how cool is this?

yesterday afternoon i was walking back to my car, in the rain, with my arms full of groceries, and i reached down to open the door when i realized that the keys were in my pocket. yet, when i touched the handle the lock sprung up and the door opened. whaaa?

after unloading the groceries i sat in the parking lot for twenty minutes trying to decipher heinz-harald's (dutch) instruction manual before realizing that i had ordered the "convenient access package". and the "convenient access package" is very cool. especially for a gear-head like myself. the car maker has embedded an rfid chip in the key fob, and if someone touches the door handle when the key fob is within 1m of the car it unlocks. there's also a small ridged area on top of the door handle which, when you rest your finger on it for more than two seconds, tells the car that you are leaving and it locks the doors. pretty snazzy.

so i left the keys in my pocket and pushed the starter button just to see what would happen. sure enough, heinz-harald started up. i marvelled at this technology the whole way home narrowly missing two bicyclists, a rabbit (they are *everywhere*), and a traffic island. after unloading the car i dutifully placed my finger on the ridged area of the door handle and... nothing happened. i tried again. still nothing. stoopid german automobiles. here i have a brand new car and it's already broken and now i have to put the groceries down in the wet street and pull my keys out of my hey. where are my keys? nope, not there. nor there. and they're not in my computer bag... i walked around to the driver's side, opened the door and peered in. sure enough, the keys had fallen out of my pocket and were sitting on the floor. so the locking mechanism won't work if it senses that the rfid chip is still in the car. that's even cooler! i put the keys back into my pocket, closed the door, placed my finger on the ridge and zhup! the door locked.

feeling on top of the world (yes, sadly it doesn't take much these days) i walked home.

this morning i climber in the car, still gleeful over this unexpected technological treasure, and started the car up. i was just about to pull out when i saw the white slip of paper on the windshield. in my excitement it seems that i forgot to put my parking permit on the dashboard yesterday afternoon. crap. €51. crap.

still, totally worth it.