Google I hate you...

GOOGLE,

Thank you for changing everything about Blogger. Thank you for changing the login and the interface that I am now using. I have to say that I HATE YOU GOOGLE.
You are arrogant in your actions, arrogant with your customers, and especially arrogant and stupid with your customer feedback. This is clear if anyone goes to the Google 'help' or ever asks you a question, we can see the thousands of people that hate what you are doing and are asking you to change. You ignore them, you ignore the feedback from the people that are trying to use your products.

GOOGLE, everything that you have done does not add to the experience of using Blogger, it detracts from it.

I would like to update my Blog today and that is all. I WOULD NOT like to learn how to use a new interface to update my blog. With the old interface I could write about what I was doing in a few minutes. Today I have to learn a bunch of new things to write my Blog. New things that will do the same thing that the old ones did without any improvement. I'll spend my time today catering to your idiotic and arrogant new ideas rather than writing about what I was doing. I have decided that I will not do that.

I am done with GOOGLE.

I am through with your stupidity, your arrogant attitude and your so called 'improvements'. I will never use a Google product again.

This is my last post. Goodbye.

Otto Belden

USS Iowa in Richmond CA

A few of weeks ago I visited the USS Iowa anchored in Richmond CA. The USS Iowa is a battleship that not only served in several wars but also has a unique history. Currently out of service the ship is being renovated to be a history museum and ultimately will be anchored in Southern California. My family and I decided that while the ship was in Richmond we should take the opportunity to go see her. Below are a few photos that I took while we were on board. Unfortunately only the bow of the ship was open to the public but just having the opportunity to go on board was outstanding!

  

Update On What I have Been Up To

It must be obvious by now that I have not been updating my Blog for a couple of weeks (maybe more?!). In the past I have been pretty regular with my posts publishing about one a week. Recently that steady stream has stopped because I have not had any spare time to mess around since Christmas. I have been busy with other things and have not had the time to do any projects or experiment in the garage :-(
   
I do have some projects that I was working on and I have received some emails asking me to add more detail and explain some of the things that I have done. I'm going to answer those emails with new Blog posts and finish the projects that are in the works - stay tuned!! I'll have some new info soon!
Check back and you will be surprised... :-)

Thanks for reading my Blog and continuing to read it!

 - Otto Belden

Toyota Highlander Door Panel Lights

I was driving the other night down a dark road and I tried to adjust the mirrors of my Toyota Highlander. I couldn't see the mirror adjust switch, I know more or less where it was but it was so dark I couldn't find the switch. A similar experience happened to me after I got in my car in a parking lot and wanted to lock the doors, I couldn't see the door lock rocker switch and although I knew where it was and I pressed it I wasn't sure if I had locked or unlocked the doors. The Toyota Highlander switches aren't lighted! Today I fixed that by adding a couple of small lights to illuminate the dash area to the left of the Toyota steering column and the drivers side door panel. This little project was a pretty straight forward thing to do and it turned out pretty nice. I only wish that Toyota had added lights to these switches on the base model so I didn't have to do this.

   

The first thing that I did was lift up the switch panel in the drivers door using a guitar pick to pry up the panel. A guitar pick (or a the corner of a credit card) works nicely to lift up car trim because it won't mark of mess up the plastic panels. The switch panel lifts up and unsnaps from the rear.

    

2009 Toyota Highlander Drivers Switch Panel

Once I had the switch panel lifted up I removed it and released the harness from a plastic retainer inside the door. Releasing the harness didn't disconnect it from the switch panel, it just freed up some slack in the wired so I could pull the panel out. The switch panel has a bunch of wires of various gauges going into it and I probed around with my meter to find a couple that had power when the engine was running.