don't be a moron like me. took me a few days to realize my mistake.
i was attaching the ground to the long "rod" on the door ("no" in the pic). once i did it to the bolt ("yes" in the pic) the hood popped.
my car hasn't moved in a month and the battery died, enough so that it wouldn't pop the hood. just a little "hic" noise and the dash lights would fade.
purchased a maintainer. have an emergency jump start battery but i couldn't get the hood to open. thought maybe the battery on the jump start was dead. plugged it in over night and still wouldn't open. was going to take the battery from the escape and use some jumper cables, but tried the emergency jump start again. then i realized maybe the rod wasn't metallic. decided to clamp onto the bolt and presto *POP*.
maintainer's on now. thought i'd post and save some aggravation for anyone else who might do the same.
