personal technology update 1: the car

I finally did use that rear window wiper one dewy morning last week--without reverting to the print manual. Just punched a button with a promising symbol and got lucky! But it's the old technology that has me puzzled.

Thanks to emerging technologies, I get car diagnostics via email every month. Each month, noticing the tires had lost yet another psi, I've resolved to find or buy a tire gauge and maybe replace my ancient tire pump.

A couple of weeks ago, one of those dashboard lights came on and stayed on for a while before giving up on my paying appropriate attention. I was paying attention. After two days in the depths of the manual, I learned the universal (?) symbol for low tire pressure--which I will remember more for its location on the dash of this car than I will for its shape (so much for the universal concept :-/ ).

Last weekend my son, with his also ancient pump (but it did have a gauge!), helped me get the tires back up to standard--or so we thought. The monthly diagnostics, received on a Thursday, look not unlike last Saturday's readings. Delayed email? Leaky valve stems?

So I've done some upgrading. Tomorrow my 3K-miles-driven all-but-new car goes in for its first factory recall service--a possible power steering fluid leak which would, by the way, explain the way it complains when I back out of the driveway and head out in the mornings . . . With the price of gas, there's much to be said for one-stop shopping. I added getting the tires checked out to my personal technology recall list for tomorrow. I scheduled both appointments online . . .

BTW, I do now own a high-tech tire gauge that can be programmed to remember different settings for front and rear tires--serious technological overkill since 30 psi all around is easy enough for my brain to hold onto for now (kind of like the home thermostat I've never programmed beyond the 68-degree heating and 78-degree cooling absolutes). The new pump--a leaner and meaner version (but hopefully with some ooomph!)--also has a gauge. Both tire gauge and pump are still in the box/shrinkwrap/house . . .

Guess I should be grateful for the 3-month break from automotive repair waiting rooms. . . This one has popcorn (can't eat any until my current dental adventure is finished [hoping for Thanksgiving . . .]) and wi-fi (but I'm opting to spend my time with something of substance, of paper and ink).

In some, maybe many, ways, I'm a digital settler. It's good for the resume, for job security, for exercising the brain. But on my own time? Very much the immigrant, delighting in my native language and culture in the quiet spaces I call home.