got a call asking to come back and demonstrate the passenger seat popping for the tech, even though I had showed Blake, the service advisor, when we checked in.

The popping had quit, but the seat controls had phantom actions that weren’t intended. When moving straight back, the backrest would recline a bit intermittently. The tech said he couldn’t do anything more about it until they released a new firmware for the controls, which didn’t make any sense to me. We also couldn’t get a confirmation that they would cover the paint issue, so we ended up waiting until the car was finished around five o’clock.

We did get to demo the new Model Y Juniper, and it was quite nice. It did feel tighter and more refined than Summer’s. We also got to demo a Cybertruck, and Dad even drove that one. We only took it around the block, but I liked it well enough. If I wanted a larger vehicle, I would totally drive one.

They finally finished around five, and Mykel confirmed that they would cover the paint issue under warranty. They also said the air conditioner was overfilled by about 200 grams of refrigerant. Hopefully fixing that will make it cool better.

We headed home, and the car did great both ways. We didn’t even have to stop to charge on the way home, so I took Dad home and then went home to find some leftovers and a drink before bed.

I told you once, you fooled me twice.

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M3SORED

I had an absolute fit trying to sleep last night. I went to bed for a couple hours, maybe dozed for a few minutes, but laid awake for most of it. I ended up getting out of bed and puttering a bit, then trying again. My mind wouldn’t quit wandering about any random topic. It could have been remembering facts about the Byzantine Empire, or cats. It could have been pondering alternative methods to make peanut butter. Anything but sleep.

I dozed again briefly for about 20 minutes before my alarm went off, then got up and ready to go to Kansas City to pick up the new Model 3. Summer was a dear and loaded all of my accessories into her trunk. Eaddie was slow to rise, but we eventually made it out the door.

The drive to Kansas City was pretty terrible. It rained pretty hard for most of it. There was a ton of fog and mist, so I really had to push the car through it. We charged in Ozark, Lowell, and Nevada before making it to the showroom. Eaddie sat up front with me while Summer worked on her laptop in the back.

The parking lot was absolutely packed with cars for delivery. It was the greatest concentration of Cybertrucks I’d ever seen, and it was a little bit glorious. I had a pretty good idea which car was mine, but we went inside to check in since we needed restrooms by then anyway. I talked to two different staff members. The first was kind and led us to the car to check it out. That was the end of any courtesy we received. I guess they were just too slammed with deliveries to entertain the idea of helping us get a charge on the Model Y, and I got a deadpan one-word response when I asked if I could drive my car before I accepted delivery.

Fortunately there didn’t seem to be anything amiss. I loaded up my floor mats, and we made our way to a public charger a couple miles away to leave Summer’s car while we took mine out for the day. Our first stop was the Red Door Woodfired Grill. I didn’t know what to expect, but it was delicious. We got super meaty calamari, and three excellent entrées. Eaddie had a big cheeseburger, I took the recommendation of the prime rib French dip, and Summer had a sirloin. The portions were small, but I guess they were going for “upscale sports bar.” The flavors were on point, but I think it did me in on sodium for the day.

Our next stop was IKEA. Summer was reluctant, but Eaddie and I outvoted her. We didn’t waste much time, and basically made a quick pass through the whole place so we could get to some meatballs. We were all full from our late lunch, but they both actually really wanted meatballs. I started feeling bad, with a racing heart and likely high blood pressure. The city driving started it, and the racing heart pushed me to the edge where I just had to sit down in the restaurant after taking my metoprolol and a clonidine. We shared a plate, and I eventually felt good enough to walk out of there.

We got back to Summer’s car and headed toward home, stopping to charge in Belton, Nevada, and Lowell for a long final leg of the trip. Eaddie rode with me from Nevada to Lowell where I developed a really elaborate pee-dance for about 45 minutes. I didn’t let myself go through the same thing, and stopped at Ozark for another break while the girls continued on home. Just past Ozark, I nailed a small-to-medium sized opossum dead-on. It didn’t make much of a sound, and I didn’t see any damage when I got home, but I still felt bad.

The girls crashed instantly, and I fed the dogs and got things picked up a little bit before finally settling in. I’ll have to do some shuffling tomorrow to get the Model 3 into the garage.

The Brewdy Kitten Café

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Those Christmas Lights

Summer got me up around nine this morning so I could get the turkey going. To my surprise, we were approved for the zero percent loan for my new car with a low down payment, so I took care of that and made the final payment before I got started. Then I kept Summer nearby because I wasn’t sure what I was going to need at any given moment. I used my new grinder to grind the spices down for the injection. It worked better, but still ended up clogging. I think it had more to do with the fact that the butter was solidifying in the syringe since the turkey was still cold inside. We eventually got it on the smoker though, and then it was a race to get everything else going. I oiled and salted the potatoes and threw them on the grill as well.

Summer did a bunch of other cleaning and worked on her deviled eggs. I took a shower and then pulled the potatoes off the grill so I could gut them, mash that up, and re-smoke them. We were getting down to the wire, but had a reasonably good morning until I got a text that Mom wasn’t coming. I had my hands full of potatoes, so I had Summer call Dad on speakerphone. I instantly blew my top at her because she wanted to blame my blood pressure, but changing plans at the last minute was what really got me hot.

I got the potatoes back on the smoker and cranked up the heat a bit, which turned out to be a big mistake. I guess there was still some grease at the bottom that caught fire, and my temperature shot up from my set 350ºF to over 500. We pulled the potatoes off and Summer finished them in the oven. I was going to drive over to talk to Mom, but just then Kevin showed up, followed by Julie with various things to unload from the car. Dad wasn’t far behind with even more stuff.

We got everything settled and then I took Dad’s car to go talk to Mom, since he and Julie were parked behind us. I talked to her briefly and apologized for blowing up, but reminded her that a big reason that I agreed to buy our house was so we would have room to entertain the family for the holidays, in a house with as little travel from theirs as possible. It didn’t take much more for her to come back with me, but she insisted that she didn’t want to stay long.

Noah was running behind in the most characteristically unpredictable way, so the seven of us ate. I thought all the food turned out pretty good. After that, we took a break to open presents. Eaddie had the biggest haul and wanted to know what she did to deserve to be so spoiled, but I think everyone felt pretty satisfied. After that, it was a bit of a struggle to decide what to do. I wanted to either watch Red One or start on some dessert, but Summer was busy cleaning up in the kitchen and became unresponsive to anything I asked. Julie ended up putting on Elf and they watched that while a few of us got some dessert.

Dad took Mom home, and Eaddie had Eli come over for some presents. Then they put on the Michael Jordan documentary series or whatever on the TV again. Noah finally showed up at some point and ate food and opened presents. I wasn’t terribly upset that he didn’t end up staying the night. Once everyone else left, the girls and I watched Red One together before bed. We all really enjoyed it for being so creative and unexpected.

I wrapped up the night by making some more turkey soup from the new bones we had. I was up pretty late waiting for it to cool down enough to refrigerate, but I was happy to be done with it right away instead of letting the bones sit for weeks.

Light up the street.

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Pay the Bills

I put the car in the shop to charge at work this morning, and then thought I’d be alone for the day, but Maggie was actually working. I told her about The Kings of Tupelo that Summer watched on Netflix, so she put it on in the morning while we hung out in the dark, quiet office. I was on my own for lunch because she had an appointment, so she left and then I went to retrieve the car.

Earlier in the morning, I got an alert that the car had stopped charging. I saw an Entergy truck outside and figured they were working on installing the new HVAC. I figured I would deal with the garage door with maintenance whenever I got there, but unfortunately nobody was around and they took the ladder they had left in the shop overnight. With no power and no way to reach the release on the garage door, I figured I was stuck. I texted Maggie, who called her friends in maintenance for help. They were already at lunch, so if I wanted out, I would have to get creative. I later learned that the school never started paying for power in that building, so we had basically been stealing power since we took over.

I couldn’t swing a loop of network cable high enough, at least not in the dark. Then I looked around and found a long power distribution bar with a power cable on one end, and was able to stand on top of a pallet jack to just barely hook the power cable over the release lever. With a tug, I had unlocked the door, but that was just the beginning. The spring wasn’t tight enough, so the door was super heavy. I could barely lift it, much less throw it high enough to stay up so I could back the car out. Fortunately, I was able to use the dumb summon feature to back the car out from the app while holding the door up with my other hand. It worked great, and I was off to pick up my Rally’s.

While I was in line for food, I watched the new Superman trailer for the first time. I was absolutely pumped, and I watched it half a dozen more times in the afternoon. I love Superman movies. I never knew much about him in the comics, and I’ve only seen some of the TV shows. I probably need to watch Superman and Lois, because I bet I’d like it, but I absolutely cannot wait for James Gunn’s new movie in the summer.

The afternoon crawled by, and Maggie left for the day when it was time to get her kids from school. I left a few minutes early myself, since I ate lunch at my desk. I got home and had an awesome run with the dogs. We looped through the basin trail twice just to dump some poop, and then went to see Dad before going home. They did four miles at an average of 10.4 miles per hour, and a peak of 20.8. They got hot dogs and food, and then the girls left for their sibling dinner with Mom.

I took care of a bunch more Vine stuff and then tried to settle down for bed pretty quickly, but I had to pay a couple bills myself. I’m ready for Christmas break.

Wrapped