Tag: Tesla

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Reasor’s Peacers

We got up early today for Conquer the Gauntlet in Tulsa. Eli came over and we headed straight out of town, stopping at Casey’s in Van Buren for a charge and some breakfast pizza, and then again at a small town gas station so the girls could use the restroom. We got to the 181 Ranch a little later than Summer wanted, but presumably they had plenty of time to get registered for their start time. I just dropped them off and drove into town to try and find somewhere to charge.

I ended up at a grocery store called Reasor’s, which seemed like a nice, clean, upscale place compared to where we can shop closer to home. The PlugShare app showed two chargers, but I think there was really only one. I plugged in and walked next door to Lowe’s where they had some larger-than-life Halloween decorations up.

I didn’t find anything else of interest, but I picked up a couple succulent leaves off of the floor to try my own hand at propagating them on the car dash while I waited. They didn’t do much in the few hours I had to wait. I went into the grocery store and ended up getting some beer because I figured it was cheaper than what I could get at home. I waited around for a little bit and then headed back toward the farm. I had gotten pretty close when I realized I looked at the clock wrong, and I was about an hour early. While on the road, I tried to call Diana about her home that we viewed, but after all the messages I’d gotten from Alisha about how she was concerned that she’d missed my call, she didn’t answer and I left a voicemail.

I drove back to the charger and had to ask an old guy in an old minivan to move so I could charge. He looked a little cranky, so I kind of expected a fight, but fortunately he was super nice. I ended up going inside with my laptop to experience their incredibly slow Wi-Fi. I got a text back from Diana and invited her to lunch next week, so worst-case scenario, we feed a sweet, old lady and we don’t buy a house. Or maybe that’s the best-case scenario. Who’s to say?

This time, I headed back to the farm on time and picked up Eli and the girls just as they were finishing changing. We loaded up and drove back toward town to eat at a place called Tijuana’s, which boast the “best Mexican food south of the Arkansas River.” I’m pretty sure Mexico has something to say about that, but I’m not here to start a fight. The food was okay, but the cheese dip was weird. As we left, I noticed the donut shop a few doors down in the stripmall was called “Donuts Near Me.” I could just see navigation systems bringing people from miles away, who were searching for nearby donuts.

Our next stop was a Supercharger in the Tulsa Hills Shopping Center. I think Dad and I stopped there on one of our trips when I was looking for Ember mugs at Targets all over the state. We went into a retro game place called Vintage Stock, which had a ton of stuff to buy, but no other large displays from movies or events like they have at Gamepoint in Conway. From there, we walked up the strip and got some dessert at Peachwave. They had edible cookie dough and various frozen yogurts, as well as Dole Whip in a few different flavors. I got the Whip to avoid any trouble with milk. We had plenty of time to charge while we walked around, and then we headed home.

Not terribly far along our drive, I hit a small box sitting square in the road, which had an empty bottle of diesel exhaust fluid. It didn’t seem to make any trouble, but as I pulled over, it started kicking rocks up onto the hood and windshield. I didn’t see any damage though, and we continued all the way to Ozark for another charge. That was where I discovered we still had the cardboard box stuck on the skid plate, but it still didn’t appear to have damaged anything.

We made it home just after dark, unloaded, and then I played with the dogs for a while. They had a new chew toy of questionable integrity, so I brought it back inside before I left them. Then I played with the other new review fodder I got from Amazon. This time it was some pretty cool stuff, like a cocktail smoker and a surprisingly good hand-cranked coffee grinder.

Summer had passed out early watching Aladdin. Eaddie was up late for some reason. I finally made it to bed just after midnight. Overall, I think it was a successful trip, and easily the most comfortable one I’ve been to while waiting in the car.

INTO THE UNKNOOOOOOWWWWWWNNNNNNN

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Lobby Hobbies

Summer and I woke up way early today so we could get to Tulsa for her service appointment. We stopped in Ozark to charge and I got a little snack for breakfast, and I managed to squeak up to the service center just before our appointment at nine. They didn’t have a loaner for us, but instead offered to let us take test drives in two hour increments.

We ended up hanging out in the lobby until lunch. There were a bunch of people there, but we were there the longest by far. They had a Cybertruck that we could climb around in, but nobody could drive it. We watched as several people stopped to look at it. I kind of liked it, but Summer made a face.

I found an Indian buffet for lunch, so we borrowed a brand new Model 3 that had ten miles on the odometer, and drove across town to eat. The food was really good, but I wished there was more meat. They love their bones, which was annoying but flavorful. We headed straight back to the service center after that.

They got the windshield replaced, but it wasn’t until about 4:00 that they asked for details about the air conditioner, which was the original reason for the warranty claim. They couldn’t find anything wrong, and of course the car had been inside all day, so it wasn’t hot enough to reproduce the failure. They did recharge the refrigerant, and said it was something like 38 grams low, so maybe that will make some difference.

We finally headed home, charged in Ozark, and then Summer finished the last leg of the trip. Eaddie and Eli were at the house and rearranging her room. Summer went to bed, and I responded to a couple requests for interviews, which felt very reassuring. We’ll get this ball rolling eventually.

1.9% is tempting, but let’s find work first!

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Last Minute Nonsense

As if yesterday’s news wasn’t enough, we got a message from the Tulsa Tesla service center just as we were ready to walk out the door that they wouldn’t have a loaner vehicle available for us, and also likely wouldn’t be able to complete the repair in a day. Rather than drive separately, we decided to reschedule. Fortunately they were able to get us in next Friday instead of the app’s first available date in September.

Since our day was completely foiled, I took the dogs out for a run and then Summer and I went to Little Rock for Deadpool so we could have Saturday for other things. We stopped at a pretty impressive Kroger Marketplace when we got to town, and I had to laugh that Walmart got into groceries with their “Marketplace” stores, and Kroger got into “everything else” with their “Marketplace” stores.

I picked up some cough medicine and we found a few snacks, and then we headed to a Mexican restaurant up the road called Los Cabos. The food was good, and though we were both completely satisfied with our portions, they did seem smaller than what we typically see in town. I was also hoping the food would be somehow different, but it really was just like everywhere else. The only thing that stood out was the salsa that tasted like pizza sauce.

We finally headed toward the theater with a lot of time to kill, so we walked through Home Goods before driving around the shopping center. We saw a Cybertruck in person, and I thought it was fairly impressive looking. We quickly walked the area, but without much of interest, I decided to kill our final hour at an upscale flea market called Painted Tree Boutiques. Summer enjoyed browsing what I considered to be overpriced stay-at-home mom junk. I mostly gawked at the price tags.

We made it back to the theater with just enough time to settle in, and the 3D showing of Deadpool & Wolverine wasn’t very busy. I appreciated still being able to find good seats, and the 3D was actually really well done. So well, in fact, that I wonder how it’ll look in 2D, because a few of the scenes were pretty specifically shot for 3D. Summer struggled with some of the ultraviolence, but otherwise we found it to be a great fanservice movie. I think it really might have the momentum needed to shift Marvel’s recent struggles.

After the movie, we headed straight home and I played with some more Amazon Vine stuff that had come in before heading to bed.

Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice-skate uphill.

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Test Daze

I was supposed to go to work about 20 minutes early today, but I didn’t make it. I woke up pretty sore, but not too tired. It had stormed all night, and I couldn’t find my wallet when it was time to leave. That put me in a panic, thinking that it might have somehow fallen out when I crashed yesterday, but I didn’t see it in the road when I circled by. The weather got rough and I ran into some hail and fog, which brought traffic down to about 25mph on the highway. By then, I was glad to be stuck behind a truck, and I just surrendered to traffic the rest of the way.

I still got there about 10 minutes early, and it wasn’t needed anyway. I handed out a couple Chromebooks, but that was all. It was pretty quiet apart from that, which was good because I was hurting quite a bit and couldn’t really focus on anything important. That, plus a dash of burnout led to a very unproductive day.

I left just a couple minutes early and made it to the old house to feed the fish. No wallet. Then I remembered that I had taken it to my office when I called TCW to set up new internet yesterday. I made it home where Summer was baking a lasagna, and I found my wallet. I started to get a headache that had me a little worried, but I was pretty sure it was from the neck muscle pain that had been increasing all day. We ate and then I laid down for a while when Eaddie unsympathetically kept playing loud concert recordings.

I ended the night by resetting my Pixel Watch 2 because of battery issues, and then did my best not to get distracted crunching numbers for a new car. I’m tickled by the new Model 3 Performance, but still curious if something better will come along soon. On the other hand, the $7,500 tax credit won’t be around forever.

But what if we paid off the house in under six years?

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Wheel of Destress

They were testing this morning, but I was still early enough to grab breakfast on the way. It was a bit warmer, so I didn’t freeze to death on the ride in. It didn’t take them long at all to pass out an entire cart full of Chromebooks, because they hadn’t held kids accountable for bringing their own devices. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet for most of the day. Kim brought lunch, so I didn’t even look up when it was time to eat. I just skipped lunch and kept poking around in inventory, mostly hoping that I would have a good return at the end of the year. I did take a break for a minute in the afternoon when I got a text that the new Model 3 Performance was available to order, but I wasn’t impressed enough to jump on the first wave of ordering. I may wait on a few more reviews first.

The ride home was mostly unencumbered, and I came straight to the house where Summer was working on the couch and Eaddie was out again. Summer wanted chicken, so I ended up going to KFC to pick up the only fast food that comes in buckets. There were a lot of people in the back, but only one girl up front, who spent most of her time running to the back. Nobody looked to be in charge, or even in understanding. Michael was there eating with family after another parent night at the high school. Eaddie’s flute tutor, Kim, came in behind me and waited to place an order. Our food finally came out about 10 minutes late, wrong at first, and still wrong in the end with none of our requested sauces.

I got to the house where Summer and I discovered that nearly all of the food was old and dry, which made less sense of how much waiting I had to do. Then I went out on the Onewheel for about eight miles. I stopped to see my parents briefly, but then kept rolling around to decompress. I’d like to think I made some kid’s whole lifetime so far by giving him a high-five as I rolled by.

Once home for the evening, we wound down pretty quickly. I finally though to check my blood pressure, which was super high. I took some medicine for it, had a drink, and loosened up the best I could before bed.

Arch Ford in the morning makes for a short day. Maybe that will help.

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0.00000000037%

There was a threat of rain again today, but it never happened. I got to work a little bit early and made an iced coffee out of some leftover from the day before, and tried to replicate the general mood of the office as well. I finally fixed my printer deployment issue, so I spent the rest of the day tinkering with an automated task sequence that even Kim won’t be able to screw up.

After work, I kept getting stuck behind people going under the speed limit. I got to the old house to feed the fish, and my check from Elon Musk had been delivered and left in my driveway. I immediately ran across town to Arvest to deposit it, since it was too much for me to do over mobile deposit. While I was there, I caught up with Aaron for a little bit, and took a few broken and battered coins that were discarded by their change machine. It was mostly chipped-up pennies, but there were a couple carwash tokens and something from Germany.

When I got to the house, Summer had gone out for a haircut and a meeting at work, so I went out on the Onewheel. I went around the neighborhood a bit, buzzing back by Arvest to see if I could show off to Aaron. Then I ended up over at my parents’ house and had some shrimp soup since Summer would be home late.

On my way home, I noticed Summer had stopped at the Neighborhood Market, so I thought I’d ride over there and catch her. I put my Onewheel in her trunk, but then somehow missed her as she left the store and drove away with my ride. I quickly called her to come back, and rode home with her. I took one more loop around the block before coming in for the night.

Eaddie had been doing schoolwork and practicing her flute, so we didn’t get to watch TV like I thought we might. Instead, I actually managed to get to bed a little early. I may actually get seven hours of sleep tonight.

That’s a pretty big wealth gap.

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3 Little 2 Late

I woke up early this morning so we could get to Tulsa for lunch. The girls were chittering around the rest of the house, so I stayed hidden away until I was ready to leave the house. They had disappeared in a cloud of body spray by the time I walked through.

I did another software update on my car, which wasn’t long after the last one. This one evidently gave me a 30-day trial of Full Self Driving, which would ironically only get me to the Tesla dealership in Tulsa where I would relinquish my car. I followed Summer most of the way, stopping at Rose Drug, then the Van Buren Supercharger, and finally the Love’s oasis. Somewhere before we hit the turnpike, a truck kicked up a bunch of large pieces of wood. One of them struck the middle of my windshield, but fortunately no damage was done that I could tell. After Love’s, I led us the rest of the way to the dealership where they seemed to be waiting with baited breath for me.

I only had a couple of pages of paperwork to sign, including handing the title back over. Then we unloaded all of the remaining stuff into Summer’s car and left it there to Supercharge while we test drove one of the brand new Model 3s and a Model X. The new Model 3 was incredibly quiet, and had a great ride. The doors were the other big improvement. The turn signals were less of an issue than I expected for normal driving, but in a pinch I would still want stalks to quickly signal and maneuver. The only solace is that the responsiveness of the vehicle makes it nimble and quick enough to maneuver around most other vehicles faster than any signaling might help, in that type of situation. I guess that’s what really matters, and signals can be left for more polite, less urgent driving.

After our test drives, we found a nearby Shoe Carnival to use a birthday credit I had. Then we crossed the street to get a free birthday burger from Red Robin. We were more disappointed than usual with our lack of “bottomless” fries when we sat down, so we ordered a couple more rounds as soon as our server brought our food to the table.

Bellies full, we headed back home with a nearly full charge. Headwinds made us stop to charge for a couple minutes in Ozark, and then we made it home without incident. I went out on the Onewheel to destress and stopped by my parents’ house. I was really sad about selling my car back, but the market price and current upgrades made it the right financial choice. It’s just nuts that I could buy a brand new one and still save money after the whole ordeal.

Once I got back from my ride, I cleaned up Summer’s car and put my aftermarket console trays in for her. All I want now is for her to keep the car clean, but she just doesn’t live that way.

Miss you in the saddest fashion!

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OneYoke

I was early enough for work this morning that I decided to swing through McDonald’s for a McGriddle for the drive. It was relatively quiet compared to earlier in the week, though we still had visitors in the office behind us. I tinkered with imaging for a while and discovered that resetting the BIOS to factory defaults didn’t actually reset the storage settings. I ended up loading up another desktop with the OEM operating system, and exported drivers that I can tinker with next week.

Kim left after lunch to sell enough cattle to pay for the flooring in their new house, which meant the office was eerily quiet for the rest of the day. Apart from a conference call with the GoGuardian folks, there really wasn’t anything going on.

After work, I fed the fish and dug out my factory floormats in case they want me to return them with my car tomorrow. Then I headed home to get Summer so we could go to Superfast and replace my yoke with the original steering wheel. The new instructions I found didn’t cover all of the steps, but fortunately I found the old video I watched to install the yoke in the first place.

Eaddie was out with friends, so Summer and I went straight to my parents’ house for chow mein. It would have been a nice evening for a ride on the Onewheel, but it was dark by the time we got home. I took it for a figure-8 around the block, and then we waited for Eaddie to get home with her girlfriends for their sleepover.

You’re a good car.

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OUTAGAS

We all slept in this morning after I initially woke up just before five as Eaddie jokingly suggested as a departure time. We loaded up quickly, and Summer and I went in for some breakfast while Eaddie sat in the car. Then we met Dad at McDonald’s to pick up some steak, egg, and cheese bagels for Julie and Kevin. The kid at the register kept wanting to tell me too much information about his struggle finding the right picture on his employee register, or how he’d eat his Quarter Pounders with leftover gravy from the morning’s breakfast. Eaddie wanted to try one of the bagels, so we split one before we left.

Dad followed us while we kept getting stuck behind slow traffic, but eventually we passed most of it and got ahead of him. We stopped for a restroom break in Ozark, but didn’t need to charge. Eaddie had rehearsal at Tech after we got home. I unpacked and then left on the Onewheel to see Mom, and then ride the bagels over to Julie across town. She suggested I could go find Kevin at the airport, but I ended up a couple blocks over at my friend Kevin’s place.

Kevin hopped on the board and rode a little bit, but then wanted Matthi to try it out. That kid wasn’t afraid of anything, and immediately jumped on with reckless abandon. He got pretty good at it too, and then brought out a RipStik and a classic two-wheeled hoverboard to show me. Kevin and I ended up chatting for quite a while before I left and circled through the old house to feed the fish.

I didn’t quite make it back home before my battery died. I would have made it if I hadn’t circled through the Ridgewood Brothers’ parking lot, and nobody was there anyway. I had to walk most of the way up Honeysuckle, and the Onewheel got heavy fast. I got to the top of the hill and was able to ride it for a few more feet, but then had to walk it from the end of the street back to the house. It was the hardest workout I’ve had with the thing, but it was worth it.

I eventually had a shower after getting all sweaty carrying the Onewheel. Eaddie ate with Eli, so Summer and I had some leftover corned beef. She spent most of the evening like the rest of the weekend, not feeling great. I thought for sure I had seen something about not having school on Monday, but I don’t know where I hallucinated that, because there’s even a lunch menu. I’ll have to take another day off to take the Model 3 back to Tulsa, which makes me a bit sad, but I think it’ll all be worth it in the end.

I could ride you, but I’d have to charge.

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City Swamp

I didn’t catch our rat last night, but it made another appearance on camera. We ended up having to take Eaddie to Little Rock today for less than an hour of rehearsal, but she was at Tech for the state robotics tournament all morning. Summer and I picked her up around lunch time and headed out of town. We were hungry enough to stop at McDonald’s in Morrilton, and then we made our way to the Wilbur D. Mills University Studies High School.

We left Eaddie, and then I took Summer down the road to the Lorance Creek Natural Area where we walked down a trail through a swamp. It was pretty neat, but there were clouds of gnats everywhere. We almost made it back to the car when Eaddie texted that she was done. We picked her up, and she wanted to head straight back home to catch the end of the tournament, so we didn’t get to do any other shopping or adventuring.

Charge was low, so we had to plan a stop somewhere. Fortunately they built a new Supercharger in Conway, so we stopped there for just a few minutes before completing the journey home. We left Eaddie at the coliseum and then the two of us went to Ridgewood for an early dinner. Grant looked to be doing better, and things were kind of slow and steady at the restaurant.

I took the Onewheel around the neighborhood when we got back home. It wasn’t any surprise that Summer didn’t want to get out of the house again, so we settled in to watch some TV for the evening. Eaddie got home late, without a trip to Worlds, and then everyone was off to bed to do it all over again in the morning.

That’s just a lot.