Giving my Manual the Cold Shoulder

When my brother was here visiting recently, he was telling me about a friend with a new car who couldn't figure out how to use all the features in their new auto.  Believe me, I can sympathize.  I have a new Sienna van and I've yet to figure out many of the things it can do.  The owner's manual is the size of a medium-sized novel and about as coherent as a Russian tragedy translated into Japanese by a native French-speaker.

I pointed this all out to my brother.   "Maybe you could show this person how to work some of the features," I suggested.

"I have," he groused.  "It hasn't made any difference.  They need to get in there and try the stuff out for themselves and then they'll figure it out.  That's the only way you'll learn something....trial and error."

"I don't agree," I countered.  "For example, what I'd find really useful would be to have little flashcards made up of the main functions I wanted to learn in step-by-step order so if I wanted to know how to do something like 'open my back vents', I could pull out that card and follow the steps until I was familiar enough with the procedure to not need the card."

He didn't agree.  "Shouldn't need that," he said.

My sister-in-law leaned over and whispered, "I understand completely."

Later, when she and I were out for a drive, I mentioned how lucky I was that I hadn't needed the air conditioning yet.

"I STILL haven't figured out how to turn on the air conditioning, " I told her, "but it hasn't mattered because all I do is turn the temperature control to whatever temperature I want and the car cools right down.  It's great.  I don't know how it does it but it's one less thing I have to figure out in that stupid manual."

"You haven't turned on your air conditioning at all yet?" she asked.

"Nope," I replied, pleased as punch with my fortitude and work-around skills.

"Then why does it say "AC on" there on your dashboard screen?" she asked.

"Where?", I asked her.

"Right there," she said, pointing to the little screen above my stereo.  That screen has all sorts of info on it but I usually only focus on a few things, like the time, the current temperature outside, and the fan setting.  By golly, she was right!  There, off to the left in little letters, it said my AC was indeed on.  There's no little light on the actual AC button where you'd expect to see an indicator that your AC was on, .......just that notice on the screen.

Wow, no wonder my car has cooled right off whenever I've turned down the temperature dial.  Come to think of it, the AC has probably been "on" all winter.  Luckily, I usually have the temp set around 74-76 degrees.  I don't care to be cold.  Hmmm, that also might explain why my gas mileage has been so bad.

I rather shudder to think what other controls I might have fiddled with in the car without realizing what I was doing.  Maybe I'd better go make up some flashcards while this experience is still fresh in my mind.

Au Secours!

I headed down the road for church this morning in my "Knitting Nanamobile" to the dulcet strains of French Canadian pop music.  I'd been listening to that Sirius station the other day and that's why it happened to come up when I turned the radio on.

"No problem," I thought.  "I'll just pick another of my preset tiers."

I hit the Preset button and pressed another of my channel presets.  Huh?  It was the Elvis station which was my No. 2 preset on the previous tier I'd been listening to.  Now I don't particularly LIKE Elvis music but I'd kind of run out of music that I really wanted to listen to when I was setting up all of my preset channels so this final tier were the "fourth string" of channels, so to speak.

Yikes!  I tried the Preset button again.  Normally it would then allow me to cycle through six different "tiers" of presets with six stations each.  Today, it wasn't going anywhere.  I was BUMMED!  It's not that I mind la musique francaise but I'd been listening to it most of yesterday and I was finished with it (fini avec elle).  A crooning Elvis was even worse.  My other choices?  "Hair Nation" - a station devoted to the big hair bands of the '80's.  Yeah, that didn't exactly float my boat either.  I also had some jazz channels that I'd set up on this tier but I can only take jazz in small doses.

When we got home from church and errands, I finagled the Commander into going out to the Nanamobile to see if he could retrieve my other music options.  He was out there for about seven or eight minutes before he headed back inside.

"Did you get it fixed?" I asked.

"It's fixed, but don't ask me how I did it," he replied.

That's my Commander!  A hunk of burning love!  Il est bon!

My Other Car is A....

Have you seen those bumper stickers on people's cars, the ones that say.....my other car is a "BMW" or a "Mercedes", or whatever it is they wish they were driving?  Well, I guess I mentally have one of those on my back.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm very grateful for my new van. If it weren't for the "Nanamobile," we wouldn't have been able to go all over with the grandkids in the car when they were visiting.  It made life a lot easier.  However, I REALLY miss my little Pontiac Vibe sometimes.

You see, I'm one of those people that sees their car as an extension of themselves.  When I was driving my fire-engine red Vibe, I felt "special."  That Vibe was quirky, bold, and zippy.  It looked like it could almost be a sports car, if it put its mind to it.  The back was covered with bumper stickers and decals that all reflected my own distinctive personality and interests.

Now I have a Toyota Sienna minivan.  It is BIG and solid and functional.  There is nothing zippy about it.  I can't even see the front of it when I'm driving and that makes for interesting parking.  I'm still at that stage where I have to drive around a parking lot until I find a pull-through spot OR park way out in the Boonies so that I can be assured that I will have plenty of room to maneuver when it is time to back out. Nobody takes a second look at this vehicle and thinks "Now THERE goes a free spirit!"

I couldn't even get it in a bold color.  Toyota didn't offer it in any bright, bold colors.  They were all kind of "blah."  I settled for a green that looks gray on most days.  Aaargh, the agony of it all.  And miles per gallon?  Man, I'm going through gas like Elizabeth Taylor went through husbands.

I just have to console myself with the fact that I did it for the grandchildren.  Oh, and there IS the benefit of those factory-installed seatwarmers on a cold winter's day.  I may not be driving a unique car anymore but at least my buns are warm.  Booyah!

Going Nowhere Fast

One of the things that I was REALLY excited about when I got the "Nanamobile" back in December was the fact that I could synch my iPhone to the stereo system and not only receive calls and answer the phone through the radio speakers but also that I could link the phone to the radio in such a way that I could listen to the podcasts that I have on my phone.  (And how is THAT for a run-on sentence?)  Of course, the "I" was relative because this little puppy wasn't going to be linking anything.  Frankly, it was all Greek to me.  I was really relying on the Commander to set it all up for me.

Well, he synched (sunk) my phone the day we brought the van home and shortly thereafter I was tooling down the turnpike with my phone hooked to the car via its USB cable and all set to listen to a podcast.  I had browsed through the car's manual (no small feat, that) and had read that I was to hit the "Aux" button once I was hooked up and then it should connect to the iPod portion of my phone.  I did and it did, sort of.  My music library started playing but I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to access the podcasts.  However, I COULD figure out how to move from one song to another so I was happy for that small victory.

When I got home, I told the Commander my tale of woe and he urged me to be patient until the kids had returned to Texas and he could sit down with the manual (good luck with that) and figure out what was wrong.

Today was the day.  It was a lovely Spring day (almost 60 degrees in January in PA) so we backed the car out of the garage and let it sit there idling in the driveway while we resynched the phone.  The Commander is used to using voice commands because that's how he programs his Ford Escort so we talked our way through getting the Toyota to recognize my phone again.    Somehow it had forgotten it so it was a good feeling when I saw the word "Connected" on my phone.

The Commander decided to give it a try by giving me a call.  Of course, I was sitting right beside him but what the hay?  His phone dialed mine and the dulcet strains of my customized ringtone for him from the song "Gasoline and Matches"......."Baby, baby, baby....when it's cold and dark......" came blasting out of the car's stereo.  And I DO mean blasting.

"Hello?" I squeaked and the reverb was loud enough to shatter windows.  I hung up on him.

"Well, I guess we know that the phone part works.  Now how about the podcasts?" I asked.

Thirty minutes later, we were still fiddling with the radio buttons and the phone.  We could get the podcasts to play if we went strictly with Bluetooth.  However, I figured that it would be better to play them via a USB hookup so that the phone would be charging as I listened.  When we did that, we could see the list of podcasts but couldn't hear them.  Then the Commander went through a long, convoluted work-around and came up with a way for me to hear them but we both agreed that there had to be a better way.  Besides, by the time I would go through all those steps, I'd be off the road and halfway into a cow pasture.

Finally I said, "If you don't mind, I'm going inside to start supper.  Call me if you figure it out."

He was out there long enough that I was considering sending the dog out to him with his coffee mug tied around her neck but finally he came inside.

"Did you get it set up?" I inquired.

"No, I'm going to Google it.  On the plus side, I figured out how to lower the volume on the speakers when you get a phone call," he answered.

I'm looking on the bright side.  I finally found NPR radio on the XM Satellite stations.  Now if I can only remember which preset I assigned it.

All Things Old are New Again

When I envisioned myself getting a new car eventually, I was thinking that I'd be getting a small car.  The top two contenders were the Ford Fiesta and the Honda Fit.  In fact, I had already picked out (in my mind) a lime green Ford Fiesta with special decals on the sides which are available as an additional option through Ford.  It was going to be a black city skyline and I thought I might add a black bat or two in the sky above the skyscrapers.  My only criteria when thinking of a new car was that it would be sporty and it would be roomy enough for my spinning wheel to fit inside.  I CERTAINLY never thought I'd be in the market for a minivan again.

We drove our share of minivans when the kids were growing up.  They were great for hauling kids and pets and luggage around the country.  But those days were behind us.  It was just the Commander now and myself.  At least that is what we were thinking.  Somehow we overlooked the fact that, with two little grandchildren, we now had to be able to haul four adults and two children in carseats or else take two cars everywhere if we wanted to go someplace with all of us.

And that's how I find myself the slightly bemused owner of a new Toyota Sienna van that holds 8 passengers.  It has just about every bell and whistle you'd want.  In fact, I was joking with my book club group that I felt like I had to go to flight school just to learn how to operate the thing.  The other day I was driving over to the bookstore at night, in the rain, when I realized that I didn't have my lights on (my son had inadvertently taken them off of the "automatic" setting) and that I had no clue how to get the lights on.  I had to pull into someone's driveway while I fiddled with the controls until lights appeared.  The next challenge was trying to get the windshield wipers going correctly.  As I rolled into the parking lot, my back wipers were going, my front ones were going, I had a red triangle glowing on my dash which was alarming me because I had no idea what it meant, and I wasn't too sure that I knew how to turn off my seat, which was heating my buns.  God forbid if someone should call me because my hubby hadn't told me how to answer the phone on my steering wheel.  And forget about getting gas!  I didn't know where the gas cap release was.

It sure is slick, though, as a people mover.  We're driving around in luxury with the little ones in their carseats and plenty of room in the back cargo area for groceries and other goodies.  I'm slowly getting the hang of how to open the sliding side doors, although it is still iffy whether or not I'll get the correct door to slide open on the first try.  I'll eventually get it.  The hardest part is trying to figure out where my front end is and how far back the rear extends.  This car is a lot bigger than my little Vibe.  For now, I'm going for the pull-through parking spaces to play it safe.  Who would have thought that I'd be back amongst the mini-van crowd at my age?  It's worth it, though, for little Sweet Pea and little Spud.