Come Sail Away

Now that we're both back from vacation and I have a laptop again, I should write something up. If nothing else, it's a good way to learn how to type on the new laptop without accidentally hitting the touchpad. I'll cover the special parts of the cruise we went on in the next post. For this one, you get San Diego and the general ship experience.

Our first stop was Legoland. Don't go to Legoland if there's a chance of rain. The park handled it terribly. On top of that, at least with our package, you had to cancel 5 days in advance of your reservation, so by the time the weather forecast is reliable enough to make a decision, it's too late. We got to experience one indoor ride, one kid play area, one 4d movie (that sprayed us with water on this rainy day, repeatedly), one water ride (that spun people around in a circle and got them wet), and one indoor area where you could build and race Lego karts down a ramp. There was also a Mindstorms experience, but both kids were too young for that, so we missed out. The worst part, though, was how the refund policy works. They say up front that if they have to close the park for two hours due to bad weather, you'll get credit to return to the part free within a year. Let's ignore the cost of plane tickets, car rental, and lodging, and accept this as a good faith gesture. That gesture was ruined by what actually happened, which is that the rain stopped almost exactly two hours before closing, but instead of getting those two hours to experience the rest of Legoland (other than the one ride we'd been cycling through, which broke down several times), they closed the park early, secure in the knowledge that the 2-3 dozen of us there that day had no grounds to demand vouchers to return. Great guest experience there.

The rest of the trip went really well. We were easily able to bus from our hotel to the San Diego Zoo, there was a convenient spawning point for getting Pikachu wearing a party hat, and we discovered there's a Ghirardelli Chocolate in San Diego, which went a good way to offset not getting up to LA for doughnuts this trip. We'd planned to go back to Balboa Park for another day, but the kids were happy enough to play at the park next to the San Diego Clerk/Recorder Building. By the way, if anyone reading this is on a career path that would set them up to be County Recorder or something like that, this looks like a gorgeous building to work in. You should consider it.

After that, we boarded a ship and went to Mexico. None of us had gone on a cruise before, so this was a new experience. We lucked out, choosing a midship cabin, which limited how far we'd have to walk to get anywhere, since the things we wanted were spread out all over, and child care was four decks straight above us. Midship also had more elevators, although I tried to use those sparingly to offset the food and drinks. The cabin itself worked well for us, with a surprising amount of storage and a very efficient layout. We were in a suite, since it was something we could do, and made sense for having the four of us share that space for a week. It did mean we got a bathtub, which Shannon and the kids appreciated. We also got what the ship called a dressing room, which Moira really enjoyed, plus a custom Davis Storage Compartment. We'll see how well it works on future trips, assuming they happen.

The movement of the ship was a lot more pronounced than I was expecting. We had some minor concerns about seasickness before going, so took a number of precautions. Honestly, most of the problems I had were after returning to land. Either that, or while we were gone, everyone else has taken a much more casual approach to the frequent minor tremors we had.

I'll leave you with a few moments of Davis checking out our stateroom

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All the Way Home

We made it home on schedule. I'm still recovering to some extent, but overall it was a good trip. With the luxury of a regular internet connection, this will be a bit photo heavy. Blogger could really use better tools for photo layout. I've spent 5 minutes trying to get the first three photos put together in a reasonable way, so I'm going to give up on the idea of things being perfect early.

Fortune from dinner on the first night of the trip

Don't lose track of your water bottle

Breakfast of Champion Campers

The last day of PCH was probably the best as far as progress on the road. It was also our closest encounter with law enforcement. Thanks to someone flashing their lights at me, I took it easy for a while. About 10 minutes later, I was running out of patience behaving behind a couple slower cars when I saw the reason for the warning. A chain of three of us passed the slower car in the passing lane with the cop parked on the side, and then back to travel as usual.

We made great time from Santa Cruz down to Malibu, in spite of the cop, road work, and having to twice get around the Nebraska mobile home doing 30mph and ignoring every turnout. It would have only been once, but Moira's breakfast that morning of fresh fruit and Vanilla Coke wasn't the best choice of the trip.

Fireside selfie from the second night after successfully
making fire in the wind

 There were some doubts about being able to get to Anaheim from Santa Cruz going along PCH, but leaving at 8:30am, we made it to the eastern end of Malibu around 5pm. Given Moira's love of Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse (yes, I made that a link -- that doesn't mean I recommend you click on it), I thought she'd like seeing the real thing. I didn't realize how long it takes to drive the whole length of it though. Since we'd decided on Panda Inn in Pasadena for dinner, anyone who's lived in LA can probably guess how things went getting from Malibu to Pasadena starting at 5pm on a Tuesday.

After dinner, I got a Life Achievement - ordering off the menu at The Donut Man. A strawberry donut, of course, plus reserving two fritters for the trip home. We arrived at our hotel in Anaheim about the time fireworks started. Having grown up in Anaheim, I don't remember the fireworks happening on school nights, so that was a bit of a surprise, but nice for those of us visiting. Shannon and Davis flew down on Monday to meet us, so were back in the room after having spent the day mostly at California Adventure when we arrived.

A duck skipping the line and tailgating the boat in front of us.
It bailed out before going into the ride proper.

All packed up after our last night of camping

Disneyland was a lot more crowded in mid-May than I expected. Lots of school groups, new grads, and otherwise pretty teen-heavy compared to our other recent trips. We still managed pretty well, even if we couldn't go on all the kids' favorites multiple times every day.

Moira's Roller Coaster Buddy

Moira really talked a good game going into this Disneyland trip, deciding she'd try Goofy's Sky School, Splash Mountain, and give Pirates of the Caribbean another try. The first one we tried was Splash Mountain. Turns out, neither of the kids were fans of getting splashed. They recovered well after a bite to eat, but no more daring adventures that day. We all stayed for the parade. Moira and I also hung out for the fireworks, with the intention to hit one or two more rides afterward, but given how hard it was to get around after the fireworks, we wound up just heading back to the room.

Our second day at the park, we were on our own as Shannon and Davis headed back. Moira tried Goofy's Sky School, but in spite of how slow it works when you're watching it from the ground, she felt it went too fast. With two strikes against new rides, she wasn't ready to consider Pirates. We did find that Soarin' Over California was still open despite plans to convert it to Soarin' Around the World very soon now, and she really enjoyed that. It was even more fun, having just driven through a number of the scenes on our drive from Seattle. She also picked out a stuffed monster (apparently named Angel) as a souvenir that gave her enough bravery to get through both Goofy's Sky School again plus a swing ride she'd also been to afraid to try earlier. We watched World of Color (note to self for the future: when the guides say that the wet areas only get a light misting, remember they're neither standing up there nor accounting for the wind blowing toward the crowd). We were also hoping to catch the fireworks on the way back to the hotel, but they were called off due to the weather.

Best breakfast of the trip!

 Our trip home got off to a slow start. We slept in later than any other day, had to get the car packed up again, and then stop at Donut Man and Tommy's on the way out. I picked up my pre-ordered fritters seconds after the people next to me tried to get fritters only to be told they'd run out. They were better than my last report, but not everything I'd hoped. I did figure out why I was originally so taken with them - they're at least twice the size of any other fritter I've had lately for $2. The reserved ones were not overcooked this time, but still could have used more apple cinnamon flavor. You'd think this would have been our breakfast stop, but for whatever pathological reason, I was determined to head to Tommy's. Turns out, it wasn't as bad an idea as you'd think. While my body may have expressed some regrets of the trip five days after getting home, it worked out that day. Moira said they make the best hamburgers without chili, and did acknowledge the merits of dipping fries in the chili, which I'm pretty sure is how I started.

Crossing 10,000 miles

We wound up leaving Pasadena right around noon on Friday when many other people I new were arriving for Alumni Weekend. Ah well, we'd planned this trips months in advance before I knew the dates for that, so it just wasn't in the cards this time. With our late departure, we didn't get to Redding until close to 10pm and decided to call it quits there.

Final trip summary according to the car

We finished the trip by meeting my dad for dinner in Kelso. We did have a bit of a scare, running very low on gas because signs for Curtis, OR made me think it was larger than it was. Couldn't find gas there, and Cottage Grove didn't make it easy, but we did find maybe the only gas station there before running out.

It was a good trip for both of us, I think, and it's good to be home again. We'll see how many of the smells the car picked up come out, and how the tires are doing after all this when the car goes out to Bremerton tomorrow.

Davis is somewhat concerned about his road trip with Daddy. His sense of time doesn't do so well with time periods between two weeks from now and four years from now. He's stopped objecting for now, but these things have a way of coming up again out of nowhere.

The Road Goes On Forever

Other forgotten items:

Lighting
Handle for the borrowed camp pot (which hopefully wasn't permanently hidden by the cleaners)

We wound up bringing too much food. I was expecting to be hungrier after long days on the road, so the prepackaged foil pouches were too large. I think next time we don't assemble them in advance.

Turns out, we stole someone's campsite that first night. He came by after we'd gotten mostly set up and started cooking, showing us his paperwork. I guess he thought leaving a single camp chair behind would have been enough for people to know he was coming back. Instead, he's now down a camp chair and had to find a new spot.

There have been a lot of double takes with the car, but no actual comments to me. I'm getting better at packing it, nesting things together. I'm also packing faster, which is very useful for tomorrow, as that will be our longest driving day so far. We'll see how long we can stick with PCH. This is definitely the car for it, as I can actually use most of the passing zones as long as there isn't  oncoming traffic. It'll really come down to road work and how many people decide they don't want to use a turnout to let me by, and then they proceed to speed through the residential areas. Still, they are better than the one person so far with wheels in my lane when I came around a blind corner. I've been slowing down for all of them, and that time, it really paid off.

Sunday night, we successfully found our campsite, but it had no cellphone coverage. Neither Verizon, T-Mobile, or carriers they work with for roaming coverage gave us anything, in spite of finding some sort of Verizon facility about 20 minutes down the road. We had a quiet night and played checkers before bed. Tonight, we're power impaired, so I'm not dealing with pictures. I think that waits until we get home.

Sunday night was our most challenging camping experience. While not raining, there was a lot of wind. We went through our entire newspaper supply and probably 40 matches before we had a working campfire. Good thing too, since by that time, our only food option would likely have been Denny's in Petaluma, assuming we got a network connection to let us know that was an option.

Yesterday, we stopped at the drive through Sequoia. We didn't try driving through because my car has serious hips, and everyone there would have had a great laugh if I got stuck in the tree. Today was the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, which Moira was very excited for until she found out it was more aimed at teenagers. Still, she found a carnival game prize she liked, so that made for a good experience. We also met up with an old friend from Caltech who lives in Santa Cruz, which was nice. We went out to dinner, which meant no dealing with a campfire tonight, no cooking, less unpacking, and much appreciated break before tomorrow's long drive. I'd try to watch the race, but my tablet claims the Tivo is offline, so that will just have to wait.

Moira has been doing very well on the trip. Yes, there's a lot of time with her tablet, but we've had some good discussions, she's getting better with directions, and she has fun texting Shannon when circumstances permit. I'm really impressed with how patient she is with everything, especially when we've had challenges. After a discussion about speed limits, she has been nagging me from time to time about how fast we are going, but that's mostly when she hasn't noticed the sign saying we can speed up again. I know my mother will wind this hilarious as I did the same thing to her when I was a kid.

Lost in America

Also on the list of forgotten things: Band-Aids.

Morning was uneventful except for Moira getting a small cut on her finger and the local gas station not having air. We got relish and Band-Aids at a grocery and finally got the car to stop complaining about tire pressure a couple hours down the road.

We had more navigation hiccups today. The first, we got send off US-101S through some twisty farm road and back onto 101. Still not sure why. Lunch was at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I really wanted the habanero cheddar mac and cheese, but knowing that I'm halfway through my forties, felt it wiser to go for the taco salad. We'll see how this winds up playing out.

Our second issue was at what was supposed to be our destination. Maps had us turn around a couple times, and eventually we figured out it was trying to route us somewhere unconnected from the highway. Turns out between Maps and the camping reservation system, we passed our campsite maybe halfway through the day. Oops. We wound up 25 miles south of where we were aiming for at a different state campground. Still managed dinner and getting the tent set up. I'm a bit disappointed in the camping mattress so far, but the real test is how I feel in the morning.

Speaking of morning, pictures will have to wait until then as not everything is as synced as it should be. Meanwhile, my crazy mixed up world of the roughing it, I'll be going to bed without watching the F1 qualifying session my tablet spent all day downloading. Maybe in the morning...

Love is a Long Road

My mind has somehow crossed Ocean City/Ocean Shores with Long Beach. I truly thought we were headed to Ocean City, which I remember as a major tourist trap, but I figured it'd be fun for Moira if we got there early enough to walk around, and maybe fly kites. Turns out, the hotel reservation was actually in Long Beach. Thankfully, I told Moira to navigate to the hotel rather than the city, so we wound up in the right place. Sadly, my confusion extended to discussions with my father, who attempted to meat us in Ocean City, which didn't work out at all. Again, sorry about that.

There was still a chunk of things to be dealt with at the last minute. They didn't all have to be, but I do find it tough to pack things that might be needed too far in advance of the trip. The biggest issue here was Moira's birthday pool party the Saturday before our departure, which meant swimming suits, towel, etc., which then had to go through the wash before being packed.

Things we tried very hard to forget:

• Rain jackets
• Moira's books and toys
• Towels
• Pillows (actually turned around to get these)
• Oven mitt (but I have a hand towel that'll work in a pinch)
• Relish (well and truly forgotten)

We hit the traffic we were trying to avoid, so the trip took about 3.5 hours. Navigation worked pretty well until the end, when things got a bit confused, so we had to backtrack about 10 minutes to get where we were going. Not sure what happened -- I think we missed a turn. Moira wants to put away her tablet as we approach each turn, so it's likely that we missed the second of two turns that came pretty close together.

Specialty child insurance. Too bad it's for the other one.

Chinese food, a walk down to the beach, and then bedtime to round out the night. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Heading Out to the Highway

Time to hit the road. I don't know how much the extended period of packing the car helped with not forgetting things, but it did cut down on the last minute things that needed to be rounded up before leaving.

Weather reports look like we'll catch rain down the Washington and Oregon coasts, which will add more challenges that I was hoping for on this trip, but we'll manage. Worst case, we don't actually cook at the campsite. I suppose that would have been an advantage to getting a camp stove, which might have fit in the boot, but given how much other stuff we had to buy for the trip, I'm okay with this.

One of the tricks of the trip is that we each have a drink + snack budget of $5/day. Part of the goal of the trip is teaching Moira about budgeting and comparison shopping. She's picked out a couple things she really wants to get on the trip, so we put that on her tab already as a placeholder. She also has a couple of things from local grocery stores or Costco. She's also bringing leftover Christmas and Easter candy to stretch things farther. Meanwhile, we had a little lesson on measurements and ratios so that I can fill a couple flasks to bring with me. I'm not sure I've ever had an actual cause to use them before, but this seems like the perfect opportunity (except for the part that I need to make sure they go in the boot). I'm personally reserving budget for Donut Man and probably a shake from Foster's Freeze on the return trip.

Since Moira is navigating, we told her tablet to download maps from here to Anaheim. We'll see if she actually has enough space. Maybe this will be enough to inspire an interest in math, since during the measurement and ratio lesson, she complained about how bored she was.

First stop, Ocean City, and we'll see how well I can manage to update on the road.

Take The Long Way Home

I'm not a stranger to road trips, but it has been a while. Moira and I are planning a road trip from Seattle to LA in two weeks. Well, the planning has been going on quite a while, but it's getting more serious as departure date approaches. Small discussions started about a year ago, with things getting more serious after Christmas. She started out wanting to go a Wizard of Oz museum somewhere at first, and then switched to somewhere in Texas thanks to Go Go, America. Eventually, the siren song of the Magic Kingdom won out, so that's where we're going. US-101/PCH down and I-5 back.

Most of my road trips happened around college if I remember right. Sadly, that was pre-social networking, so it's hard to go digging through archives to get the data to verify that. Anyway, whether or not it was college or shortly after, what I remember is that planning was pretty minimal. The important things to be done in advance were making sure important car maintenance was done and making sure the necessary music for the trip was available (meaning put on cassette, or making sure your method of connecting a portable cd player to the existing car stereo worked). I think these are about the only two things I'm not worrying about for this trip. The car needs an oil change once per year or at least 10,000 miles. The car will likely crack the 10,000 total mileage mark while on the trip, and should probably get a new set of tires when we get back. We'll see how things look and feel when I get back, since the tires I want don't exist yet.

One huge change, other than travelling with an 8-year old will be that we plan on camping for three nights of the trip. I'm hoping to finish up shopping for that this weekend, as we're light on camping supplies. With all that, I can start packing up the car. Unlike past road trips, the car is strictly recreational, so I have the luxury of being able to pack well in advance.

Beyond camping, and having reservations pinning down our travel schedule for the trip, there are a couple other differences this time around. First, I have to let Moira navigate. We had a dry run last weekend helping Liz scout around the Olympic Peninsula, and she did remarkably well. It's a lot easier to let her make mistakes close to home where I know my way around, and the consequences are measured in minutes instead of hours. Our current plan is letting her navigate on her tablet and letting me have the car's map for reference, so I know if there's a mistake and can decide when to intervene.

The other big difference is the rule against eating in the car. I think this just means more stops than I used to like, but that's probably not a bad idea, especially with Moira. We're aiming for about 350 miles a day, so that shouldn't be so bad. It's significantly less for our day in the Bay Area, since she wants to go to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, but that means we have more distance to cover the final day. We'll just have to see, once we get to LA, how much I stick to PCH. I think the draw of The Donut Man will triumph over sticking to the coast. The real question is, with one dinner in the LA area, where do we do that?

* Technically, we'll be taking the short, quick way back to our current home, but since I lived in Anaheim for several years, and felt that was a much better fit for me as a person than Michigan, so that's why it gets to be considered home.

Holiday Letter 2015

We've made it through another year with its own collection of successes and setbacks. Likely the greatest success is that the kids are planning a trip to Legoland, apparently entirely on their own, as we know none of the details. We can only assume they're taking care of arranging time off from work, making all the reservations, and, of course, picking up the tab.  They may not have figured out arranging childcare while we're down there so the adults can have an evening out by themselves, but we can probably forgive them that one.

The past year's weather anomaly seems to have passed, with mixed results. Walker's car and bike saw almost the same mileage over the course of the year, but we didn't get in a single day of skiing. The coming year looks to be significantly different, with great early skiing conditions and Walker's bike flaking out once already due to heavy rain. So much for avoiding strenuous exercise within twelve hours after donating blood. Spoiler: nothing bad happened other than Shannon having to deal with bedtime for both kids and Walker's shoes not drying for twelve or more hours.

This year's vacation trip was to visit Walker's mom in her new home in Trapper Creek, Alaska. We had a lot of fun with the canoes at the cabin where we stayed and seeing the beautiful countryside. We had vague hopes of seeing the aurora borealis, but there just wasn't enough darkness in May to even try. We also walked up to a glacier and took a day cruise to see another one (plus lots of local wildlife).

Moira's interests are focused on dancing and the tablet she bought herself with her allowance. She's picked up a bhangra dance class with one of the children who lives across the street as well as a class with Pacific Northwest Ballet, which she isn't as sure about. Both Moira and Davis have been playing with the kids across the street a fair bit this year, after a couple years of us talking with their parents about getting them to play together. During the summer, this even went as far as all the children playing together in someone else's yard. Hopefully lessons on property law, personal injury liability, etc., are a ways off, but in the meantime, all the parents enjoy the respite.

One thing Moira hasn't been focusing on is her teeth. Honestly, we're exasperated, and are refusing to get her any more until she stops losing them. Despite the timing, she still refuses to sing Nain's favorite Christmas song.

Meanwhile, Davis seems settled on Batman, dinosaurs, and being a shark at memory games. We may have to start making him change into his shark costume before playing so that people who don't live here know what to expect. He's also an aficionado of scary things, like monsters, Godzilla, King Kong, and H.P. Lovecraft stories adapted for children. Moira is still traumatized from half listening to part of Shadow over Innsmouth, while Davis felt the book was okay, but not really scary. We have found his limits, though. Spoiler: There's a scary clown in the movie Inside Out.

This year has been a rough one for Stewie. He transitioned quickly from a middle-aged dog to an old dog with more medications to take and a diaper to wear around the house. After a rough stretch, he's started to bark at Walker's sneezing again, so we're cautiously optimistic for now. Stewie does seem appropriately sheepish about the diaper situation, but this comes with a modest inctraditional defense against hippiesrease in food. We can't really ask him which alternative he'd prefer, but we think we've chosen correctly.

Shannon continues to costume with a group of friends for Norwescon, and there's anecdotal evidence that they are at least local convention famous. When her sister described Shannon's activities to a co-worker, that co-worker said, "oh, like the Skittles?" This is in addition to home schooling for the kids. The monthly cultural parties continue, along with lots of reading, art activities, and some simple engineering projects. Moira is progressing well with reading on her own, and Davis can read some simple words.

After the garage and yard project, this year was supposed to be a break from such disruptions, so we replaced the hardwood on the main floor of the house, which had us out of the house for the month of October and there are still boxes in the garage that should come back in and be unpacked. We spent that month in Belltown thanks to a very generous offer from a friend's parents letting us use their condo. It was difficult to get the kids to leave the house for the first week due to all the new toys and the amazing scenic view. We got nightly updates on the Seattle Eye light displays, and everyone enjoyed the easy access to downtown activities. As fun as that was, it was better to return home and get things back to normal.

In addition to the floors, we also had solar panels installed on the roof of the garage, which was much less disruptive. The install was done by Artisan Electric, which means we're humanely harvesting bespoke free-range photons and sustainably converting them to an organic electromotive force used, among other things, to power our electric car. We'll need to figure out if there's an update to the traditional defense against hippies.

Holiday Letter 2014

Another year has flown by, with its own slew of changes to keep up with. Among our challenges have been trying to decide who is going to be Elsa, not calling Davis a baby, managing personal and vehicular energy and pressure levels, and the last of the major household projects for a while.

The kids were definitely caught up in the Frozen frenzy, which has changed their wardrobes, the games they play, and the music they listen to. There's still room for the old favorites and sometimes painful injections of pop music when they're playing, listening to music in the car or for one on Moira's many self-produced dance recitals. Walker avoided Frozen until October, when he finally watched it with the kids in exchange for them watching Princess Bride while they were sick. For Moira, Princess Bride ranks up with Nightmare Before Christmas, receiving a "Never Show Me That Again" rating.

Overall, raising the children has gotten a little easier over time, but not as much as we'd like. Moira has always been motivated by having people read stories to her. Bath time, washing hair, brushing teeth and flossing all happened smoothly with a reminder that these things needed to happen in order to have bedtime stories. Davis, on the other hand, has been a tougher nut to crack. Since Moira still gets her story, skipping a story for Davis doesn't do much. So, now there are funny noises in public at times to get him to eat, not to mention a barnyard full of the sounds of the animals living between his teeth. Moira gets jealous of this at times. There's some hope, though - since she's beginning to lose her teeth, there's room for more things to hide.

This year's vacation was down to a resort in Oregon Shannon used to visit with her family, where Davis discovered a love of mini-golf which carried on into his birthday celebration. So far, the improvised course we made in the newly finished back yard was comparable to most of the courses we've seen in the Pacific Northwest. Apparently this region has something against windmills.

We've had some changes in the household with roommates moving on, which has left an opening in the cooking schedule which Moira was eager to fill. Her skills have gotten a lot better, and she's even starting to branch out from cookbooks featuring Disney princesses. She's also branched out into acting with a program for kids run by the Seattle Children's Theater.

Shannon and Walker have generally been at the same old things, having held out a long time against everything being about the children. They've stopped trying to keep up with the endless tide of LEGO-based co-op games, have driven contractors from the house (at least for now), and do manage to get a few hours off each week, away from the house, without the kids, sometimes together even, that they then proceed to squander by talking about the kids anyway.

Hoping for a peaceful 2015,

Walker, Shannon, Moira & Davis

Under Pressure

This is mostly driven by recent observations with my car, but since starting out with that would likely have most readers moving on elsewhere, I'll leave that for later. If all you're here for is the car porn, you want the last paragraph with the associated picture.

Summer has been busy as usual. Even with taking off the week of the Fourth of July, another week in August, and another day or two, there's just more to get done than there is time, at least when you include entertaining the kids. They're getting better about self-entertainment, but every so often, the go into a phase of wanting to do some particular thing that requires help. Moira still asks to play Toy Store 3 on the PS3. Davis asks more for Beatles Rock Band (thanks to Caspar Babypants), where he attempts to play the drums. Davis likes board games in general, and is asking to play one every day. One of the pieces for Mouse Trap got broken, so that hasn't been in the rotation for a while, and I think he's mostly forgotten about it for now. Moira asks about Robot Turtles on a regular basis, which I take as a good sign, but it is something that needs adult help.


During our August vacation, I finally found a place that has two seat go-karts that would let me take Moira out with me. We did a session of that, and talked about it a bit, and it sounds like she isn't so interested in driving on her own. Meanwhile, whenever I'm taking the kids somewhere in the car, Davis asks to take the Porsche, so maybe there's hope. On today's trip, he told me the engine is really big. On the last trip, I tried to explain, at two year-old level, how the engine works, because he kept sticking his arm into the air intake while I was putting in the car seat. We'll see what sticks. The next concrete step will be the Traxx Racing in Mukilteo when he turns 3.

When we first gave Moira an allowance, she was pretty good about saving it up. I remember being quite happy when she decided she wanted a stuffed jellyfish from the Seattle Aquarium (pink, of course), and saved up her allowance over about 6 weeks to buy it. Since then, she's mostly tried to spend money whenever she could. Before turning 5, she mentioned she wanted an aquarium. A small one came up for sale at work, so I bought it and told her that we could set it up when she saved up enough money for fish. She did that earlier this year, so we spent a month or so looking at fish, doing the initial setup with the water and no fish, and finally went to get real fish at the beginning of August. I've kept a 20 gallon tank before, and I don't remember it being a large amount of work. The 5 gallon aquarium was a big challenge. Algae and nearly opaque green water within a week or so. I struggled a lot with it, and finally broke down about two weeks ago and got a 20 gallon, on the assumption it'd be more stable. It was beautiful for the first week, and then after the first water change, we were back to dark green water and various algae colonies. I've added an extra filter, restocked with algae eating fish (I tried with the smaller tank, and they didn't make it more than two days), and we'll see if a less invasive approach from here on out works better.

So, back to pressure. Tires have been a challenge recently. My road bike got a flat tire shortly before I got the electric bike, so it sat neglected for a few weeks. I decided to go on a social bike ride with a few people I didn't know, and figured it'd be better to show up with a regular bike rather than the other crazy contraption. Turns out, the flat on the road bike was due to tire underinflation, which wasn't a surprise, but it was surprising that I ran out of patches before I managed to get the tube to hold air.

One interesting side effect of using the electric bike is it has changed my pacing. With the electric, going uphill is mostly a rest break, so I tend to push harder when I'm getting close to a climb. Getting back on the regular bike, I noticed myself doing that, but caught it before I got to the bottom of the hill. I suppose I could skip using the motor when going uphill and save it for hauling the kids around, but I noticed from my Kirkland bike commute that, after the first couple weeks, there weren't appreciable gains in how quickly I was able to go. I think right now, I'm close to breaking even on how long it takes to commute home with changing clothes and showering on each end vs. sitting in traffic, so while I'd get more exercise per ride, I'm pretty sure the better approach for me is the consistent exercise. When I did start biking to work in Kirkland, I think it was September. I learned fairly quickly what I needed for gear to get through the rain and cold, so I suspect there won't be an issue with being gung ho about biking to work now and abandoning the bike once the rain starts coming down, although I do have to finish getting the front fender installed.

Twenty years ago, I bought my first yellow car, and my first Porsche. That doesn't quite mean I've been a Porsche owner or yellow car owner for 20 years, but it's been close. Twenty years ago, if you were taking the car out autocrossing or to the track, a reasonable place to start was taking factory recommended pressure and adding about 5 lbs. psi. With the new car, I was given the recommendation of 36 lbs. in front and 40 lbs. in back, which is 5 to 12 lbs. lower than factory recommendations. The car has been okay, I've been struggling for grip. There have been enough events where other people have complained about grip that I figured it was affecting everyone. This past event, after actually talking to some people about it, it turns out even that was too high. Getting down into the correct pressure range does help, but not enough given the current state of the tires. You'd think the speed holes that have developed here would help out. Sadly, nearly a year into the car's existence, there aren't any additional options for tires that are legal in my class.

Speed holes!

Ride the Lightning

It has been an eventful month for transportation for me. Coming home from the last autocross, the climate control system couldn't keep the interior of the car below 80 degrees F, and that's only gotten less tolerable as the temperature insists on staying in that range. Turns out the car took a rock through an A/C condenser, and needed a replacement. At least that part is cheaper than a radiator, and the Toyota RAV4 loaner I had proved convenient over the past week.

Test run to the neighborhood mailbox

I finally did get an electric bike solution. It involved having most of a bike built up at one shop, the motor installed at a second, a pit stop at a third shop due to problems with the rear wheel, back to the first shop for some adjustments and finally a trip to a fourth shop for an actual fitting appointment. I took the full week of the 4th off from work, which is a good thing, given the number of trips involved there. In the end, I'm happy with the final result. At some point, I'll get better pictures of it.

The motor package I wound up with is the Bafang BBS02 kit. While not as smooth a solution as a number of the others I've tried, it makes up for that in power. Hooked up to a bike trailer with 70 pounds of kids in tow, it still climbs the hills in our neighborhood at about 15mph just using the throttle. The battery meter is a little wonky. Seems like it shows 60%+ charge for a long time, then falls off quickly. I haven't tried pushing it to see it actually run out, since if it happens on my commute, there'd be a lot of uphill pedaling.

Moira returning a book she borrowed the day before.

Inaugural weekend bike ride with celebrity guest

Moira would prefer to ride the Trail-a-Bike, but Davis seems to enjoy being able to come along on bike rides. Good thing, since it's his only option right now.

Waiting for the Interurban Dad to finish taking pictures so we can have lunch

The first real ride we took was up to Wallingford via Fremont so that Moira could take a book back to a neighborhood children's library after borrowing one the day before when we were there for the Wallingford Family Parade. After we found that, it was back to Fremont. I didn't have a bike lock when we set out on this trip, so our options for where to have lunch were limited to places we could walk to from my office. Blue Moon Burgers is quite close, has a gluten free bun, and a large enough kid's burger that they could split it.  This may wind up being a regular stop when I'm on my own. We're probably two weeks away from our first ride with Ellis, so I'll find out then what the regular routine is.

Trying to maneuver around with a bike trailer seems even tougher than dealing with a car trailer. I suspect that's because the confines tend to be more cramped and I'm also trying to hold up the bike, and possibly trying to hold open a gate as well. On the plus side, I can pick up any individual piece if I have to, unlike with a car.

Speaking of cars, it's a week until I head out to Packwood for two days of autocrossing. While the car was in the shop, it got software updates to both the rear wheel steering and the suspension. I have no idea what effect those will have, but there's a bit of concern around what happens once I've gotten used to the car. Having the throttle mapping reset was really the nail in the coffin on the last once, since getting the car through the break-in period is a bit of a pain, especially after you've gotten used to not having to make sure you're gentle with the throttle all the time. I suspect the suspension and steering adjustments won't be nearly as dramatic as that was. I suppose it comes with the territory, though. If I wanted a Turbo that couldn't possibly do that to me, there's always this one.

Back in the Saddle

Three weeks later, and still no batteries for the electric bike kit. That hasn't stopped me from biking to and from work every workday so far in May, in spite of certain challenges due to having birthday and Mother's Day presents delivered to work instead of home. At least there's spiffy new clothing to go along with the old bike while I struggle up the hill.

Meanwhile, at the opposite end of the spectrum, it seems I'm starting to get the hang of the car. I'm sure there will be backsliding, but it felt like progress to not be the slowest regular autocrosser in the car during timed runs for the first time.

In other news, I did survive a trip to Tucson with both kids on my own. It went remarkably well, up to the point where the kids saw Mom when we got back. It's taken about two weeks to get back to normal from there. I was a bit surprised that Moira didn't want to go see her aunt's horses, but not at all surprised that she wanted to spend as much time as she could in the pool. Davis liked floating on the pool raft, but wanted no part of anything closer to actual swimming.

Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I'm still primarily driving the 996. It's not because I don't like driving the Turbo, but most of my driving is back and forth to work, and that's only barely far enough to get the car warmed up. Meanwhile, there are lots of excuses not to bike. I did manage seven days between January 1st and March 31st where I biked both to and from work, plus a bunch more that I didn't track where I biked one way and drove the other.

The major issue is that we live on a hill. I'm struggling to find a good map showing the grades of the streets around us, but I did find one showcasing some of the steepest rides in Seattle, and they list the street you take to get from the bottom of the house to the top at 18%. The secondary issue is being able to take the dog to work, or dealing with the local produce box, etc. When I do bike, I wind up walking the last block or two. Throw in a bike trailer to let Stewie come along, or to hold the the produce, and I'll be walking a lot more than that, dragging the extra weight of the trailer with me. I've been given an alternate route suggestion, which has two issues: it's longer, and it involves going another block or two south after

I used to have an electric bike conversion, with a motor and controller made by goldenmotor.com. Looking at their website, what I had is no longer available, but I see they've added "failure detection" and "high reliability" to the image of their controller. Those certainly weren't features of the controller I had. When it was working, it had plenty of power, and turned the cheap mountain bike I had, which Vicki got free with the purchase of a mattress and box spring, into a very capable hill climber. A 750W front hub motor will do that for you. I remember one commute home where another cyclist seemed to take the fact that anyone might try to pass him as a challenge. I saw him bear down for a few seconds in order to accelerate. He looked over when he realized he couldn't pedal fast enough to stay ahead, and then gave up. Compared to that, the bikes I've tried haven't stacked up terribly well so far.

Currie eFlow E3 Nitro

Currie eFlow E3 Nitro

I liked the ride of this one a lot. Very smooth, and the power delivery was seamless. The controls left a little something to be desired, as they're located on the digital display, but overall a good package. The non-standard seat post would have been a bit of an issue for attaching a Trail-A-Bike, but the bigger issue was that I struggled to climb up the 18% grade test slope with it just carrying me.

Stromer ST1 Elite

Stromer ST1 Elite

This one also had a very smooth ride, but power delivery wasn't nearly as seamless. I could distinctly feel the motor pulsing while I was pedaling. The controls were better than the Nitro, and it had a standard seat post, but I also struggled with the test slope more than I should with the help of something like this.

Currie iZip E3 Peak

Currie iZip E3 Peak

The first mid-drive bike I've ever ridden. With the motor being able to use the mechanical advantage of the rear gears, I made it up the 18% grade test slope going about 10mph, somewhat tired from the exertion. This is a vast improvement over the 4mph and panting that I got from the other two. The ride was rougher, in spite of the front suspension, apparently due to the off-road tires. I think the dash was similar to the other iZip E3 bike, but there was a 3-4 month gap between riding those and riding this one. The controls were reachable with the left thumb, rather than on the digital display, which is an improvement over the Nitro.

I still haven't purchased one yet. Electric & Folding Bikes Northwest is expecting to get a kit in within the next couple weeks using the Bosch mid-drive control system and a motor from the same manufacturer that iZip has been using. Details of the battery weren't mentioned, but I believe the motor options were 350w and 750w. I expect the 750w is going to be the winner, although that'll still mean finding a bike to convert.

There are two other options on my radar: the Optibike SIMBB 29C and the Specialized Turbo. I haven't seen an Optibike in person. I've briefly ridden a Turbo, but only on the flat. The Turbo matches well the things I like about the Stromer, but with the smooth power delivery of the iZip E3 line. Unfortunately for both of these, there are no local shops demoing them or, more importantly, servicing them. 

Got the Time

The problem with blogging, for me, is not a lack of content. Anyone without kids knows there's an infinite wealth of drivel waiting to spew for from any parent at the slightest provocation. There's also a bit of self-consciousness, I suppose, about where we happen to fall in the ongoing discussion about the division of wealth in this country. Not self-conscious enough to confine myself to driving a Geo Metro or something like that, but it's there. Really, the problem is there are a lot of things I have to or want to do, and only so much time to do them.

One of the things I rarely make time to do is exercise. Bringing the latest car into the family, not knowing whether it'll go up or down the ramps in the parking garage at work, and knowing that the engine won't warm up on the commute, I've finally managed to start commuting by bike again. I biked to and from work three days out of the five last week, plus one day of just biking into work. The remaining day, I did take the new car, as it needed an alignment. My timing was particularly good here, as I picked Plague Week in the office, and probably shouldn't have gone in on Friday. Odds are, I'm not going to be better enough to go in tomorrow, but at least I'm feeling functional again. Other than the illness, biking hasn't been so bad, although I'm still waiting for mid-drive electric bikes to be locally available to help deal with the last block of two of the trip home.

So far, I'm satisfied with the car. The two things I recall not caring so much for in the last one have been fixed. I ordered this one without a sunroof, and without the separate shift paddles. The paddles were fine on the last one, but they meant not having any controls on the wheel, which was inconvenient. With this one, I'm a little sad that I can't use the programmable button on the wheel to toggle Sport mode on and off, but the center console has been revised so I suspect I'll soon be able to find that button without looking down. The updated display feels more modern, the rear seats are amenable to car seats, and the low speed turning radius is surprising. I can't speak much to the handling or performance until Saturday, but it's given me no reason to doubt it'll be at least as capable as the last one.

Someone I worked with the Bay Area was recently bitten by the Porsche bug. In talking through the manual vs. PDK debate, I realized that there's a similar argument to be made about the changes in the handling between the earlier cars and the new ones. I haven't driven a 964 or a 993, but I'd say that I struggle to feel what's going on with the 996 on an autocross course nearly as well as I could with my old '72 911T. So, for this season, we'll see how much a bit of technology can help out.

Technology hasn't been entirely friendly on other fronts. My desktop at home died a few months ago, and it's taken a while to cobble something back together. I tried a low power machine from Shuttle, and after RMAing two consecutive ones after ordering enough parts to swap around and test at work to make sure it was their product, I wound up with an Intel NUC box. I've been happy with the performance, but I haven't figured out how to coax any sound out of it. I've seen instructions for this for Windows, and people who have hacked something together for MacOS, but not Linux yet. I may give SteamOS a try, or break down sooner rather than later in buying a gaming PC for myself. I have managed to offload all the auxiliary stuff my machine was doing to a Raspberry Pi, and have a spare that used to serve Moira's music, for the next time something goes wrong. The biggest complication has been that it doesn't hold a 3.5" internal drive, so reassembling a canonical music directory from all the various backups. I thought I had a good one, but letting MusicBrainz Picard created a few hours of work sorting things back out. Going through that, I did finally learn how to type in umlauts, so that was something. For the next pass of trying to automate the management of this, I'll be trying python instead of perl. I considered skipping ahead to go, but there are no libraries yet for handling ID3v2 flags, and trying to do that as my first programming project in a new language sounds like torture. Just reading the documentation around ID3v2 is bad enough. I think I'm actually farther along than I've been with this before. We'll see if I get as far as successfully making it through the m4a files, which have been largely opaque to me up to now. Perhaps if I had time to just listen to them all, but that's about where we came in...

Holiday Letter 2013

This year has been one of settling in and getting ready for new things, like schools, cars, roommates, and construction.

We took delivery of a Tesla Model S for Shannon in January. It has yet to catch fire, electocute us, or leave us stranded. It does, on occasion, ignore the key or get confused about where we're asking to go, but otherwise, it's a pretty impressive car.

In the past few months, Davis has started to become conversant. While he’s done some storytelling in his own language (with the primary word being "op-lop"), he seems to have moved on quickly to putting together two and three word phrases. This lets us get quickly past the first phase of communicating with him ("What is he asking for?") and spend more time on the all-important second phase (“No, Davis, you need to wait for college before you can have rum.”). At least he’s able to ask to wear his tutu without us saying no.

Moira’s now a certified (well, ribboned and pinned - there was no actual certificate) skier, as well as a kindergarten student. There’s a Seattle Public School District-supported program for homeschoolers that offers some classes and helps with documenting that you aren’t just letting your children run around feral, so Moira is taking a language and math class on her own, along with a pottery class with Shannon and Davis.

In addition to quilting, Shannon has started hosting cultural discovery parties monthly for kids to learn about various traditions. So far, Hawaii and the local Tulalip tribe have been big hits. We’ll see how many families keep coming after they see Gamer culture.

We were back at Disneyland this year, celebrating a graduation with two friends of the family who have moved in with us. Moira was overjoyed, got to show Shannon all her favorite parts, and didn’t want to leave. Davis was enthralled, and learned plenty of new words, like "ride" and "tea cups". He probably would have also learned "churro", but there are still ongoing gluten issues.

Throughout the summer and fall, we've been having a garage built, primarily to house and charge Shannon's new car, although given that Walker's car drew enough attention to file two insurance claims, it'll also be moving in once the floor is finally finished. The rest of the house has continued to host birthday parties and other gatherings, whether or not we're around. Given its popularity, we're a little surprised it hasn't been invited to anything without us yet, but that's probably just a matter of time.

Other than work and coordinating with contractors, Walker spent the year being complimented on Shannon’s car, and somewhat successfully demonstrating that he’s at least a competent driver when on a level playing field. That's currently due to change in early January.

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2014,

Walker, Shannon, Moira & Davis

There and Back Again

I bought my first Porsche in 1994. It was a 1972 911T. These were they days of Usenet and mailing lists, and the overwhelming advice I saw going out to new Porsche owners was to take the car to some sort of drivers' ed event to learn how they handle. At the time, wasn't aware of PCA, POC or Excellence, so all I had was the fledgling Internet for assistance. Not surprisingly then, the first thing I found was the PCA Zone 7 Autocross School at Candlestick Park. From the first session on the skid pad, I was hooked, and there was no looking back. Well, at least until my racing budget had to coexist with making house payments.

Fast forward to 2005 or so, I was engaged, had recently started working for Google in Mountain View, and the Cayman was announced. This sounded like a terrific car to me, but my wife-to-be, with memories of being stuck in the cargo box of her dad's RX-7, insisted that any new car I got needed back seats in order to accommodate future children. I got agreement that, if I found a car that met that constraint, I'd be allowed to get it. She agreed. I had something in mind, but it was still more of a fantasy, well beyond my financial means.

My biggest concerns around having children were financial. I saw my parents struggling to raise four kids on one modest income, and I didn't want to be anywhere close to that situation. By 2007, there was no way that I could say, with a straight face, that we couldn't afford to have children. By the middle of 2008, three important things happened, at least as far as this story is concerned: we had our first child, we moved back to the Seattle area with my transfer to the Kirkland office, and Porsche announced the first 911 with DFI and PDK. 

I've always been susceptible to upgrades, and the Porsche product line at the time was pretty much perfect for that. The cost differences from a Cayman to a Cayman S to a Carrera to a Carrera S to a GT3 to a Turbo are all roughly equal. Each step was tempting and not _too_ outlandish. Yes. jumping straight to the top of the product line-up was outlandish, so just don't look at it that way.

After the dust settled with moving, I went to the local Porsche dealership and said when they announced a Turbo with DFI and PDK, they should give me a call. It took about a year, and the announcement came in August, during one of the two weeks that year I wasn't in the Seattle area. When I got to the dealer, I was apparently third in line to get one of these, and the dealer didn't have firm allocation numbers yet. Over the next month or so, the other two people backed out. I wound up getting the first one delivered to the Seattle area, and all was good.

Well, for the first 18 months, all was good. Sure, there was a cooling system failure at an autocross, which meant getting the car towed back from Bremerton. I also lost a radiator due to an unfortunate cone, which meant another tow, but other than that, it was above reproach for about 18 months, graced the cover of the local PCA newsletter (http://digital.nexsitepublishing.com/i/103187), and got me a couple jackets.

The real problem began in August. A number of different alarms went off in the car, mentioning things like the transmission being in emergency mode, start assist being disabled, etc. The dealer said the main problem was a bad coil, but they also noticed a leak in the transmission. Apparently, with PDK, the dealer can't actually service the transmission, so that means a replacement. The first replacement wouldn't select reverse. That led to replacing everything else around the transmission to try to figure out what the problem was. It eventually became clear that there wasn't anything else wrong and the problem must be in the replacement transmission. By the time the second replacement transmission arrived and the car was reassembled, plus the time the car was out for the failed cooling system, it had been at the dealer for 30 days during its first two years. In Washington State, that means it met the terms of the Lemon Law.

Before this failure, I was really happy with the car. When I got it back, two days before an autocross, we were back at square one with the the throttle mapping. By the end of the weekend, it had mistakenly learned that I didn't want a gradual throttle response at low speed, but preferred to get a bunch of power all at once. It was bad enough that my wife noticed the difference, and she maybe drove the car a total of 10 times over my two years of owning it. Add to that our decision to move from Kirkland to Seattle as I'd started working in our Fremont office, and the fact that, if anything else went wrong with the car after this opportunity had passed, I'd be kicking myself, I decided to have Porsche repurchase the car. Besides, soon after all this started, Porsche announced the next generation 911.

Yesterday, in Zuffenhausen, my next car rolled off the assembly line. It should be here by mid-January. I'm optimistic that they've figured out the problems this time.

Vancouver and Back Again

Just got back from our first family trip in the Tesla, which is also the first time I've driven the car for more than about 30 minutes at a stretch in familiar territory. Overall, it worked great for a trip of this length, but it does have a few issues I didn't expect.

For the trip from Seattle to Vancouver, we planned a stop in Blaine, where they have a 70A charger, which turned out to add one mile of range per minute. We stayed for about an hour, which is a challenge if you don't plan on having lunch at one of the handful of places along the waterfront. There's a fine ice cream parlor, which was good for killing half an hour or so, followed by walking around most of the west side of Blaine, and stopping in the library for a bit. As it turned out, we really didn't need the additional range. It also served to be yet another demonstration that these are the early days of electric cars. Most of the electric cars out there are tiny (Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt, Mitsubishi i-MiEV). They also seem to have standardized on having the charging port in the front. The Tesla Model S is big, and the charging port is in the back on the driver's side. This matters especially in Blaine, since the rear driver's side corner is the farthest point on the car from the curbside charger, and the cord is just barely long enough to reach if you run it over the top of the hood. In the future, I'd probably try backing into the spot, like I have to do at work.

One feature I hadn't experienced with the car before was that, as part of the navigation system, it gives you lane hints under some circumstances, so you know which lanes are going to go away or force you to turn well in advance. Discovering that as we crossed the border and came to the first freeway exchange was a nice surprise, although it didn't really make up for the other surprise we got upon crossing the border...

The car comes with its own 3G connection / contract. The first year of service is included with the car, and they'll contact us at the close of the year to let us know what our options are, with the expectation from the salespeople that most people will choose the option of tethering through their existing phone contracts. As we crossed the border, we turned our phones to airplane mode to avoid international roaming. Apparently Tesla also didn't opt for international roaming, since we lost 3G connectivity as we got into Canada. This means we also lost map tiles for the navigation system for the large tablet-style display in the car. It still plotted the route over a black background, which was something, The smaller navigation display for the driver still had imagery. Once we got close to our destination, we found we had a cache of the tiles around our destination, which was quite helpful. We also found out that, even when we tried using them, our phones wouldn't pick up a signal either. Not surprising for my Verizon phone, but not at all what I was expecting from my other Galaxy Nexus or the Nexus 4.

We managed to fully charge the car overnight in downtown Vancouver for about $6, plus two one-way trips on the SkyTrain. As my first SkyTrain experience, all I can say is that I was very disappointed, because the entire trip was underground. If you're going to go with that sort of name, you need to embrace it.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. It was nice to get network connectivity back, especially for traffic information coming into Seattle. For audio, it wasn't such a big deal, as the car has ports for two USB drives, which works out really nicely. In theory, it can also pull music via Bluetooth, but apparently that hasn't been working for a little while on our car, so we need to have that looked at (along with a bit of a rattle in the dashboard somewhere). It doesn't seem capable of streaming audio from the phone via Bluetooth, so you can't play podcasts or books at any speed other than 1.0x, but it definitely beats dealing with CDs.

The one big issue coming home was also a bit of an issue heading north, but became more frustrating as time went on. The cruise control isn't terribly intuitive. With every other system I've used, if you tell it to accelerate by pressing a button or lever, it goes up or down by 1 mph or so. With the Tesla, the first press does appear to adjust by 1 mph. The second one adjusts by about 5 mph. So, if you want to change by 3 mph, you wind up having to disengage the system, get to your preferred speed, then figure out how to get it to reengage at the new desired speed. Pretty awkward. Maybe I need to look at the manual or something.

Notes on range anxiety: we did plan an hour long stop on the way up that didn't turn out to be necessary. We skipped that on the way back, and finished with about 90 miles of range left. "Max Range" mode was good for an extra 20-30 miles, so it still would have been comfortable, in both directions, without using that. However, one really confusing thing was that, for a significant portion of the trip, our average power consumption line was below the "ideal" line on the energy display, but our predicted range was lower than it said the ideal range was. Not sure how that math works out.

After we got home, I went to fetch Stewie, and decided to poke at the voice commands, which I hadn't gotten to work before. As it turns out, you need to hold the button down the entire time you're speaking, and the audio notification that you've activated the system sounds a couple seconds before you're supposed to speak. There's a text prompt that tells you when it's actually time to speak. Seems to work okay for navigation: it picked up the dog boarding place on the first try, but didn't know what I meant when I told it to navigate to home. Telling it to play songs was much more hit and miss. I attempted about 15 songs, and managed to get 4, I think. Of those I did get, in every case, the car popped up a search on the big display and I had to then manually select the song I wanted. When the car understood me, which didn't happen as often as it should have, it generally got the right result. When I asked for "Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden, though, I was given a long list of options with various phrasings ("Number of the Beast " vs. "The Number of the Beast", etc.), all claiming to be Iron Maiden. I know from my own collection, I have ten different versions of this, so getting such a list wasn't too surprising (and also happened with some of the other songs I successfully pulled up). There wasn't any way to tell which would be the original studio cut, which was from Live After Death, etc., so I picked the fourth one on the list. That one turned out to be "Cowboys From Hell" by Pantera. A fine song, but I'm not quite ready for the future where my car stereo overrules me on musical selection.

In summary, it worked fine, was very comfortable for the trip, performed better than I expect a car of that size to perform, both on acceleration and handling. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that's the second quickest non-Porsche I've ever driven, only topped by Mikey's M3 with the Dinan supercharger installed. It did seem to pull a bit under braking in the rain, so we probably need the alignment checked. As a car, I'm pretty happy with it. As Car of the Year, though, while it has a number of really amazing features, I certainly can't say it's automotive perfection.