Darkoshi

An except from daily notes:
I got into my car, annoyed at the waste of my time. I had trouble pulling out the seat belt because even though I felt like I was reacting calmly, the seat belt could tell I was annoyed.

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On some days, there is the feeling that every little thing which can go wrong, is going wrong. (Not big things, just little ones.) But realizing that lets me take the little setbacks more in stride. Oh yes, everything is going to go wrong today, so of course that happened.

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We are doing Christmas Eve on Christmas Day this year. Perhaps for the first time; perhaps not. I'd have to check my notes.

I listened to Christmas music on the radio while baking tonight. I made a package of double chocolate muffins. I also made a veganized version of this recipe; it turned out very good:
Salted Butterscotch Apple Bars

After tasting the "Watkins Original Gourmet Baking Vanilla" which I bought last time as it was a better price than the other vanillas, I realized it is not the same as vanilla extract. I was probably tricked by the label saying "with Pure Vanilla Extract" in bold, but under that it says "with other natural flavors".

I am up way too late again; it's a habit and the "way too late" keeps getting later and later.

I drove back from Qiao's place to mine at 2am. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a card to my sister (I had the cards at my house) and still put it in my mailbox tonight so USPS could pick it up tomorrow. The other thing I want to do is cook some food tomorrow for the next day, Christmas eve.

As I passed my mailbox, I saw the door was hanging open and the whole mailbox was leaning sideways. On closer examination, the diagonal support which holds it up was damaged.

My cams show that an SUV hit it right after midnight. The SUV seems to have missed its turn, so it backed up, and that is when it hit the mailbox.

I suppose it's good I didn't get to my house earlier tonight. If I had, the card would have been in the mailbox when it was hit, probably would have fallen out onto the wet ground, and then who knows what would've happened to it. I probably wouldn't have noticed the mailbox being damaged until later in the day.

So now I have a mailbox to fix.

During the summer, a car skidded out of control during a rainstorm and hit my side gate, damaging it. (Which I also found out after the fact, courtesy of my cams.) The side gate is behind the mailbox, and at the time I was relieved that at least the mailbox hadn't been hurt. I haven't yet gotten the gate fixed either.

I did go see "Everything Everywhere All At Once" today with my mom, and it was very good. It made me laugh and may have brought tears to my eyes. Reading one review yesterday, I was curious why someone described it as an "R-rated family flick", ie. what made it R-rated, but now I understand.

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There was a faint fruity smell in my car as I left from my house. I wondered if a clementine had rolled under the car seat last week. I opened the car windows and forgot about it.

After the movie we stopped by Kroger to get some groceries. Mainly corn chips because I'm almost out of corn chips and I need me my corn chips. My mom lingered in the fruit & veggie section, so I glanced around. There were papayas. Say wait a minute, didn't I buy a papaya last week? It was a nice small-size yellowy ripe-enough-to-eat-right-away papaya... I did buy it, didn't I? What happened to it?

Yep, it was under the car seat. I'm surprised it didn't impart a stronger smell to the car; but it helped that the car was parked in the garage and not out in the sun all week. The fruit isn't even moldy. It looks VERY good ripe now though, and I will cut it up after this post.

Driving to work today, a car with a pole-mounted camera contraption mounted on top of it turned onto the street in front of me. I wasn't close enough to see a logo on it, but thought it might be a Google Maps Street-view car. I snapped a couple of quick photos of it before it took another turn away from me.

If the car was taking photos, I wondered if I'd eventually see my own car on the street when browsing Google maps.

Doing some searches this evening, it appears to instead have been an Apple Maps vehicle.

The car and camera looked exactly like the one shown on this page:
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-new-apple-maps-subaru-cars-spotted-in-los-angeles-2018-10

It even had a California license plate like that one, starting with 8DJJ.

Apple calls their street-view-like feature "Look Around":
https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/06/street-view-look-around-apple-maps/
https://www.idropnews.com/gallery/ios-13-is-finally-here-with-these-14-new-features/107325/10/

Apparently Apple Maps can't be browsed on a webpage like Google Maps.

Per this page, the Look Around feature is only available on iOS 13.
https://www.idropnews.com/gallery/ios-13-is-finally-here-with-these-14-new-features/107325/10/

Our iPad (which was given to Qiao as a gift 7 years ago) has iOS9 and us not being big Apple fans, we have no intention of upgrading it. So, oh well. Guess I won't be able to try out Apple Maps and its Look-Around.

Ah, man.

After my morning Skype call, I am ready to leave for the office, but my car won't shift into Drive. It gives a double beep.

A nagging feeling that maybe I'm forgetting some simple step of the process. But I *am* pressing my foot on the brake pedal, and then pressing the power button. I'm pretty sure that's all it usually takes.

I turn it off and on again, trying several times, with the same results. Or rather, even worse results. The 2nd or 3rd time, the brake pedal is harder to push, and the display flickers. The warning lights on the display aren't going off like they usually do.

So I try to figure out what might be the problem. Maybe it's a power steering problem? That's one of the warning lights. Maybe I need to add steering fluid? No, after some research, it's apparently an electric power steering system which doesn't use steering fluid.

Maybe it's the 12 volt battery? This is a Prius, and the 12 volt battery isn't under the front hood like other cars. It's in the back somewhere. How can I test it? Apparently on older models, there was a special menu that you could open on the display, which showed the battery voltage. But this newer model doesn't have that anymore. Or actually, you can still get to the special menu by a different means, but it doesn't show the battery info anymore. (WHY???)* Apparently you have to use a voltage meter on the battery itself. Or maybe there are leads on the fuse box? I'm still not sure.

In the mean time, I tell Qiao about the problem. But he tries, and the car starts fine for him!
So now the car works, but I don't trust it to keep working.

So maybe there's a problem with my key fob, and his key fob is ok? But now the car works ok with my fob too.

I little while later I try again, using his key fob, and the problem happens again. So it's not the key fob!

I try a few more times; sometimes the car starts ok and sometimes not. Luckily, I manage to get both on video. Then I bring them up on my computer and compare them. And I do some more testing to figure out what is normal and what isn't.

Normally, when you press on the brake, the LED on the power button turns green. Then when you press the power button, the car beeps and the LED goes out. The top display turns on with all the warning lights lit. Then the warning lights go out, and the "Ready" message is shown.

Normally if you press the power button without your foot on the break, the LED on the power button turns orange, and the bottom display turns on. If you then press the power button a 2nd time, the LED remains orange, and the top display comes on. At that point, the top display is like when I have the problem - the warning lights stay lit, and it does not show "Ready".

But, based on my video, for my problem, the power button LED is green like normal when I press on the brake and press the power button.
So that probably means it isn't a brake switch problem like someone else had.

Then I discovered that when I'm having the problem, if I keep my foot on the brake (or press it again if I had released it in the meantime), and press the Power button one more time, then it goes into normal mode, displays the "Ready" light, and shifts ok!

Dang, this is like debugging a software problem at work.

Which is what I should be doing instead of debugging my car, but but but... surely I need to figure out the car before going back to work...

* It is still available in the menus after all. This Priuschat thread says how to get to it:
Press power button twice with foot _off_ the brake pedal, to get into "ON" mode. Then hold the Car button down while switching the light switch to and from the parking lights (not headlights, not DRL) 3 or 4 times. Then you get a "Service Menu" with 3 options; choose "Function Check/Setting". Then select "Vehicle Signal", and it will display a screen including the 12V battery level.
(Doing the same steps with the Setup button instead of the Car button brings up a different menu, containing very little information.)

Walking back from checking the mailbox, a car/SUV passed me on the street. It had rainbow changing-color lights on the tire rims and under the chassis, and looked awesome. But it was driving so fast, I didn't get more than that short glimpse of it.

On my lunchtime walk, I noticed some traffic cones in the field behind the tennis courts. They'd never been there before. Maybe there were there to keep people from falling into some kind of hole, or what else could the reason be? I walked in that direction to check it out.

As I got nearer, I saw that the cones were positioned in a circle. To my surprise, in the very center of the circle, a small bird was standing!

It felt surreal like a dream. Why would a bird be standing in the center of a circle of traffic cones?

Times like that, I wish I always carried my cell phone on me, to be able to take a photo.

I didn't want to frighten the bird, so I didn't go any closer, but rather walked on past while still looking. There was another bird of the same type outside of the cones. It walked into the circle towards the other bird. When it reached the center, it took the first bird's place, and the other bird walked away in the opposite direction. Half-way doing one of those funny bird-walks.

So. I can only presume that there's a nest of eggs on the ground right there, and someone put up the cones as a warning to keep the nest from being trampled or driven over with a lawnmower. I wonder who did it, and where they got the cones from.

It was a hot afternoon, and the whole area was in the sun. I imagine the birds were shading the nest with their bodies to keep the eggs from over-heating.

The birds were brownish, with a ring around the neck. Most likely killdeer:

The birds nest on the ground. They do not build a nest but will lay their eggs in a depression in gravel. The nest, and speckled eggs blend easily into the background making them hard to see. ... Both parents take turns incubating 4 buff, speckled eggs for 24 to 28 days.

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After work, I drove to the grocery store. A car in front of me had a SC Equality license plate, like mine. It's the first time I've come across another car with one of these plates! I was tickled, and wished they could have seen my license plate too.

At Kroger, I checked the ice cream section, and for the first time they had non-dairy Ben & Jerry's. They had all 4 flavors, so I got one of each. They taste good!

They also still had a bunch of Clif Bars on the shelves, including the recalled flavors. I checked the use-by dates on them, and they seemed to be within the recall period. That surprised and unsettled me. I made a note to check the recall notice again after I got home, to make sure I was remembering the dates right. I didn't buy any of those, but got a few bars of the other flavors.

At the self-checkout counter, the automated voice advised me to check the bottom of my receipt for an important message. It was a note about the recall again.

After getting home, I checked the recall notification, and verified that the ones I had seen should have been recalled. (Unless I actually misread the dates on the items, which isn't to be ruled out, the way my brain has been acting lately.) So I called the store and advised them to double-check the items on the shelf. I'm not sure if the CSR took me seriously, but at least I tried.

Nearly half the window shades were kept down during the flights. Have those people flown so much that they are bored with seeing clouds and sky and the land below?

Free soft drinks were still served even though the flights were short.

At the hotel, greeted by a sweet scent of pink petunias.
The room had the same layout as the one in Jacksonville.

Difficult typing without dedicated Home & End keys.

Car alarm that goes off, apparently if you open the car door with the key and don't put the key in the ignition soon enough. Though at first it seemed to go off even when opening the door with the button on the key. The rental car company did not warn us about this; we had to figure it out on our own.

Running Firefox from a USB 2 flash drive is maddeningly slow and jerky even on a laptop with 32 GB RAM.

Parlour Bells played the opening act at the concert. They were quite good. The lead singer reminds me of Billy Idol, without a sneer.

The Culture Club gig was great. They did end up playing most of the new songs I had heard on the SoundCloud page, interspersed between old songs. Here are some videos from the concert that others have posted.

How a Car Engine Works (animated diagrams)

Why Does Your Nose Get Stuffy One Nostril at a Time? (and why does your nose run when you cry)


via andrewducker

Thankfully, this hasn't happened to me, but it's good to know what to do (and not do) if it does happen.

What to Do If Your Gas Pedal Sticks
How to Handle a Stuck Accelerator Pedal
How to stop vehicle with stuck gas pedal

In summary:

Push the brake pedal firmly with both feet and hold it down. Don't pump the brakes. (The brake pedal may be harder than usual to push down as the power-assist won't work while the throttle is open).

Shift the transmission into neutral.

Do not initially turn off the engine unless shifting into neutral is unsuccessful. Turning off the engine will also turn off power steering/braking and make it harder to maneuver the car. If you do turn off the engine, don't remove the key from the ignition as that may lock the steering wheel.

If your vehicle has a start on/off button, hold the button down for at least 3 seconds to disable the vehicle; do not tap repeatedly.

After the vehicle has stopped, do not drive the vehicle again until it has been professionally serviced.