Too Much Technology?

     Let me start today's "Needs to be Set Right" concept with another of those day to day things most of us experience.  I left my GPS plugged into the cigarette lighter receptacle on my car (although we don't use the lighter receptacle for anything other than that.)  Well, maybe to recharge our cell phones, and the occasional use of our Emergency Compressor, all things techonological, if you notice.  All things I'm glad I have and love using.  I digress.  Anyway, by leaving the GPS plugged in and on, I drained the car battery.  Deader than a Nehru Jacket (look it up - it's the headliner at the Dead Fad's Museum). 

     Of course, I didn't realize that when I got in the car and turned the key to hear........silence.  You know how the first time you do it, you think "this can't possibly be happening?", well, just like everyone else, I turned they key again and at least one more time before I convince myself that the battery was indeed dead.  Either that or someone removed the starter on the car while it was locked in our garage.

     However, being as I stated above, a believer in technology, I got out the old handy dandy battery emergency charger that works off household electricity and having done this countless times before, put the positive charge clamp on the positive battery post (the one with the little + on it), and then, looked around for the negative post.  There wasn't one. When the heck did they start making batteries without two posts?  However, I also knew that there's a school of thought that says batteries can blow up if not being charged properly, leaving you slumped over the car fender, hood up, seriously burned face wise from the exploding battery acid, and being there like that all day, until your wife comes home and looks for you and finds you there, horribly disfigured, or even worse, deader than the Nehru Jacket we talked about.  Not wanting her to find me like that, I read the manual which says hook it to a negative ground, except they don't tell you what exactly that is.

     I hooked the negative clamp, as one is supposed to do, to a negative ground that I found which isn't as easy as it looks.  Batteries are always grounded to the car frame somewhere, and all you have to do is find a metal piece of car which is also attached to it.  So, by touching the negative clamp to various parts of the car near the engine block that a clamp could fit on, I found one that provided a connection.  Confident, I left the car and went back into the house secure in the knowledge that shortly (perhaps an hour or two) the battery would be fully charged.  The battery charger indicated every thing was well, and more importantly, I was still intact, not having suffered those unimaginable burns all those safety warnings tell you about.

     A couple of hours later I went out, checked out the charger which said the battery was in fact charged, and disconnected everything.  Then, I started the car, and it started right up.  Everything was as it should be.  All was now right with the world.  Or was it?  

     After putting the charger away while I let the car run, I then shut it off and confidently started it up again.  Yep, lots of good starting sounds and Old Blue started right up.  Then, as I waited for all the little dashboard lights to go off one by one as the car checked itself out, I noticed that the little light that looks the outline of an engine block stayed on.  A quick check of the owners manual says if that light stays on take it to your nearest dealer for service as soon as possible.  Not as soon as convenient, mind you, but as soon as possible.  Letting that little warning pop up in the back of your head that says, "if I don't get this to them as soon as possible, they won't honor the warranty.  That's no problem, this is out of warranty.  Or worse yet, if you are out of warranty, it indicates a little problem that we are warning you about, and if you don't take care of it in the next 20 minutes, this thing is going to turn into a BIG problem and BIG problems costs BIG money.  

     I took it for a test spin in the neighborhood figuring if it craps out I can walk home and I can figure out how to get it home from a few blocks away, rather than on some major side road or highway with uncaring motorists in cars whizzing by at speeds generally 20 miles higher than posted. 

     And, it probably rode just fine, but I imagined all kinds of things going wrong, and heard and felt all kinds of sounds and vibrations indicating something was definitely wrong.  So, I got back home OK and then researched everything on the internet.  Deciding eventually I was going to leave it as is, (I really didn't have time to wait for the car as I needed it every single day for the next 5 days, then, I could take it in) I drove it around all the while waiting on edge for that moment when the car gasped it's last breath because I ignored that little light.  

     As luck would have it, I picked up my grandchildren and my son in law's car had the hood up.  I asked him what was up and he said his engine light came on and he had taken it to a local car parts store and they ran one of those diagnostic tests on it and they said it was probably only a small indicator part and he could try resetting the engine light after he cleaned up the indicator link.  The test, he said, was free.  Wow, that's all I needed to hear, so the next chance I had, I went to the friendly car parts store where they plugged in their little tester and ran the test.  It indicated I had 14 things wrong.  Bummer. How the heck could 14 things show up, it wasn't even running?  So, I went back home, armed with all this technological information and as I read through the reports realized almost everyone of them said it was some kind of grounding fault.  Maybe that's it I thought.  So, back to the internet and more research focused my exact needs.  And, after stating what was wrong in a general question, answers popped up immediately, most of them indicating simple solutions and one of them was, (the most popular I might add) to detach the grounding terminal on the battery from the car for a minute and then hook it back up and restart the car and the engine light would probably not come on again.  

     Seemed like an easy cost free solution, so out to the garage, and started looking for the grounding wire where it is hooked attached to, and detach it.  (The internet said anyone with any kind of experience with cars could do this, so this would be a shoo in.)  Wrong again.  I'm still looking where it attaches to the frame. It's very difficult to track down and I haven't been able to isolate it to detach it.  Being almost 70 years old and not able to move like I used to, and with a recent hip replacement preventing me from laying on my back under the car looking for the hook up, I haven't decided yet what to do.

     Have you looked at your car engine lately?  I didn't think so.  I still can't find the transmission fluid level indicator  dipstick which they say is "RIGHT THERE" only it's not "THERE" on my car.  And neither is the negative attachment for my battery anywhere where I can get to it, and detach it.  For further good measure, it took me an hour to find the oil filter cap and I needed a $20 dollar extension and a special oversize $20 socket to remove it.  I had a picture of it and almost missed it. 

     Growing up in the golden age of automobiles spoiled me I guess.  I worked on my own cars for years, replacing brakes, pistons, carburetors, and all the really simple stuff with no problem at all.  Today, it's a major pain to change the oil.  And, I really, really  don't want to take the car to one of those big money dealerships (or even a garage mechanic - I mean who can you trust these days), so I wait until the car doesn't run and I'm forced to do something.

     Now, I spend my days driving around with one eye on that engine light that stares at me all the time I'm driving all the while reminding me that I am turning a little problem into a BIG MONEY problem because I won't take it in...........yet.       

    I am one of those people who have embraced technology with open arms, and while not quite as proficient with it as I'd like to be, I think it has and will continue to change our lives every day.  On the other hand, I am wondering if we are not, in fact, rushing toward that phenomenon known as "The Singularity" described by Vernor Vinge, in his paper regarding this subject, and presented to the  Vision 21 Symposium March 30-31, 1993.  

     Briefly stated, Vinge postulates that "we are centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue."

      Are we in fact racing to that time in our lives which Vinge states will occur prior to 2030, or are we going to realize that technology is not the only answer?  I vote for the later, although I may not be here in 2030 if/or when "the singularity" arrives.  Realize he wrote this 18 years ago, prior to all the most recent accelerating changes.

     As I look at my car engine and all the covers, wires and parts covering up others and which all have to be removed before you can find where something is, I wonder if this isn't something that needs to be set right.  Let me rephrase that, this is something that needs set right.