Is it February Yet?

I am so over dashing. And I think I will stop as soon as I take the winter/spring trip next year. I don’t think I will dash in all of the capitals. Then again, anything is possible. I guess it depends on how fund raising is going.

I got up and got out at a reasonable time this morning. My first two orders were Lowes orders. And they weren’t terrible. Not great, but not terrible. The whole order pickup thing has changed, though. Before, we asked at the service counter and the person there had to do the heavy lifting – typing in long numbers, finding the right stuff and bringing it to the driver who would then take it to their vehicle. Now, the driver has to either enter the order number, or if the item(s) are small enough, they will be in a locker. The locker number is provided by door dash. Type in the six digit number and a locker (somewhere – that needs to be fixed I think) pops open. The driver (me in this case) grabs the stuff and goes! Woo hoo! No human interaction ought to be necessary. Go modernization. Does this count as AI? I don’t think so, but some people might.

Anyway, my first two Lowes orders were a toilet auger and a cement brick. Very exciting stuff. Not too heavy and awkward. Long drives, as usual. Glerg.

One of the minor annoyances of dashing is that often times the customer doesn’t pick up their phone when I call to ask them for substitutions or for directions. Or to let them know that I am standing where they said to stand and am waiting to give them their food and get their GD PIN number from them. Sigh.

This just tickled me!

The whole dash was ok, actually. And I let myself stop at a little after 1. Came home, had my next to last slice of pizza and started working on all the things I had put in my reminders during dashing. Maybe 15 items. But wait, is that my phone ringing? It was. Someone who I have given rides to in the past needed to get to a doctor’s appointment. What with one thing and another, that basically ate most of an hour and a half even though the ride was local. Sigh. But I eventually got to clean out most of the reminders for today. I still have a few but I will look at those after dinner.

Leftovers for dinner. I want to finish up at least two of the three sets of leftovers. I might just go for all three. Yes, I will be too full, but life is that way sometimes. What I have to do…

Augustus for President: I wonder if the virtual executive assistant can actually mail things. Or would they just create the files and then give them to me to print out and mail. I am thinking the latter. Which is still better than nothing. I also need to ask the sales rep if I don’t use all 10 hours in a month, does it roll over?

While dashing, I saw a couple I know at one of the restaurants. They asked how the campaign was going after I joked that their five dollar tip on the table was for me. One said it was a donation to my campaign. Hahahaha. Anyway, I gave them stickers and mentioned that I was working on slogans. The other one suggested that we get together and have a slogan brainstorming session. Maybe after they come back from Florida in January!

I am starting to think about places to stay while I am on the capital trip. I think I can convince my nephew to put me up in DC. And I might be able to find someone in Raleigh. And Topeka is near enough to Kansas City that I think I have a place there. So that’s three out of 51. Maybe LdF can find me a place to stay in Hawaii. And maybe I have a place in Arizona. Every place I can stay is a good thing. Maybe Columbus OH too. That could be seven…

Cold Friday

It has been a cold day outside I guess. Too cold for Amazon to deliver a package that was promised to me by last Wednesday. Now it isn’t supposed to be delivered until December. Grrr.

It has been a pleasant day. I slept in. Read some. Did some work on Filemaker and entered my great grandfather’s books into the new database. Turns out it has a cool feature that will make adding authors etc. to the database. That’s cool. I have also done some fun reading. And got a good step on the next phase of planning for the State Capital tour that starts in February. See below.

I’ve been using versions of Filemaker since the 1980s. Recently I got a relatively new version of the app shared with me. Yay! I went to the Claris page to see what an updated version would cost. They have two models. A subscrition model or a purchase model. I don’t want to pay a subscription. I hate subscriptions. I already have way too many subscriptions in my life. So I looked at the one time fee. $625 for a single user license. That is fucking insane. And no upgrade path. No lower price for someone who already has a version of the software. What the actual fuck is that about? Just because I love filemaker, doesn’t mean that I love Claris, the company that makes it. Screw them. The frustrating thing is that now I am less eager to put things in Filemaker because my app could suddenly stop working when the OS is upgraded on my computer. Grrr.

That being said, I still think I will move my inventory to a database I create in Filemaker. Did I say “grrr” already? (Got a bit down this road today)

Another little grrr. I forgot to take pictures of the people I spent Thanksgiving with. How crazy and silly is that? I took a picture of my food and not the people. I am lame. Lame beyond compare!

It is a day off for much of the country. So they can all go out and spend money. Crank the economic wheels. There is a supposedly a Black Friday buying Boycott thingie going on though I haven’t really seen much about it. I rarely buy stuff on Black Friday anyway, as it seems to me that most “deals” are just inflated prices being reduced to regular prices with the words “Black Friday Deal” slapped on them.

Duolingo is done. The blog is done. Time to eat. I am having leftovers, but I am not exactly sure what. It’s ok. My leftovers whatever they are will be a step above fodder. Not a huge step but…

Brodie the amazing escape Dachshund!

Augustus for President: I am starting to flesh out my thoughts and itinerary for my first cross country trip. It looks like it is going to be close to 14k miles driving. Eeek! I know that my charging bill is going to be huge unless I can find locations that have complimentary charging. Even if it is slow. Better than paying all that for Supercharger kilo-wattage. And asking AI to do the math for me, it looks like the cost to charge will be about the same as the charge for gas. Unless I can find some stopping places that have destination chargers. Next step is figuring out flights and timings.

This is such a fun process. I am so sad that I can’t find someone who wants to do it with me. But there’s still time for someone to decide that a trip to all 50 states might be a great experience. Then again, they would have to travel with me and I know I am not the easiest pserson to travel with.

Anyway, my thoughts are as follows. First, try not to drive more than 500 miles in a day. If the ride is going to be longer than that, find a place to overnight about half way. Second, try to be at the capital building each day around 4 pm. Stay there for an hour. Then go to someplace to eat, drink and be chatty until around 9. Then to the sleeping location by 10. On the road the next day around 8 am if possible – keeping in mind the second step. Rinse and Repeat. This will make my Press releases easier to produce if I have times set out. I don’t have places to eat and chat at figured out yet. I am leaning towards pubs because people are more chatty in places like that sometimes. Maybe I can even contact a place ahead of time and arrange something. Who knows. Just random thoughts…

Do I know anyone who is good at writing press releases?