Thought I had failed turbos, transmission, alternator, and/or onboard electronic controls. You won't believe what it turned out to be.

 This is very long. I apologize in advance.

 

Photo Credit: ©Aceyou

So, the last 2 months I had been having a random problem with my 2019 Q60 Red Sport. About 4 or 5 different times, when I started the car up - either for the first time that day or later in the day after I had previously started it with no problems, I would suddenly get a very sluggish accelerator/engine response. I'd push the gas peddle down forcefully and the car would slowly move forward, it would take forever to change to a higher gear, and the fake exhaust noise from the rear speakers would get really loud. I'd try changing driving modes, switching to manual paddle shifters, etc., but, nothing changed.

When this happened, I would then park the car, turn off the engine, wait 5+ minutes, then start the car again. After doing that, the car responded normally. It would stay that way for several more days, then, randomly it would happen again. 

So, I'm thinking I have some sort of turbo malfunction, a transmission malfunction, or some screwy computer malfunction with my car's brain being confused as to what to do. 

Last Tuesday it happened again while I was dropping my daughter and granddaughter off for a meeting. Again, I stopped the engine, waited 5 minutes, started it again, and everything worked normally. I then drove to a gym for a workout while I waited for their meeting to be over. After my hour workout, I went to my car, used the key fob to unlock the door, but, when I tried to start my car nothing happened! The start button would not move, there was no clicking noise of a dead battery (which is a fairly new battery), and no lights were on anywhere. Even the gear shift would not move!!! Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. 

I opened the hood, everything looked normal as far as I could tell. No fluid leaks, no wires disconnected, battery looked ok, etc. So, I called a tow company for help. They said if I couldn't get the car into neutral, they'd have to drag it. Great - I'm going to need new tires too on top of whatever else this is going to cost me to fix I thought to myself. Plus, I'm going to have to tow the car home then have it towed again in the morning to a repair shop because they are all closed now - it's after 6 PM.

While waiting I started gathering all of my personal belongings. When I tried to open the trunk, I couldn't! The trunk release button, like the starter button, would not do anything. So, I'm thinking - I'm lucky I even got the car unlocked to begin with!

So, I finally figured out how to get the car into neutral - there's a tab you can remove by the gear shift, then you stick a key in the hole and push down, and that frees it. I called the tow truck driver and he said it sounds like a complete alternator failure. I said, well, can we at least try a jump start when you get here? He said sure. 

Finally, the tow truck arrives just as it starts to rain!!! He gets out his jumper cables, starts to connect them to my battery, then I notice a puzzled look on his face. He goes back in his truck, gets a pair of pliers, removes the jumper cables, fiddles around with the battery, then tells me, "Try starting it now." I go into the car, all the lights come on, and the car starts right up!!!

I asked him what did he do and he said the battery cable to the positive electrode on my battery was loose. When he tried to connect the jumper cable, it started moving around. So he just tightened it. 

I felt like a moron because I didn't notice that at all when I checked my battery. He said he's seen this happen lots and lots of times. 

Anyway, that was 3-1/2 days ago. I have had no problems at all since. I'm just posting this in case anyone else happens to experience something like this or has experienced anything like this before. Plus, I'm going to add a small tool kit to my car just in case it happens again!

My next door neighbor told me he voted for Trump because he was the lesser of two evils

Last November (or December - I don't remember for sure) my next door neighbor, who I have been friendly with for years - still am - told me he voted for Trump over Harris because he was "...the lesser of two evils."

 

 

Photo Credit: www.whitehouse.gov (Fair Use)

I asked him how could he say that about a 34 time convicted felon and con-man. His reply was he didn't believe he had been convicted of any felony and that he wasn't conning anyone.

Hmmm....

Lemme see - Trump said he was going to lower the cost of living, stop getting us involved in wars, get rid of illegal, hard-core criminal immigrants, stop the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours, and not get us into any other wars. 

Gee - what am I missing here? Grocery prices have gone up, crude oil and gasoline prices have gone up enormously, he's unleashed an ICE army of poorly trained and masked thugs who have killed US citizens and arrested and departed same with no due process as required by law, including taking children - babies - away from their parents, we're in a war with Iran that he started - something he said he'd never do - he's alienated almost all of our former allies in NATO and other parts of the world, he's made non-Americans hate the USA and lose all respect for us, etc., etc.

Wow - that's a pretty impressive list!

Now can someone tell me - how would Kamala Harris have made it even more evil? 

How? 

And does anyone except my neighbor really believe that?

 

 

Can AI be trusted with critical tasks when it doesn't even know who the Pittsburgh Steelers QB is?

Do you think Artificial "Intelligence" (AI) is the safe future for us? Read this and prove me wrong.

Someone posted a story about the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday on Facebook. (I think it was someone bitching about the NFL telling the Steelers they couldn't fly to Ireland for their game against the Vikings Sunday until later in the week.)

     

Photo © F.J. Maccioli

Anyway, there was a Meta AI summary of the story below the post, as happens with many FB posts these days. I decided to read the summary instead of clicking on what might have been another clickbait post (and that's ANOTHER story) and was surprised at what Meta AI had to say. 

After summarizing details about the temporarily postponed trip to Ireland, Meta AI said Kenny Pickett is the Steelers quarterback (QB)! 

Well, every Y'inzer knows that isn't true anymore, so, I messaged Meta AI and told it that, no, Pickett left the Steelers last year for the Philadelphia Eagles and this year he was with another team.

Meta AI immediately responded, saying that Kenny Pickett is the current Steelers QB and that I was wrong. I responded again and said, no, Kenny Pickett is not the Steelers QB. He isn't with the Steelers this year. Meta AI responded again, insisting that he was still the Steelers QB.

Exasperated, I replied one more time, again saying he isn't the Steelers QB and isn't even on the team, after which Meta AI finally responded and conceded that I was correct, apologized for its error in saying he was the QB, and said that it is still learning and making mistakes.

Take a pause here... Think about what I just wrote. Re-read it if you must. 

Now, imagine you are a doctor and relying on AI to help you diagnose a patient and come up with a treatment. Or, you're with the military and relying on AI to tell you if something is a threat and should be attacked.

Or, imagine just about ANYTHING that is more important than who the Steelers QB is - are you going to trust AI?

I'm not. 

So, I'll never order from this pizza place again - if you care about how they treat new employees, then you won't either

Well, my 28 year old daughter just took a second part-time job 2 weeks ago. She's a single mom, struggling to make ends meet. She's a hard-worker, willing to learn new things and puts in extra effort because, well, that's what she does at work.

She currently works a closing shift 4 days a week at a well known discount retailer - almost 1 year now. However, she needed a 2nd job because, well, most of these retail joints won't let you work 20 or more hours a week because they don't want to pay benefits. She needed more money to pay the bills.

But, in general, they treat her well and with respect. They appreciate her hard work and she gets along great with her co-workers, managers, and customers.

None of which prepared her for the nightmare she just experienced at her new job, at a local pizza place here in town.

She got offered the job during her first interview - right after she just walked in and handed them a resume. She already had experience at two other pizza parlors in town, so, she knows what to do and how it works.

Or she thought she did until she went to this place.

You ever see the Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke?

Remember the ditch digging scene, where one guard told him to get the dirt out of the warden's hole, then after digging it out, the other guard told him to put the dirt back in? This went on back and forth until an exhausted Newman was struck with a guard's baton and knocked out. (Here's a YouTube link if you haven't seen it.)

YouTube: Cool Hand Luke Ditch Digging Scene

Now, although there wasn't any physical violence, that's about what happened to my daughter. 

After only 1 week and 1 day on the job, she was forced to quit in tears after the abhorrent ways that her shift manager, the shop owner, and her fellow employees treated her.

For example, she was told to make and stack 12 pizza boxes by one manager. So, she did that, only to be screamed at by another manager for not making 15 boxes. In front of the other employees. And in front of the customers in the store!

She was told her duties included cleaning the bathrooms whenever there were no customers - she worked the 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. shift, so there were down times after lunch. So, last Monday during a down time with no customers, she went into the men's bathroom and started cleaning a urinal. A customer came in the store. Rather than ask my daughter to come out and help the customer, she was loudly berated by the manager for not being at her post when the customer arrived!

And once again, she was screamed at in front of her co-workers and the customer!

A short while later, the owner came in and asked what was going on. My daughter tried to explain she was getting conflicting instructions from everyone in charge and just wanted to know what she was supposed to do, that she couldn't be in two places at once. And asked why she was being criticized for doing exactly what she was told to do. And how could they set up better communications between them. She was angrily told by the owner, "Well you'll just have to figure it out! The customer always comes first!" 

My daughter was in tears. She could not believe how she was being talked down to and mistreated!

And her co-workers were not exactly any help to her either. They just stood there and watched!

I think it's pretty obvious why the job my daughter took was available in the first place. If those guys had said that to me, they'd be out cold on the floor covered in pizza sauce and melted cheese. But my daughter is barely 5 feet tall, so that wasn't going to happen.

She did the next best thing though. She told them that no one, nobody, is going to treat her with such disrespect on a job, especially as a new hire.

So she quit. Walked right out the door. Screw' em!

Right now, I'm thinking about what to do about these scumbags, other than just give my daughter some support until she finds another 2nd job. Maybe I'll use Yelp and put a real negative review about them and give some details. Maybe some of  my paisano's and I will show up and go all Italian on them! Or maybe we'll set up a picket line in front of the store. I dunno. Let's just say I get more pissed the more I think about it.

I won't name the pizza joint. Oh hell, I'll give a hint. Look toward the end of the alphabet - maybe you can figure it out!

Russian citizens - your government is lying to you about Ukraine; Putin and his generals are war criminals

I hope that this gets through to Russian citizens somehow. I hope they don't get punished for accessing this information. My Blogger stats show that my posts are, indeed, getting read by some in Russia.

You are being lied to by your leaders. You are being lied to by your media. You are even being lied to by your fellow citizens, who have fallen for the lies BECAUSE YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS BLOCKED ACCESS TO WORLDWIDE MEDIA THAT TELLS THE TRUTH!!!

Why are you believing such nonsense from your leaders? 

Russian Bucha killings, train station attack

Video Credit: CBC/Radio-Canada

Almost every country in the world has imposed sanctions on your country because of the illegal, immoral, and insane invasion of Ukraine by your power mad leader Putin and his bloodthirsty, inhumane generals.

Innocent Ukrainian citizens are being slaughtered every day under the orders of Putin and his generals. Apartment buildings, theaters, even a train station in Kramatorsk with hundreds of citizens attempting to flee the country to escape the war was destroyed, killing dozens of more people, including children!

A few days ago, the United Nations voted to suspend Russia from its Human Rights Council because of "...gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights committed by Russian troops in Ukraine."

Ukrainian citizens have been killed, tortured, raped, kidnapped, robbed, buried in massive, unmarked graves, shot and killed while riding bicycles, set on fire and burned... All of these have been reported on by the world's media and witnessed in real time. Yet, your leaders say they were "staged" by the Ukranians, that they are "false" news reports. 

What your leaders say is absolute bullshit!!!

Your leaders are war criminals. They are committing atrocities against mankind not seen since World War 2!

I have no reason to lie to you. I make absolutely no money from this blog. I'm retired.