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I was at a party this evening in a no-shoes house. When I went to collect my shoes from the pile, at the end of the evening, I couldn't find them. I did see a set of rather more beat-up ones that looked superficially similar and were the same size, but distinctly were not mine.
So, well, I was raised a country boy. It's been a few (ahem) years since I drove home barefoot, but no worries, I can do that.
Second problem is that I forgot to recharge my electric car at work today, and it doesn't have the range to get home from the party, so I need to go charge it. This shouldn't be a problem; I realized the issue before I left work, and confirmed that there was a fast-charge station in a Walgreen's parking lot a couple of miles away.
I found the Walgreen's, and the parking lot, and the charger in the parking lot, no problem. And I even figured out where the release was for the cover for the fast-charge port on my car, which I hadn't used before. So, I plugged the charger cable in, and looked at the screen on the charger, and it said something like "Wait a moment...."
I waited a moment. I waited a few more moments. It didn't do anything. I pushed the "start" button, which did nothing, and I pushed the "stop" button, which also did nothing. This did not seem promising.
However, there was a handy electrical junction box next to the charger, with a big switch on the side. After confirming that this looked like it only went to the charger, I tried power-cycling it. It turns out that turning a 60kW switch on or off makes a fairly satisfying ka-chunk sound. It also turns out that it does not solve this particular problem with the this particular charger, although when it booted it did have a nice little "This SD card is not connected" Windows-esque dialog box (with a little "ACK" button on it) on top of the "wait a moment..." screen.
Right, then. Next plan. I knew there were also some regular chargers a block away, so I went to find those.
Those turned out to be in a municipal parking lot that had locked gates at 11:30pm at night.
So. With modern networking (smartphone acting as wifi hotspot -- conveniently, I had specifically remembered my cellphone today -- and laptop), I was able to locate some more fast-charge stations a couple of blocks away, in a Walmart parking not. One of the two of them was even powered on, though I could not say the same for the other one.
It did not have a working credit-card reader, however. It told me to swipe my card, but then it completely ignored it. It ignored my other card. I tried all four possible directions. It continued ignoring them.
The charger did have a sign on it saying that one could also use the phone app from the company that runs it, so I started downloading that.
About this time, another person drove up in their electric car, also wanting a charge. I mentioned to them that the other charger wasn't working, and this one didn't have a working card reader, but they had the app on their phone already, and conveniently also they needed the other of the two plug types. So they started charging their car.
They also took a look at my feet, as I was standing barefoot on the damp concrete parking lot -- oh, did I mention that it's raining a bit? -- and asked if my feet were cold. I told them about the party and missing shoes, and they were very amused, and said I deserved mad props for being comfortable standing there barefoot, and asked if they could take a photo of me.
Then we discovered that the charger only has power to do one connector at a time, but they didn't need it for long. And so now they have left, and I have written this post and am about to post it, and my car is also sufficiently charged to head home.
Still no idea about my shoes, though!
So, well, I was raised a country boy. It's been a few (ahem) years since I drove home barefoot, but no worries, I can do that.
Second problem is that I forgot to recharge my electric car at work today, and it doesn't have the range to get home from the party, so I need to go charge it. This shouldn't be a problem; I realized the issue before I left work, and confirmed that there was a fast-charge station in a Walgreen's parking lot a couple of miles away.
I found the Walgreen's, and the parking lot, and the charger in the parking lot, no problem. And I even figured out where the release was for the cover for the fast-charge port on my car, which I hadn't used before. So, I plugged the charger cable in, and looked at the screen on the charger, and it said something like "Wait a moment...."
I waited a moment. I waited a few more moments. It didn't do anything. I pushed the "start" button, which did nothing, and I pushed the "stop" button, which also did nothing. This did not seem promising.
However, there was a handy electrical junction box next to the charger, with a big switch on the side. After confirming that this looked like it only went to the charger, I tried power-cycling it. It turns out that turning a 60kW switch on or off makes a fairly satisfying ka-chunk sound. It also turns out that it does not solve this particular problem with the this particular charger, although when it booted it did have a nice little "This SD card is not connected" Windows-esque dialog box (with a little "ACK" button on it) on top of the "wait a moment..." screen.
Right, then. Next plan. I knew there were also some regular chargers a block away, so I went to find those.
Those turned out to be in a municipal parking lot that had locked gates at 11:30pm at night.
So. With modern networking (smartphone acting as wifi hotspot -- conveniently, I had specifically remembered my cellphone today -- and laptop), I was able to locate some more fast-charge stations a couple of blocks away, in a Walmart parking not. One of the two of them was even powered on, though I could not say the same for the other one.
It did not have a working credit-card reader, however. It told me to swipe my card, but then it completely ignored it. It ignored my other card. I tried all four possible directions. It continued ignoring them.
The charger did have a sign on it saying that one could also use the phone app from the company that runs it, so I started downloading that.
About this time, another person drove up in their electric car, also wanting a charge. I mentioned to them that the other charger wasn't working, and this one didn't have a working card reader, but they had the app on their phone already, and conveniently also they needed the other of the two plug types. So they started charging their car.
They also took a look at my feet, as I was standing barefoot on the damp concrete parking lot -- oh, did I mention that it's raining a bit? -- and asked if my feet were cold. I told them about the party and missing shoes, and they were very amused, and said I deserved mad props for being comfortable standing there barefoot, and asked if they could take a photo of me.
Then we discovered that the charger only has power to do one connector at a time, but they didn't need it for long. And so now they have left, and I have written this post and am about to post it, and my car is also sufficiently charged to head home.
Still no idea about my shoes, though!
