I have an amazing story to tell. A social media group contacted me to ask if I would like to test drive a car in exchange for talking about it on my blogs. The only kind of car I would have been interested in talking about is a hybrid. I recycle, I went to the Denver Green Event this year to learn about sustainability, and I’ve talked about recycling in this blog post: Sustainable Dave.
Even though hybrid cars have huge batteries that can pollute landfills with corrosive materials (but not if they are recycled properly), and even though they still use gasoline for fuel, I think they are a step in the right direction for today’s world. To me, it’s a purposeful choice. So, I was allowed to test out the 2009 Mercury Mariner Hybrid for a week. I’ve never driven an electric car or a hybrid, and I’m not much of a car buff in general, but since I am a webmaster, I know graphic user interface (GUI) and I know usability.
This car was delivered on a Wednesday. A driver dropped it off and had me sign some forms that said I’d always wear my seat belt, refrain from taking the car out of country, and lock the car when I leave it. This was a brand new experience for me, and I was a little nervous! Is everything legit? I wondered.
I used the car right away to do about six estimates for our guttering company. As soon as I got in, I could tell this was a high tech car, with an inboard navigation system/computer, and enough buttons to make one think it’s an airplane cockpit.
I brought my cell phone, my normal wall-plug recharger (because there is an electric motor, you can recharge anything in the normal outlet provided), all my paperwork, and I could even fit a fold-up ladder in the back. My twelve year old son and husband came along for this trip, too.
“What’s the name of that movie, son? It’s where a man gets contacted by a computer on his cell phone?” I asked.
That was the only thing I could remember of this movie we had seen the year before. Luckily, we mind-melded, and my son knew what I was talking about.
“Oh, you mean Eagle Eye?” He went on to explain that a man was holding a suitcase for half the movie and when he finally go to open it there were two guns to give yourself a shot so you could withstand staying in the cargo bay of an airplane.
Then I remembered the rest of the movie. A man and woman were chosen by a computer to travel to DC to watch the woman’s son play in an orchestra for congress at the Kennedy Center. The computer concocts these wild adventures to get them to an airport, including calling them on strangers’ cell phones and saying “Obey if you want to live,” then giving on-the-fly commands for their next move.
So, when my own cell phone first rang when we test drove the Mariner, I was half-expecting a flat female voice to say, “Obey if you want to live. Take your next left.” (insert soft laugh track here.)
This hybrid uses the energy generated by applying the brakes to recharge its own electric motor. Low speed driving is managed with the electric motor and high speed driving is managed with the gas engine. I can’t hear the switchover in city driving. When I drive uphill, the tachometer swings from 2 to 4 and the owner’s manual advised this is normal. When I drive downhill, the tachometer stays at 2.
I’ll tell a story from that first day of driving in this post, and will post some more later in the week. My husband, who is a rough around the edges construction worker with very little computer experience, thought this car would be too delicate for him. He’s used to driving the gas guzzling pickup trucks that look like monster trucks and sound like a bus. He was amazed that the Mercury Mariner Hybrid is silent when it idles, so it took some getting used to not turning the key three times trying to hear the engine. He could not figure out the navigation system on his own so relied on me to enter addresses and start/stop routes. He thought he’d break the electric system in a week if it was his own car; If not from spilling drinks on the panel, then from smashing the panel when he got frustrated! 
However, since I’ve been using computers for well over a decade, I had an easy time understanding the basic user interface.
You can set an address when not moving. The computer talks you through it easily. I have a separate navigation unit I’ve been using for a year. On the Garmin, the voice sounds ticked off when you deviate from the course. She says, “Recalculating…” as soon as you miss a turn. This voice doesn’t do that. She lets you get off the highway if you feel like it, then recalculates silently, and tells you what to do next to stay on course. There are settings panels where you can turn the voice commands on or off, you can set route preferences like “avoid highways” and you can even see how the car is doing with miles per gallon in real time.
I’m going to leave all the numbers for another post, because I’ve just returned from a journey of a thousand miles today. This car performed very well for the trip, and I was pleased with it. It made me feel cosmopolitan and classy. I’ll make subsequent posts with more details.
Sad for No Reason ebook
Depression is sometimes the result of unresolved anger. Anger can be tricky, because sometimes it manifests as constant crying, so you think you’re sad or depressed. This was the case for me, when I was in my teens and twenties. I thought I never got angry. However, I cried many times a month. Today I had a tiny breakthrough, and I want to share the general process with you, without the details.