For whatever reason, the Better Trucks shift app doesn't have a decimal point restriction when it comes to calculating your pay. Sure, that gets fixed when the day is done and your pay is finalized, but until then you get things like this:

#work #programmingflaws

Not much to say about #today, relatively slow down, household finance stuff and did some work for fun. Yes, work for fun, picked up in Glen Carbon, did one drop in Edwardsville, three in Marine, and one in Highland, four from WalMart, one from Petsmart. I've already more than made my money for the week, so there was no need to do any more, but... Couldn't resist.

Too many miles for too little money, but like I said, did it for fun. Turns out I've been to both towns, did Amazon deliveries in Marine around 2018, and last time me and @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe drove out to PA to visit my family, we'd stopped in Highland at Huddle House for breakfast. Ain't a Huddle House no more, which is a shame as I like them, but I'm up for trying the new place, Eddies Rise 'n Dine, if'n it's still around next time. Whole thing was just wandering around rural and small town Illinois for a few hours, then coming back 44 miles.

So #today I made the rather bizarre decision to jettison my scheduled package route that would've paid up to $150 for an on demand $50 order.
This was a gamble, I mean I could wind up with $50 and nothing for the return trip, but I got lucky. It started with this one, fifteen gallons of paint down to Crystal City, somewhere me and @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe had been to tour the caves down there, but that's about all we did down there, so I figured this'd be a more fun to do than my usual package route.
After that, we did start heading home, only to score a decent gig in Arnold at WalMart. Cool, but we still have a long drive home, right? Best Buy stepped up with a route ending about two miles past my home.
Yeah, that worked well, a wandering route home that in the end paid $115 for 116 miles. Usually you have enough wasted miles that you don't get anything near $1/mi, but there we go, almost spot on.

Yep, fun work, good money, and there's still plenty of time to do more. Today was a good day.

#work #gig #driving

Ok, I think I'm going to try to post a song cover video each day for the month of March.
Why?
Because I can... though whether I can remember everyday is rather iffy, so feel free to remind me. I'm going to try to come up with interesting ones, so no Hurt by Johnny Cash nor Sound of Silence by Disturbed, I'm some rather obscure ones in my music collection and I'm aware of a few more that I don't have in my collection yet. Oh and the new ones that I have on physical media and haven't ripped yet.

Yep, prepare for a month of #youtube video links.

At least nothing formal, not that I plan on doing anything today, another than recovering from seven days of work and I think around sixty-five hours. Yeah, I might've over done it, both knees, one foot, back, and shoulders all hurt. Still, got a lot of things to catch up here, household finances, cleaning, and might do some online used shopping off Marketplace, if'n I get to it, but going to a store? Nah, not happening, haven't got the energy for that.

Oh, any #android programmers here?

We did say we got it, right?

loops.video/v/6BstSglyI4 sums up things quickly, but a few details as to why the purchase, as I'm anti-consumerist.

Like I said in here, it's an upgrade in all but memory over my previous G Power 2023. I did have to give up half the memory and settle for 128G, but since I was only using 47 and have an SD card option, that's not exactly a big deal. In return, I got a better camera, bar code scanning yesterday was lightning quick, wireless charging which is a nice plus, IP68 and IP69 water resistance, along with Gorilla Glass 5.

As a delivery driver, those last three are very important, the IP ratings are for water, one is for spray, and one is for splash/submersion, apparently you could clean this by throwing it in a dishwasher. And unlike the model one step down that has Gorilla Glass 3 which is scratch resistance, this one is impact resistant, ostensibly to a nearly four foot drop. I also hedged my bets by buying a case for it.. Actually two, there was a delay on the second as the one I ordered was out of stock, instead of clear magnetic, I'll be getting a black one. That kinda sucks as I like showing off the fact that I have a green phone, something interesting considering how many phones come in black. I did get a clear regular case, but I want to try the magnetic one, as it allows the phone to work like an iPhone does, allowing the use of magnetic charging and accessories.

Not much else to say, light on the pre-installed apps, and all but Google and Motorola are unistallable. Yep, don't want FaceBook on the phone, then feel free to delete it, though you are stuck with Google's stuff as that's an Android requirement. As to the Motorola, that's mostly just stuff to customize it, and it works rather nice, I like the experimental monochrome icon theme m'self.

Obviously it doesn't work on everything, but quite a lot work, with the funniest failure being Frayt, which just turns into a dark blue blob.

Overall, I gotta say I'm liking this, we'll see if'n the battery is big enough for work, I do currently have it set to battery saver where it stops at 80%, the camera works much better than the old one. I'll have to find a magnetic charging mount for the car and see how that works. I definitely have to recommend Motorola if you're looking for a phone that works, and is reasonably priced, they're made by Lenovo who makes computers that are reasonably priced and perform well, but won't blow your socks off, and the same holds true for the phones.

#android #cellphone #phone #motorola #Lenovo #review

Right now I track mileage on a spreadsheet, and another page on it works as a checkbook register. This all works well enough, however its all manual, and it seems to me that this could be automated.

I write down the details of each gig trip in a notebook, then type it into the spreadsheet, and then total everything up on the mileage page, and calculate my pay. On the banking page, I record all my receipts, and copy over the info from the bank. Seems like a lot more work than necessary.

Ideally I'd replace the notebook with an app, but everything I've seen is over kill and costs money, basically I just want an on phone version of my notebook that exports to the spreadsheet.

As to the spreadsheet, it just seems that there should be a way to automate much of the processing, but I have no understanding of how spreadsheets work.

Anyone out there what know how to fix this stuff? Maybe write an app for me?

#android #spreadsheet #Data #accounting

Fairly big box with something clunking around in it...

That's an Amazon quality packing job, though the worst has got to be REI.

Salutations all y'all, whatever your are.

Not working today, I'm waiting for the cursed phone to arrive, besides, I needed a break, it's been a week. Monday wasn't bad, chaotic, but nothing bad, Tues was normal.
Then there was Wednesday, where I started work at 0530, picked up 136 packages in my Bolt and spent around 7 hours delivering.
Next morning was supposed to start the same, but got there and wasn't needed. Too late to go back to sleep, so home until standard start time, but at least dispatch did me a favor and gave me my favorite route. And why's that my favorite route? 75 stops plus having to take packages back to the warehouse, and I still only drove 47 miles and got $103. Yeah, that zone is a gold mine and for some reason none of the sorters claim it even though they get first dibs on zones. Ran an errand, grabbed some food, then grabbed a delivery that wound up being unable to be delivered, but at least there I get paid for the return trip, $27 for 14 miles anyone?
So, today is waiting for UPS so I can finally get my cursed phone. You might remember me mentioning that I was supposed to get a new phone last Friday. Yeah, that didn't happen, in fact on Sat it was still showing as not shipped. And then on Sunday the order status link stopped working. Tues I poked the customer service chat bot, as there's no other online service, and it said there was no such order...! And then on Wed I get an email it's on it's way, yay... Shipping delayed due to mechanical issues, and unless I'm blind, none of the emails nor the tracking screen said anything about signature required. Yeah, you know what happened. Ok, so now I'm here waiting for them, and expecting the phone to be defective or destroyed in shipping with the way my luck is going.

So, how's everything going out there for y'all, whatever y'all are?

Not much to say, ordered a Motorola G Power (2025) this afternoon, should have it tomorrow.
I'm already rocking the same phone but the 2023 edition, this one'll have half the memory, but be faster, have wireless charging, and most importantly considering my job, higher water rating (IP 68 & IP 69 IIRC), along with MilSpec for drop. Memory isn't an issue, I'm only using 47G of 256G right now, so being cut down to 128G is no big deal, especially since this still takes SD cards.
Oh, and the battery might be bigger, which would be nice, the apps I gig on are power hungry, I don't come close to making it through an entire shift with the current phone.

Only bad thing is getting it set up, that'll be a hassle as I prefer not to import my apps and such, I prefer a clean manual install, so lots of work getting everything set up on a weekend where I have to do household finances, normal chores and want to do some extra shopping.

Oh, and I have to sell the old phone, I could've gotten $75, but with them selling on eBay for $90 to $125, I figure I should sell it m'self. If'n anyone wants a good phone, give me a holler. Oh, and I have a 2020 edition Razr for sale too, usable, but needs repair, along with a Lenovo 11 inch tablet if'n any of that interests y'all.

#cellphone #motorola

Yep, still trying to find something what runs good on the craptop, and it's not going swimmingly.

I've tried various Linuxes... Linii? to no avail, so I decided to try something new...
FydeOS? Basically a fork of ChromiumOS, yes, Chromium, not Chrome, but basically the same thing. How do you use this thing? I got it up and working, but I can't wrap my brain about the computer is the browser... or is that the browser is the computer?

So, next up, Haiku. Whaz Haiku? An operating system inspired by BeOS from the 90s. Ehhhh, not sold on it, but it has potential so let's install it... Ummm, the installer can't see my HD... well, EMMC, haven't had that happen in a while.

Well Ok then, let's go back to Linux with Rhino Linux, been a bunch of chatter about this one. Launch the live installer, and... the tray is missing. No clock, date, access to the WiFi, etc, but glitches sometimes happen with live environments, so we'll install it and see how it goes, because this is a real nice looking OS... And same problem. Yeah, that's kinda a deal breaker.

Up next, after I finish writing? TinyLinux, we'll see how this goes, can't say my expectations are particularly high at this point though.

#linux #computers #operatingsystem

I've been thinking of going solar in the future, and was thinking why not run as much of the house off DC as possible?

Well, YouTube offered me this video, which basically covers the same thing only targeted for off grid campers.

youtu.be/UAZGX379dmc

Anyone know what it is?

Seriously, the cruelty is the point only works short term, make the rich richer?
These days we don't make things, we consume them, so every person that's deported?
One less sale
Every person arrested?
One less sale
Every person who loses their income to a government shut down, etc?
One less sale

Crashing the economy doesn't make a lot of sense, as the rich need the economy to keep making them richer, so where is this even going?

#uspol #trump #consumerism #capitilism #economy

Wait, I've always been a bit loopy, I meant to say that I've joined Loops. Actually joined it last week, but finally posted my first vid, just a little intro video, but I think there'll be more as I like it. I could use to find a PeerTube for longer stuff, and I'll likely do a second intro since I think I'm going to make more use of this than I'd originally thought, but we'll see.

loops.video/@Vextaur

#Loops #video

If'n it's utterly impractical for me, too small for work, and not enough range for @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe 's commute. Surprisingly if not for that, it'd likely work for us, enough room for the groceries, and those can be reached without using a highway. If'n I did Doordash or the like, it would be big enough for that, and maybe enough range for the day. It'd make a great third car for us, or likely be great for cities, which is what it's intended for.

youtu.be/K8zZ_4jXXEU

When was the last time I posted a pic of me?

A freshly shaven and showered me, wearing my new to me (Goodwill purchase) around the house sweater.

#selfie

The joys of being a delivery driver in #STL Yep, snowpocalypse, so very fun to work in.

Hasn't been a terrible week, but it's hard to make money when you have to take two days off because of weather, and then on the third day, make $105 but wind up spending $150 to get recovered on the way to your last delivery.

Rest of the week hasn't been bad, though yesterday was interesting, had a couple near stucks where it became a matter of keep moving. That or find a way out before no forward movement becomes no movement at all, including at one point driving nearly ¼ mile backwards to the nearest place I could safely turn around.

By the time I get home, I'm dead, so haven't been keeping up with online stuff including doing proofreading for people. Hopefully next week'll be better, couple cold days in the forecast, but most at or above freezing, and no snow in the forecast either.

So how's your week been?

And what is there to say, I'm still here. Really, it's not been a really notable one, which I suppose is a blessing in itself, I mean I've lost my father a couple years back, and it's inevitable that I'll lose more in the future, but this year wasn't one of those.

Work, still the perfect job for me, I'm almost undeniably autistic, and have found the perfect place for me. Of course the tariff threats worry me as my job is delivery, which is of course import driven, heavily Chinese imports driven. But what can I do but wait and see? On the work side, we have streamlined things, shut down my LLC, everything I was doing had fallen under the sole proprietor envelope, so no point in wasting money on that and making things more complicated.

Money, we survived, but our backup account is in rough shape, down around $1K maybe. Checking is always depleted, but that's how our finances are set up. Property saving account is going strong, I was originally going to put it into a short term CD, but I'm leaning towards using it for home improvements instead. We will be reducing how much we put into property by $50 every two weeks as well as potentially increasing my pay and lowering the phone bill, so if'n things don't change too much we'll end 2025 better, but time will tell.

And me? I work, read, occasionally proofread fan fics, and that's about it, assuming I even have energy for that, something that's been a problem lately, not sure if'n it's winter issues, or something else. I don't really go anywhere, the world is too peopley for me. Seriously, I mean my job requires about 1 minute of interaction with people, otherwise interaction is option or accidental. I want to retire somewhere rural, maybe southern IL, where there's less people.

I'd post a year end selfie, but I need to shave rather badly.
Whelp, onwards, it's 2025 (time not year) as I type this, that seems appropriate. Bedtime will prolly be within an hour, sleep when I get to it, unless something interesting pops up on one of my apps.

#2024recap #life

Hadn't known bZ4X actually stood for something, but apparently Beyond Zero (in other words, electric), and 4X means it's an all wheel drive crossover. Who the heck named that?

Admittedly it's not the first naming WTF though, C-HR anyone? Nothing wrong with it, but says nothing to me, and makes me think Honda with their CRV and such. Then there was the Prius fiasco, anyone remember the Prius V and then they tried again with numbers IIRC, and didn't they try a third time? I might have the order wrong, but that happened.

And beyond names there's the vehicles that don't make a lot of sense like the Corolla Cross, which doesn't seem like a Corolla and has a weird hybrid option what with a gas motor under the hood, and an electric motor in back. Toyota hybrids in the past have stuck with gas and electric under the hood joined by a planetary gear CVT. Or how about a hybrid Sienna? I don't think they make it any more, but I can't say I'd buy one used, sure Toyota has a pretty good rep for quality, but I can't imagine that it'd be using a four cylinder like the rest of their hybrids, so being rather unique, how well will it work, and how long will you be able to get parts?

I think Toyota needs to get it's house in order.

jalopnik.com/toyota-may-finall…

I'm rather a fan of this story, I've read the book though well after I've seen the movies, many movies. So far this year I haven't watched too many, notably I haven't been real interested in an American Christmas Carol for whatever reason this year, though I have caught both Patrick Stewart's and George C Scott's versions, and will likely catch a few more. I've also seen more than a few Muppet Christmas Carol reaction videos.

So, let's start there, the Muppets. What's there to say about this one? It's sorta an acquired taste, it's kinda weird what with muppets and humans coexisting, I mean more than a little of the food is sentient for example. They also make some interesting choices, although they do stay fairly true to the book. Nothing wrong with it, but it's definitely on the weird side.

The Patrick Stewart version, well acted, but the most overtly Christian version, what with adding a Christmas morning church visit to the story, along with everyone him and Present visit singing Silent Night, although I think that's been the standard carol in the few versions that do the visit. Then there's the fact that he threatens to beat a caroler at his office door with his walking stick. Say what you will about Scrooge, he's not violent, just willfully ignorant about the suffering of the working class and poor. The only other even remotely Christian version I can recall is the Alistair Simms version I think, one of them ends with Scrooge going to Hell and getting a taste of what his afterlife will be

George C Scott remains my favorite of the traditional versions, and it's tweaks are really down to the performances, I can't think of anything that jumps out at me as being added. Obviously a very expensive production, from the cast to the setting, a preserved piece of London that doesn't normally allow any film productions in. Of course an ABC TV (US) production financed by IBM can get access to places like that, and they hew close to the book, most notably in having Marley's funeral coach pass Scrooge on his way home. Notable in the performances is Scrooge's glee at described what he thinks should happen to those who go about with Merry Christmas on their lips, along with Present's very, very blunt assessment of Scrooge, Edward Woodward is an absolute joy in that role.

Will I watch more? Perhaps, maybe give Kelsey Grammer's version a look, I recall thinking it was alright, though the actor reuse for the ghosts really feels far more forced than the stage versions I've seen as well as An American Christmas Carol. It is odd as IIRC it's a musical, and Kelsey is not really a great musical performer.

Speaking of An American Christmas Carol, I really love the idea, but the execution is definitely lacking, though that's really to be expected from a low budget TV movie of the late 70's. Setting it in a Great Depression New England quarry town is a great choice, and they do a job of keeping the same message while tweaking 'Scrooge' to better fit the setting. It'd be nice to see someone redo this with a better budget and fix the flaws, the biggest being how he gets the truck loaded up Christmas morning when the unloading took both his clerk and his driver.

#christmas #christmascarol

Remember this?

Yep, it really works, that's the good news.
The bad news?
Well...
You can find a similar one on the Ninja brand, and I'm not sure if'n the differences are to protect against lawsuits, or just cutting every corner they can.
Instead of a central filter like the Ninja and many other cold brew devices, you just pour your coffee into this.
Instead of a digital control, you have a simple knob, turn it until a vortex forms, then turn down until it just touches the mixer.
Yes, it'll make coffee in 15 minutes, so long as you want a light brew. It's 10 minutes for light, 20 for medium, and 30 for strong, plus five minutes for the grounds to settle.
Once it's settled, you push the filter in, it's attached to the lid with a plungers, and you push down until it clicks onto the mixer, then hold the lid while drawing the plunger up to pull the grounds out. Its messy even when done right, and more so when you mess up, my last batch needed me to filter the coffee a second time before I could drink it.

Is it worth the money? Prolly if'n you have an Ollies near you or find one in another discount chain, since it's $5 there, and the Ninja lists for around $50 or $60 on Amazon. I do like the fact that I can fairly quickly brew cold coffee, but it is rather messy, and by no means fast, it's almost easier to use a Keurig on a strong brew and put a lot of ice in the cup.

#coffee #coffeemaker #coldbrew

Just a nice traditional tree...

What do you mean bats, margarita glasses and peppers aren't normal Christmas lights?

tumblr.com/taur10/769952833272… (video)

Yeah, we don't do traditional here

#christmas2024 #christmastree

Yeah, just not feeling it this year. I supposed compared to many my year has been pretty good, and it has, but the tail end, woo, chaotic, but that was mostly my fault.

Nov was spent mostly not working as my truck spent nearly three weeks in the shop trying to find a problem. Three weeks and nearly a thousand dollars by the time all was said and done. I had the money, but that took a bite out of company finances. And of course that means not contributing to the house, no work equals no paycheck after all, so the house is a bit strained right now including back up funds. And there were some bumps with the room mate's share of things, he switched banks and is now in the same credit union as us, however they don't have an easy way to transfer funds between members, it's through a third party, it's manual, and it's slow, like three days assuming you don't hit a holiday or weekend. Once again, nothing big, just disruptive.
Oh, and did I mention getting a new car? Yeah, been meaning to do that for like a year, but the three weeks of repair hell led to it finally happening, and luckily only $2500 out of pocket and no payments. Yes, the company was doing really good.
Heck, and then there was dissolving my LLC, it hasn't been doing anything in a year, but it was the holder of my domain name, so that meant dissolving the company, changing insurance, getting rid of the bank account, changing email, and on. Yeah, that's been chaotic, and it's still going on, though it's at least down to a trickle.

Dec is fine, work's going great, I'm settling into the car, capacity and range, especially winter range was a big concern. Despite having electric cars in the household for three years and being gung ho on electric vehicles, the transition wasn't quite as smooth as it could be because I was still a bit nervous about what the limits would be and how they'd effect the job. Frankly, no real change. Sure, the lack of seat and steering wheel heaters means I have to charge more than I'd planned, and my fuel savings will likely be smaller than expected, but that's basically it, no changes needed, Chevy Bolts are surprisingly roomy inside.
Outside of that, all that's kept me from Christmas shopping and decoration, I mean all the chaos I mentioned, plus work, plus story proofreading equals little spare time, and no real motivation. Wed I finally got the inflatables set up after getting the lights on the garage, but the wind picked up and I didn't feel real safe going up on the roof, so the main string of lights hasn't gone up. And today its 36°F and raining, so that's not happening, ditto for tomorrow. Wed is my last day off, so maybe then if'n the weather is good, otherwise no Christmas lights this year. I think I also have a car costume 'round here, but no radiator grill means how do I put the nose on? And then there's the tree, going to have to figure out how to make some room in the living room, between the record player on the folding chair, the unfinished computer project on the couch and a dismantled desk that no one wants to buy taking up the spare living room space... Ummm, where to I put it?

Any how, that's about where things are here, bit more than a month, and then we'll see how the new admin messes up my life, my livelihood is very much in danger, but no use worrying about something I can't change.

#life #christmas2024 #electriccar

and then I bought this today at Ollie's

Tornado effect allows you to make cold brew coffee in minutes instead of 12 to 24 hours...
Yeah, sounds like horse hockey to me, and definitely not the kind of thing I'd normally buy, but it was... $5. Yeah, really, how could I refuse at that price?

Might be trash, but I've wasted the price of what, less than one cup of coffee at Starbucks?

#coffee #kitchengadgets #kitchenappliances

Saw an article on Flipboard that was from Popular Mechanics via AppleNews, so I couldn't open it on my phone. No problem, just go to the site and search, right? Almost the entire first page of results for off grid solar were 'articles' about great sales on solar panels, power banks and the like.

#reading #news #advertising

So, saw þis sign...

Yes I know, it's referring to þe school's mascot, but seriously, am I þe only one picturing a club þat delivers a new hawk to your home every monþ?

Funny thing, this past weekend, or Monday I happened upon an article about blue stop signs, apparently sometimes seen on private property. Never seen one of those before, so it was interesting. So come Tues, I'm up in a trailer park... sorry, mobile home village, slightly outside of my zone thanks to a miss sort that wasn't that far out of my way, and...

Well Ok then, guess we have them in MO too.

#stcharles #mo #missouri #oddsighting

So, #today was a good day, first part was actually pretty great. Decent weather, 19/43°F today, bit cold in þe morn obviously, but considering þat we went from 16/59 on Wed to 14/26 yesterday, definitely a much nicer day. Heck, yesterday I had to break out my old Þermal overalls from when I used to ride a scooter between Florissant and Maryland Heights, MO.

Þe day started wiþ a small run from the Dispatch app, $10.50 for 10 miles. Sure, a little light on pay, dollar a mile is my minimum after all, but it ended me on Dorsett down the street from Tony's, a donut shop where I like to grab a gyro, egg & cheese on an asiago bagel, so that's fine.

My main gig, Better Trucks, had delayed þe start from 9 (realistically more often 9.30) to 10.30, so I swung by þe credit union to take care of closing an account. On the way I noticed a CVS order on Roadie that looked pretty good, and surprisingly when I got out, not only was þat one still þere, but it was joined by anoþer order on þe way to it. Shockingly I got boþ, $6.80 for one, $6.40 for þe oþer, and a mere 3 miles of driving. Yes please.

From þere it was a quick trip home for a half hour of charging while trying to get two more email changes sorted out. After þat, off to þe usual gig, and a typical if'n slightly smaller package route, my night vision sucks these days, normal for my age, so I wanted to avoid being out much after dark.

I guess þat brings up þe car, my 2020 Chevy Bolt. Only real negatives are þat it's an LT, so base model, lacking features like heated steering wheel, and heated seats, boþ of which would likely help keep me warm without as much impact on þe battery. Speaking of battery, since it's one of þe battery fire years, it's in 80% jail, so my range is a bit more limited þan normal. Still, despite þat, it works fine for þe job. Sure, gotta charge a bit extra, but þat's just a winter þing... Maybe summer too, we'll see, not sure how much AC drains þe battery.

#gig #work #driving #food #STL #stlouis #mo #missouri #chevybolt

Not much to say about #today , cooked breakfast, straightened the kitchen, dishwasher is chewing on a load—— Not literally, thank you.

Gotta make a batch of rice, and fill my water bottles for work tomorrow. Get a few things straightened out with my email, the fun of transitioning. Yesterday we gave the house 20% of my company's money, since the company is being wound down, this is part of why social.xcetera.biz the instance is shutting down, although we will be keeping the domain and email for another year, I have burnt m'self too many times by forgetting to change an account's email before deleting that email account.

Not sure if'n the day will have any more to it, maybe take a chainsaw to the old deck if'n I have time, and/or putting some more stuff up on Marketplace to sell/give away, watchband, and some clothes (kilt, shirt, nightshirt, maybe some shoes). I really need to find one or more selling partners here in #STL so I can get back into flipping storage units, anyone interested?

Or working with an electric car.

Not much to say here, I did run into one snag with the car, and that this is one of the ones with the 80% limit on the battery. Outside of that, nothing really of note.

I do with is had heated seats and wheel, regular heat in an electric car can take up to 40% of your range, so those would be nice. So would smart cruise control, but once again, nice but unnecessary. Regenerative braking is great, and easy to use, at least for me, having driven stick a lot over the 35 years I've had a license, it's not that much different than engine braking. Miles per KW aren't real good, average on the dash is 3.2, though the app says 4.1, but that's still a bit underwhelming, but may change.

Car runs great, it was a lemon due to charger issues, but those have been sorted, and it gets me a limited 12mos, 12K warranty along with the battery's 8 year warranty. Aside from a couple of glitches with the infotainment system, reverse guidelines rarely appear, and two of the messages, one a start up message(don't stare at the screen while driving), and one a shut down message (power usage), randomly appeared yesterday, and I hate the limited number of presets on the radio, the only other thing is that I swear it smells like a pencil eraser by the end of the day. I'm familiar with both automotive and electrical smells, but that's new.

And that's about all there is to say, I do have a few problems like the shifter and cup holders being reversed from the Subaru, and reaching for the shifter to check it's in neutral. Unlike previous new cars, the learning curve has been short, regenerative braking isn't quite the same as engine braking, but it's close and different vehicles, different amount of engine braking, so there's always a bit of adapting there. I do wish one pedal driving was just a button like @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe 's car, rather than having to select it every time, but that's just a minor quibble.

#car #auto #electriccar #chevy #boltgun

Frankly, I'm just moving ahead as planned, and waiting to see whether things'll get derailed, there are just too many variables.

I've already said that the pride, humanity and pagan flags out front aren't going anywhere, or at least not unless they get replaced with something better, metal signs I can attach to the house would be good, something that can't be torn or burnt. While I don't have the skills to do it, I've suggested starting a liberal party to do what the Democrats won't, and while I can neither start it nor manage it, I'll be happy to loan my help whether an unskilled person can. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I bought an electric car to replace the SUV I was using for delivery?

What else is on the agenda? Well, assuming things don't get real bad, in the next few years, solar panels, wind power maybe, some work on the house... win the lottery and I'll expand it. Maybe get more property, dunno. Ideally I'd retire to rural southern IL, get a few acres, put an off-grid or mostly off-grid shed home together, and start selling plots to others that want a safe place to go, heck, maybe even create a tiny town to go with the tiny home, who knows. Prolly a pipe dream, but I'm certainly not giving up dreaming.

But what about Trump and the Repuglicans?
What about them? Trump's a loud mouth idiot who's nothing without his supporters and yes men. Sure, some of the Reps will definitely kiss his ring, Johnson was no surprise, if he didn't he likely wouldn't be speaker much more, he only got the job as he was the least bad choice. And Cruz will of course, he's a squealer, I can always recognize the squealers... I mean, he's a sell out. I'm wondering all of those that don't have an election coming up any time are going to do, the threat of a challenger, the threat of losing their job I think is what keeps most Repugs in line, but when that threat is gone? It's not going to be good, that's for sure, but it might wind up not being that bad, if'n Trump meets any resistance. And then there's all the faithful who are going to find out just how bad they screwed up voting for him, they're going to be out for blood, so a lot of politicians are going to have to decide who's scarier, the voters or Trump.

In the eighties we all were scared that they were going to drop the bomb, but after a while, we just got on with life, if it happened, we'd deal with it then, best we could do was just go on living until we knew what was coming.

#uspol #life

youtube.com/watch?v=d9xN_o70nF…

So, been chatting with @Range Bear 🔜 MFF about gig work, and figured it was a good time to put up a few details about what the options are out there, and there are a fair number.

When you say gig work, most people think DoorDash, which isn't surprising considering the amount of marketing they do, however there's a lot more, basically you can deliver people, packages or food.

People
Uber and Lyft are the best known, though if'n you look around you might find something local or regional in your area. I believer there's also companies dipping their toe into child transport and/or non-emergency medical transport as well.

Food
Like I noted, we all know DoorDash, UberEats is about as well known, and then there's GrubHub, but once again, look around for regionals which is often easier with food as companies put up signs, stickers and other marketing at restaurants they serve. There's also GoPuff which is sort of a virtual convenience store

Packages
Now here's my niche, and the biggest problem here is that nationwide companies are rare, I primarily work for Better Trucks, but they're based in Chicago and have about two dozen warehouses, so less than half the country covered. Like them, Jitsu and Veho do package routes, and nationwide there's of course Amazon Flex. And that's assuming you want route work, if'n you want packages on demand, there's more, DropOff, Roadie, Dispatch, GoShare, Senpex, Frayt and Courial off the top of my head. They all work much DoorDash, offering the order to the nearest driver, but they also list the unclaimed orders on the app.

How does package route stuff work? Well, it varies from company to company, but except for Flex, typically you pick your work days ahead of time, go to the warehouse, and pick up your load. In the case of BT and my warehouse, as I'm not sure all warehouses do things the same, I show up, tell them where I'd like to work, how long, and what I'm driving, and they try to accommodate as many of those as they can. I'm only familiar with BT and Flex, and with Flex, you show up, check in, and it gives you a route. No offer, take it or leave it, and the only things you know ahead of time is how long it should take, and what it'll pay, where is random and can be far if you're working out of a Flex aka Same Day warehouse as opposed to a standard delivery warehouse, which is where you'll usually be working. And that's about it, the software will guide you stop by stop, and you go home when done. Pay is usually lower than the on demand work, but you're trading pay for guaranteed income, so you have to decide which is better for you.

#gig #income #work #drive

Ok, that's prolly a wee bit dramatic, but I reserve the right to be dramatic.
For six or so months I've been planning on changing vehicles, the main catalyst being how much of a pain a Subaru Crosstrek is to maintain and repair, far too many parts are expensive dealer only, and those what aren't, can be hard to get, my last repair, a brake hose, required the part to be shipped out of a warehouse on the other side of the state. With it developing a problem that kept me from working for nearly two weeks, I finally had enough and decided to go buy something.

Problem was figuring out which way I wanted to run, full sized van or box truck, good money in that, but I'm too old to be dealing with high volume or pallet sized loads. A Transit Connect was worth considering, and I highly recommend it as a delivery vehicle, big enough for a couple pallets, and yet mid to high twenties fuel economy when unloaded, so it's an alright choice for any kind of gig work. A hybrid or an electric was a choice, but nothing affordable is particularly large, heck, there isn't much large at any price.

These days though, with what's happened at work, a large vehicle really isn't needed any more, we're moving a lot of small packages, so we decided to go with an affordable electric, specifically a Chevy Bolt. Next problem, finding one, something that's both easy and hard, there are many out there, but most are above $15K. Worse still is that many dealers only have one or two when they have cheaper ones. Plus Missouri is a pain to title and register a car in, it's hard enough if'n you buy the car in state, but out of state? Yeah, how about no.

Good news, found a dealer with 9 in stock, most under $15K. Bad, they're in St Joseph, 291 miles away.

So that was Saturday, a long drive to buy a car at Victory GMC, of whom I can give a guarded thumbs up to. The cheapest Bolt, the one I was planning on buying had a noticeable shake at 40, which became intolerable at 70. That was followed by another one which didn't shake, but did sound a bit noisy in the back, either lacking sound deadening, or needing something back there, prolly tires or bearings. Third time the charm? I decided to give the one white one a shot, the others were all black or dark grey, and I chose that one because we already owned...

Wouldn't it be funny if'n we bought a white Bolt...

Yep, that one was fine. Not perfect, in fact they surprised me with the fact that it was a repaired lemon when we got to the paperwork, another strike against them, but it was certainly good enough. I will say that I was a little careless by that point, and failed to notice that it was a no extra options 1LT model, so no heated seats or steering wheeling, nor smart cruise control, but none of those things are a deal breaker. Sure, heated seats are more efficient than cabin heating, but I've got more than enough range for a day's work even allowing for up to 40% drop in the winter.

How am I able to give a soft thumbs up to Victory? Despite the first two cars having issues that should've kept them from being put out, for locals it wouldn't be a big deal, just bring it back for repairs, just make sure you negotiate that into the contract. For me, I have a long highway drive home, so no go. Of course they had plenty of cars so finding one I could afford was all but guaranteed which is why I chose them. And the shopping experience was very good. $500 GPS add on, the modern equivalent of window etching? No argument when I said I didn't want it. I'm paying cash, no argument, no attempt to talk me into financing, they just sold me a car. Me wanting to test car after car like Goldilocks? Sure, no problem. The dealership experience wasn't perfect, it never is, but frankly, Ryan was great to work with, and the dealership didn't fight to take every dollar I had. Heck, through the website, I got a tentative trade in offer of $7925. What'd they offer when I got there? $8060, yes, it went up!

In the end, I moved up a bit in price, but with trade in, and the $4K used EV credit, I walked away with a 2020 Chevy Bolt 1LT for $2520. No, that's not a typo, I suppose it was a good thing that I waited so long, since that was readily available out of pocket. I do have a few things to sort out, for some reason the back up grid often don't show up, and I can't figure out how to name the car in the My Chevy app, it's offered when you originally set it up, and it gives instructions on how to change it later, but I forgot those, and can't find them. Real small problems, right?

Not much to say beyond that, long drive home, charging problem at the first charger, but apparently @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe has had problems with that company before. We did finally get home around 2AM. Since then, it's been tweaking things a bit, getting signed up for SiriusXM, or rather added to his account, getting insurance sorted out, something complicated by me shutting down my company, and getting things updated with all my gig apps (6 of 8 done).

I guess the only thing we have spoken about is why an EV, and that's easy, because it's cheap. Even ignoring the unusually high maintenance costs of the Subaru, savings are on maintenance, there's not much to maintain on an electric, bulbs, fluids, wipers, brakes and tires. Yes, fluids, the battery like all modern EV's has temperature management to keep the battery healthy, and then there's brake fluid and wiper fluid. Brake services are farther apart than gas powered vehicles if'n you use regenerative braking, which only leaves a few minor cheap repairs. And then there's fuel, or the lack of, I was averaging something like $60/wk with the Subaru, and with this I expect $100/mo at worst in electricity. So something like $1500/yr in savings.

So, Vik has White Lightning II, and now I have Doppel, and only our roommate, Chakat Silvertail, still burns dinosaurs.

#car #ev #electriccar #mo #missouri #KC #kansascity #travel

Ok, I'm sure all of my followers who care about me have realized I've moved over here from social.xcetera.biz, and I thought I'd share a few details about the why and the highlights.

The why is actually rather easy, the main reason is that xcetera.biz is going away, it was part of my business, Xcetera Enterprises LLC, essentially my email and my Mastodon borrowed the domain. Of course no domain to borrow when I shut down the company, so a new home was needed. The catalyst to do it now however, was discovering SpaceHost, who offers hosted Friendica. I've wanted to do Friendica for a while, but finding a host is hard, I had previously found another hosted instance, but it's not quite turn key, you still had to decide on a database service I think it was? Any how, SpaceHost is like using MastoHost, iKnox, or any of those others out there, pick out the size you need, pay, link your domain, and Bob's your uncle.

Somehow @#SpaceHost Help has managed to put up with me fumbling around, I'm high maintenance while setting things up, going so far as to break my instance not once, but twice. I also managed to break the admin account but not the instance once two, all in less than a week. But, it's all running, @Recalls , @The Taur Nation are both over here, along with this, my personal account which will be taking over from both @Seph :verified: VOTED and @Vex for Harris & Wallz has voted, giving me a single personal account on the Fediverse.

One of the best things to happen today was to find out that SpaceHost had quietly added the last of the relays I asked for, The Doodle Project. @Fedi.Tips can likely explain relays far better than me, but to my understanding, it's basically every member agreeing to share each others posts with the other members. For a small instance, this is crucial to getting a good Fedi feed up and running, doubly so for tiny personal instances like this. At a quick glance, it was clear this was a wonderfully diverse relay that was perfect for quickly populating my Fedi feed. Sure, not real interested in Ghana Today for instance, but I think diversity is healthy, and this is wonderfully diverse. Definitely going to be donating regularly to help keep it up and running.

So, on the Fediverse I now have everything I wanted, my very own #friendica instance, with a wonderfully diverse global timeline.

Too tired to say much, drove from Hazelwood to St Joseph, 287 miles each way, left around 1030, arrived home around 0200. And Friday had been 10 hours and 110 miles of deliveries, I'm knackered.

So, introducing Doppel...

my 2020 Chevy Bolt EV, an ex-lemon with just under 18K miles.

Why Doppel? Well, here's my husband's ( @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe ) White Lightning II:

#chevybolt #chevy #ev #electric car

So, here we are, still not working as they try to get the truck fixed, well into the second week, joy. Oh well, we're planning on replacing it any how, should've done that months ago, but like always, been dragging my heels on it.

Plan was to sell it and buy something that would leave a couple thousand in the company bank account, and that something not being a super nice vehicle since the job is hard on it. I had my eye on a Caravan, but after today, I might need to see if'n I can stretch the budget to afford a Chevy Bolt.

I drove @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe 's car home, big event going on at the office, so he figured it'd be better if'n he didn't take up a parking space. So, minimum range, 71 miles. Drive home via I-64, Lindbergh and a side run to Wendy's for breakfast, 21 miles. Range when getting home? 60 miles. Thanks to rush hour traffic and the route I used, this was very similar to what kind of driving I do for work, and this is with me being less than smooth as I don't often drive the Bolt, so with time I could do better. Let's see, no more gas, minimal repairs (and Crosstrek repairs are expensive and parts are often special order), yes please. Heck, I think I could get as much as 300 miles out of a Bolt, even though it's rated at 250 or so. Yeah, this might be worth doing.

#bolt #chevy #electriccar #work #gig #driving

Ummm, I broke the admin account over here on #friendica . I can proudly say I'm an idiot.

Why?
Well, my host agreed to put up the pack of Friendica themes that's out there, and I had the brilliant idea to try one of them... using the admin account. Firefox now loads a blank web page, and Chromium spits back a 500 error. Ummm, hopefully my host knows a way to fix this. In one way it's good, if they can restore that account to an hour ago, it'll fix it without changing anything appreciably, the only thing I've done over there other than the theme was turn off the Tumblr plug in since I couldn't get that to work.

#friendica #Fediverse #adminstupidity #adminfollies #glitch

And I gently shooed him off, and watched him wander off, while being careful not to step on him.

Took down the Halloween decorations, though the inflatables are still outside drying out, or at least I'm hoping they are. Took down the elections signs too, since that's over.

Christmas decorations will go up around Thanksgiving or a bit later, but these aren't going anywhere:

Nor is our Pagan holiday flag (wind didn't let me get a pic of the Samhain flag that's out there at the moment).