New Neato acting dumbo, Elio shwag, ATM guy

So I placed my Elio reservation way back in the beginning of November.  I never saw the reservation hit my credit card and the Elio shwag that was supposed to accompany my reservation was a no-show as well.  When I went on their website I saw my order was there but it showed a processing status ever since I placed it.  It appeared like it was “stuck”.

So last week I sent a message to Elio via their FB page, explaining I placed the reservation quite awhile ago but haven’t see the t-shirt or bumper sticker.  They responded back that everything was good to go.  Well evidently my contact got the wheels rolling (no pun intended) as my Elio shwag arrived yesterday.

Included was a letter welcoming me to the future Elio owners club, a bumper sticker and a cool shirt playing off the 3 wheel stance of the vehicle.

To date Elio has about 5500 reservations for the vehicle (people that actually laid out cash), not a bad number for something brand new that isn’t slated to even begin production until December of 2014.  Of course I realize there is a very good chance that the Elio never makes it off the ground.  At least I can sell the shirt on Ebay for big bucks if it dies on the vine.

Yesterday my new Neato arrived, it’s the XV Signature model, Costco had a real nice Black Friday deal on it. You may ask why I would need a second Neato?  Well the answer is I don’t.  I plan to give my original Neato to Cindy so she can have her place robo-cleaned as well.

When I first unboxed the new Neato and docked it to the charger I thought I immediately had a problem.  It kept flashing up a 0002 battery error and was restarting.  I was preparing myself for the hassle of calling tech support when I looked  more closely at the directions.

Evidently they added a secondary on/off switch to the new Neato models that is hidden in the dust bin compartment.  After flipping it to the ON position the new bot started charging normally.

This morning I turned it loose on a test run of the house.  As soon as it took off I noticed the brush motor sounded a bit odd, like it was working harder than normal. I wrote it off as just being brand new.  Well when the Neato stopped several minutes later with a “my brush is stuck” message on the screen I didn’t write it off.

I popped the brush out and confirmed there was no debris impeding it’s rotation.  I did notice though that the bearing on the one side of the brush was warm and not spinning freely as it should.  Great.  I let it cool down and flipped the brush around so the questionable bearing was on the non-drive belt side of the robot.  When I popped the brush back in and spun it the resistance felt ok.  When I fired the robot back up the brush motor also sounded ok, not labored as it had before.

Of course I will be monitoring the robot closely.  The good news is if there is a problem, Neato has been good about getting it addressed quickly with minimal hassle.

I forgot to relay another odd incident from my weekend with Randall.  When we were on the way to Snowfest I needed to stop at the ATM.  My intention was to utilize the drive up ATM but when I saw the line was 4 vehicles long I decided I would just park and use the old fashioned walk up model which had one guy waiting in line to use it.

Well as soon as I walked up I smacked into an aura of impatience and frustration from the guy that was waiting.  He followed up with a sigh, a mumble, a head shake and a glance at his watch.  I immediately ascertained he had been waiting awhile.

People that take forever at an ATM have always been a pet peeve of mine, in the same club with people that place massive orders in the Dunkin Donuts drive thru lane.  If you have a complicated/lengthy banking transaction or you simply don’t know how to work an ATM, do your transaction inside.

Well despite my normal dislike of ATM idiots, I was not all that bothered by this guy.  I was more entertained by the guy that was waiting as he was getting more agitated by the second as we watched the ATM guy try to do a transaction again and again and again. Finally after about 5 minutes (who knows how long he was already waiting), the guy waiting blurted out “this is ridiculous” and took off, making me numero uno in line.

So even though I no longer had the agitated in line guy to entertain me, my observation of the dummy at the ATM continued to entertain me.  He was acting like he was confused and frustrated, at one point burying his face in his forearm.  Eventually I said to him, “Are you having a problem? Do you want help?”  The guy, who looked like he was in his late 20’s to mid 30’s turned around and said with a strange, unidentified accent, “no bro, it’s ok it’s ok” as he flashed a thumbs up sign.  He obviously had distress on his face.  Wow, this is weird.

I had been probably waiting at least 10 minutes when the guy finally finished and again flashed me the thumbs up and said “ok bro, thanks bro” as he walked towards a huge jacked up pick up truck with another guy in it.  ATM guy hands truck guy a wad of money and then gets into his beat up car and drives away.

After I finished my 30 second transaction the truck driver steps out, a tall, fat, bald with gnarly beard man, and heads to the ATM himself.  As I walk back to the SSR I have a pretty strong suspicion that I just witnessed a drug deal go down.