plonq | Out with the old, in with the new

Hail to the new year, same as the old year.

We ordered Indian food from a fancy restaurant for New Years Eve. We ordered it through a service called Skip The Dishes because we are lazy, and because until that particular order we'd never had a problem with their service. Everything went swimmingly until the driver pulled up in front of our house with our order. He sat there for a few seconds, then slowly rolled a couple houses further down the block and sat there for about a minute.

He then marked the food as "delivered" and drove away to the end of the block and around the corner. I'd been half-watching through the window, and I hadn't seen him come up to the house with food. When I went outside, I confirmed that there was nothing on our landing.

atara and I walked to the end of the street and back, checking all of the houses between us and the end of the block, but it didn't appear that he had left the food at the wrong house either.

The driver simply absconded with our meal. I've heard of some drivers doing that, but this was our first time for it.

We complained to Skip and the reimbursed everything when they couldn't get hold of the driver to get his side of it. Apparently, some delivery services require their driver to take a picture of the food on the front step after they deliver it. That gives evidence to both sides if a) the customer claims it wasn't delivered, or b) the driver delivered it to the wrong place.

We ordered the same thing again tonight, but we drove down and picked it up directly from the restaurant. That save us both money since Skip charges a small premium for the food, and charges the restaurant as well. Also - as we found out tonight - picking it up yourself is more reliable.

I finished out my 2020 "Picture A Day" project with a meta picture of the two cameras I used for the project.

This project was as much an exercise in self-discipline as anything else. I couldn't just take a picture every day, or post a picture every day, I had to take a picture and post it on the same day. Every day. I had a small hiccough early when I forgot to take a picture until the very end of the day, and by the time I posted it, it was after midnight. After beating myself up over it for awhile, I finally decided to let it count as long as I didn't do it a second time. I then set myself a daily reminder to nag me starting at 10:00 to get my picture for the day. After that, I didn't miss another day. I had a strict policy where I would only sleep the reminder, and not dismiss it until after I had posted the picture.

I swore an oath at 23:59 on December 31st that I would not try a picture-a-day project for at least five more years because I was done with it.

Yesterday I set up repeating reminders for 2021 and posted my first picture.

Last year it was a test to see if I could finish a whole year without screwing up. This year I'm just doing it for fun, so I won't beat myself up if I miss a day. I am going to try and take a new picture every day, but I won't beat myself up if I don't get around to posting it for a day or two after.

Part of what inspired me to tackle this is that I saw that

duncandahusky announced that he was going to try it this year, and I figured it would be fun to keep him company in the challenge.