No Apples for Me!

Today I did not pick apples. My friend SM asked me to help her get a few more apples off of her apple trees, the apples that were too high up for her. I was going to go help, but ended up not making it out of the house.

First, there was the whole, it’s Saturday, let’s get up late thing. That turned into – let’s read out fun book. And that led to lunch. Yay lunch!

I had leftovers from last night for lunch. I don’t know what sauce CL Luffy use in Gyu Don, maybe just teriyaki or a variant, but I find it delicious. I still have enough of that dish to have if for lunch tomorrow as well.

After lunch, three of the four helpers showed up. The guy who had been so enthusiastic was a no show. I will give him another opportunity next week but this is not looking good.

The women did a great job on the back stairs. They are almost done. They want to do another coat on the steps and maybe another coat on the railings. All of this means that I will have to get off my mental butt and start cataloguing the books that will live again on those shelves. And because I am slightly insane (in a good way), all I can think about is getting a few of the containers of crap from the tool bench and environs and bring them up into the living room and start putting like with like. I am so weird.

The ladies left at around 4:30. I had lost and then found my new fancy bookmark. And that meant (while it was lost) that I ought to keep reading.

Tonight I think I will do my accounts. After I do my evening Duolingo.

I am making pizza and wings again tonight. The pizza didn’t get a crispy crust last time. Maybe what I will try is after a good bit of cooking time, taking the pizza out and move it around the pizza stone a bit and see if that helps the crust to crisp up. The debate, as usual, is whether or not a salad will be part of the dinner equation.

Augustus for President: Well, that’s incredibly frustrating. It seems that some people’s answers/responses aren’t being captured by google Forms for whatever reason. PvK said she had answered some of the surveys. And one of my helpers said she had as well. But neither person’s answers showed up. So I wonder how many people have filled out the surveys and not had their responses show up. It is very strange. Grrr. So, I will either have to go premium with some survey app, which is expensive in every app I have seen. Or use Survey Planet maybe which looks mostly free. I don’t know. It is irking me though. In other words, don’t try to fill out surveys until I get this figured out.

My friend EL helped me get Powerpoint and Filemaker. I am excited to work/play with both!

Well, I was having problems with my html table that I am working on for the campaign website. And my friendly tech support guy there fixed the issue quickly. Some script problem on his end. Woo hoo!

Absurd Number of Visitors

I have no idea why so many people visited this blog site the other day. About 400 views on a large number of pages. I wonder if it was some sort of bot doing a download of my blogs. It sure has messed up my stats, though. Luckily, the large spike will move off in a week and I can get back to the two or three views on each blog post that I have come to expect. Woo hoo

Scary!

Today was sort of a two dash day.

First dash was not great. Not many offers, a bit of distance (one offer was crazy long) but a decent amount of money. It could have been better. But I quit when I quit with no regrets. I am really happy that I don’t rely solely on Door Dash and Dashing for income! Phew even.

At home, I got a little bit accomplished. I did some of the reminders, like measuring how tall the doorway on the side porch is. Hmm. Maybe I will split that into two pieces, so that I can do the door and the transom sort of thing separately. I will look into curtains when I got to Walmart (ick) on Friday to buy curtain rods. I guess I could buy two curtain rods. I mean, why not?

I also cleaned up the sink in the kitchen. Tomorrow, glassware. I don’t think that there will be a huge influx of dishes tonight. I took out the wet trash from the kitchen, only to discover that my boarder had tossed a lot of redeemables into the trash. At least 6 of them. That’s $.30. Which, to me in my ingrained depression era (from my mom) brain, is a lot of money to just throw away.

Second dash, well, it started to rain. The dash got off to a slow start with me sitting around and reading for at least twenty minutes. I eventually got a few rides, but then it started to rain. And I just don’t like dashing in the rain. Especially in the dark. So I stopped at around 5 pm and came back home.

Here, I read. I am really enjoying the Rivers of Soho series by Ben Aaronovitch. I read somewhere that the BBC might be making a television series from the books. After the terrible job that Amazon did with the Wheel of Time series with its incredibly loose and horrible adaptation, I am not holding out much hope that this one will be any good. Yes, one bad apple DOES spoil the whole bunch…

I have done my Duolingo and the blog is mostly done. Time to eat dinner. I am having leftover lasagna, with a piece of garlic cheese toast and a salad. So excited…ok, not really. It is more like fodder tonight. Oh, and pool was canceled because the host is sick. Poo.

Augustus for President: I tried the SQL script that I found on YouTube that was supposed to add dates created to my table. It did the ones that existed. But new ones aren’t automatically populated. And when I went to run the script again, it threw out an error. Poo.

I have another survey idea I would like to put up on the campaign website. It is really sad that people aren’t doing the surveys. Oh well. I will survive.

And speaking of surveys, the web company that I have the campaign website with doesn’t have an in app table building function. Or the ability to create columns. Eric to the rescue though and gave me two work arounds. I might get to them tonight. Or over the weekend.

And it is sad that an acquaintance of mine didn’t win their city council race. Grrr. Loser voters.

My Current Obsession

For some reason, I think obsessions are better than addictions. I am currently obsessed with pepitas! EC gave me a few to nibble one day when we stopped at a farm store/stand and I liked them so much, I hunted them down at the grocery store. I think I have mentioned them a few times. Luckily, someone else at Wegman’s likes them so they are usually in stock. I hadn’t tried the maple ones before tonight and they were also very very very good. I will do my best not to eat all of them in one night.

Obsessed

I like to think I am a smart person. One thing that totally eludes me, though, is electricity. I mean, I have a vague idea of what it is. But I have no idea what any of the myriad measurements mean. I picked up a little from working in the theatre with lighting and sound equipment. And a little more from playing with computers and such. But…I need a course, I think. Maybe that would help. Why? Because I want to understand electricity better for solar power for the house, even in a small way. And because I drive an electric car. Knowledge is electricity. Er, power.

It was a two dash day. The first dash was pretty good – not a lot of driving and very good money. Woo hoo. I had tried to do the dash “by time” instead of “by offer” but I was told that it wasn’t available. Maybe Door Dash only allows so many people to dash using “by time.” On the second dash I tried again to dash “by time” and was allowed. I am not sure I liked it. I only had five dashes, but I averaged $11 a dash. But those dashes took me almost three hours. And a lot of miles. I will go back to by offer tomorrow morning I think.

At the lunch break, I got a bunch accomplished. Nothing too earth shattering but lots more little steps. Always a good thing. I think I will try, a third time, to take the Driver Education class. Sigh. Really not looking forward to it. The last one was throbbingly boring.

I still have some pot stickers in the freezer in the top of the refrigerator. I might get something else frozen, like egg rolls or something, and then I can make an easy Chinese dinner. Put some rice in the rice cooker, heat the other things up and voila! I decided that a jar of pasta sauce was past its prime. Admittedly it was a huge jar of sauce. I might try vodka sauce again if I can find a smaller container of it.

That being said, I thawed some meatballs from the deep freeze, so I will have some alfredo sauce on some pasta with a couple of meatballs and some garlic cheese toast for dinner tonight. I was toying with the idea of frozen veggies too, but I think I will stick with a salad.

Augustus for President: I ran into a fellow dasher who I haven’t seen for a while. Turns out he gave up dashing and is doing Uber passenger driving instead. I keep toying with the idea, but I just don’t really want to have to keep my car that clean. Anyway…I gave him a sticker and used my NFC card to get him to the website. He suggested we have coffee sometime. He is really smart and it would be good to have him to chat with.

When I have my first event, which hopefully will be this month, I will post it on the website and on Facebook and anywhere else I can think of. Press release? Maybe.

Another dasher got an earful from me. He thought the NFC card was cool. And I gave him a couple of stickers. We shall see if anything comes of that.

And at Wegman’s, I gave out a few more stickers.

I thought people liked to take surveys. Why are so few people taking mine? And for those of you who have, yay and thank you!! 💕 For those of you that haven’t, what is stopping you? I really could use the feedback. And each survey takes a very brief amount of time. And taking all the surveys, well, that might take you ten or even fifteen minutes!! Eeek!

Survey Time!

Stickers for Everyone!

Ok, the stickers aren’t for everyone. They are only for people who want them. They came in the mail today, a day before Vista Print promised them. Woo hoo! Since I had some down time, I cut them all off their rolls. Most are in a plastic bag. Some are in my name badge so I can grab them easily. I gave out a few today. Not many. If anyone wants some – either for themselves or to give to others (though they haven’t probably met me…), please let me know. They are smaller than I thought they would be. A little larger than the round “I Voted” stickers one can get when one votes.

Stickers galore

I got up this morning in time to get out and do some dashing before running EC and JC around. But I didn’t dash. I decided to just stay in bed and do Duolingo. My quest partner had done a large amount of the work and I wanted to finish it. And get farther up the Diamond Tournament ladder. I think I did a lot of lessons today. At least ten. Maybe more. I did at least one lesson in each of the 7 things that I am currently practicing in Duolingo. Four languages. Music, Chess and Math. Go me.

I went and picked up JC and EC and we headed to the first appointment. It was a follow up visit with their PA. All things looked good. Unfortunately, no one brought up driving. JC forbid us from asking. And PA Fix didn’t say anything about it. Personally, I think JC shouldn’t be driving, and he knows I think that. His eyes are bad. His reaction time is slow. He has some memory issues. And he gets tired. Not a great set of things to have when maneuvering a 2 ton vehicle around. Whatever. I have offered my services if he decides that driving is too much for him. Though honestly, he isn’t the best judge of that. As many people in the same situation feel, he wants to maintain his independence as defined by driving his own vehicle. Sigh. I just hope that everything goes ok.

Next stop the dentist’s office for EC. JC and I chatted a good bit. Mostly about education. I think a good use of taxpayer dollars and education dollars in general is to hire as many retired people as possible – for as little as possible for their help in classrooms from k-8. After that, high school should have much shorter classes. And lots of big group projects. I mean big – like 40 people big. Projects that can also be broken down into smaller groups. Like building floats. Or creating a play or musical or movie or TV show. Anything that takes a lot of people to do. Get them and their hormones focused on group activities.

We had made a quick stop at Grounded for a drink before heading to the dentist’s office. Later we had lunch at Sweet Acres Creamery. I was a bit shocked that they had no vegetarian options. Well, mac and cheese. And a salad. But out of 30 some menu items, that was it. Both JC and EC chose to have a breakfast sandwich, cheese and egg, without the bacon that normally goes in it. They seemed to enjoy their food. We also shared a plate of french fries. The fries were good, but it seemed like we got the bottom of a bag of fries – lots of teeny bits of fries. Not optimal. All in all, the meal was ok, not great. My cheese steak sandwich was decent but certainly not excellent.

After all of that, we headed to the ATT store so that we could try and move forward with JC’s new to him iPhone. Turns out that there is no standard methodology to creating passwords at the ATT store for people when they need a password and can’t come up with one. That’s the first thing I would do if I were the manager there. Eventually the guy got the ability to change passwords on the phone and we did. Yay. Next step, getting the phone more accessible for JC. And, hopefully, set up the GD home pod. Grrr.

I headed off and made a quick stop at home to drop off food. Then I dashed for a couple of hours. Not an excellent dash, but also not terrible. How about, better than nothing.

Home now, and I am ready for nap. But instead I will eat something and then probably go to sleep really early tonight. Tomorrow I think I will have a two dash day! Woo hoo!

Augustus for President: I got the stickers and cut them up. And handed out a few.

I also realized that I will, at some point, need to read some good point/counterpoint arguments for a lot of issues – abortion, gun rights and Israel are the big three I think. Any others that I am missing? Health care. Education. I think I can really only have ten issues total that I can “focus” on during the campaign. Thoughts are welcome. And there are two more surveys up if anyone would be so kind as to do them. Thank you to those of you who have done any of the surveys!

Surveys!

They Are Already Here…

The robots are coming!

Today at Tim Horton’s a woman thought I was my brother, K. Which isn’t surprising, we do look a bit alike. Despite us having different color and different amounts of hair. She said she would look for me on Facebook. Do people actually do what they say? I think it is, sadly, infrequent. I try to always do what I say. I don’t make a promise unless I am pretty darn sure I can keep it!

It was a two dash day – but it got off to an odd start.

It was ticket day. I was almost the last person called. I have no idea why. When I was called, the DA originally didn’t want to give me a reduced ticket. Maybe the judge, who looked really familiar, gave him a high sign or something, I don’t know. He changed his mind. I pled not guilty and have to do a video training online. I hope it isn’t the one I did before. Anyway, the instructions were really unclear. And then we were handed a piece of paper that confused me further. As I was leaving, a woman that I had spoken with before asked me for help. I tried, we asked the lawyer in the room and she gave us the information on what to look for online to find the test. Turns out she, the woman who asked for help, was a gastroenterologist from Puerto Rico who had been here ten years. If I figure out what we have to do, I will try to find her and tell her. It is really confusing. I saw a couple of people who looked familiar. Including the guy who runs the Gelato place.

Lake City Hobby closed! That sucks! Not that I shopped there, but I liked knowing that such a cool place was here in Geneva.

Anyway, as I was saying, when I so rudely interupted myself, it was a two dash day. The first dash was kinda slow. And I didn’t get started at a time I normally do, so I was all discombobulated. The second dash began at 3 and I decided to quit early Mainly because I had already made a lot of money – well, a lot of door dashing. At least in my limited experience. Only 6 dashes though. And not that much travel! Woo hoo!

Tonight is pool night. I will heat up some leftovers and maybe have a salad and then head off to play an hour or so of pool.

Augustus for President: I broke one of my badge holders. I knew it was coming. I kept getting it caught on my seatbelt. I have added more tape, but put it the car for emergencies. I also changed it a bit – I took away the QR code and added a picture of me. I think if other people chose to wear these badges, they can replace the picture of me with a picture of them – and their name. Anyone game? Anyone? Surveys? Surveys?

Empanadas for Everyone!

I got up and out in a timely fashion on this exciting Two Dash Tuesday!

The first dash was sort of lumpy. No really good rides and no really terrible rides. Although I might not have done very well fiscally today in my first dash I did get a free empanada from Phoenix flavors!

It was pretty yummy!

The person who gave me the empanada asked me if I wanted Chicken or Beef. I said chicken. But I think I ended up with beef anyway. It didn’t really matter to me, it was tasty in any case. I added the celery and the pepper strips to dip in some hummus I am trying to eat up!

My lunch break passed without much hoopla. Though I did have to run the iPhone that DW bought for JC in order to get the home pod he gave them to be able to be set up. I suggested to someone that they use that as a phone for JC as well, but I don’t think anyone heard. And then today, DW called and asked me how to make the phone into a real phone. I didn’t know since I have never moved from an android phone to an iPhone before. Oh, and it turns out that the phone that EC and I spent half an hour looking for yesterday is in KC with CC. Sigh. Anyway, I zipped the phone over to DW so that he could see if he could get it set up. I suggested he go to Verizon (if that is their carrier) and ask them there. I am sure they do that sort of thing all the time. I also suggested that he either call them or look it up on the internet to see what sort of information they might need in order to make the transition easy – since JC himself wasn’t about to head to the place to help out with the transfer. I will need the phone back if I am to set up the Home Pod. But now that DW has the phone, I may just leave it to him. He seems to have a lot more time and energy to devote to JC and EC than I do. Good for him! I hope he makes everything happen that is supposed to happen. In a timely fashion.

My second dash shift was pretty good. I even quit half an hour early. Not because I was rich at that point, but because I wanted to get food from Man Yuan and do my Duolingo and my blog relatively early. One funny thing on this dash, I ended up handing an order to the customer through her first floor window! Fun!

Duolingo stuck me with someone in a friends challenge who seems to have given up on her Duolingo. Great. Luckily it isn’t a tough challenge. I ought to be able to do the whole thing by myself. But that will teach me to not pick someone to do a challenge with. And I guess that means that no one chose me to be their challenge partner. I am not devastated by that. I am still hating the energy thing.

Ok, blog post done! (Except for the Presidential Stuff)

Augustus for President: A dasher told me his wife wanted a picture of me because I am running for president. I told him, anytime. I also used my self made dot card to get him my website. It would be nifty if they both actually did the two surveys.

Speaking of surveys (do them, do them now!) I think my next survey will include asking about what sort of format people would like to have when meeting a presidential candidate. I don’t know if that is enough for a whole survey, so I might conflate it with “What are the qualities that an American Citizen should have?” Or something like that. I am trying to get at the idea that a citizen and a patriot have certain qualities – ones that I am not sure everyone has maybe. I don’t know. Still working on it.

Still no letter from the IRS and with the shutdown, I guess it will be even longer before I get it. Sigh.

Maybe tonight or tomorrow, I will go through September and move all of the Augustus for President bits into my document that will help form the backbone of my book on The Cost of Becoming President.

Purple People Eater

Or in the case of the United states, we have an Orange People Eater in the Presidency. I hope that all the currently sitting republican congressman get what they deserve for allowing this shit show to continue. And the same goes for the members of SCOTUS who are enabling his administration to do such heinous crap! Fuck them all. imho of course.

Looks cute

Someone had the idea of letting kids do soap art on a lot of the windows in downtown Geneva. I don’t know if the kids were paid for their efforts or what. But they are everywhere. Most with a halloween sort of vibe. Does the Purple People Eater count as a Halloween monster?

I got up this morning and drove SM to the airport. Easy drive. Smooth, no traffic, good conversation. Woohoo!

From there I headed all the way across Rochester to House of Guitars. I have always had a soft spot for the place. And it hadn’t changed. I was looking for PA equipment and got Kurt to help me. Most of what I wanted they didn’t have in stock, but were happy to order it for me. I haven’t decided if I want to go down that road or not. I might just order it all from Amazon. My computer is closer to me than Rochester is. We shall see.

On my way home, I got a message from DM saying that she wasn’t going to be able to make it to TS in time for dinner before the show. Which worked out for me as EC called me later in the day and asked if I could give her a ride home. If DM and I were going to have dinner at the casino, I would have left here at around 4 or 4:30 so I could scope out the restaurants and make a choice and a reservation – if necessary. And that would have meant that I wouldn’t have been able to take EC home.

At home, I haven’t done a lot. My reminders had a few things for me to do. And I did those. Like figuring out if I can add different scents to the bottles for the diffuser in the car. And it looks like I can. I have three scents that I have had for a long while – Peppermint, Sandalwood and one other that escapes me just now. I will look in my room and see what it is. I know it isn’t Frankincense or Myrrh. Oh, wait, I remember, Eucalyptus. So, maybe after I finish the current one, Ocean, I will use one of those before going to another of the not so great ones that came in the kit.

One of the helpers came today. It was a lovely day, so I thought he would like to work outside. Nope, he wanted to work on the back stairs. Whatever. It all needs to get done eventually. And if that makes him happy, more power to him!

I think that tomorrow, I will take myself out to dinner and maybe go to The Cracker Factory and play some pool. We shall see.

Augustus for President: I did some shopping at the House of Guitars as mentioned above. And I put some more thoughts into one of my ASS for President thought documents. I started a second such document while DM works on the first. One of the thoughts was: I want to live in a country where charitable giving isn’t necessary. I also thought of another possible slogan – Get on the A (is for Augustus and America) Train! Hmm. I don’t know if that is gonna work. Thoughts are always welcome. And hey, please take the surveys.

Foggy and good day

Until I had a trunk that opened with a click and closed with a button push (or a click) I didn’t know how much I loved that feature! Yes, I have used it on other people’s vehicles, but it isn’t the same thing as when it is on my own vehicle! Yay technology!

One of the McDonald’s managers here in Geneva was excited to see me today. She told me she had something to give me. She rushed away and came back with…a dasher bag. Apparently Door Dash had given this McDonald’s a few dasher bags that they could give out to Dashers that they think highly of. How sweet! Now, if only she can stop calling me August instead of Augustus… Still, it was a very nice gesture.

Foggy Morning View of the Lake!

My first dash went from lackluster to very good in a flash. My last offer was a huge one. And the dash before that almost doubled in amount I was being paid from when I picked up the order to after I had delivered it. I think door dash has stopped adding a plus sign after dashes that the orderer has already added a larger than double the mileage tip to. (No, they haven’t – I guess I just didn’t notice them…) Which is fine with me. Up until those two dashes, I was thinking I would have trouble making the minimum that I like to make during a shift. Phew! It might be a good dashing week!

My second dash was decent. I quit a little early as I had made my minimum and had an errand to run.

EC’s family got her a medic alert device. And it was a good one! I had brought it home to set it up – as my experience with them in the past had led me to believe that they can be complicated to get ready. This one wasn’t. It didn’t have to connect to a phone line. Or to the internet. Or anything. My guess is that it is a teeny phone-like device. A teeny phone that only dials one number – the emergency response monitoring center. It is, pretty much, idiot proof. So it took me only a few minutes to get it set up. I left it to charge when I went out for my second dash.

After I finished dashing, I picked up the device and passed the whole thing to DW – who doesn’t like to read instructions. Sigh. I hope he gets it figured out. It really isn’t that complicated.

I am home now. Duolingo is done for the day – my quest partner seems to be pulling his weight, which is good. We have to do a combined 75 lessons! The blog post is almost done. Then it will be dinner time! I will be having the last of my chicken riggies. So excited! Tomorrow night will be the rest of my ribs and mac and cheese. And then on Friday, I will be making little pizzas and some chicken wings! Drooling.

The weekend’s activities are unclear at this point. After I take SM to the Rochester Airport in the morning, I may do some shopping up there. Maybe go to guitar Center and House of Guitars and look at sound equipment. If either place has used equipment that I can get for a discount, I may buy some – I need a mixing board, four wireless mics, a powered speaker and maybe some cables and a couple of DI boxes.

When I get home on Saturday, it looks like both of my helpers might be available. That would be nifty.

There was a tentative plan put out there to attend a concert by Steve Winwood (Low Spark of High Heeled Boys) at Turning Stone, but I don’t know if that is happening. If it isn’t, maybe I will make chocolate lava cakes. Yes, food makes me happy.

Augustus for President: As I mentioned above, I am thinking about AV equipment for the first year of touring. And yes, I do love my tech and gadgets!

Oh, and I guess I am thinking that I will start events here in Geneva to see what happens. Gotta start somewhere. After I have all the baking stuff up and working. So I can accept donations!

I think I am going to write another survey about what it means to be an American and what it means to be a Patriot. And what it means to be an American Patriot. I will post here when it is up and available as I am sure you are all eager to answer more surveys. Hahahahaha.

I looked it up and I guess yard signs might be a good idea. Personally, I think they are wasteful. But if I can get them sourced through an American Company, the expense might be worth it.

Please take the surveys! (No matter your nationality)

Take Surveys

When in Doubt

When in doubt, a nice picture of the sky doesn’t go amiss. Imho. So, there we are!

Fluffy!

Today was a two dash day. I woke up at a reasonable time and got out at a reasonable time. The first dash was decent overall, despite the huge distances traveled. My last offer of the day was half an hour in each direction. Sigh.

The second dash was a little less in distance. I got an added on $5 tip for no reason that I could figure out. And again, my last offer took me way, way down East Lake Road. Even further than the C’s house.

The long distances did allow me to do a lot of listening to This Inevitable Ruin. I just looked online and saw that the next book isn’t supposed to be released until 2026. June 1. I hope that happens. I guess I can listen to the books at least once(or three times) more before then. I am leaning towards buying the Audible versions of The Wheel of Time books. I guess I could digitize what I have – though that would take time and is not guaranteed to work. My Beethoven Symphonies CDs didn’t do well when being digitized. Hmm. We shall see.

During the lunch break I did absolutely nothing. I mean, nada. I mostly just napped. Not that I really was that tired, but I just didn’t have the desire to accomplish anything.

Augustus for President: If I get enough donations, I might hire a comedian or two to come up with topical jokes. Though I do think I am often funny off the cuff. We shall see. I also will look forward to having staff to do research. Like looking into the subsidies that Oil and Gas companies are getting. I wonder if the military industrial complex is subsidized. Or the insurance companies that are destroying the health care system in this country. So irksome. So much to try and fix after Drumpf is done.

I think that the QR code I generated the other day will expire. What the hell is that about? It is a static thing. Why is there a charge for creating them? I clicked on a few other QR generator websites and they all seem to want to charge. I really don’t need QR codes that badly.

Please take the surveys!

Take the Surveys!!