End of an Era?

Ok, not really, but when I went into my local branch office, my favorite teller was no longer working there. Oh well. Life is that way sometimes. Luckily, I like all the tellers there! Phew!

Fall St. Brewery

Another early day and long drive for me. I hope to never have to do that again. I really don’t like setting an alarm. And getting up earlier than my body wants to. Luckily (?) my body wanted to wake up around 6 am. Which gave me lots of time to mellowly move into a place of willingness to get up and go about my business. Today’s early business was driving someone to Elmira. Not that far as the crow flies. But a lot of less than 55 miles per hour parts. So what ought to have taken an hour in terms of mileage took me closer to an hour and fifteen minutes. And then back again.

I got back in time to do some dashing. And chose not to. I had my mind set of doing a few errands. Like that bank that I mentioned above. And then the library to pick up two books. Then to the tire store. Where my favorite person there has also moved on. Yay change? I set up an appointment for tomorrow to get my tires rotated and my driver side front tire to be looked at for a possible puncture. I am of course prepared for it to not be fixable. That is my tire luck, generally.

Back at home I ate some lunch – a bagel with cream cheese. And in a bit of meta eating, I also used a little bit of everything bagel hummus for a few bites. Decent lunch!

Then, dashing. Dashing has not been as fiscally rewarding recently as it has been in the past. Part of that is because I am working less. I am quitting earlier and earlier in an attempt to a) have more time for me to putter, and b) to try to avoid the algorithm giving me a long drive for not enough money at the end of my shift – making me still not earn as much as I could be and also make me get home later than I really want to. And it gets dark so early! It didn’t seem to get this dark so early last year. But I am sure it did.

I am home now. Ready to eat more delicious hot dogs and baked bean stuff. And a side salad. Tomorrow, lasagna. And then Wednesday, more dog. Thursday will be turkey day! I am toying with the idea of doing something different with the turkey than just roasting it. Not deep frying, because other people will be eating it. We shall see how I feel come Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

Augustus for President: Thanks to advice from PvK, I bought a bunch of good, inexpensive pens. Woo hoo! But Staples didn’t have a clipboard/container thingy that appealed. Which sends me back to Amazon. I am not a fan of Amazon. Yet, I do have to spend my money carefully.

I found a place that lets people use a Tesla for a month at a time. I wrote them and they said they couldn’t guarantee FSD unless I gave them dates. And they didn’t, again, answer all of my questions. Poo on them. So I gave them dates. Will I get a response? Anything is possible.

It occurred to me that adding a little note to the questionnaire asking people if they want to help with the campaign would be a good idea. So I added it. Finding a box to use for a check box was more difficult that I had thought it would be. I realized I only have one keyboard layout here on my computer. Maybe one day, Apple will make the keys on their laptops digital so that when you change keyboards through software, the hardware changes to reflect that change as well.

I’ve Been Saved!

Lucky Me!

Has everyone but me heard of Puydu Fou? I must go. It is an Amusement Park/Theme Park in Western France. It looks really, really cool to me. I do enjoy Theme Parks/Amusement Parks!

I watched the first season of Untamed. It was barely ok. The writing was bad. The lead actor was kinda wooden. And there were way too many coincidences. I do not recommend it. Except for the beautiful scenery.

Tonight, I am going to watch some of Fisk – an Australian SitCom.

It was a two dash day. The first dash was kinda slow. I wouldn’t have made my basic amount if not for a final, long drive. I swear, door dash often gives me a long last dash when it thinks I will be quitting soon. And it is often just enough that I have a hard time turning it down. Though I did turn down one offer today – $5.50 for 12 miles. Nope. Not going to do that crap.

During my lunch break, I quickly accomplished the few things I had on my reminders list. Though a couple of them I postponed till later in the week. And a few others call for research that I probably won’t do until I am starting to actually have campaign events. More below.

The second dash started off with a bang! Nine bags of stuff from Wegman’s for the Army/National Guard? over in Waterloo! The total they paid me was higher than the amount that they showed in the offer. So I was basically done after that. Though I kept dashing until almost 6 anyway. Then I stopped and went to Wegmans to pick up some stuff for me.

No exciting plans for the evening. I do have a bunch of stuff I would like to do tomorrow. Like pay bills. And do some banking. I’ll probably pay the tax bill. And I don’t know what else. The exciting, to me, day is still Saturday. Shopping in Rochester and then going to a concert with DM at Turning Stone Saturday evening. Hopefully with dinner before hand! If that is the case, I will probably head out around 4:30 pm for a maybe 6 pm dinner?

Augustus for President: As I keep moving forward with tortoise steps, telling more and more people that I am running for President, I am getting more and more excited. I know that me actually winning the presidency at this point seems like the same chances of me winning the lottery – 1 in 285,000,000. But unlike the lottery, I can change that ratio through hard work and communication.

Anyway, I think I will start having small events starting in late October (after I have a visit with my sister and maybe my brother) or early November. Maybe a meeting at the Gelato place. Maybe at Lake Drum. Maybe at the Welcome Center. And then start having events in other cities nearby – like Rochester, Syracuse and Ithaca. And keep having events until it is time for me to leave for my first nationwide presidential campaign tour.

I doubt I will have events on the tour beyond little events on the steps of the various Capital buildings. Unless by that time I have some staff and someone can start scheduling actual events in each of the cities I will be visiting on this tour. Is it February yet?

I have great friends!

DM realized that I was not finding my sewing stuff readily. And that I was not all that interested in going into the attic to look for it, where it probably is. So she gifted me with a couple of sewing kits! How great is that?! Thank you!

I’ll sew on the weekend when my mind can wrap itself around that task!

Happy Monday! I hope everyone survived it. I did. It was a two dash Monday.

My first dash was slightly better than my second dash. A few more rides and a bit more money, which of course means less per ride, but still…And the second dash, the dinner dash, was decent. Nothing too exciting to report. Or nothing to horrendous to complain about. I mean, heck, the weather was great and that just makes dashing all that much nicer!

And it looks like the nice weather is mostly going to continue. You’re welcome for the weather report!

During the lunch break, I went through and completed a bunch of reminders. I still have a few lingering ones that I will hopefully get to tonight or tomorrow. The lunch hour evaporated. Mainly because part of it was eaten by travel. I decided to do two banking errands today. One was personal, one was presidential, which I will talk about in the Augustus for President section. I also went To Staples and Wegmans. At Wegmans I got enlgish muffins. Generic, Wegmans ones. I haven’t knowingly had them before, so I am interested to see how they toast up. I am going to use them instead of a bun for my leftover hamburger tonight. I bet pretzel buns are pretty sturdy…I also got some hummus as I ran out at lunch today. Can’t be out of hummus. I might have to make some at home again soon. My was a lot more garlicky.

I really didn’t want to go out on the second shift. I am hoping that I get to do all 8 shifts this week. That would be nifty!

Now, it is time to eat, drink and think deep thoughts. Well, not that deep. On TV I am watching the British Baking show, Professionals version which appeared on Netflix recently.

Augustus for President: I am trying to get my treasurer signed on to the business account. Lots of hoops to jump through. Sigh. I also am going to call the FEC tomorrow and see if I can get my questions answered on the phone. I wonder how long I will have to wait. I’m surprised that Drumpf hasn’t tried to destroy the FEC. Maybe that’s on the agenda, but not until later…

Today, I got some stickers that I plan to put QR codes on, pointing at the Presidential Website. I printed out one and put it on the back of my home made Dot like card. So that if the card doesn’t work with their device, they can scan the QR code instead.

Have I made an appeal to please go to the above website, look for the survey page, (or you can click the link there to the left…) and fill out the two surveys lately? Please? It would make me feel loved.

Ideas Percolating!

Pretty Fler – not sure what kind it is, though. Maybe I will ask my phone…

Got the day off to a good start with a decent dash. Nothing flashy, nothing scintillating. Just decent.

At lunch time, I had all of these big plans. A todo list of reminders a full computer screen in length! And then my calendar app beeped at me reminding me that I needed to take EC to her PT appointment. Sigh. Maybe tomorrow I will get to my long list of todo stuff. Though I did actually find time and energy to do a few of them. Like look for a jalapeño popper recipe. I think I am going to try baking them this time. I do need a few more ingredients, though…

Lunch was leftover pizza and wings. I took the time to thaw the wings and then deep fry them. So much better than the toaster oven thawing and baking method imho.

JC came along for the ride to EC’s physical therapy appointment. But he opted to run my errands with me instead of hanging out with EC while she worked. He had an ulterior motive – to go the bank himself! He had been talking about getting to the bank for a while now and I am glad we could make that happen. Of course, I forgot one of the reasons I went to the bank and will now have to go again sometime. But I did score 10 $2. Woo hoo! None were old and exciting though. Sigh.

While heading back to pick EC up, we stopped and I ran two more errands while JC waited patiently in the car. One was at the Vinyl store where they said that they did do vinyl lettering. I really do wonder how that gets affixed to the car. Hopefully something like rubber cement – nothing that will eat the paint or is too easily removed. Like the adhesive that the car people use on their logos on cars. Hmm, maybe the car place can tell me where to get that sort of lettering done. Lastly, I stopped at my campaign bank where I made a quick deposit. Getting closer to the $5k!

After dropping EC and JC off back at their house, I did a second, abbreviated dash. For a two hour dash I did pretty well, despite a lot of driving. Or maybe because of a lot of driving. Anyway, I did well enough that stopping at my regular time didn’t seem like too big a deal.

And tonight it was cheap chicken night at KFC. So I have some chicken waiting for me in the kitchen which I am now going to go eat!

Augustus for President: As I said, I added some more money to my campaign account. I am still waiting on my treasurer/brother to tell me exactly what I need to do to get the FEC to check out my bank account and give me actual candidate status. He will get that information to me one day, I am sure.

I also had a couple of ideas. One was stimulated by the radio guest I was listening to today. I don’t write a lot of press releases. I am guessing that that is something that the LLMs would do pretty well. And I was thinking that for the red states, I might ask an AI to make me seem more palatable to people who might otherwise think I am not their cup of tea. It might work.

The other idea is that I will not accept shouted questions. It is rude. If someone wants to ask me a question, they can raise their hands and I will call on them. Is that a bad thing? I would like to try to get back to a civil and respectful place in political discourse and the relationship between journalists (hahahaha) and the people they are interested in talking with.

Axe Thrower Supreme!

Or maybe Axe Thrower hit the target a few times and it stuck. Interesting day. Let’s start at the beginning.

I woke up and headed off to take EC to her PT appointment. Easy peasy! While she was there, I went to the bank and then headed home so I could take a library book to the HWS library for her. It had come all the way from Dartmouth! Yay Inter Library Loan!!

Back at their homestead, I had a good talk with a person who has been really stepping up to help JC and EC out! I am relieved that they have such good people in their lives.

Dinner was planned to be pizza and wings, so I headed to Wegman’s to make that a reality. There I saw an acquaintance who I didn’t have in my phone, so he gave me his phone number. And he also gave me a dolmas to try. Not really sure what the difference between Dolmas and Dolmadas are. Ah, Dolmas are Turkish, Dolmades are the Greek version. Yummy whatever they are called. Oh, poo, I just realized that I forgot something on my shopping list. Why? Because I didn’t look at the list. It’s ok, I will pick it up another time. It is a dip I wanted to try. But I bought a lot of other crap food, so not having the dip isn’t a bad thing. I bought sweet potato chips. Dolmas. The pizza and some frozen chicken wings. And a box of novelty ice cream. So excited! I just wish I were hungry…I also bought a package of sushi because I wanted to. I haven’t had sushi in a while and it just appealed.

After lunch, it was off to Syracuse to meet up with a friend I hadn’t seen in 4 or 5 years. First stop, axe throwing. I had thrown my hand axe a few times over the years but didn’t really get any good at it. And I didn’t get much better over the course of half an hour at the axe throwing place. Neither of us were spectacular. It was an interesting place – they also had smashing rooms and paint splattering rooms. But it was not very well attended while we were there.

After a bit of that, we wandered around the little strip mall we were in. It is the same mall that has the Russian/Polish/Ukrainian (etc.) food stuffs place. I could drop a bundle there. If I didn’t already have way too much food in the house. Last stop in that mall was a huge thrift store that did not have a Brita pitcher in the style I am hoping to find. Poo.

My friend suggested we check out the Irish Fest that was being held a little way down the road. Not very well attended when we went. Actually, not a lot of anything. They had a couple of food trucks. And a beer place. A few vendors. Underwhelming imho. But I am glad we went. After we had done a circuit or two, we decided sitting and chatting would be a good thing.

We found a place called Cake Bar that was a patisserie and cafe combined. The desserts all looked great! We ended up sharing the rasperry/lemon tart pictured below. I think I have watched too many episodes of the British Bake-off as I was fairly critical of the dessert. The only thing that wasn’t good, was that the tart shell was way too hard! We could have used a knife to cut it! Still, it was tasty overall.

Tasty Treat!

After our cafe experience, we headed our separate ways. I hope that it isn’t 4 years before we hang out again! Anything is possible.

Now I am home, I have done Duolingo and dinner is cooking.

Augustus for President: My poor friend had to listen to me drone on and on about my political and presidential thoughts. It was very generous of her!

Got a bump on the head

When I woke up this morning it was raining pretty heavily. So I went back to sleep and stayed in bed. No actual bump was required to convince me that bed was where I wanted to be.

Roses are cool

After eventually waking up, I diligently played Hogwarts Legacy for a couple of hours. And I multi-tasked. I also worked on the defensive driving course. Man oh man is that thing tedious!!

It seemed endless!! I take lesson after lesson and they just keep coming. I thought I was further along when I started today, but I think I was still somehow only at 40%. It is really, really dumb as well. Not for some people. Some people ought to take the course every week until it sinks into their heads. For me, I learned from really good teachers – my mom was a good driver, MF was a good driver, my brother’s both were good drivers. So I had a lot of good examples. And I have taken driver safety in other situations. Not sure why. Anyway, it is dull and filled with information that any half competent driver ought to know and do. I will admit, that as a dasher, I have cut some corners here and there, but I always put safety first. Or a close fifth…

Next up, after playing and “studying” was lunch. Since I have so much of it, I have decided that I will have more of the quiche tart for lunches. And I think the Chinese food from the other night will go in that rotation as well. I think I have about three more lunches worth of quiche/tart. And one or two days of Chinese food.

I had a small list of things that I wanted to accomplish today and I think I accomplished them all. How cool is that. Out and about, I only had two – go to the bank for 2s (they didn’t have any) and to the library to pick up my latest hold – Dungeon Crawler Carl! So excited. This was a book I have had on hold for months!! I just have to finish the second in the Mistborn series first…only 378 pages to go! Eeek!

Back home, I made the calls I needed to make. I discovered that JC was in fact already on autopay for his trash removal. Yay. And I think I found a solution to JC’s trouble in logging onto his email from his laptop. I went to the HWS library and asked the IT people and they suggested loading the Outlook app onto his computer. Brilliant! I also called EC’s sister and closed that loop.

And, I continued to slog through the GD driving course. Sigh. Almost done. The end is in sight. I will finish today for sure!! Done! And of course, they can’t email the certificate. They have to snail mail it. Grrr. That’s another week or so I will have to wait. So dumb…

Tonight I am making tacos for dinner! It has been a while and I am looking forward to making and eating them! So excited!!