Travel Day!

Today was a travel day, hence the late post.

Got up at 6 (!) and didn’t go back to sleep. Why? Because I had to be out of the house around 8:15 in order to get to EC’s to pick her up for our trip. But that gave me lots of time to chill out and do some Duolingo before hitting the road. I am in another weekly quest with another person who is not doing Duolingo currently. Maybe they did in the past. Maybe they will in the future. But right now, I get to do the whole quest on my own. Luckily it isn’t anything too crazy and I will finish it. Still, it is irksome to be matched with these people. I am stopping following them so hopefully I won’t get stuck with them in the future.

I got out when I wanted to and got EC and we headed to the ROC airport. Dropped her off and parked in the garage. I have no idea how expensive that is going to be, but I really couldn’t care much less. This trip is about convenience, not about parsimony.

We went to the check in counter and were basically waived away and told that a wheel chair plus attendant would come get us. Paul arrived and whisked us through the TSA check point. EC got inspected a bit and I got patted down. No idea why. But since we hadn’t had to to wait in line, that little delay wasn’t bothersome. On the way to the gate, I sprung for some water and a brownie. Any guesses how much that cost? $13!! Insane.

We were, obviously, very early. But I always prefer to be early than on time. And late. Since I was traveling with someone who needed extra time to get down the jetway, we boarded the plane first. So our bags made it into the overhead easily. Quick flight with nothing too exciting to report. At O’Hare, we were greeted by a young women from a country I had never really registered before (Kyrgyzstan). Her English was great. She also spoke her native language and some Russian and seemed a little surprised that I spoke some Russian. I really need to get back to that. There were three other passengers on the little electric cart she maneuvered through the crazy airport that is O’Hare. I am very glad that we had her. It was a long, long way from our gate to the next gate. Even I would have been exhausted by the time we had reached it. Sadly, we were at the end of a section and there was no food easily available. EC had bought some food and I had the brownie and some snacks I had brought. And the outrageous water. so we survived.

On the next flight, we boarded on time. If I had brought my new suitcase, it probably would have had to have been checked on the jetway because the overhead bins were teeny! My backpack barely fit. EC’s bag was also small enough. Phew! We had to sit at the gate for a longish while while maintenance did its thing. Eventually, into the air we went. The flight was uneventful. Enough turbulence that we didn’t get a drink service, but that’s ok. I napped for most of the flight.

Cool Sculpture in the new Kansas City Airport

Our next wheelchair pusher was from Ethiopia. What an international day! And our Uber driver, who was laquacious and knowledgable was from Pakistan, though he had been away from there almost fifty years, whisked us from the airport to our destination. Taking a detour through Kansas City Kansas as a bridge was backed up and would have added 20 minutes to the ride.

At the C’s building, we had a lovely pasta dinner and great chat. But now I am a bit tired. Though I think a walk would be a good thing after all that sitting around. Tomorrow, off to visit 5 (!) places that CC has organized for us to check out. It will be a long and interesting day I think.

Augustus for President: CC (not the same CC but his wife) asked me about my campaign. I think I gave good responses. It is hard to tell. The more I talk about it the better I feel about what I am saying. Oh, and I gave the cart driver a couple of stickers, even though she isn’t a citizen yet.

Fun Filled Friday

My mind is a mysterious thing. Most people’s are, I think. Anyway, I was driving back from the Syracuse airport and plugged my phone into the charging cable and nothing happened. I tried every trick I knew and nothing. I was despairing because I had a long drive ahead of me and wanted to listen to my book, through my iPhone. But I was reluctant to do this because I didn’t want to run out of charge for my phone. Then a little electric light bulb went off in my brain. I could just take the phone out of its case (there is a large magnet on the back that interferes) and then use the magsafe charging that exists in the car. Woo hoo! And since I wasn’t dashing, I didn’t need to constantly look at my phone, so the phone was comfortable down there. Problem resolved happily!

Yes, I had a drive to Syracuse to start my morning. Then I headed to the outlet malls to see if the Samsonite Luggage outlet still existed. It didn’t. Sigh. Onwards, to Rochester for my car appointment. I got there an hour early and the tech staff were all at lunch. Off to find food. My first thought was to find a McDonald’s up in Rochester to see if they were better stocked on Grinch socks than Geneva. They weren’t. My fall back lunch option was a kebob place down the road from the Tesla service center. I had eaten there once before and enjoyed it, so why not? Way too much food for one meal, but that’s ok by me as you well know.

The service was done really quickly. And painlessly. So far, so good. The horn seems to work. And I hope it will keep working when its been sitting in the cold for a long while. Hope springs eternal.

After the Tesla experience, where I gave out more campaign stickers, I headed to the Eastview Mall to charge and to see if they had a suitcase that I liked. On the drive, I checked and it turned out that I didn’t need to charge after all. I could stop at Eastview and get home with a decent amount of charge left. So no supercharging for me! Woo hoo.

The store I was heading to was Macy’s. I had done a search for best carry ons and one was mentioned and happened to be sold at Macy’s. In the store, a nice man helped me look at bags. I ended up getting one that was different from the one I had gone to the store to purchase. Same price. Just a little more interesting looking than the one I was going to get. I keep looking at it and thinking that it is way too large to be allowed to be a carry on. So I am going to go to the airport early on Sunday when I am to pick SM up and make sure that it fits in the carry on sizing thingy. Am I crazy? Yes, yes I am.

Doesn’t it look huge?

Back home, I found I had gotten my clipboard pen leashes. (yay) They came in separate pieces that I have to put together. Also the loops are way too big for normal sized pens. Even the pens that came with the leashes are too small in diameter and I had to stick the pen holding loop up under the clip – they are retractable pens. Sigh. Not thrilled. Life is that way.

I am having pizza from the newest pizza place in town tonight. A woman I know who used to work at Char is working there now. Her name, unfortunately, escapes me. Though she kept calling me by name. I hate it when that happens. I gave her a campaign sticker. And I will be picking up my pizza and wings after I do my Duolingo. I paid enough for three meals at least, in my cheap-ass estimation of how much a meal should cost. I hope it is good pizza. (Good news, bad news – see tomorrow’s post, please)

Augustus for President: I can really talk to anyone anywhere. At anytime. At the Tesla place I talked to at least four people. Gave one of them a couple of campaign stickers. I hadn’t spoken with them in much depth, so I didn’t suggest the NFC card thing. And honestly, I often forget about it. Even though it is in my badge holder.

Being a spreadsheet, math sort of person, I am working on a quick sheet to give me a guesstimate about how much effort I ought to spend on each state. With only 1000 days between Feb 11 2026 and the election in 2028, time is really limited.

Lots of Random Thoughts – You’re Welcome

I am conflicted about wearing my Grinch costume this year. I do have the fun leggings. But I am not working on Halloween. Maybe I will get dressed up if I go to Trivia on Thursday. Probably not. But I do have the leggings for the next time I Grinch it.

While brushing my teeth, I remembered that I once before ran for office. School president in fact, back in High School. If I remember there were three people in the race. The person who won was, for some reason, asked not to return to school. The second person, wasn’t a person, and it wasn’t me. It was my stuffed bear, named Burnt Bear (he had been set on a light bulb as a youngster). The third person was then made class president. I don’t really know if Burnt Bear got any votes. I didn’t really care. I just thought it was funny…

Do Hoodies mess up anyone else’s long hair? One of my hoodies wreaks havoc with the back of my head. It feels like my hair becomes one huge knot. Not pleasant.

The hunt for the digital (heck, even the VCR version) of my Alice in Wonderland/Tea Party movie goes on. I had a new thought where it might be. And maybe I will look there a bit this weekend. It occurred to me that it might have been put with all of the pictures that I have collected (so far) and placed in the front hall closet. It is moving pictures, so it could make sense that it is with the still pictures…

My only dash of the day was not great. Not enough money for the miles traveled. Which, sadly, seems to be frequently the case. Grr and poo. And today, over in Waterloo and Seneca Falls, it seemed like something was up with the internet/phone/cell service. That is incredibly frustrating imho. I quit for the day soon after I discovered that issue. Normally I would do a second dash starting around 3 but today I have an aiprort pickup to do. Yay?

The new restaurant downtown seems to be a sandwich shop of some sort. It looks interesting. Maybe I can convince SM to go there with me for dinner sometime. They apparently have a method of filling beer glasses from the bottom, up. Which seems unnecessarily complicated to me. But if it makes them happy…

One of my pet peeves with a lot of procedurals is the cops or whoever going into a house they have never been in before and say “clear” when they obviously haven’t actually cleared the space. No looking under beds, in closets, etc. Grrr.

Today I learned about a Dubai bar. Wow, they sure are expensive. Anyone know anything about them? Tried one? They have some at Captain’s Cafe. $16 for one, $30 for two!! Eeeek! It’s chocolate for goodness sakes!

Two witches?

I did the airport run. Nice person. I was a little surprised though that she didn’t ask me a single question during the entire one hour ride. Not one. I am always a little surprised that someone is so incurious. Oh well. It was still a nice enough trip. I asked her a lot of questions…

Then I stopped at the grocery store to get some items for dinner tonight and possibly later in the week. I had forgotten that it was Trick or Treat time at Wegman’s. There weren’t as many little kids there as I thought there would be.

Home now. I am having one of my empanadas for dinner. With a salad.

Augustus for President: Chatted with more people and had more thoughts. I asked my niece if she would like to help me with my document but she hasn’t responded. I will give it a day or two. I am thinking I will go to the bank on Friday and see if I can convince them to open a bank account for me under the correct name and tax payer number even though I haven’t received a response from the IRS. If Elijah can’t do it, I am going to kick it up the food chain. If they refuse, I might have to go to another bank and see if they can do it for me. I am really tired of waiting to have a bank account for the campaign.

Lots of Driving

Today was a driving day. Poor car was driven all over hell and gone.

It started with a dash shift. Luckily, it wasn’t a dash shift filled with long distance dashes. My first five or so dashes were all from McDonalds! That was weird. But that kind of thing seems to happen often enough. I’ve had it happen with McDonalds, Water Street, Dunkin, CF Luffy, Man Yuan, Main Moon…A lot of Hand it to Me’s today, too. One person gave me a post delivery tip of $10 which helped my $$ total a lot! I always worry that perhaps they meant to only give me $1. Oh well. It’s mine now! Hahahahahaha

At home for my lunch break, which seemed to pass more quickly than some, I decided I would have the rest of the McDonald’s food for lunch. Another Quarter Pounder and a batch of fries. These fries I decided to bake rather than deep fry and I think they were actually better that way. They are way too thin to be refried.

Then, off to Auburn to pick TC up. I got to listen to my book on the way there. TC was ready and we were soon off to the ROC airport. He’s a funny guy. He says, let’s converse and then doesn’t say a word. So, I talk. And ask him questions when one occurs to me. He had the same response to me running for President (Augustus for President – 2028) as most everyone so far. He laughed. I pointed out that Drumpf had been elected and I was better suited to the job than he was in just about every way. Aren’t I? The drive was easy, despite a good sized thunderstorm that soaked the car as we left Auburn.

At the airport, I parked in hourly parking and we headed in. The flight had been delayed about an hour which was frustrating. But we got him checked in. And after “talking” for about half an hour, I sent him through security. I hope he makes it safely to his sister’s! I pick him up on the 14th!

Flers

On the way back home, I listened to more of the book. It is getting towards the end. I guess I will just have to buy the next one as well…

Now that I am home, it is too late to dash. I am a little surprised that the car made it through that whole trip without having to stop at a supercharger. Yes, I did arrive at home with only 8% of the charge left. But that was plenty for the nothing I have to do tonight!

No big plans for the evening. More Ted Lasso and more DCC probably. And dinner. More chicken and broccoli and salad. So exciting.

Tomorrow is another day. Since I am not doing any dashing, I can work on my To Do list. I might have found someone to help me out around the house. See, it doesn’t hurt to ask. And I have to go to the library and run a few other errands. I think I will go on a $2 hunt as well. Why not? I get to go to dinner with SM later in the day. She suggested the BBQ place down the lake. It was funny. She made out like she was telling me about it. And maybe in her head she was. I had suggested it to her months ago, and suggested that she take Randy there since he liked BBQ. Which she did. And she is willing to go again. Yippee! I am looking forward to trying it out!

Tomorrow I am also going to reach out to the two people I know who have done a campaign recently and see if they have any helpful things to tell me. And I think I am going to do some research so I can move forward on one of the many fronts I have to move forward on. Yes, I am being nebulous, but will explain more as time goes by. Happy My Friday!

Full Frontal!

Full Frontal!

I almost didn’t wake up in time to make my Airport run in a timely fashion. And, when I went out tot he car, I discovered that I had neglected to plug the car in over night. Sigh. I know why, but that still sucks. I didn’t plug it in because AD said he would need a ride around 4 in the afternoon. So I didn’t plug in, figuring that I would be heading out soonish (it being around 3:45 pm when I got back home). But that call never happened. Later I found out the LD had done the rides for him. But I didn’t even think about plugging the car in. Though I ought to have.

But, the supercharger in Victor was the answer to my little problem. I left a few minutes before I thought I needed to so that I could make a charging stop there. Which I did. I think I charged for fifteen or twenty minutes. I like the new feature that lets you set how much charge you would like to have when you arrive somewhere. That would have been great when I drove to KSRs a couple years ago. But it is a useful feature going forward when supercharging.

I got to the airport as one of the flights arrived. I eventually picked JB up and drove us back to the cell phone lot. Where we waited maybe 10 minutes for the other person to arrive and make their way outside. Woo hoo! Everything worked out well, imho.

The ride back was pleasant as we all chatted about this and that – two interesting people (and me) in the car is always more fun.

After I got home, I plugged in and ate some lunch. It was my sort of Mediterranean lunch. I even got some vegetables ingested! Go me, being all healthy and stuff…

Since I somehow forgot to make my bed last night, I did it today. Sometimes I wonder about myself.

Then I did an afternoon and evening dash. Which turned out to be a decent one for a change. Mainly do to a well compensated mid distance ride! True, the place I picked up from, Chester’s Chicken, was not the zippiest. The poor worker kept complaining that she was there all alone. Though why that mattered since there weren’t a lot of customers queuing for her attention, I will never know.

Door Dash has added a new perk which might be a good thing. For each month that one maintains platinum status – going forward – not retroactively unfortunately, one gets a one week voucher to use to keep one’s platinum status. I think that means that I can add a week to my travel plans, starting at the end of July. It is irksome that it isn’t retroactive since I have been a platinum dasher for probably almost two years continually. Whatever. Life (capitalism) is that way.

Now I am home and about to eat some dinner. The light lunch does mean that I am hungry around my usual (7pmish) dinner time. So excited! Left overs from lunch on Sunday. I am going to adulterate the burger I got. I had ordered a patty melt, but it seemed like there was too little of everything except burger meat. Too little cheese, too few onions, not enough mayonnaise. Grrr. I still sort of like Curley’s but my favorite restaurant in Auburn so far is still At Long Last.

Tiny Centerpiece!

What a cute tiny Centerpiece!

Happy Sunday! I hope that you are having a pleasant one. I am! I got up, did some duolingo (I don’t think I am in danger of dropping out of the diamond league – but I will keep checking until closer to the end of the period) and then went back to sleep. Yay sleep!

Now I have accomplished a couple of little tasks. And am about to play. Then lunch. Then, who knows!

Oh, well, I know. I am supposed to help SM with some computer stuff. Then we are supposed to go out to dinner. I suggested three places that we have been to before. The one place I want to try is still closed on Sundays. Though the bartender mentioned that in the summer they might open up on Sundays as well. We shall of course see.

I asked my boarder when she thought she might be leaving. Well, I actually asked her how long her project was. She said long term. Which wasn’t very helpful. I still think she is working at the construction up on 5&20. Maybe one day I will know for sure…

Back from my errands. I went to Harbor Freight and got the other shape of tread – a square. And it is too big for my stairs. I asked the cashier what I could use to cut it and she was not very helpful. I realized that tin snips would do the trick. Sadly, when I went to look for the tin snips that used to be in the basement, I couldn’t easily put my fingers on them. Grrr. I did find a small pair pruning shears that might do the trick. Teeny little nips. I will measure tomorrow and then snip, snip, snip away.

Getting SM’s computer issues resolved was pretty easy. Next up, sometime, adding an email account to her phone. Unfortunately it isn’t an iPhone, so I will have to figure out how to do it on her phone. I am sure it can be done, but I just don’t know how.

We went to Deluxe Grill for dinner first. Only to discover they had been open for Mother’s Day brunch and were closed for dinner. So we went to Anorah instead.

B doesn’t work there any more. One reason not to go there again. We ordered our meals, pasta for her and a pulled pork sandwich for me. Both were ok, not great. And although I asked for the fries to be extra crispy – they were not. And to top it off, SM thought it was not a good meal for the cost. So, down to the bottom of our dining list it goes! Not a big loss.

And now I am home. I need to finish up the laundry I started but that’s about all I have on the docket for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is the start of another exciting week! And I get to pick JB up at the airport on Monday. Am I the luckiest or what?