The Algorithm Hates Me (again)

It was actually quite a strange day. Not even considering everything.

First off, I woke up and got out of bed. Ok, that’s not so weird. But I made it out at a relatively early time. Despite Door Dash trying to convince me to dash earlier. Pushy. And the rewards aren’t worth it. Generally. But today, when I started dashing, there was a premium on each dash. Yay! And it was warm. Which was kinda of weird. But nice. I think we hit a high of 40°F as I mentioned was prognosticated yesterday. I was percolating along, minding my own dashing business and the phone rang.

JC wanted help with buying a printer. I happened to have just finished a long, semi lucrative dash which got me to a decent stopping point, so I agreed to meet him at Staples. The nice kid there had advised JC on a good printer, reasonable cost, etc. I convinced him to get a black and white printer with a toner cartridge that is basically powder and stays good forever. A much better choice for someone who only uses their printer sporadically. We agreed I would go and set it up tomorrow. Yippee!

Next up, lunch. I had a chicken drumstick and some other stuff. Mostly I read. I might have done some Duolingo and taken a shower. Anything is possible.

After lunch, I headed off into the wilds again, dashing my brains out against the crazy Geneva (and Waterloo and Syracuse) streets. Because the weather had turned cold. Below freezing. And all the ice that hadn’t quite melted, turned back into even more slippery ice. Joy and Ruptures. Made dashing really scary. But again, there was a premium. Everything was going along ok, when suddenly it became a “give Augustus the longest dashes” day. Not my favorite. I ended up in the middle of nowhere and struggled back to McDonald’s in Waterloo and civilization.

I did a few dashes there, contemplating heading back to Geneva after each – but got caught, of course, by a ride out to the farthest reaches of Seneca Falls. Complete opposite direction from my place of choice. Sigh. After that, I asked the car to find me a way home and it took me on a lot of backroads to get me to Geneva.

And, just as I was again debating whether or not to quit, I was made an offer that was difficult to refuse. Yes, the distance was a little long, and the time would be close, but the money was interesting. So, I picked up two orders at the delicious Char Burrito and took one down the street. And the other to Phelps. Sigh. The algorithm hates me.

I made it to trivia with minutes to spare. Only to be told that the host had been in a car accident and that therefore Trivia would be delayed. Just joking. It was cancelled. Life is that way sometimes. We did do some hanging out and some trivia through the Chive trivia network. All in all a pleasant evening. We are planning to try trivializing again next week.

Does this Remind you of anything?

Lots to do tomorrow. Things I have to do. Things I want to do. Things I am going to do. Damn, I like me.

How Did it Become Sunday?

Back to the grind tomorrow, sort of, I guess. Since it will be a weird holiday week. I don’t really know what my dashing schedule will be like. I am planning regular dashes on Monday. Maybe just one dash on Tuesday. No dash Wednesday. Two dashes Thursday. One dash Friday. Who knows.

The drive home was long but not terrible. It was misty and damp for a lot of the trip, despite the weather reports suggesting it was only going to be cloudy. My windshield got really dirty a lot. Maybe I need to invest in better windshield wipers. During the drive I was sent to two new-to-me superchargers. One had the weird pizza place. And the other wasn’t really near anything but a Starbucks and a Subway. Though I might have been to that one once before actually. Hard to remember. Not that all supercharger locations look alike, but…I also had more phone calls on this drive than I have in a long time. J called me twice. SM called me twice. And I had a lovely long chat with BS about family history. I need to dig up some stuff for her in fact. I hope it comes to hand easily. I could have done with one less hour of travel to be honest. But I made it back safely and soundly, which is the most important thing.

I looked online and it seems that there are some cleaning services in Rochester that might come help out here. I will call them on Monday, if I get the deposit and signed lease back before then. Heck, I might get them in anyway. It doesn’t hurt to have a clean house. Except for when something is too shiny and it blinds you as you enter the kitchen and you stub your toe, fall over and impale yourself on a chopstick…

I posted the post last night without proofreading, so I am going to update it now. Only one minor change. Yay!

I have discovered that I am not a huge fan of cashews. Not sure why that is as I am, in general, a fan of nuts.

Are these cute or what?

They were called “money bags” at the Thai place last night. I need to look into them more and see what they are all about. They were pretty tasty as well! Found a few recipes that I will have to peruse later.

Back home after dinner with SM, R, JC and EC at Anorah. Good food, good conversation. A nice way to end the year (sort of, I guess…) It wasn’t very crowded for their last day being open for two weeks. More hamburgers were ingested by some, I had wings and fries and a salad. And I ate about half of all of that. Maybe less. What’s the opposite of a tape worm? I might have that. Still, I thought it was yummy overall. And we had a nice server who boxed our food for us.

I have laundry to fold. And that’s about all I have in the way of tasks I think. I could pay bills, except I haven’t seen my energy bill yet. I can’t imagine it is huge. The weather has been pretty mild. And during part of the cold snap, I was away, so the heating was not extravagant one would imagine. I guess I will see tomorrow when my mail is delivered. I am surprised that I didn’t have it delivered yesterday. I am not sure what I was thinking.

Good Dashing Despite Dampness

I am in awe of ad writers and copy editors. I can come up with something halfway clever once in a while. They need to do it all the time every day! Amazing.

Today was, as often is the case recently, a two dashing session day.

I was just observing to myself yesterday that I hadn’t had a shift of lots of long drives for not quite enough money. I was happy about that. I thought perhaps it was because a new to dashing dasher I met was taking trips based on time and distance. But today, I managed to get a few of those long rides. And declined one. (I hate declining rides…) Despite those rides, the shift was quite good fiscally. Woo hoo!

I think I have featured this cute critter before

The second shift was a few fewer miles driven, but even better fiscally. The algorithm sent me to Waterloo and then all over over there. My nav system in my car was giving me bad directions. One time is sent me to the totally wrong street. And on the same trip, it wanted me to go someplace that wouldn’t have allowed me to get to my customer. But I managed all the deliveries and ended up ending my dash over there.

Weird. Another dasher told me that he routinely makes $150 for a shift from 4pm until 9pm on Friday and Saturday nights. More power to him. I don’t like dashing when it is dark. And the weekends aren’t times I like to dash either. Too many crazies out there. Me included.

I had to parallel park a couple of times today. I seem to remember learning how to do that when I was getting driving lessons from MF, a student and friend of my mother’s and mine. Back just before taking my driving test (which I passed the first time) in 1977 or thereabouts. I need to remember to tell her. I don’t think she reads this blog…

The espionage novel I am reading is starting really slowly…

Only one more full day of dashing to go. How exciting is that?

I will pay bills tomorrow. Not the tax bill, but I will get that organized. Unless I can pay by check. Paying by credit card would be neat.

Speaking of which, Chase actually is asking me to apply for a card. I need to look at the offer. If it is for a miles card, I might consider it. The book on travel that I started working through (but have stalled on since I can’t get my mind past the few travel things I already have planned) says that Chase points are the best points to have. Right now I have a small bunch of Citi points. Not sure how useful they are…

I finished the duck tonight. That is a sad. I also made up another batch of the dumpling dipping sauce. I think it needs more soy and vinegar. Tomorrow night I think I will have breakfast for dinner. It isn’t that hard to prepare. And I do enjoy it! Friday, I have my social engagement so will probably eat something related to that. Saturday, I might do more BBQ park. I still have a lots of BBQ sauce left over from when I last made BBQ pork. Sunday. No clue. Too far away to think about at this point.

And there we have it. What “it” is, I have no idea. Happy Wednesday!