Respect. Born and raised in a neighborhood full of ex-cons and Type-A athletes, I struggle at times on what's the right mixture of sweetness for her. My wife says our daughter has a loving softness to her. Eve as they reluctantly undo her hug of their necks. She accepts and befriends everyone: whites, blacks, the popular, misfits, bullies, the bullied, tall, short, girls, boys, the geeks, the meek. That's Azalea, like her namesake plant that flowers in dry soil, looking to spread happiness in the most infertile places. This is why what she does later is so horrifying. It's Sunday. I'm reading the newspaper in my reclining love seat while she plays on the living room floor. I relive childhood through my two kids every day. The warm fuzzies get me as I listen to her talk for her dolls and act like the grown-up to them as she plays parent, teacher, or cashier. Like a spy I covertly peel back the newspaper, turning my head so that my eye is the first thing to ease into view.
Her dolls sit in rows in a make-believe classroom with invisible desks and a wood-panel chalkboard which is our living room wall. Barbie teaches class. Soon, Azalea rolls her toy Volkswagen Bus to the school and instructs the dolls on where to sit. She probably doesn't realize she's letting the cuter ones on first. My cartoonist side notices this right away, how characters are made cuter by giving them a very small nose (or none at all) like the Bratz doll in the front seat and Hello Kitty peeking through the side window. Her favorite doll, a teddy bear, towers over everyone--even the bus. I return to the Real Estate section. I hear grunting like a kid pushing a tight Tinkertoy in place. I smile at her budding determination and relax to a travel article photo. Azalea's grunting morphs into growling. Suddenly, I hear her banging on the floor with such ferocity that I can feel the vibrations through the love seat.
I check on her. She's vividly unhappy, body slamming her favorite teddy bear! I dash to her. Without warning, she lunges for the bear. She grunts and stuffs him in with the classic tongue-out-to-the-side earnest you see in staged pictures of hard-working kids but rarely see in real life. He's in thigh-high and seems set on going no further. She pries the bear out and marches him to the kitchen trash can. I run to beat her there. I figure out an angle for the AIR Equation. She nods and wipes a tear from her red face. I point at the ceiling. The red drains from her face as if her opening smiling mouth is a release valve. She pulls the bear into her bosom, giving him her patented hug around the neck. I read the magazine section now. Azalea drives her dolls around the house. Her teddy bear sits like a guru on the roof. She asks him how to get somewhere because she's never been down this road before, and he instructs her.
If the driver does not take a break within the next 15 minutes, the warning is repeated once. The rationale here: 25 percent of all motorway accidents can be attributed to over-tiredness of drivers - especially on long and monotonous stretches. Fatigue detection counteracts this situation. Right at the beginning of each car trip, the system analyses the driver's characteristic steering behaviour. Underway, the Fatigue Detection system then continually evaluates signals such as steering angle, use of pedals and transverse acceleration. If monitored parameters indicate a deviation from the steering behaviour recorded at the beginning of the trip, then visual and acoustic warnings are produced. Independent of this monitoring, whenever the system is activated it recommends a driving break to the driver after four hours of continuous driving. This assistance system does not output warnings in acute cases of microsleep; instead, the Fatigue Detection system focuses on detecting early phases of lapses in concentration.
As mentioned, the two top equipment lines are equipped with this system as a standard feature. Also new aboard the Volkswagen Tiguan is the masked continuous main beam headlight system known as Dynamic Light Assist. Dynamic Light Assist makes manual switching between dipped and main beam headlights a thing of the past. At speeds of over 65 km/h the main beam is automatically activated, and it remains permanently active. For Tiguan models with conventional halogen headlights, a simpler variant of automatic main beam control is available: Light Assist. In contrast to first generation systems, which exclusively supported parking parallel to the carriageway, the latest parking assistant also offers assisted perpendicular parking - i.e. at right angles to the driving lane. The system is activated at speeds up to 40 km/h by pressing a button on the centre console. The driver indicates the side of the carriageway for parking by activating the indicator for that side.
