Writing Wrongs

The bird feeder I put up on the front porch was completely ignored until it rained. And then in three days it was completely emptied. Re-filled it when I got home tonight. Meanwhile the hummingbird feeder has hardly been touched. They seem to prefer the flowering bushes across the street.

Work was a cavalcade of data entry and reading specs and boss sent us our assignments for the upcoming product, through November at least.

Did some more research on the Nissan LEAF,  which showed that the tax rebate might make it affordable, also saw some debates about its range. Some claimed 100 miles EPA says 75, or 85 for 2014 model. Punched Sunnyvale Nissan into the GPS, and was getting close when the Target sign drew me in (I was down to my last Breath-Right strip and had the discount coupon in my wallet). Bought a bunch of stuff on my "back of my mind" list and cogitated about the LEAF. Bottom line is even 100 miles is craptastic - can't get to Yosemite or Moro Bay on a single charge, and even Capitola becomes iffy. I don't drive those distances a lot, but it would suck to not be able to. The problem is more how long it takes to charge.

So I nixed the visit, and decided "wake me when you can do 200 miles or recharge in an hour"

Home, the right Little Shop CD was in the mailbox. I'm playing it now. I have no idea how I am going to nail down Mushnik's songs. Oh well, live theater is always a challenge.

Vacuumed up the cat barf. I knew I shouldn't have given Domino all the American Singles cheese she wanted. :-(

Finally was able to upload my POIs to the in-dash unit - it wanted them on a USB drive, not an SD card. Now I need to figure out how to build another POI list from Google Maps or Earth. Used to be easy to get the GPS coordinates, but they messed up the UI big-time.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
1-on-1 if it isn't postponed/canceled
Much more data entry & spec reading for the additional features on my list. Yesterday there was only one.

Last morning in Morro Bay, the plan was to take Hwy 1 up the coast to Hwy 46, and there to 101 with a stop for lunch somewhere.

Checked out of the motel a little before 10, made one false start along the embarcadero, forgetting that Hwy 1 is not on the coast at that point. GPS found it for me. Hwy 46 was quite a ways up there, but I knew that, and it was the well-designed road I expected it to be. A much safer route than the shorter Hwy 41. Since it's a true 55 mph all the way, not riddled with curves like 41, Hwy 46 only took a little bit longer to get to 101.

Somewhere along 101 my left eye started feeling irritated. Maybe I got some sunscreen on there when I applied it at a viewpoint on 46. Maybe it was an eyelash. Either way, I pulled off at some little town, long enough to use the water bottle as an eyewash. It seemed to work, but after another few minutes of driving the eye was stinging again. I had broken my best driving sunglasses on the final whale trip, and had bought replacements at a boutique and at Rite Aid, one of them grey UV ones the other amber polarized ones, both aviator style. I switched them, and that seemed to help.

King City was a stop for gas, the trip meter hit 300 miles, but it took 9 gallons.33 mpg, not very good for highway. The guage did not show the tank that low, it was not even down to 1/4. The gas station shared a parking lot with Denny's, so I had lunch there, after pulling my bottle of artificial tears out of the luggage and giving both eyes a couple of doses. By the time lunch was done, my eyes were fine.

Back on the road, between Gilroy and Morgan hill I was fading, but just taking an exit and slowing down, and stopping at some stop lights was enough to cure the highway hypnosis. And boosting the air conditioning because it was around 90° out there. Odd, the weather in the central valley was cooler than Silicon valley today.

Home, both cats tried to escape outside. Kaan came back in when I yelled at him, Domino never made it out the door, she is not very fast.

Unpacked, and spent the afternoon and evening processing the photos, which are now in several sets on Flickr:
Mission San Juan Bautista: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635165666708/

VisionQuest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635159368937/ which includes one I think lemmozine will like:


Mission San Miguel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635159784691/ and the photo I went for:


Morro Bay: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635159929323/ (a short set, which includes a Coast Guard boat with a sailboat lashed alongside)

Whales (and sea lions and lots of birds): http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635160088481/ 

Hwy 46 viewpoint: http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157635168545822/

I also spent 25 minutes on chat with amazon.com because their system would not let me return the Fire HD. Last night I got to the point where I could print out a UPS label, but I didn't have a printer. Tonight I had a printer but it wouldn't get me to that point, it kept referring me to support. The bozoid on the other end of the chat did not understand anything, and spent way too much time between responses. Finally got it done, and will send that puppy back tomorrow.


And it's only 10:15.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
UPS, return the Kindle Fire
???

In the one piece of good news today, I picked up the refund check from Toyota for their botched backup cam installation, and was pleased that it was for the full amount, the overpriced camera and the way overpriced installation charge.

I guess there was another piece of good news, Michelle the manicurist was made up and dressed very sexily, wearing a thin knit top pulled down to bare her left shoulder, and much of the dragon tattoo there. She is so beautiful.

Work was not so sweet. Boss had suggested four test cases for me to prepare for automation, one is still stuck on "is it a bug or a feature?", one has been sent to automation to finish, two turned out to have already been automated by others on my team. And they had been marked as such months ago. Corporate training still has not fixed the link to the class I want to take, so I basically had nothing useful to do most of the day.

Tivoed the 9ers' pre-season game from work because I had not known it was this soon.

On my way home I wanted to shove the Toyota check into an ATM, but there was a major backup in both directions on the road to the nearest one, so I just went home. Waited till 6:45 to go to band practice, watched the game until I left.

At band we practiced mostly music we have not played in a while, some of it illegible because of cuts and cut-and-pastes. Two pieces were just too fast for me to play. Baritones are not made for clarinet scales. And one of my valves kept sticking, not because it needed oil but because my finger pushes it at an angle. It shouldn't do that, probably needs to be re-plated. I think I'll go down to Starving Musician and see if they have a simple 3-valve used horn for a reasonable price, and if they might want to buy mine.

After practice I went to the CU and deposited the check, and since Safeway was next door I went shopping. On my list was ice cream (including Klondike bars) because for two mornings in a row my morning blood sugar levels were low, and ice cream is the perfect antidote because the fat slows down the metabolizing of the sugar. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Also, I get flavors which can be eaten without teeth, because if I'm having a low Hgl in the morning I probably haven't put in my dentures yet. Also bought some frozen meals, and a couple of bags of frozen fish fillets. And could not remember if I had tartar sauce so I bought a bottle of that. 

Home from practice, made a small frozen dinner. Then another. Then had some coffee ice cream. All this while watching the 9ers game. After the first half, it was clearly a game to fast forward through. Poor offense on both sides. I hear the Seahawks kicked butt in their game.

Oh yeah, Toyota customer relations woman was out of the office today so no progress was made on the missing license plates. She emailed the same people I had emailed a month ago, so that's not going anywhere. It really needs her to actually go and LOOK, and not rely on the word of people whose answer is "Huh?".

And in other news, after three days on one level of Candy Crush, it broke out of its rut and moved to the next level. Then two more almost instantly. And it dawned on me that online there was probably a hint which would help. And there was. Turns out what I thought was the point of the game wasn't, and what I thought was a graphical glitch was actually the whole point of the game on 40% of its levels. 90% of the lower levels. I'm not doing any better at the game, but at least now I know why.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

 

Dropped the car off at 8:30 am to have the nav and backup camera installed. They called at about 2 to say they were still waiting for the installers. At about 3:30 they called and said it was done.

6 pm Automation Guy drove me there. 6:15 there was not a single rep in the service offices. There was one rep outside handling the folks who were dropping off their cars. There was one other customer waiting to get her car. 15 minutes later, someone shows up and tries to help me, but the paperwork is nowhere to be found. It's pre-paid, so this should not be an issue.

Another 20 minutes and someone finally shows up with the key and points me to the car, but still no paperwork. I drive off after noting that the backup camera in the vehicle is a cheap piece of crap and not the $800 one I asked/paid for.

They also put the iPod cables in the wrong place (there's actually a space for it in the Corolla), they used the big glove compartment instead. The smaller glove box would have been okay. FAIL.

Had to pull over a few blocks later - they had not completely unfolded the passenger side mirror.

---

Not much to say about work. More tcl beating my head against the wall. Brought my lunch because no car.

Home, put the cargo bin into the trunk, and then the camp chair and music stand. The trunk is slightly smaller than in the older car, but everything I need to carry in there will fit with room to spare.

Emptied out the bag with all the stuff from the glove compartment. Found many things. I pared it down to what I really needed, and put that in the car.  Found stuff included:

11 pens, a pair of scissors, 4 sets of reading glasses, 3 screwdrivers, 6 Imodium tablets, 30 "forever" stamps, a personalized note pad from when I worked at HP Labs in 1990, two packages of cough drops plus 8 unpackaged ones, a roll of quarters and a plastic spice jar with a handful of quarters in it, needle nose pliers, several expired registration and insurance cards, a bag of about $10 worth of Thai temple coins (for purchasing food at festivals), an audio cable, an Pod cable, a small Maglite flashlight, a telescoping magnetic pickup tool, a tool for prying off the inside car door covers, two rolls of glucose tablets and a bottle of Afrin and a bottle of ibuprofen.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Make an unhappy call to the Toyota accessories person about the camera
YOTB
Maybe take out the garbage

I slept well last night, I think. But I was up before the alarm, and somewhen before I went to work I was online looking up Corolla inventory at Toyota of Sunnyvale's site. I had decided I did not like/want the Yaris. The ride was like it had no shocks at all, and the reason I didn't notice that on the test drive is I test drove the LE, which has a less "sporty" suspension that the SE I actually bought. And the hatchback space was almost non-existent, way too small for the music stand and the baritone to co-exist. And it almost felt like it would roll over when I came across some speed bumps.

One thing they emphasized when I bought the car is they have a no-questions-asked 3-day return policy, and a 7-day exchange policy. I doubted they get much action on that, but I was ready to test it.

And then when I found the Corolla inventory, there was a pop-up which said there was a $4500 discount on the Corollas. The prices on the web site were now about the same as for the Yaris.

So when I got to work, and it was reasonable to send a text, I sent one to Celine, my sales rep, telling her I wanted to do the swap, and could she please have Lee (her manager) and Ali (Finance Guy) let me know the pricing.

She replied that Lee was not in till noon. Fine.

At 3 she texted that the swap was all ready, and asked if I could come in right away. Yup, I could do that, nothing pressing at work. I had to stop off at home and drop off the music stand and get the second set of keys from the kitchen drawer. Also good I went home because the exercycle was in a box in front of the apartment.

Got there a little after 3:30 on account of long red lights and missing the entrance because people were parked in the red zones either side. It's a long pair of U-turns to recover.

So, Celine asked if I would like to pick one out, I showed her the two VIN numbers on the site which were in the color I wanted. She found the second one, and we drove to the gas station where she filled it up, then to the detailing center, where she dropped it off. Then back to the showroom, where she punched in the new info. Ali came by to tell me it would be a bit of a wait, but then Rebecca found me and went over the prices to get the nav system and backup camera I wanted, and the remote trunk release. Another lovely friendly person. The prices were about the same as doing it elsewhere, but the fact that they had that nav system in stock told me they would probably do a better job.

Finally Celine got the call to take me upstairs to Ali's office. I still had not been told how much I was going to owe on the exchange.

As Ali handed me form after form to sign, it became clear that not only didn't I owe them anything, they owed me. The Corolla comes with ding coverage which is not available on the Yaris, so that's a $500 value right there. All said and done, they will be sending me a check for $100.

Celine got tied up with a customer, so it was a 15-minute wait to get the car to the main parking area, and she needed to get the Yaris' keys because I had left the iPod and my water bottle in there (on purpose - didn't want to carry them around in the office).  And then she needed to get the Corolla book package. That gave me time to plug in the iPod and discover there was a covered slot for it. The stock radio shows the playlists and albums and such, it just doesn't show the album art. Nice unit for a standard feature. Also paired the phone to its bluetooth.

Finally got out of there at about 5:40, and back to work at 6:05. Just as Boss was leaving, so at least he saw I got back.

I don't love the Corolla's ride, but it is far better than the Yaris, and I do love the trunk space and the much more comfortable seats. The Yaris seats are black with navy trim, and it was 93° when I drove there, the aircon was not keeping up. Corolla has a beige interior, much brighter/cooler.  There are a couple of WTFs in the 2013 - they made the storage console between the front seats smaller, and 1-ply instead of 2-, and took away the power outlet which was in there. And the rear passenger head rests are too tall, I will be removing them. I also need to get blind spot mirrors,  but they never had those.

Enough already. Bottom line is Toyota of Sunnyvale not only lived up to their no-questions-asked return/exchange policy, they did it in a friendly, professional way with total "please the customer" attitude. I have scattered glowing reviews across the Interwebs, and will be sending Lee and Celine a Lovely Parting Gift™. 

---

Went to BASFA after writing the review, and retold the short version of my story there. I was unaware that johnnyeponymous was unaware I played baritone horn.  mentioned on FB and will repeat here that it was great to see johno and his lovely and talented Chris there - they have had some nasty medical surprises in the last few weeks, which have all apparently been resolved in a good way.

---

Boss approved my PTO for June to join up with my oldest and youngest sisters in Poulsbo. Oldest is coming from Israel. Booked flights this morning from work, spent some time after BASFA to book the rental car and lodgings. Younger sister's birthday is the 19th, older's is the 22nd, and I would have stayed for that, but it's Saturday and she's extremely Orthodox, so she'll be spending that at Temple and with people who share her superstitions.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

KBB.com said to look at the Mazda3. I did, and it has Tom Tom nav with voice commands. I had a previous entanglement tonight, so I'll bug them after work tomorrow. Nearest one is Stevens Creek, PIA to get to during rush hour.

---

Work was another scriptfailfest. Team meeting was short because we're done with our projects, and the next one is a few months away. So the word is to hone automation skills. :-(

Yesterday I found a command which did not work, today I found a command which errors out, telling me I am missing a variable, but the syntax dictionary doesn't list another variable. Automation Guy is out till humpday, I'll have to ask his backup. She's fun -she grew up in a town in Malaysia which I visited often when I lived in southern Thailand.  It was basically the next major town on the train line south of where I lived. I amused her once with the number system in malay being one off from Fijian. Well, not really, just that "dua" is 2 in Malay and 1 in Fijian. And 5 is "lima" in both.

Lunch was split between waiting in a SLOW but not all that long line at Costco for gas. It was apparently National Drop Your Credit Card Under Your Car Day. Coupled with Oh, I Have To Swipe My Costco Card First? Day. That gave me just enough time for a Western Bacon Cheeseburger and a shake at Carl's Jr.

After work I headed for one of my old haunts, Cupertino's Oaks shopping center, which has the cheapest (in every way imaginable) cinema in the Bay Area, now aptly named Bluelight. It was Oaks for the longest time, then went under, and is now reborn. I got there early enough for dinner at Togo's, but not early enough to hang out at Coffee Society.

At the cinema was the world premier showing of an indie movie (which had, I am told, and $3k budget) called Black Cat Whiskey. My long-time theater buddy Jeremy Koerner stars as the creeptastic gangster. The plot is basically: Vulnerable Southern woman is married to a moonshiner, but she doesn't know it until he gets killed by his gangster customer, who comes around to collect the 300 cases of prime whiskey he thinks her husband had hidden in their house. Tired of being slimed, she goes to the FBI where one agent pretends to help her, but really just wants One Thing™. No spoilers version, much violence ensues, orchestrated by FBI guy. And then by her. The opening scene is what happens at the end, but not quite. I would bet real cash dollars there were other endings written.

Very well acted and directed, photography was very good throughout, as was audio. It screams for a higher effects budget, but they did well for what they could afford. There is one scene which I thought was far more violent and long then it needed to be, in part because it is way over the top compared to the rest of the film.

Worth missing BASFA for. Well worth missing car shopping for.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Mazda

 

Why am I still awake at 11:30 pm? I don't know. I had a dream last night that I had insomnia, and found myself awake at 4:30 am looking up Dodge Dart info on my cell phone. :-(

Never did get back to sleep, thanks, and this may seem ironic or something worse but it isn't meant to be anything except honest, to Kaan hogging 3/4 of the bed and then both cats deserting me.

My PC powers up automatically at 6:30 every morning. When I heard the tune which says Windows has started, I headed for the computer room. No, wait, I only thought about doing that, I actually waited until all the apartment lights automatically power on at 7 am. The tune, by the way, is the first few bars of Go The Distance from Hercules (a French Horn fanfare of great majesty and pomp). 

Went to KBB.com (Kelly Bluebook) and then Edmunds.com and punched in for info on the Dodge Dart. What got me to the Dart is I realized this search for The Best Nav System In Cars was being done backwards. My favorite map system is Garmin, so I searched for car companies partnered with Garmin. Chrysler showed up first, but they really still are your grandfather's car, so I looked at Dodge, and even the lowly Dart can be equipped with Garmin nav with voice recognition. Voice recog extends to all the controls in the in-dash unit, including the phone, radio, iPod, CD/DVD, air conditioning and midwifery.

I sent in a "give me a quote" request, and as has happened almost every time so far, the Internet Salescreature responded later that morning with "when can I call you?" as if I had not spent half an hour selecting what stuff I wanted in the car. I replied with what I wanted, and said I would drop by after work.

Skip to after work, walked into a dealership with all the staff sitting around a table chatting with each other, no customers in sight. This is the only dealership in Silicon Valley, they represent Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram. It's also the oldest building, which was once a fast food place. They found the internet guy for me, he only remembered I wanted a blue car. I had to tell him I wanted mostly to demo the voice/nav system. It took a while for him to find one, and when he did, it was broken (it kept showing "loading voice recognition....please wait"). Another 5 minutes and he found one which worked, sort of. It had the very pretty Garmin maps, and he wanted to punch everything into the touch screen, but I hit the voice switch and tried some commands. They display the 12 possible commands and syntax on the screen, so it should be easy.

It wasn't.

It rarely understood what I said. Even when I was saying line numbers as in "please choose the line number of the item you want". The biggest WTF was when I said "Tune 88.5 FM" and it gave me a list of the 5 nearest pizza places.

The car itself is a heavy beastie, even with a 6-speed automatic it only gets 19 MPG city. Horrible for a compact. It's just barely easy enough to get into and out of. Sight lines are okay. Rear camera has color-coded zone lines. It probably would be clearer if they took the protective plastic off the lens. Price tag with all the features I wanted was about the same as a hybrid. Stupid design - the odometer is analog, tiny, and off to the right behind the wheel.

During the demo the rep took a personal call, switched to a dialect of Spanish which I actually was able to understand some of. Not good form, dude. In San Jose you can't expect a customer, even a Gringo, to not know Spanish. He did have the sense to step outside before completing the drug deal.

Anyway, the Dart is a non-starter.

Back to my day. Got to work at about 9, played some more with the automation scripting language and discovered some stuff which did not work as advertised. And some that did. Corp sent us email pointing to the PTO entry screen, but it would not let me log in.

Lunch was at Sizzler. I love the wings they have at the salad bar. And the clam chowder.

Got email from Fremont Chevy's Internet guy, inviting me to take a test drive of the Cruze. I replied with "How about Sunday?" because there is no way to get to Fremont before they close at 8. I figure I can spend some time at Ardenwood Farm with my camera, and head up to Chevy after the farm closes at 4.

Which reminds me, I need to figure out a way to get my Giants' ticket from dave_gallaher, since I will be going to a friend's indie movie premiere instead of BASFA Monday night. The game is Friday night.

Stopped by Safeway on the way home from Dodge, lots of people from foreign lands with more children than they had hands to keep from wandering off. Nearly ran 3 of them over with my cart. Darwin would have approved.

Dinner was microwave frozen stuff, and sensor-reheated garlic/cheese bread. I am liking this replacement replacement microwave.

---

Plans for tomorrow:
 
Get some sleep
Research which cars I could buy which the Kenwood will fit into. Corolla seems like a good bet.
Maybe take one more look at the Ford Focus/ C-Max?
Coffee in PA with Janice
Miss Saigon at PA Players