Safety feature

    This is minor beyond belief, but then it appeared that my very experienced mechanic didn't know about it, so it may be of interest to somebody. Lately when it's cold, my brake warning light comes on. As it goes off again once the car warms up, I'm pretty sure I'm in no danger. The brakes seem to work as well as ever, and there's nothing spooky like the pedal going all the way to the floorboard. But what I notice is that any time the brake warning light comes on, the cruise control no longer works. The first time it happened, I thought the cruise control had gone on the fritz. However, when I added brake fluid and the light ceased coming on, the cruise control miraculously started working again. And that's when I figured it out. I think it's a pretty cool safety feature, but a little underpublicized. I don't think there's anything about it in the manual, for instance.
    I've got a touch of a cold and am hoping that zinc lozenges actually help at least a bit. I think I understand the genesis of the phrase "caught a cold." After all, when your lungs are congested, they aren't going to be able to put as much oxygen in your blood. Without as much oxygen in your blood, you're not going to be as warm, especially around the extremities. (Wait, we burn oxygen? I better go look this up.) So when you catch a cold, you do catch... cold. Of course, I've probably come to this conclusion every time I caught cold. Either that, or I'm just rationalizing why I'm such a reptile. Either works.