Pop! Pop! Pop!

(Almost got 2 o's in that title, that would have given SUCH a different meaning... Eeek!) 😆

So, I don't get a great amount of comments on my blog.  I appreciate the ones that I do get, but still, I wondered if something was blocking folks...  And, Retired Knitter emailed me...

Turns out, the embedded bit for comments was blocking her.  Odd.  So, I tried to change it to Pop Up version. 

I picked the wrong time to change anything on my blog.  I have to remember, any body and fender work HAS to be done when our internet works...  So, I thought I had changed it, but no.  Sigh.

Today, since I have good internet, I decided to check if I could change it.  YES!  Success! 

So, I was also asked if I could get a email delivery of my blog.  Sure!  Uh.  As soon as I figure out how...  Tech support?  Help??  Cough.. 

But wait!  She goes into the depths of the stylistic stuff and nonce to make the blog... Dig here... No...  Is that... No...  What about... Is this it?  Well, boys and girls, I think that I found the send it by email thing, now at the left side, if I did it right...

I find that I have this habit of just rambling through things like this, while others I know, could have the blog up and have little blinking arrows pointing to the various important parts.

But, hey, I get there.  Just takes a bit longer. 

So, hopefully, if you've not been able to leave a note on my blog, now you can... And maybe get email, too... (Let me know if you do on the email, I still am not sure I did it right... Please??  Thanks!)

Whoosh, whoosh, beep, beep?

Husband bought an electric car.  I didn't know he was going to... I should have, after he'd commented about it a few times.  He had also sold his vehicle beforehand.

I had come home from Faire last year, wiped out, stinky, sticky, and tired, and went in the house.

Next thing I know, Husband is calling for me to look out front, there was a car there. My first thought, Oh, G*d, visitors, I smell like an ill-used cow barn!  I looked, and didn't recognize the car.  He kept grinning.

Did I mention I was very tired?  He walked me out, and I was mortified, who was here?  Would I have to be polite, and not fall asleep, when we invited them in?  Who owned this odd-looking car, anyway?

Then, glacially, the light dawned.  "You bought a new car?"
The man was nearly giddy.  Yes, yes, yes, and there was nothing but I was to drive the thing, right then...

Which wasn't my finest moment.  It has no gearshift.  Oh, great, automat...

Where are the keys?

He points at a button on the dash, and hands me this little fob that looks something like a half a dark chocolate biscotti.  I finally get the idea that it is a push button start.  Okay, what now?  This little bell looking thing on the doghouse... Uh... So?

It is the "gearshift". Sort of, anyway.  So, after the instruction to take it out of "P" and put it in "D", we start.

Did I mention I don't drive automatics?  To wit: when Husband and I were first married, I managed to throw him over the top of his truck, as I had put the gas and the break on at the same time... And then nearly had a stroke on the spot, thinking I had killed the man.  He was not happy, getting up from in front of the truck, but realized that I was more than losing it, thinking I had done him damage, he ended up calming me down!  And when I had to take Dad's truck home from the hospital, it was the only bit of humor in the situation, I, quite literally, sat on my left foot, and every time I came to a light, repeated, "this is an automatic, you don't have a clutch, this is an automatic, you don't have a clutch..."

So, this took a bit of convincing that this new car was going to work for me.  I drove it a bit, slowly, and then we returned home, whereupon, I managed to stop it... With both the parking and standard brake.

Sigh.

http://images.hgmsites.net/med/2013-nissan-leaf_100414473_m.jpg

We have had this car (which is an electric vehicle) for a bit now, and I must say, after the learning curve, I am beginning to enjoy it.  In fact, I think I drive it a bit more than Husband does.  We have dubbed it "Junebug", (it was originally Leaf Hopper, as it is a Nissan Leaf, but the license plate has June, more or less, in it, so Junebug caught on, and stuck.)

I have found it's quiet, to the point, I have to be conscious that even wild animals, like Walmart customers, or deer, might not hear me coming up on them.  I have even followed wild turkeys up the driveway.  I didn't spook them, until they heard the gravel under the tires and actually saw me.

It has a few interesting features that I've not dealt with before, like a back up camera (love it), GPS (okay, but still getting used to, but she talks more than I do), and various notifications, (ranging from serious to silly.  Junebug dislikes cold weather even more than I do!  I think it notifies me about cold weather because it lowers the range the car can go, but I am still amused when I see this little snowflake on the dash, with "Low Temperature" on it. 38 degrees?  Cold?  Junebug, you are more cold blooded than I am!)  

It is now the mild amusement of the gent I buy feed and cedar from.  Cedar and feed go in the very back, and then I have all the groceries in the center seats.  It looks like a very modern version of The Grapes of Wrath... But it works.

One minor thing, it has this Bluetooth app, where your phone can connect to your car to make it hands free.  This is a good idea, in theory.  But, when you drive in with this on, and Husband is making a business call, it will be just as happy to connect to HIS phone, as yours.  Which makes the gent who was talking to Husband, and is now talking to Cat, extremely confused.  Actually, so was I, until I figured out what happened.  Bluetooth is now not used when I am in the car.  I can pull over, so I do.

So, as we get all Jetsons around here, I am wondering, what we will have next... Robots for the house?  Hologram garden help?  Maybe a cybernetic laser implant to burn weeds?

Meh.  I still haven't even mastered the phone yet, maybe I'd better hold off on the rest...  Knowing how I do with the learning curve, who knows what might happen!

J is for junk.

This will probably raise ire.

I think that a lot of things today are wasteful.  When I was small, I recall Dad saying, take care of your (tools), and they'll take care of you.  Mom said that if you took care of something, you would have it later...

So, when I was... first or second grade?  Somewhere around there, my parents bought me a record player.  They showed me how to use it.  And I took care of it... Ok, once I put a kitten on it, to see what it would do, but other than a really dizzy kitten, no harm done. (Note: it doesn't really take that many spins to dizzy up a kitten.) But, I made an effort to not mess up my 'player.  And I still have it.  It might need some lube and care, having been stored in the attic, but when it was retired, it still worked.

In high school, they surprised me with a stereo system.  Played records, cassettes, 8 tracks, and had AM/FM.  I still have it, and it still works, and this one has remained kitten free...  But how many cassettes and 8 tracks are coming out now?

I picked up a CD player with my computer, I don't recall having that as a separate unit, and later an MP3 player.  I have gone through about 3 or 4 computers, and I didn't rough house them.  I didn't abuse them.  They just ran out of memory, or, in one case, a part burnt out, that after about 4 years of owning the computer, would have cost more than the computer to replace!  And now, with tablets, and 'stuff' online, CD's seem to be going out of fashion, too.

Now, the MP3 player.  I had one for about 6 years? Maybe a little more.  Um, well, it was not treated as well as I could have, played the heck out of it, while I was gardening, or exercising, so it was bounced and bopped a bit.  So I suppose that I can say I didn't care for it as well as I could have.

Still, it seems odd that something like that is built to last about 2 years.  At least that was the shocked statement from the clerk where I bought it.  I had thought about replacing parts.  She had to go into records to find what it was, they'd stopped selling it about 4 years ago, and the parts, again, were more than the player was worth.  So, I sighed, and now have a new one.

I guess I am sort of confused.  If we were so wasteful, and didn't save the resources, etc., that we needed to improve and make things work better on less...

Why do we have to throw things away after such a short time?