Tag: Tesla

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And Then What Are You Going to Do?

I made ham, egg, and cheese bagels for breakfast this morning. Then I spent some time researching law and combining cell phone plans. Three of us are finally on one plan together, which means we all get unlimited data on Fi for less than our individual plans. I’ve been stingy with my data for over five years, so this has the potential to be life-changing.

Summer made it to the gym and back while I tinkered. I already had fresh clothes, so I showered in what little hot water was left after hers instead of going home. I talked her into going to Little Rock with me to see the new Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in IMAX, so we stopped for gas, and then I swapped cars and picked her up. Autumn had homework to finish, and Eaddie didn’t have any interest in a completely-CGI film that required too much suspense of disbelief.

As we neared Little Rock, Summer found a Mediterranean place called Al Seraj for us to eat. It was more of a deli in a tiny market store, and they were more or less empty other than a couple groups of people coming through to shop. The food was great though, and the guy said they have a buffet throughout the week. I think that’d be pretty awesome.

We made it to the theater in plenty of time, though it was pretty dead too. I thought the movie was really good, with plenty of laughs and a few surprises. It did a fine job of setting up the next phase.

Afterward, we drove straight home except for a stop in Atkins to let Summer drive. She said autopilot hadn’t worked for her, and I forgot you had to enable it in the settings. I didn’t realize it until we were on the road again, but the car had to be in park to change the setting, so she stopped again in Pottsville, and then tried autopilot for the last couple miles home.

I dropped her off at home, and then went to Cogswell to try and find their EV charger. I was hoping it would give me a big boost, but after hanging out for nearly an hour, I only charged about 7%. At that point, I decided I should head home to clean up before making it back to Summer’s.

Autumn still hadn’t finished her homework, even after bargaining to go to Clarksville overnight, and even asking to go to Fort Smith this morning. She failed to get it done at the study session with Jennifer at the mall, so we tried to motivate her to finish before bed. Summer and Eaddie went to bed, and I laid down to compose some thoughts before getting back up to finish my nightly routine.

Win.

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Band State of Mind

I woke up around four in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I dozed off a couple times for just a couple minutes, but nothing substantial. It was a wonder I didn’t drag harder throughout the day than I did. I ran home to clean up, and then Summer came down for our trip to Hot Springs. We stopped at Hardee’s for breakfast first, and then we were on our way in the Model 3.

I felt confident enough in our ability to find a charger that I didn’t even bother changing my charge limit. We left with 90% and got to the convention center with right around 60%. I started off testing autopilot on the curves, but quickly gave up because it made me nervous, and I enjoy driving through the curves anyway. Once we got to The Hotel Hot Springs, the parking garage had a few Tesla destination chargers available. I parked next to an older red Model 3 Performance, which was kind of cool. Unfortunately the Sentry Mode never caught them leaving, so I never got to see who was driving it.

Eaddie was evidently staying at the Embassy Suites on the opposite end of the convention center, but we didn’t learn that until we had waited a few minutes in the wrong lobby. We finally found her, stowed her belongings in the bus, and then made our way inside to watch the concerts. We ran into Reece and Christina inside, and chatted with them for a bit. Summer wanted to watch some of the choirs, but they went on the same time as the other bands, so we had to switch auditoriums and spent the rest of the day in the arena.

The orchestra was actually pretty awful. Eaddie figured it was mostly the acoustics, but I was pretty sure it was the average skill level. The non-string instruments simply didn’t know how to play when they weren’t the majority. There was an immediately noticeable improvement with the concert band, but the one to beat was the smaller wind symphony, in which Eaddie played. They did a fantastic job, and I hated that we had to fight the cold and the harsh lighting fatigue just to watch them.

After the show, I got the car and picked up the girls. We were hungry for something uniquely out-of-town, but Eaddie just wanted a hamburger. That was when I remembered seeing an A&W on Google maps, so we made our way across town only to be disappointed to learn it was built into a gas station. In spite of the location and the completely over-it staff, the food was actually really good. The burgers tasted fresh and held together well. The sriracha cheese curds were a nice surprise. The root beer was phenomenal as always. It just made me want to sell everything and open one myself.

By the time we finished, Eaddie was ready to head home. We made it downtown, and the girls needed a restroom, so I stopped to get water while they took care of that down the block. Then we made it home in a flash. Eaddie apparently outgrew getting car sick, so I probably lost more money due to rubber on the road than what I saved by only having to pay for fuel to drive one way.

It was a quick run for beds once everyone got back home. I fought sleep long enough to get my own chores done, and then I was down for the night.

I got the powah!

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I Forgot My Floaties

There was a line of cars in front of our shop this morning, but I didn’t quite put it together why they were there. Our office had flooded again, in a bad way. Of course my office got the worst of it. Gary sent me off to the high school instead to work with Jacob, though he never actually showed up until near lunch time.

Just as I was getting ready to go back to the shop for lunch I got a text from another Jacob, evidently the primary Tesla mobile service tech for the state. He was on his way to work on the Model 3 in the rain, so I went to the bus shop to see if I could borrow a bay to keep out of the weather. Dale was just leaving, so he let me pull right in. Just a few minutes later, I spotted the little Tesla service van across the field and called to direct him to me.

They were two really young guys in full Tesla rain gear, and they confirmed my issues and got right to work testing the doors repeatedly. They adjusted the door bumpers, then pulled some trim and checked some wires. It took a little bit to warm up to me, but then we got to talking a bit while they worked. Jacob had a broken shoulder from mountain biking, so TA was there from North Carolina to help. Jacob said he was actually from Heber Springs, which surprised the heck out of me for a Tesla tech that covers the whole state. We had a good chat, and a laugh about how bad Enhanced Autopilot is. Then they were on their way.

I went back to the shop for a minute just as the others got back from lunch. They were still pulling tons of water out of the office, since it had been raining all day. There was no end in sight, as we watched the water line drift right back out away from the wall as it seeped up from the ground. I went to KFC to get a bit of lunch and relax, and then headed back to the high school to finish out the day.

Summer wanted to go to Walmart, so I met her there right after work and we picked up a bunch of random stuff. Then I went home to change before going up to her place. That was when I started having trouble charging my car. I spent quite a while digging out my charger and moving it to different outlets. The two most convenient ones were reporting no ground connection, but inside the house, the mobile charger appeared to be fine. I finally got to my third outlet in the garage, and was able to get charging again.

When I got to Summer’s, Eaddie was baking brownies. Summer finished up her TV show and then went to bed since Eaddie wanted to watch Breaking Bad with me. We watched two episodes, which got me to bed a bit later than I wanted, but it was just getting really good. I should probably take some time off tomorrow anyway, to investigate my rogue outlets.

I wander’d off by myself
In the mystical moist night-air
And from time to time
Look’d up in perfect silence
At the stars

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YSOBLUE

Today was Ryan’s first day back, so Zach and Gary were buzzing with that for most of the day. I spent the first part of the morning stressing over what I might rile up in our CPPC meeting, but when we finally met, I didn’t even have to do any talking on account of everyone else being so outspoken. The only one point of contention that I will simply never understand was that nobody seemed to think you should get a day of leave refunded if the school closes while you were out. That just made no sense to me at all. School was closed. How do they possibly justify that your leave still has to be docked.

That nearly got us to lunch, and a big group of us went to La Chiquita. That was a no-frills table full of fajitas, and a surprising amount of leftover cheese dip. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting a software update deployment. I think I finally sorted it out, but I felt bad because I had completely missed it from a work order from several days ago.

At the end of the day, Zach went out to the front of the building with me to help replace a panel on the road sign. I had to call support and finagle some firewall settings, but we got it done without too much fuss. Then I headed home to change before going by Superfast to check on Summer. She was just about to head out, so I continued on to my parents’ house for dinner.

Mom made mango soup, so Dad got that warmed up for us. I didn’t stay for too long though, because the arts center was hosting a percussion ensemble concert that Summer wanted to see. I met all of them there, and a bunch of Eaddie’s friends came to sit with us while Autumn and Adam were off in the back somewhere. The concert was surprisingly long, with a surprising age range of students, but they did a good job.

I went home and discovered that my car charger had gotten loose enough that my car stopped charging last night. I fixed that and headed up to Summer’s for the evening, where everyone was pretty much heading straight to bed. Summer and I crunched some numbers and felt confident enough to cover a car payment, so she ordered a Model Y in the app, which I thought was a worse experience than doing it on the website. She didn’t even get a little hedgehog meme. Oh well.

Gotta act rich to be rich. First thing’s first: Make a bunch of money.

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Charge Test

I got up and made breakfast this morning by frying up a bunch of leftover bits and pieces of things with some eggs. It turned out pretty good, and even Autumn seemed not to hate it. She surprised us with improved grades so as not to lose her car or privileges to see her boyfriend, so we were pretty pleased with that. Summer had plans to meet some girls from work in Conway, and Eaddie wanted to go shopping with me while Summer did that.

I headed home to clean up, but then Summer said her plans had to be postponed. Eaddie still wanted to shop, so I picked them up and let Summer drive the Model 3 to Conway to get a feel on the interstate. I brought along my mobile charger to see if I could charge from her front porch, and then I looked for a NEMA 14-50 plug at the Splash in Conway once we got there. Unfortunately there wasn’t one available, but we could at least slow charge on a regular outlet available outside.

From there, we went down the road to The Mighty Crab and got some crab, shrimp, and crawfish boiled. The food was good, but I left pretty hungry. The crab was problematic and frustrating to eat, but the food all tasted good. It made me want to host a seafood boil myself.

After we ate, we went shopping across town. We started at Kohl’s, where they were having a pretty good sale on clearance items. Then we walked down to Shoe Carnival and TJ Maxx before going across the street to Old Navy. We closed them down, and then made our way back across town to Las Delicias. I had a “bubble wrap,” which was basically an inverted waffle with ice cream. I ultimately wished I had gotten a regular cone, just because it was so bready. The waffle flavor just overpowered the ice cream, so I couldn’t really enjoy the flavors I picked.

I drove us home, I changed, and then Summer drove us home in the Montego. Going back to such a rickety vehicle after driving the Murano and then the Tesla, I think Summer finally agreed that it was time to put the Montego behind us.

Burnin’ Bills

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Y Not?

Eaddie left with some friends for a robotics fund raiser super early this morning. It took me a bit to get back to sleep, but I vaguely remembered Autumn leaving a few hours later for a basketball trip. Summer got up and let me sleep in a bit because I was super exhausted. When I finally got up, we priced a Model Y out of curiosity, since the tax credit limits were changed to include the performance model.

She ended up having to go to work for a while, so I went home to clean up and tinker around for a while. When she finally finished, I let her drive the Model 3 to her parents’ house so we could try and get their old Pathfinder’s alarm system disarmed, and the SUV running. I managed to take care of it after a single honk, and then the engine cranked just fine. The tires were dry rotted, but the motor purred just fine, so Summer followed me to PDQ for some air. We couldn’t get the valve stem caps off of the left tires, so I drove it lopsided to Superfast where Alexis helped us change the valve stem.

With that out of the way, we went to Taco Villa for dinner. That place never slowed down, so we ate and then ran back to my house to get the gas burners. I met her at Shell and we filled up, and then continued up to her house for the evening.

Eaddie showed up shortly after we got home. Autumn made it back a little while after that. They ate, and then Eaddie wanted to watch an episode of Breaking Bad before bed. I guess I feel reasonably accomplished, even if we really only did one of the things I had planned.

Juggle Bucks

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Nailed It

It was relatively quiet at work today, but I kept pretty busy. Jacob was looking for answers for Adobe, but I still had none. After a little while, I ended up running to the high school to pick up some depot kits from him. He had completely rearranged the office in a way that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I guess it kept him out of the line of sight. I would find it aggravating to walk around all of the shelving when trying to image all of the devices.

When lunch time came around, I took Thomas and Zach to Popeye’s, where Greg met up with us. On the way, I noticed my tire pressure was dropping pretty rapidly, but figured I would patch the tire after lunch. I had just finished eating and Greg still had food left when Zach wanted to run back to work to check on a switch that may have been down. I wasn’t convinced that it was, but he pushed the urgency. We stopped for air since I was down under 20PSI, and made it back to the shop.

After getting settled in a bit, I loaded up some stuff and went to Superfast to see if Justin could get me a better deal on patching the tire. He had me park next door, and then I waited in the Superfast lobby for a while before going back to wait in Hindsman’s. The whole ordeal took about an hour, and I was out for about 25 bucks, so it wasn’t too bad. What upset me was the fact that they replaced my factory valve stem cap with a bright silver one, but I didn’t notice until after I got back to work. I called them and then took a trip back to try and find it, but when the guy came out with a handful of generic black ones, I knew it was pointless. I know it seems ridiculous, but I feel like tire shops just love stealing OEM caps. It makes no sense.

I stopped by Dwight after that, and took care of a few work orders, including a months-old one for a new microphone in the saferoom. It took me a bit to figure out what the manual was showing me, but I got the thing paired and working.

Thomas had me deploy some iPad software when I got back to the shop, just in case we send kids home for inclement weather later this week. I don’t really see it, but I guess a bunch of people are panicked and already sending devices home as “practice.” I finally left when it was time to get Eaddie from her PSAT tutoring, and we went home so I could pack for our overnight trip to Little Rock for Summer’s VIP night and subsequent neuropsychologist appointment.

When we got to their house, I spent the evening shopping for hotels with EV chargers. The new wash on Chenal is supposed to have one, so I should be topped off when we leave there, but I’ll still want to keep it topped off overnight for a stress-free trip home.

Seriously, take the cap off, do the work, and put the cap back on. Why are these guys so bad at this?

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Like a Teen With a Learner’s Permit

I thought I was onto something with Metro by T-Mobile this morning. Eaddie and I left the house a little early so we could get to Clarksville, which showed to have the only retail store within 75 miles. When we got there, it was an old Radio Shack, run by a singular, super old guy. It was neat to see a store like that again after losing our Radio Shack nearly 20 years ago. Having Eaddie along prevented me from browsing around more, but it looked like a neat place that made me nostalgic for the times that Dad and I used to go for parts.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the iPhones we wanted, so we made our way out of town, where I dropped Eaddie off at Gavin’s. Then I headed back toward home and decided to stop at my parents’ house for some food. They still had lots of ham left over from Christmas, so I ate that in front of them. Mom got eyebrows tattooed on, but they were incongruent and misplaced. I don’t know why she bothered, but I disliked them very much.

I continued home to do some laundry until Summer finished up at work. Then she came to get me, and we went back to my parents’ house for some spaghetti. It wasn’t ready as early as I expected, so by the time we finished, it was about time for me to head back to Clarksville to get Eaddie.

Summer dropped me off and went on home for the night, and I ran by the car wash to get some of the grime off of my car from the ice a few days ago. The trip on Enhanced Auto Pilot was absolutely infuriating. There were cars and trucks on the road, but hardly any traffic to be concerned about, and plenty of room for navigating between the lanes. Still, I ran into places where my car wanted to continuously change lanes, back and forth, back to back. There was no one to pass, or anything to avoid. It just kept changing lanes, and nearly made me miss my exit.

It was a fun drive through the curves through the hills, but I had to watch for deer. Once I secured Eaddie, we ran home to change and then headed home for the night. Autumn stayed the night at Hannah’s to dog-sit, though she spent the entire afternoon at the pet store. Otherwise it was a relatively early night to bed.

Who is also, possibly, very drunk.

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One of Everything

Eaddie woke us up at four in the morning to be dropped off at the high school for an away robotics tournament. I got frustrated with her when she asked for food after we had already started driving the wrong direction for that, and then we tried two different gas stations that ended up being closed for the night. She ended up changing her mind about it, but then wanted me to drop her off to kill time by wandering around the campus in the dark. I at least got her in the building, and then checked up on her on camera once I got back home and into bed.

I didn’t let myself sleep too long though, because I wanted to make it to the Ridgewood Brothers for their soft open at 11. I got cleaned up, and Summer and I went across town. We were actually the second ones there, but I think the other lady might have been there the night before as well, so I was fuzzy on how the invites or events went out. Gary showed up a little while after we did, and came to join us. We were all really surprised there wasn’t just a line of people wrapped around the place.

They had a somewhat limited menu, but we definitely weren’t short on food. They could have just opened for regular price, and I would have paid it just to support them, but they were giving dine-in orders for half-off for the day. The one new thing I got to try was their new cheesy jalapeño rice grits. I thought they were fantastic, and could have started the day with a bowl of that for breakfast.

After we ate and finished socializing, Summer and I headed back to the house to get my yoke, and then went to Superfast to borrow some tools. They ended up having to buy a socket adapter that I would have had at home, but I didn’t have a breaker bar or a 10mm hex to go on the end of one. It took a little bit, but I ultimately got the wheel off with an air impact. I ended up swapping the whole front facia and using my OEM buttons, rather than separate the horn springs and whatever else was contained in the wiring harness. In the end, I thought it looked pretty good, and the experience of driving with a yoke was exactly like I expected: In no way better, but tolerable as a style choice.

We went to my parents’ house to show them, and they at least liked the look of it. We made plans to come back for dinner, and I took Summer back to the house so she could go to the gym. I poked around the house for a little bit, and tried to clean up some oil or grease stains on my hoodie from spending more than a couple minutes at the shop. Then I stopped by Walmart for bread flour, yeast, and a forgotten cucumber before heading up to get Summer for dinner.

Mom made egg rolls the other day, so Dad fried some up for salads. Eaddie was heading home on the bus the entire time, so we didn’t stick around too long after we finished eating. I dropped Summer off, and then immediately went to the high school to get her. We stopped by my house so she could get some things she had left, and I showed her my first three ice spheres from my new fridge. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, especially for the first batch.

Summer was making bread when we got back home. Eaddie chatted a bunch about her day, and then everyone was off to bed pretty early. Autumn made it home from Quiz Bowl, but didn’t bother to greet anyone before closing herself up in her room. I was absolutely heartbroken.

I feel personally attacked!

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Quarter Panel with Ketchup

I almost made it to my charge limit this morning, and left the house at 75%. I think being able to take a day trip during the weekend and then recoup that energy throughout the week is acceptable. I kept relatively busy today, and went to Dwight in the morning to troubleshoot a display issue. I ended up having to contact Newline support for some firmware, so I went back to the shop and had lunch before going back.

Aramark served us Thanksgiving lunch in the Gardner cafeteria, and most of our crew went, along with a few from maintenance, several from administration, and some others from the surrounding buildings that I didn’t know so well. Gary joked that the superintendent didn’t punch me when she walked in, so I must be in the clear for now. Thomas was going to go back to the shop, but we ended up staying. I sat with our substitute custodian, Anthony, and a couple Chrises from maintenance, since the tech table was a little crowded.

After lunch, I finished up at Dwight and Ian found me in the office again. I guess no one else ever sticks around so long when he starts talking, because he’s always got something to say. I ended up going back to the shop just before school let out, and rode out the rest of the day there. Thomas told us not to wait until 4:30 to leave, but I only got out a few minutes early.

I saw Summer at Superfast, so I stopped in to see her and we went to Walmart to get stuff for her to make chili for work. I found a kitchen faucet on clearance as well, so I picked it up to replace my leaky one. She dropped me back off at my car and I took it home, but on my way back out to go to her house, I noticed a big blob of ketchup on my rear passenger quarter panel. It was all over the place, and obviously intentional, so I had to take it to the carwash.

I spent a couple minutes in the carwash, trying to scrub through what little sentry mode footage I had. I never saw anything suspicious, but the recording hadn’t been working for several days anyway. I was really upset that someone would do something like that to my car for no apparent reason other than the fact that it’s a Tesla. The ketchup was very dry, but I never noticed it throughout the day as I walked to the car. It took me a little while to clean it off, but I had been wanting to wash the car again anyway. Fortunately it didn’t seem to mess anything else up, but it was also dark outside. While I was in the middle of the wash, I had to ride out an anxiety attack. I remember a couple of loud trucks being around, which probably put me a little more on edge on account of why I was at a carwash in the middle of a cold night.

I made it back home to swap cars and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie had me bring my Yeti microphone over so she could record some flute assignments, but she kept yelling with frustration for most of the evening. Summer baked a cake, but I just laid in bed playing the Stranger Things game on my phone, desperately trying to make it through Chapter 5. When I finally got back up to finish my blog, I had another anxiety attack that I tried to collect some data on. I stopped breathing to see if my oxygen level was just low, but it didn’t seem to be. I’d love to know why I get these now.

This is the kind of stuff that gets people shot.