Saturday, March 15, 2025

  Saturday, March 15, 2025 

    I had a fantastic night’s sleep last night. I woke up this morning a new person in more ways than one. All the sick feeling from yesterday was gone. Gone also was a mental state I have lived with most of my life. I stopped or had moments of respite from the feeling that I had to improve things for people. I’ve been like a pit bull my whole life, figuring I had to do something, be something to make things okay between me and other people and for other people.  I wouldn’t be so stuck on this idea if I weren’t so successful. 

     I was haunted by email problems. Yahoo changed its format a while ago. I could no longer open yesterday’s updates post, add the most recent addition, and send it. It would no longer allow me to do that. I tried @gmail, which gave me problems, too. I tried a different Yahoo address, which worked for a while. 

   At the Chrome Yahoo address, I had an AI service that provided additional corrections beyond what Grammarly had offered. I liked that. However, the text disappeared. I do mean disappeared. The screen went blank. Sometimes, the text reappeared, and sometimes, it didn’t.  

  I had problems with my phone, too.  It erased appointments from my calendar. The other day, it sent a picture of my Tesla solar battery status to the parents of a tutoring client. Huh? Both the shot and the client were bizarre events. I had no idea how either of these events took place.

   It was Saturday. Dean and Nina came over to play Sorry, which is a sorry excuse for me spending time with them.  I thought to ask Dean about a thought I had about what might be causing my problems charging my electric car. 

   When I switched out the charger I had been using with another one, I noticed the outlet was scorched. I just spent a thousand dollars to have a dedicated line put in. I thought there must have been a short in my car that caused this.  I called the electrician yesterday to ask my question about an electrical systems tolerance for shorts. Since the garage never had a problem with the aborting charging process, my problem may be because I only have a 110-volt outlet.  I thought to ask Dean about my theory.  He threw a formula at me and had me look up OHM, something to do with an international unit of electrical resistance.  I never did learn how this applied to my situation.

      Instead, we all trooped to the driveway. Dean unplugged the charger. The plugs on both the chargers were scorched.  He looked at them and said, “This is what is causing your short. Moisture gets on the plugs or in the outlets. Water and electricity don’t mix. You need to coat the prongs of the plug with dielectric gel to prevent moisture from getting in.” What is a dielectric gel, and where do I get it? He argued that everyone knows about dielectric gel.  You can get it in any auto supply store.  We called Autozone in town; they had it.  I would get it after they left.  He said we should get it now. I didn’t want to cut short my time with them. They would go with me.

    My head was spinning from all this information. I suggested one of them drive. No, they would sit in the back.  When we got to AutoZone, Nina stayed outside, walking Elsa, who came along for the ride. Dean came inside with me.  He first looked in the aisle selling light bulbs.  It wasn’t there. We asked the sales clerk. She showed us a display. Each tube contained enough gel for a year’s supply. Didn’t they have anything smaller? Yes, behind the counter. They had packets that looked like mustard packets for two dollars. That would be more than enough for our purposes.

   Dean said I couldn’t use either of my chargers because they were fried.  I looked online to order another one. No need. They had two extra ones for 110-volt car chargers. We stopped by their house and picked one up.

   Dean applied the gel to the plug on the charger he provided. I thought a bit would do.  He used up most of the small packet. He also told me it’s important to keep the cable out of the sun.  The intense Hawaiian sun can overheat the wires. We’ll see. It would be great if it could solve the problem. However, Kia will be furious. They have put out a small fortune to repair my car. I will owe money on this last round. I will tell them what the problem was: Hawaiian sun and humidity.  Hopefully, this will spare them these expenses on their next customer.