Happy 99th, Dad

 Today marks the 99th anniversary of my father's birth.  While he has not been here to celebrate with us since 2008, I will say that I miss him daily.

One of my most cherished memories involves a day my father and I, together, went to the nearby small town of St. Stephen.  A farmer there was deeply engrossed with and loved the steam-powered era, and enjoyed showing off his collection.

One of the massive machines was a steam powered tractor.  It was based on a locomotive.  Yes, that size.  But even today I can smell the wood smoke, the sawdust flying from the steam-powered saw mill that had been set up on site, and the glorious sunny fall weather.  That faint hint of "still summer" in Minnesota, with the new crispness that seeps into the air as the humidity from our ten-thousand-plus lakes begins to fade away as the air drys towards winter.

And it was just Dad and I wandering a field, looking for new and neat experiences and wonderful machinery.

And yes, I did some other math.  With my recent birthday this week, I turned 58.  I looked back, and when my father was my age, I was 18.  And the oldest of his children.  The youngest was a mere 10.  And I looked at my son today, who turns 25 next month, and realized that my baby will in all likelihood be the head of his own household and family come his 26th birthday.  He is a professional in his field, and with a recent promotion and 20% raise, he's heading towards becoming a master of that field.  And while there's a part of me that almost regrets he did not choose to continue in the robotics field, he is in a field which will not be lacking for work for many years, and most importantly, it will never experience the outsourcing that my former field went through when those powers that were decided that things could be done less expensively elsewhere.  And for the most part, most of those former employers are now gone.  So there's a real twist.  I'm still here, I'm doing well, and I'm surviving.

Beyond that, I'm recovering from my first post-renfest Saturday.  And I made some small progress on a couple of projects and will make more in the near future.

And moving ahead, I just need to spend a little more time focusing on me.  The mental and physical health is as important - at least, if not more so - than my financial health.  I've been averaging 48 hours of work each week this year so far, and I realized on Friday that, between now and the end of the year, I have to use either 16 or 56 hours of vacation time or I will lose it.  

So there's another challenge of having three weeks of vacation and having banked one last year.  Use it or lose it.  And I need to use it.  Because it will help my mental and physical health.  

And yeah, that's pretty much all boring here.  As to what grand plans I have for my vacation, I have literally none.  I am hopeful that, in the near future, I will be able to finally figure out what is going on with my vehicle situation.  In the summer of 2020, my son, who was learning to become a mechanic, was working to replace the leaking manifold - and as long as we were that deep in the engine, he thought replacement of spark plugs would make sense.  And I bowed to his experience in the area, and then the "KUNG" that the broken spark plug gave off when it snapped, well, that was the end of that plan.  We have since spent about $70 on tools which have not yet been able to remove the broken collar, or the tool which was supposed to remove the collar but it, too, fell into the engine.

So we will soon have to decide if my beloved Expedition will be leaving here on a tow truck, and if so, what it's destination may be.  Possibly the garage we used to rely on continually for our repairs, or maybe a parts yard where it will become something else.  If not just a rusting hulk.

And with that, I will need to figure out if we can possibly find another less expensive vehicle.  My wife is relying on a much newer 2015 Ford Explorer, which she enjoys.  I find it useful to get from point A to B, but it clearly was not designed for persons of my size or preference.  I get it, the world changes, and things have to improve.  But I do believe that motor vehicle designers should be right next to any defendants who find themselves in a court of law being charged with reckless use of an automobile.  When I am driving a vehicle, I wish to be able to keep my hands on the wheel to control it, and if I need to run the windshield wipers, turn on the headlights, defrost the car windows, or change the radio, those operations should be possible to do without looking for the controls.

In my wife's vehicle, the dash board is overwhelmingly dominated by a large touch-screen display.  I need to rely on this display to change radio stations, most vehicle settings, and it is also something of a distraction when I am driving.  If I wish to turn on or off the air conditioning, I must find a spot on a panel below the display, where, in some spot that feels like the rest of the flat panel, I can touch and turn on or off the air conditioning, seat heaters, air bags, traction control, radio, various window or door controls, or quite possibly engage the oscillation overthruster and pass through the traffic in front of me.  In theory, assuming it is the same density as a mountain, possibly.

But then again, I have not found any clear indications Yoyodyne had anything to do with powering this vehicle.  When I look under the hood and see all of the engine covered by plastic "pretty-up" plates, I find myself wondering how much I could improve the mileage by removing the useless plastic and reducing the dead weight.  

Or maybe they could just be somewhat useful and rather than putting on the damned dash board that the tire pressure is low, perhaps an indication that it is a specific tire - or three, whatever.  Just tell me WHERE the damned problem is, not just "oh, hey, I hurt."  

But I guess I'm not ready for vehicles of the future.  As I have often said, we will never have vehicles which will be controlled by artificial intelligence.  I am no AI expert, but I can tell you that until we solve some of our other human mental health issues, we have no business creating an artificial intelligence which will have to deal with people who ... well, to be nice, drive like idiots.  Unless we equip each artificial intelligence with some sort of pleasure center which is rewarded by a loud outburst of profanity and hammering the horn when some idiot violates traffic laws (and sometimes even the laws of physics) to take corners/turns/stops/starts far faster than a logical being would, we have no business bringing into this world an entire species we're going to drive insane.  Literally.