Driving a Robot

I drove up to Alameda in Dad's pimpin' Chrysler 300... What a fantastic robot that is.

If it starts to rain, the wipers come on automatically. Sounds great in theory, but the car needs a few minutes to evaluate how much it's raining. At first, the wipers are infrequent.

You sit there waiting, wondering when they'll make another pass across your obscured view, anxious for the car to make its complex precipitation calculations, not wanting to hurt its feelings by overriding the controls so you can see where you're going.

Finally it figures it out and there they go, wiping diligently as you drive through the rainstorm on the Grapevine... which quickly passes... and the wipers continue with gusto as the windscreen squeaks with each unnecessary pass of the dry wiper blades...

Then there's the automatic headlights... Most new cars have these, but Chrysler forgot about needing to see the dashboard information in daylight. If the lights are on during the above-mentioned rainstorm, as they have to be by law, you won't be able to see the electronic display.

Other than that, it's a fantastic ride. When you stop & remove the ignition key, the seat slides back and the steering wheel tilts up - cockpit open. Better than that though, the radio stays on until you open the door. I love that.

Lots of bells and whistles, tons of horsepower and a four-body trunk. Nice ride, Pa! Thanks!

Wednesday Can Suck It

Eff you, piece-of-shit Wednesday and your crap ass antics. No one likes Wednesday - you're totally useless - just one more stupid day between the days that matter - Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Wednesday is a joke, and with stupid spelling to boot.

I figured you weren't going to be a great day, with David up at 3:30Am to head up to Vancouver. I was awake at 4AM wondering if I should get up or try to get back to sleep.

Opting for the latter, I laid awake pondering the potential changes to come, finally falling asleep about an hour later.

Up at 7 to feed the cats, I felt like crap, but at least I had some time to get caught up on things before heading up to Sonoma for a shoot.

I got in the car and began to pull away and realized something was very wrong. How I didn't see it when I walked out to the car is a mystery, but there was my right front tire, flat as pancake.

That would explain the low pressure it had a couple of days ago... Great. Now I'd definitely be late for my appointment and worse, would have to drive on that stupid donut until I could get to the tire shop.

Back into the house to change my clothes and get the latex gloves - maybe I could get it changed and make it up to Sonoma only a half hour late, which could work out OK since my client was running late.

Got the stupid thing changed, and once on the car, that donut really doesn't look at all safe to drive on. I decided Sonoma could wait. I drove, slowly, straight to the tire shop.

Thankfully they were able to fix it so I didn't have to pay for four new tires - and it only took them 90 minutes to do it. I was almost totally asleep in the shop when they finally came in to tell me it was ready.

Then at 3:30 I got to drive from Union City all the way to the Haight to take some pictures of a garden I didn't get yesterday because, between you and me, I didn't think it was worth the memory. I was wrong.

And now tomorrow I get to get up at the ass crack of dawn and shoot the job I had to cancel today, then race all the way back down to Milpenis for another job already booked. But, better to start early than finish late, right?

Crapatoa. Is it summer vacation yet?

I'm a Trucker!

Today I drove almost 200 miles, all in a day's work. From the East Bay into SF, then up to Marin County, then over to Lake Berryessa, then back over to Sonoma and finally home.

What I really need is a van I can drive with hand levers while standing up, running on a treadmill, 'cause my ass is getting the wrong kind of workout on days like today.

But I'm not complaining. Driving through beautiful countryside isn't the worst way to spend a day. And I'm finding all the clean, well-maintained pit stops in all the towns I visit, since my volvo wagon doesn't come with a loo.

So this is what I really need - a split-window VW van with a hot new engine that I can drive with my hands while walking/running on a treadmill, with a bathroom in the back and a lounge/work area in the middle for when I have time to kill between jobs. And a wireless signal. Who's gonna make it for me?

Bracka Fracka!

I just got my car back from the shop this morning, all fixed up and running great, and as I was driving home from Baaaaart this afternoon and crossed a metal grate bridge, I heard a funny little noise...

Sonovabitch, when I got home I found a big ol' tack of some kind lodged in my rear passenger tire. Bloody hell. Those tires are just 20 months old and except for this recent trip to Ore-E-gone, that car is hardly driven.

The real age of those tires is closer to six months, if that. My first thought was to pull out the nail/tack/steak knife but I didn't. My next thought was to do what I did last time I had a flat, when all the tires needed replacing, get a can of Fix A Flat, shoot up the lame tire & limp the car down to the tire shop.

Then I talked to my dad who reminded me there's a spare tire in the back deck. Why wouldn't I remember that? I guess it was all the years of keeping the contents of an entire garage in the trunk of my Acura. You couldn't just dive into the trunk and whip out a spare tire. It was easier to shoot a can of toxic goo into the flat tire & keep driving.

Even though I came home with a flat tire, I'm sooo lucky... David got me The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I can take Book One with me to the tire shop tomorrow to read while they fix my damn tire.

Idiot Lights

If car manufacturers are going to put pretty lights in the dashboard they should make them useful. The "check engine" light came on this past weekend while driving home and it wasn't at all helpful or informative.

I checked the oil, the coolant - all that I could check seemed fine, so I hoped for the best and drove it all the way home. I sure as shit wasn't stopping in Weed to have it looked at.

Either give me more information or give me access to the computer that might be able to tell me what might be going on.

Turns out it was a worn "purge valve," whatever that is. I could look it up, but now I'm paying someone who already knows what that is to fix it.

Instead of useless, vague lights, put some effort into it. How about the stoplight system? Green means go, yellow means check it soon but you're fine to limp it home, and red means something might catch fire so you'd better pull over.