It’s interesting being home again, as our new apartment feels to us already after being here for only a day.  And it’s nice getting some riding in to give us a justification for posting it, because it was a day of surprising interest.

Rachael and the Raven

It’s foggy and cold when we get up, which is relevant to the main event of the day - Rachael’s pre-surgery Covid test, that she’s been anxiously anticipating for several weeks now.  We’re both reasonably prudent in our efforts to avoid the plague, but we’ve been especially vigilant for the last week.  We aren’t really so anxious about getting slammed by the Omicron Varient, but it would be terrible if Rachael failed her test and had to reschedule her nasal surgery.  On our tight calendar it’s questionable if rescheduling would even be possible before we leave for Europe for nine months.

The cold and fog are relevant because Rachael quickly decides that she’ll drive over to her test, at the Interstate Kaiser office a few miles away.  The plan is that she’ll drive to her test while I walk down to Caffe Umbria for breakfast.  She’ll come by and pick me up there at 10 so we can go to the storage unit together to pick up the usual pile of stuff we make use of when we’re in town.

I haven’t pointed it out before, but Rachael seldom drives; and in fact she hasn’t driven once since we left Portland two months ago.  And since the Raven is still pretty new to us she’s not that clear on the basics, like how to start it.  I talk her through it - it’s pretty easy: unlock the car, sit down in the driver’s seat, start the engine by pushing the ignition button, and shift the car out of park.   Simple enough, but to be on the safe side I go down with her to be her coach, and in exchange she’ll drop me off at Caffe Umbria afterwards.

So we get in the car, she goes through the motions of starting the engine and then turns to hooking up her phone so she can use the GPS navigator.  I point out that she should start the car first, so we can at least get the seat warmer to activate.  She thought she had, but apparently not because the engine isn’t running.  She tries again.  The car won’t start.  I push the ignition button myself and confirm it.  Dead as a rock.

Panic.  Two issues: what the hell is wrong with the car, and now how will she get to her appointment?  After she stews over whether to bike after all or call Uber to maybe save a few bucks, I tell her to hang the cost and just call Radio Cab.  Which she does.  They’ll arrive in 5-10 minutes, so that part of the morning is saved anyway.

She gets out of the car to head over to the corner and wait for her ride, and I move around to the driver’s side.  I have the VW manual out and want to try to start the car again and look at the dashboard indicators.  Unexpectedly, the car starts right up!  What the hell?  I call Rachael back, she hops in the car, and I drive her over to her appointment while she calls Radio Cab to apologize and cancel the ride.

We arrive for Rachael’s test with a few minutes to spare.  It’s outside at a walk-up Covid testing station, so while she’s off getting tested I read the manual without success, and tempt fate by starting and stopping the engine several times.  Which is wonderful news of course, but a mystery.

Rachael comes back a few minutes later, and we switch positions again.  She still needs some practice with the Raven, so she’ll drive.  The car won’t start.  What??  We follow through several iterations of this, experimenting with holding the key in different places (it’s a modern car, and you don’t directly use the key to start the car - the key just has to be close by when you do start it).  After four different variations on this test, the results are conclusive.  She can’t start the car, but I can.  Our beloved Raven plays favorites, apparently.

Whatever is happening here, the main clue is the message ‘Immobilizer Active’ that briefly flashes before the car immediately shuts down when Rachael tries to start the car.  It looks like the Raven thinks she’s using an unauthorized key, but not when I’m sitting in the driver’s seat instead of her.  There’s more to come on this story, because I have a few more tests to conduct before giving up and calling a VW shop.  I’m seeing Elizabeth tomorrow, and she has the other key to the car.  We’ll run experiments with her as the driver and with using the other key to see what else we can learn.

The trip to REI

So we drive to Caffe Umbria and I have breakfast and read the news while Rachael goes to the store (on foot, since she can’t drive).  At 10 she’s back and we go over to the storage unit together.  Afterwards we walk over to REI, just a block away.  She’s shopping for new bike socks and I’m dropping off the new rear cluster I had so much difficulty finding so that REI can complete the work on my Bike Friday that’s been hanging from their ceiling for three months now.

The surprise in all this is that they’re not really waiting for the cluster.  They think they’re done with the bike.  It sounds like once they finally got and installed the new chainring they’re must have concluded that it didn’t need a new cluster after all - or maybe they even forgot that was part of the initial diagnosis.  The guy I’m working with pulls up the original order and confirms that it was indeed part of the deal, and offers to swap in the new one if I want although it’s apparently not needed fter all.  A misdiagnosis from the start, apparently.

Still, we’ll be gone for 9 months.  I point this out, wondering what the smart thing to do is here, and they suggest having their mechanic take the bike out for a more rigorous test ride.  If it needs a new cluster they’ll replace it; and if not I’ll just hang on to it because of course some day Rachael or I really will need one.  Nothing wrong to have one on hand.  We can even leave it behind with a friend who could mail it to Europe if the need arises and we can’t find one over there.

We leave it at that for now.  They’ll call me in a day or two with the results.

Team Anderson and Alexa

The fog is long gone, but it’s still too cold to ride - above 40 finally, but barely.  We fill some time while we wait for the day to heat up.  I tinker with the planned routes through England and Wales, while Rachael reads the house manual and educates herself on what else Alexa is capable of beyond turning on and off the small lights by the stove.  She finds something interesting - interesting enough that we’ve reconsidered how we feel about Alexa.

As a segue here: somewhere back in sunny Southern California a song popped into my head that I thought would be perfect for one of the videos: Sunshine Express, by Bud Shank.  It was an old favorite back when we used to have a home and a raft of stuff, but I haven’t heard it for so long it’s only a very faded memory now.  Odd that it even came to mind.

On the road we’re limited on the videos to music that Rachael has already acquired or new music she can buy through iTunes.  This one’s not available, so using it in a video is out for now.  Letter I mention this to Frank, my friend and music consultant.  He knows of the album, either has or knows where he can get his hands on it, and has a CD burner.  This morning I get an email from him with a photo of the album cover, saying he’s mailing it up to Elizabeth for me:

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“Alexa, play Sunshine Express by Bud Shank”.

“Here’s Sunshine Express by Bud Shank, from the Amazon music catalog.”

“Alexa, louder!”

Alexa is awesome.  How have we lived so long without her?

Today’s ride

Finally about one it warms up to about 50 and we wheel the bikes out of the apartment.  They’re going to work out well here.  We’ll keep them in the shower in the upstairs bathroom where they won’t cause any mischief, and the elevator is right outside our door.  A few minutes later we’re coasting down Columbia to the waterfront, bound for Oregon City.  We’d talked earlier about biking out to Sauvie Island (it is Sunday, after all) but it’s too late in the day for that.

Barely a mile into the ride Rachael brings us to a halt.  Something’s wrong with her bike.  She’s right - one of the bolts from her rear rack has fallen out and the rack is attached by only three points with one of the mounting arms flopping around loosely.  I don’t have the right replacement bolt with me, so there’s a problem.  It will probably be fine if we strap down the loose arm and I take her pannier to get the weight off the bike; but that doesn’t work either, because our racks aren’t equivalent.  Hers has smaller diameter rails, so her bag has the smaller hooks for it and they won’t fit on my rack.  Foop.

So, I offer to cut my ride short and take her pannier back to the apartment.  It’s one of her last chances to ride before her surgery on Tuesday, so she needs the ride more than I do.  Still, a nice two mile workout is just enough for me to justify today’s post.

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Ride stats today: Rachael, 33 miles; Scott, 2 miles.

Last night’s Dream

Some dreams come in clearly than others, and this one is a bit hazier than some.  It’s curious enough though that I want to remember it; and bicycling is involved so it’s worth sharing here.

The dream opens with Rachael and I sitting around a table with an attorney looking at some paperwork.  She’s white haired, professional, serious.  Something important is happening but I don’t remember what - a property settlement or custody hearing maybe.  Suddenly the door opens and in come Frank and Bill, in a hurry because they were late.  Some of you know Bill Stone from here, Cycle 365, or a former cycling site; and it’s the same Frank as the one who found the Bud Shank album.  It’s unknown why they’re expected - I think they’re character witnesses for some reason.

They sit down at opposite sides of the table, grin at each other and then reach across the table to give each other a celebratory high five.  This is an annoyance to the attorney, especially since we’ve been held up waiting for them.  So they explain themselves.  They’re just back from a mountain biking outing that ended unexpectedly when they were held up by a funeral procession.  They’ve come across a sad scene - a tree has fallen in the woods, crushing the casket and exposing the corpse.  I think they may have even run into the corpse with their bikes.

Then, another part of the dream that’s a bit hazy.  The priest leading the procession is upset, and wants to know why no one will at least apologize for this outrage.  Finally someone does, so maybe someone was at fault here.  After that Bill and Frank gingerly lift the tree off the crushed casket so the procession can proceed.  So of course they’re late for our appointment.

So that’s odd.

In other news

Rachael passed her Covid test.  Hooray!!