2021-07-01:

Fri:
Well day didn't exactly go as planned. It's the secret project I haven't told you about. Because it's secret. Duh. But soon details of the secret project will be known. See the entry after Monday for the full story, as by then my parents will have seen the surprise and it won't be a surprise anymore.
Yeah, but I did the first half of the first step of the secret project, then the second step, and have yet to do the second half of the first step. Time will tell if this was wise.
When the secret project is revealed all will be made clear.

Anyway, work! Or not! Same story, nothing from voice, though Tien turned two of our machines into the remaned configuration so there's that.
Did some writing but was consumed with the secret project so didn't make any plot, I've run out of what I wrote in my head so I need plot before that can continue. Need to know what I'm going, you know.

Then the secret project, leaving work an hour early. Don't worry, I only put 7 hours on my timesheet, I'm a good boy.
Got back just after 6:00 so even though I said I could do game at 6:00 that was a lie. But it was fine, we talked about things and did plot.
Well, not plot, as technically it had nothing to do with magic and that's our focus but whatever. But we saved a person, and found some plot for next time, and I showed my reactive action based gunplay can work in practice so we'll continue that.
Did this until way too late, so no time to do the secret project stuff I wanted to do. Have to do that tomorrow.

Sat:
So did the secret project stuff in the morning, then over to my parent's house to feed everybody. Petted a Gabe, Onix wasn't as brave today, and got all of Emily's medicine into her.
Back here more secret project stuff, ate lunch, sites, videos (from two days as I've been falling behind) and generally catching up, like I finally did the cat boxes.
Hot.
Cleaned up things, put things away. Generally recovering from the morning, really.
Watched episode 3 of Loki.
Tried to do Borderlands 3 stuff but Mizzy's copy wasn't updated so we waited.
We played until way too late. The end boss guy took way too much damage and just reaching the point we could do the quest made us start over three times, but we finally got through it. Going to look my equipment over, see if maybe I can up my damage in some way to better get through it.

Sun:
Got up way too early, but I had things to do today.
Cut the front lawn before it got blazing hot. And it got pretty hot, over 90.
Went over to take care of everybody.
Baked a pie, because the kitchen wasn't hot enough already.
More secret project stuff. Sorted now I think, as far as it can be.
Took a nap.
Getting ready for tomorrow.
Calling Ellen about folders again!
Borderlands, after changing my equipment to be a bit more in line with what I was going to face, and we beat it I wouldn't say without any issues, but it went a lot better than it did before. Finished right at 11:00 and I went to bed.

Mon:
Actually had some work at work today, now that I had the machine and the build they next wanted looked at so I was able to do that. In the morning I worked on preview, which got slightly worse in my opinion. But a few things were fixed, so it evened out I guess?
Then in the afternoon I noticed the new config sheet options were put in, so I decided to test that out as I had the machine already. Wrote up two bugs for that, one translation one which may not be ready anyway, and the DHCP command seeming to work, but not actually changing the setting on the page. Very odd.
Went over to see my parents and see if my father could help me get the bolt off the back seat. He could! Thanks dad! Come over this weekend for your late father's day movie!
Came home, checked sites, the usual stuff. No calls, but Ellen is being her usual self so I get to talk to her again. But she wasn't home, so yay I get to hold it off another day.

And now that they've seen it, I can give you the full story. If you don't want to hear the full story, skip to the Tuesday entry I guess?

The full story of my journey to the electric car I have wanted since 2017.
It's a working title.

This is being kept separate from the regular bog for now because I want to surprise my parents with this. Everything big, like buying the house and the cars before this one IÕve always done with them. This time I actually want to do everything myself. Picture of the new vehicle, a 2020 Bolt.

Electric Car journey:
Having ditched gas for both my snowblower (last year) and lawn mower (two years ago), the last thing is the car. With the introduction of the 2017 Chevy Bolt that gets 200+ miles of range itÕs finally reasonable to look into one. I can no longer morally use gas, though I fully realize I canÕt get away from it because, you know, plastic. But I can do what I can do, and this is one way. IÕve been saving since I bought my spark, and theyÕre around $15000 which is half the cost of a new one. I have a CD coming due 7/8/2021 with that amount and actually IÕve saved almost that much recently so I could afford a new one.

6-1-20
The problem with my above plan is used cars are in short supply because new cars are in short supply because of chip shortages across the industry. Same reason I canÕt find an Xbox for less than $1000. Sheesh. (MSRP $500) So IÕll have to keep a close watch and snatch up whatever I first see? Bob Johnson has, as of 6-1-21 exactly one Bolt. A 2021 model. Ugh, this is going to be awful.

6-2-21 Had an electrician over, 10:00 AM because he had a cancellation. I donÕt know how heÕs going to get the wire out to the garage but he says they can do it. Material cost is over $500 because of shortages. Resin from texas, apparently, to make wire coatings. He says itÕll only get worse before it gets better, apparently texas hasnÕt recovered from the storm this winter that froze them out. Great job. So stocks of wire are running out. (Especially this special kind of wire that can carry this sort of load for the length of time it needs to) Still, job estimate online was Òaround $1000Ó and his estimate was $1200. So in line even with the added material cost. ($140 seems to be the inspection, so I donÕt know if that was put in there on the online stuff) Ordered the charger ($400) and he called me to say they can install it July 16th. ItÕll probably take all morning so IÕll have to take off work. With the car shortage this probably isnÕt the best time to do this, but at the same time getting it ready means I can start looking in earnest. It might slightly raise the value of the house as well, having a charger port already put out there. Slightly.

6-26-21 Having had my eyes open almost daily and sometimes twice a day looking for 2017 models to snatch up I realized something. I could find one, if I wanted it delivered from Texas let's say, because for the last month there have been zero in this area. Looking at the prices for a 2017 model with 40,000+ miles in those far away places seemed to be in the $20,000 which if you just read the above is $5,000+ than they were going for two months ago. (Bob Johnson got more models in, but they're 2022 models which do look cool, but are $33,000-$35,000 which is twice what I wanted to pay!) But on Friday I found a 2020 model with only 8,000 miles on it for $25,000. Why try to wait for a 2017 model that's that much more expensive than I wanted for a "mere" $5,000 I asked myself. Good question, I answered myself. So I emailed if it was still available, and it was. So now I'm the proud owner of a 2020 Chevy Bolt. Initial impressions as I've just gone to my parent's house and back with it: Super! I like it. Of course my parents are away so I have to take care of their kitties so with game running until midnight I got up to 7:00, took everything out/off the car (I couldn't save 1/2 the decals) and went out to the auction place (30min drive) to get there at 9:00 to finalize the deal. They took a check, unlike Bob Johnson that wouldn't. So I just bought it. I have $2,000 left to my name until the CD comes in, when I'm back to a more comfortable level. But that's fine, I won't send that much money in the next week, I don't think. And the installer comes after that, so I can pay him, and I'll be back to a much more comfortable level. Given I've done jobs for people who don't have $50.00 in their checking accounts and have to ask when I'll deposit the check I still think I'm in better shape than most.
Negatives at the current time:
Can't figure out how to get the seat out. It's the opposite of my spark, where the top of the seat came out easy. The bottom of this seat lifted right out, but the top doesn't want to go anywhere. I can't unbolt a bolt I think will help, though I got the twin of it easily. I'll see if my father has a longer wrench but otherwise ask him how to get it off. It's way too high otherwise, it would be a real pain. I can't put the board in there like the old car, so it would basically be a lower part, and then stacking stuff on the upper part of the folded down seat. I really hope we can get it out of there so it's at least a little more flat. I'll still be careful what I put in there, weight wise, rather than just tossing every old thing back in there.
Charging time SUCKS. It's more than half way charged now, it was 3/4 at the dealer but an hour of driving (home, store, parents) took it back down to 1/2. It says it won't be fully charged until Monday morning. Wha? Oh, and I was microwaving my lunch and popped the breaker, so clearly the kitchen shares a circuit with the garage for some bizarre reason? What? I don't know if I can handle that slow of a charge for the next 3 weeks. It's going to be tough. Not sure what else I can do though. Find some fast charger units in the area? There are some I think. I looked, there's what looks like a very short run plug in the basement that nothing connects to, and I can remove the screen and run the cable that way. (Blocking it once I do so the cats don't get up there of course) I'll try that tomorrow, after I see what overnight charging does for me where it is. If I have to charge it outside for two weeks, eh, it's fine.

6-27-21
Read your manual. That's my advice. Turns out the bolt has level 3 charging (DC fast charge) and Level 2 and Level 1 and Level .75. See, you have to turn on the complete Level 1 or you get the slow charge. For good reason, you have to tell the car (every time, or maybe not if I can get "location based" charging to work) that yes, you want to use the full 12 amps. See, when I did this a bunch of lights started flickering in the house. The kitchen, the breezeway, and the oven didn't seem to be working right. Why OH WHY are all of these things on the same circuit as the garage plug? They're nowhere near each other. It's so dumb.

Anyway, after driving to my parent's and noting the time of charge was 4:00 AM on Monday moving the cable to the unused plug that's directly attached to the breaker box
(not dangerous at all, I swear!)
brought it down to 1:00 AM on Monday. We'll see what the estimate is by tonight, but that's at least a little better. Of course now I have to plug the thing in through the window, and leave it in the front yard. Which is so great. So great. But it's only for a few weeks. It did get up to full charge, and show 235 miles! Nice. As long as there are not 30min jobs I should be good?

What else is great is there are no level 3 chargers in the area. None. What? Right, none. Just Level 2, which is sucky. But okay in a pinch, I guess. Some are actually free! Didn't expect that.
So that's the journey so far. I'll keep you up to date as most people probably aren't even mindful that there is a choice, and my experiences can help. If anyone is actually reading this, anyway.
But those are really the only two complaints if you want to call them that. I know the one will be solved, and hopefully the other will be as well with a bit of work. The seat went in there, so it should come back out!

Tues:
Hooked the phone up to the car before I left. It's very neat seeing the map on the center display. So huge! And the directions come right through the speakers, quite clear. That's a cool feature.
Ordered a new cable so I didn't have to bring the one I have back and forth. $6.00 from China. How can that be possible? And I've just realized I left the cable in the car. It's fine, I'm charging it now because it may rain tonight, so I'll put it in the garage once it's charged. Three hours from now...

Work wise, still pretty busy. Got the voice guy on the line for the regular meeting, we went over the bugs. His machine is still being worked on or set up or something but he assures me this week he can have something. We did figure out the login issue. So that's fixed. But then we found another issue, the machine I used to use for the server part doesn't want to run it anymore. Sigh. Emailed him about that.

Did a little more of the config sheet work, Christina had done a color machine so that worked out.

Came home, still really hot, someone flipped a switch for heat, I guess.
Did the usual, sites, dinner, getting ready for tomorrow.
Then Borderlands.

Wed:
Nothing new work wise. Don may have jury duty so he might not run the meeting tomorrow. Otherwise I thought about plot and straightened up the place a little. Exciting, I know.

My after work job was pretty simple and not too far away. Her problem: Not taking the tape of one of her cartridges. Yup, that was it. Job over.

Rained a bit, but cleared up by the time I got home. Can I charge outside in the rain? Humm..

Came back here, checked sites, 3 calls? Sheesh.

Well, one person I helped over the phone, it was just gmail settings.
The other was iPhone guy. He can't seem to use the fingerprint sensor and locked his phone out. He has yet to even activate it so it's still just a fancy screen. I don't exactly know what he wanted from me, but he needs to go to apple now.
And a guy with a jammed page that ripped, who I told I don't really repair printers, because I don't. Any means of taking them apart would be the same for him as it would for me.
Got ready for tomorrow, and then did more borderlands.

Thurs:
Meeting day. We met in person. Sorta. Three people were still not there. So why did we bother? It' dumb anyway, just let us call in, you don't need to see us Don. Honest.

Anyway, we got the next build of D5.4 so I'll start testing my stuff, the preview enhancements and the new config sheet. On Tuesday. Christina is going to be gone a whole week, and we have Monday off. She has my machine signed out for tomorrow or I would do it tomorrow. I mean, yes, I could go across the hall and I probably will have to, in order to test a color machine. But I'll start with mine. So there. So I'll have stuff to do next week for sure.

Today I finished the next chapter, went to meetings, checked plants, the usual stuff.

Drove out to the car dealer again, they had the tire pump they ordered for me. They sent me the second key fob starter thing out of the blue, but they couldn't send that? Oh well. It's not even an official one that would have gone in the car, it's odd. They just ordered me a random one, they didn't have one? Okay. So I had to drive a half hour down there and back again. I should be topped up by tomorrow though. Ugh, only 15 days of level 1 charging left. Do still love the car though.

Got back here, watched the latest episode of Loki, checked sites, and got ready for tomorrow. One call, sounds like a hard drive issue, he says it's slow to start and gives him errors. So I'm going there Saturday. Hopefully that's the only one, it's 20m away. Otherwise, three day weekend, no plans as of yet. Well, taking the stupid advertisement off my car, and painting over the advertisement on the license plate cover. That's a thing.

Tomorrow, groceries, hopefully they have cat food, then seeing my parents. Know one thing I won't be doing? Getting gas. Then back here for the witch hunt in the Demongate High game. Should be interesting.

That's all I have for you this week. We're halfway through the year, so it's all downhill at this point. Good thing we have regenerative braking now, see you next week! Have a good forth, and for goodness sake don't set anything on fire where it hasn't rained! It's dangerous out there, fire bad!