A long overdue life update

I haven't been on Priuschat in ages; I think I last posted in 2016.
However, I *still* have that green(ish) 2004 of song and story and
webpages, still going strong with its original pack that only got
its straps reworked but still has all the original modules. With
a little better insight into pack health with a newer OBD2 widget,
I see that block 13 is worth keeping an eye on as most likely to start
going weak on me -- which is odd since it's on one end, rather than
the middle where most other battery problems seem to begin.

The only outstanding issues are noncritical; the rocker panels are
starting to rust through and will need some patch-up soon, and I
frankly don't know what's holding the rear muffler in place anymore.
New England road-salt, y'know -- the same thing that's ultimately
killed all of my previous cars, too. It's not consuming oil, which
is probably due to the very gentle life the engine has had -- now
at 284K and hopefully heading for "odometer limbo land".

Anyway, in the process of my holiday travels down south this year, I
stopped in at Tampa Hybrids and had a pleasant bit of geeking with
Todd and his crew. It's always awesome to see a yard full of Priuses
in various states of intact-ness. While they do rebuild and sell a
few complete cars, they mostly use the boneyard for pulling parts
and often send the remaining hulks off to Steve at Autobeyours as
he's more into the bodywork end of things. They spend a good amount
of time on repair and maintenance for a customer base as well. It's
totally like "Luscious East" in a way.

In the meantime, I've also picked up a Hyundai Kona EV, which has
already gone through a handful of hacks beginning about five minutes
out from the dealership, and has its own web-tree by now. The rise
of EVs is very interesting to watch and now be part of, but the
infrastructure for rapid-charging that is *not* Tesla still has a long
way to go before it's really ready to support roadtrips. So I take the
Prius for the long haul. Maybe next year I'd be willing to charger-hop
that trip, especially if the networks rectify their unfair billing
practices, but it'll still take about 4/3 longer in time and cost.

It was nice to find a couple of familiar names over on the "insideevs"
forum, which among several seems to have the best technical content and
I've already dropped my share of rants there. I'm not the only Prius owner
that became intrigued by the Kona or the other Hyundai/Kia offerings.
I'll admit to a bit of anti-Tesla bias just from a market and business-
practice standpoint, even if they're technically on top of their game.
I'll sit there and happily watch Youtubes from Tesla owners and Rich
Benoit because it's all good learning material.

Nice to see the community here still so vibrant! That's always been
one of the best perks of Prius ownership. Oh, if anyone happens to
know how to contact "USBSeawolf" out of band, could you plz poke him
that I PMed him a question? I have no other means of contact. tnx..

_H*