It's been a kinda dud of a morning so far. I woke up and almost instantly engaged in virtual battle against Tesla. They charged us $100, directly deducted from our checking account, for a self-driving subscription that a) we never signed up for, b) is for a car that we don't own and probably doesn't even exist anymore. We were able to get our bank to cancel the payment, so all good there, but still, it made me realized that we need to disentangle ourselves from the Tesla web completely. This is part of the brave new world in which we now live. We all need to add "Remove Vehicle and Delete Profile" to our list of things to do after we sell or total a car. This never even crossed my mind. Once our car was gone, I deleted the Tesla app from my phone (good riddance!) and got on with life, not thinking that of course all the background data was still being stored and was active and could still be used against us.
So, after we got this bogus charge nullified, I set out to delete our accounts and depart the Tesla world* once and for all. Easy written than done, of course. Since I deleted the app already, I started on the website and followed the instructions to delete my account. It wouldn't let me because it said I had to remove our vehicle from our profile first. But I couldn't do that because the vehicle isn't controllable from my profile, only from S's. So, I logged in using S's credentials and went to remove the vehicle, but there is no option to do that on the website (at least that I could find), and all the instructions online say to do it from the app, so I reluctantly downloaded the app again, and logged in as S.
*It's a shitty world. The car itself is actually really good, but everything that comes with owning it kinda sucks. Repairs take a long time and are super expensive; everything that can possibly be run by AI is run by AI, so getting support is dystopian and dehumanizing; and apparently you get charged for shit you never asked for. One thing this ordeal reinforced is that it's nice to not have a Tesla anymore.
The prompts for removing a vehicle through the app are straightforward, if you sold it—not so much if you totaled it. I called Tesla support (even more reluctantly than with downloading the app) and talked to a robot who told me to follow the same prompts as if we sold the car to a third party. I guess technically we did that with our insurance company, but that's not what people think when they get in an accident. When my neighbor asked what happened to our Tesla, I didn't tell him we sold it to a third party. What would be nice is if the prompt on the app says "Sold to Third Party or Totaled in an Accident," then it would be crystal clear as to what button to tap. To any event, I submitted a request to remove the vehicle that probably doesn't exist anymore from our account, and it told me it takes a few hours to do this, so I'll check back later today. If it actually removed the vehicle, then I'll try to delete our accounts. If it didn't, then I'll probably have to call that robot back. I removed all forms of payment from both of our accounts (we don't even remember linking our checking account, which is a bit disconcerting), so they don't (or at least they shouldn't) have a way to extract money from us in the meantime.
Then, after I was done with all this (for the time being), I had to clean up a mess of undercooked chocolate chip cookies. Lil' S1 was baking them for some event he's going to later today. He frequently uses the same recipe, and the cookies are delicious, but the stated cook time is never long enough, so they are too doughy if you follow the instructions to a tee. Instead of remembering this and leaving them in the oven a few minutes longer, Lil' S1 always takes them out before they are done and then insists that they are fine. I would be wise to bite my tongue and just let him deal with his mushy cookies, but for some reason I can't do that, which today led to the following conversation.
Me: You need to cook these longer they aren't done.
Him: Yes they are. They'll harden. Look this one is brown on the edges [points to the most cooked one].
Me: They aren't going to harden that much. Look at this one and that one and that one [points to a bunch that are still super doughy]. These aren't done.
Him: Fine. I'll put this tray back in. But the other ones are done.
[As he's clumsily putting the cookies back in, he drops the tray, it flips over, and everything falls onto the backside of the open oven door in a messy pile.]
Him: This is your fault!
Me: How is it my fault? You dropped the tray because you weren't holding it properly.
Him: You're the one who told me to put them back in the oven! If you didn't say that, this never would have happened.
Me: So if I ask you to go to the store, and you trip on your way out the door, that's my fault?
Him: Yes!
[About a half-hour later, he's taking the cookies from the other trays and putting them into a Tupperware container.]
Him: Actually, you were right—a lot of these cookies are too soft.
In other news, we have a doubleheader flag football game tomorrow. We had to reschedule a game a few weeks ago because we didn't have enough kids (half our team went to Michigan to watch the Wolverines lose to Iowa on a last second touchdown), and this was the only way the league could do it. It's a holiday on Monday and parent-teacher conferences on Tuesday, so the kids have four days of no school, so I had to make sure enough people would be in town this weekend before I signed off on the doubleheader. It would be very embarrassing to reschedule only to have to cancel again for the same reason. Well, we have enough kids, but now storms are in the forecast, so there is a decent chance everything gets called off because of inclement weather. Wouldn't that be ironic? It's like ra-a-a-ain on your football games...
We are scheduled to play probably the best team in the league tomorrow, and, honestly, I wouldn't be completely bummed if we have to miss them. We've actually had their number the past two years, beating them three of four times, and our only loss came by a single point under dubious circumstances (the referees told me the score and then changed it later when the opposing coach argued about it). But we aren't as good this year. We lost three really good players and replaced them with one not that good player. So, if we have to miss the best team, I won't be heartbroken. We will probably play them in the playoffs anyway.
Despite our personnel hit, we are off to a very good start. We're 3-0 and the games have been really fun. Everybody is getting more playing time, and kids are stepping up and making the most of it. Lil' S2 didn't play much defense in past games, because he plays quarterback, sometimes the entire game, so it's hard to justify also playing him a lot on defense over other kids who don't see the field as much. But at most we have two subs each game this year, so Lil' S2 gets to play a lot more D, and he balled out last game. He had two interceptions, including a game-clincher. (He also threw three or four touchdowns and caught one on offense.)
Part of that was my brilliant coaching, and I'm only being half facetious. Our opponent had this big kid on their team, tall and thick, and although he wasn't very fast, he was killing us early on because our defenders were too small to D him up properly when we were in zone, and he was catching everything on them. So, I made a switch to man-to-man, and put Lil' S2 on him, because he's decent-size (though not as big as the other kid), and he's physical so I knew he wouldn't get outmuscled at the point of the catch.* Sure enough, they try the big kid again, after I make the switch, and Lil' S2 wins the jump ball for the INT, and then he got another one later in the game too.
*You can't make overt contact, in this league, but it's kinda like basketball, where the more aggressive kids get the rebounds because they get to the right spot and box out.
That's the thing. I've had to do more coaching this year, because the players aren't quite as skilled, and one of the players we lost (who is excellent) is the son of my former co-coach, so now it's just me, and my responsibilities have doubled. It's forced me to get more creative, which doesn't always work. (I called a play for a kid who doesn't get the ball much last game, and he was wide open, but not even looking for the ball (doh!), so our QB had to throw it to somebody else.) But it is really satisfying when it does. We have this kid on our team who can't catch very well, but he's pretty fast, so I called a wide receiver reverse for him on first down, hoping we'd get five or six yards and have second and medium, and he took it to the house for a touchdown. It was awesome.
We still do a lot of silly things—like throw an interception in the end zone when all we need to do is burn clock—and if we really need a big play, sometimes I'll tell our quarterback "just throw it to Z" (our best receiver, by far). But that's 11-year-old football. Heck, that's any football. Every week I watch NFL games, and think to myself Why did they do that? There is usually not a satisfying answer. Actually, there is: football is played by humans, and humans make mistakes. With the AI takeover seemingly imminent, this is something to celebrate, not lament, in my opinion.
Until next time...
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