Blog | Jay Larson

Food Delivery Service Dilemmas

Every once in a while we all get tired of cooking and cleaning up afterwards and want to eat food prepared for us in containers that can be discarded. And many times after a long day, the thought of getting dressed and going to a restaurant isn’t so appealing either. Food Delivery services like Uber Eats and Door Dash have been a nice alternative and especially handy when traveling.

For those in urban areas, this is a great way to get a nice hot meal delivered fast. When in a remote area, a recent experience has left me with the conclusion that perhaps it isn’t such a good idea to even offer it.

I’m staying at a campground in South Central Georgia. The nearest town is 10 miles away with a very limited choice of eats. About 35 minutes away is a city of decent size with choices that Uber Eats indicated would deliver to me.

My choices were Dairy Queen, Red Lobster, Wendy’s or Subway. I wasn’t in the mood for fast food, but I don’t eat fish. I ended up going with Red Lobster and choosing their sirloin steak, some garlic linguini, a caesar salad and a chocolate cake for desert.

When I ordered at 630, the estimated time of arrival was 7:25. At 6:45 it had jumped to 7:35. Then I got a notification that it was delayed and would be there at 7:55, almost an hour and a half from when I ordered. I wasn’t too upset, knowing the distance between the campground and the restaurant.

The food ended up arriving at 7:45. The food was horrible. The fries were soggy and cold. The meat was not cooked properly and was cold. The cake lacked the ice cream described in the description. The pasta had shrimp in it which wasn’t indicated when I ordered.

I paid about $50 for this meal and was left with a bad impression of Uber Eats and Red Lobster. What should change here? Should I as a consumer expect less having a delivery a log ways away from the restaurant expecting that it be substandard? Should the restaurant or Uber Eats invest in technology to keep the food hot and fresh? Or should this service just not be offered when the distance is so great? Not sure of the answer here, but I’m not a customer of the service any longer.

5 Simple Rules to Un-Fuck Congress

Rule #1: Term Limits.Representatives and Senators should have a limit of 2 terms and then give up the seat for someone to have their voice heard.

Rule #2: Congress men/women get paid the median salary in their state. If they want to make more money, then they can work to raise the median salary in their state. This would make them understand the people of their state.

Rule #3: No more travel to DC or oversees travel. There is no fucking reason everyone has to be in the same room in this day and age. We have the technology to do this remotely. These people are representatives of their state, they should be staying in their fucking state rather than traveling to Paris with the taxpayer footing the bill.

Rule #4: All bills voted on should be single issue bills. If a bill can’t pass on its own merit, then it shouldn’t pass.

Rule #5: Anytime a member of Congress speaks in the media to the American people, it should be assumed that they are under oath, and can be charged with perjury for lying to the American people.

These 5 rules would un-fuck congress.

Planned Obsolescence

Planned Obsolescence is defined as the policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

Put simply, designers of everything we buy spend a lot of money making sure that our products do not last very long.

I live on family farm and a lot of the stuff my parents and grandparents had is still here. My mother’s Electrolux vacuum cleaners from the 60s (model 1205) have outlived every vacuum I’ve ever purchased. So I use hers. The hoses that my grandparents had on the farm are still going strong as I throw away kinked hose after kinked hose because the are leaking. Even the oscillating sprinkers I bought have been trashed because they fell apart within a year, but the ones my grandparents used are still going strong. I use the copper bottom pots and pans my grandparents got as a wedding gift (thank you, whoever you were). All of the yard tools that have been here for 75 years are outliving every shovel, spade and hoe that I purchase.

Am I the only one that is infuriated with this?

I make it a point to write reviews for every product I buy, whether it be good or bad. If it’s bad, I complain to the company, return the item and stop purchasing anything from that company. If you call and complain, 95% of the time the company will send you a new product. If that one also breaks, I will call and complain again. I’m tired of paying for shit that falls apart a week after it was purchased.

I think a lot of poeple have become complacent about this type of thing and have come to expect that the crap that they buy will fall apart. I wish that more people would complain. The only way this will change is if we don’t accept it the way that it is.

I also write to the Better Business Bureau and complain when companies don’t stand behind their product. I have gotten resolution to my liking 100% of the time.

I don’t think planned obsolescence will ever fully go away. But there are some things you can do to send the message to companies that you are not willing to accept it. And we shouldn’t accept it – it’s contributing to global warming, excessive dumping and growing landfills, labor inequality and resource depletion. Here are some things you can do to fight back.

Return things that break too quickly. Know the warranty and return the item to the store where you bought it. If they won’t take it back, contact the company for a return or an exchange.
Write product reviews on consumer websites and the website of the stores where you bought the product.
Make a commitment to repair when possible.
Tell your friends about brands that fall apart and ones that stand the test of time. Word of mouth referrals go a long way.
Complain to the Better Business Bureau.
Don’t unnecessarily upgrade products that still have a useful life.
Shop at second hand stores.
Pass along items for which you have no more use for to others who do have a use for them.

Maybe a pipe-dream but I’d like to save a little money rather than having to replace all of my stuff all of the time.

Dairy Queen

If you know me, you probably have an idea about what this article is about. Well, I’m here to tell you that…..

YOU ARE WRONG

You are wrong.

This article is actually about Dairy Queen. You know the place. I go there a lot. I was there the other day and got a blizzard. They are probably my favorites because they can actually satisfy my need. The sundaes just don’t do it for me.

You’ve probably noticed that they do a funny thing before they hand your blizzard to you. They turn it upside down and look at you like “See?!?” What I don’t really get is what point they are trying to prove. See what? That your frozen treat defies gravity? That the desert Im about to put in my mouth is made of super-glue?

I’ve thought extensively about it and come to the conclusion that it probably is their way of letting you know that they just made it, it hasn’t melted cause if it had been sitting around it would be liquid by now and would fall to the pavement.

So I was at Dairy Queen getting a blizzard. The girl flips open the window, turns the blizzard upside down and it all falls out down onto the pavement. Like a sloppy bowel movement. She looks at me in horror and I’m already pissing myself I’m laughing so hard. She runs off to make another one and this time delivers it without attempting to turn it upside down. She just hands it over and shuts the window.

So whatever it is that they serve they want you to see that it behaves like ice cream. But you should know that no where on any menu, sign, document or drive through window will you find ice cream on the menu at Dairy Queen. They don’t serve ice cream, you see. It’s an ice cream-like substance but it’s not ice cream or you can bet that it would be on their menu. Look next time. It’s a Buster Bar Parfait, a blizzard, a dip cone, a cup, but it doesn’t say ice cream. Cause it’s not.

Do you feel a little deceived? Yeah, me too. Here are some other things that aren’t what you think they are:

Truffle Oil
Olive Oil
Maple syrup
Honey
Anything with vanilla
Wasabi
parmesan cheese
instant coffee
crab meat

It’s called food fraud and it’s rampant. We are not eating what we think we are eating and what we are told is healthy is making us fat, lazy but much less likely to start a rebellion or over throw the government.

Did you know we are the ONLY species to drink the milk of another species? Most people are actually lactose intolerant, so the fact is that we take pills so that we are able to drink thed milk of another animal which is unnatural in the first place! Amazing what marketing can do.

Yet ANOTHER thing NOT to do while camping…..

So the other night I was cleaning up and I smelled a funny smell. I thought I’d dropped a piece of meat and it was rotting or a mouse crawled up inside somewhere and died. I really didn’t think much about it and went on with my day.

I’d left to go do something and when I came back, the rotten smell was worse. I began to tear apart the camper looking for the offending smell. I opened the windows and lit some candles to try and cover it up.

Fast foward to next morning – I get up and am going about my morning routine and I smell the smell again. I was getting pissed that I couldn’t find it. I was putting the dishes away and I pulled up the towel on the stove (I’ve been just putting a couple of towels over the burners of the stove for a drying rack since I have no space for a real one) when I noticed that the burner was not turned off! I’d been smelling propane! For 16 fucking hours! While smoking and having candles lit! Thank God I had the sense to keep the windows opened. Feeling a bit lucky today.

100 Things NOT to take on Your Camping Trip

A leather hole puncher.
An ice bucket
The change you have been saving for 23 years.
Wrestling shoes.
Antique guitars
Blue mason jars.
Shot glasses from the 1903 Worlds Fair.
25 rugs.
2 years worth of cleaning supplies.
3 years worth of charcoal
4 years worth of paper plates.
22 bottles of liquor.
4 wireless mice without the transmitters.
87 phone chargers.
3 comforters.
Extra outlet covers.
Ethernet end pieces.
Unmatched socks.
A non-working printer.
42 screwdrivers.
4 laptops
16 towels.
4 huge containers of laundry detergent.
Halloween decorations.
Christmas decorations.
150 wash rags.
3 brooms
3 sets of sheets.
250 dryer sheets.

If you count the multiple items, it’s way over 100. Living on the road and pseudo-hoarding don’t mix. The key to successfully living in your camper on the road is to learn how to embrace your minimalist self, and if that doesn’t exist – to find one at your local discount store and have it installed in your right lobe.

I can’t turn around without knocking something on the floor, It’s ridiculous. Every storage space in the camper is full, the truck bed and back seat are full and I still have to stack stuff outside. I thought this would be a good cure for my thrift store addiction, but it hasn’t.

I have gotten better at throwing stuff out. i no longer pretend I’m going to fix it later, install it on Wednesday or reorganize it on the weekend. If I can’t find a place for it or it isn’t working 1000% correctly at the moment, it gets chucked or put out on the picnic table with a FREE sign next to it.

Simplicity is pretty complex.

Breaking away from the Hideaway

So I finally broke away from the campground I’ve been staying at since November and moved on. I arrived in Statesville, GA yesterday at 7am just in time to get set up for work. I’m staying at the Mill Creek Equestrian Center outside of town and it’s amazing – 140 acres of horse pasture, lake, forest and housing for the owners and workers. They give riding lessons, board horses and have a horse camp for kids. My buddy is the assistant manager for the place and invited me to come stay for a couple of days. Some pictures below.

Frustration and Drama Arrive

I almost didn’t get here. I got so frustrated on Wednesday night trying to get everything ready to go I about started to cry. I got everything packed up and was getting ready to hook up the trailer to the truck. This is about 9pm, so it’s dark and I’m working against a time deadline – I don’t want to make a lot of noise past 10 so I’m trying to hurry. I couldn’t get the stupid sway control bars put on for the life of me. They just weren’t going in. So it was getting close to 10 so I decided stay and give it another shot in the morning. I think the issue was how the camper and truck where with regards to alignment but it was too hard to see and I was getting pissed. It wouldn’t have mattered, I couldn’t find the hitch pins anyway. Aargh. Sometime I just want to kick myself.

and more arrives….

So then I couldn’t get the truck to disconnect from the camper – the hitch latch was not moving up as it should. I cussed and yelled and finally just got in my truck and tried to go to sleep in the truck. After I while, I went back to the camper, moved the monitors to one side of the bed and made a little room for myself to sleep.

When I got up, I had a slightly better attitude but I still couldn’t get the sway bars connected. I decided to see what it was like to haul the camper without them and took off towards Stateboro. Well, my phone died and then the light on the camper stopped working so I stopped at a stop sign and remedied both of those issues.

The camper didn’t sway too much without the bars, but i didn’t drive much over 50. I obviously made it to Statesboro in one piece.

But the silver lining appears….

Luckily my buddy know a lot about trailers and hitches and hookups so I am going to engage his assistance. Funny story – I was on my way home from one of my Augusta excursions and was driving through Statesboro when I got a message on Grindr. It was from my buddy from Des Moines. A few years ago he and his partner moved to Stateboro for a job, but I didn’t really know at the time exactly where he was going so I didn’t know he was here. It was great to reconnect and timely as I needed a place to park for a couple of days and some assistance with my trailer so it all worked out for the best.

I’m much more relaxed now and don’t have the desire to throw it all down and go back home. I was pretty frustrated.

Just stop for a minute…

I rarely write or talk about politics. I think that the topic has become so divisive that it has become a threat to our well being. Our communities are being torn apart as we are almost forced to choose between two sides that encourage us to hate each other. We all know (or I hope that the majority of us are smart enough to realize) that this is being executed as designed. The two major parties pick a topic that engages our emotions so strongly that we forget that if we step back and take a look at things, we all want the same things – a safe place to live, enough food on our table, good education for our kids, and a little bit left over for some fun. Nobody can argue against that.

This machine that divides us has infinite power. Some how Trump has learned the secret to loyalty, his followers will do anything he says and nothing that he does can turn them against him. Let’s look at some of the things should turn any normal, semi-intelligent being to think twice about this horror of a man:

His association with Jeffrey Epstein, the sex-trafficker who killed himself after being found guilty. Trump called him “a great guy” and a “lover of beautiful women, sometimes on the young side.”
His attempt to turn the US into a dictatorship, throwing democracy to the wind. This, alone should be enough to turn any US Citizen who spends their time quoting the constitution regarding the right to bear arms to be afraid that the document they hold so dear was almost shredded into nothingness on that 6th day of January.
His statement to Iowans after a school shooting in Perry “get over it and move on”
Fraud, money laundering and tax evasion.
Telling Americans to inject disinfectant to kill Covid-19 on national television.
His statement that the Civil War could have been ‘negotiated’, his praise of artwork by White Supremacists and pandering to the far-right wing Christians.
The fact that he faces 91 charges in several cases across several states.
His promotion of conspiracy theories, racism and misogony.

I could go on, but I shouldn’t need to. Not only is this person not a good candidate, he’s not a good person. I’m certainly glad that when my great-great grandfather arrived here from Sweden that someone like him wasn’t in office claiming that we were “poisoning the blood” of America.

Now I’m no Biden fan either, but one cannot ignore the following facts:

Unemployment rates are at a historic low of 3%.
There are more new small businesses than any other time period on record.
There are over 11 million new jobs.
We are on track to rebuild our failing infrastructure of roads, bridges, electrical grid, passenger rail system and are investing in cleaner energies that will have to replace our dependence on coal.
Women and Black Americans have made historic gains in pay equality.
Paved the way for the legalization of marijuana by pardoning all prior Federal convictions of possession, encouraging governors to do the same, and by creating a panel to re-class and re-thing the approach we take on the drug.
Only 8% of Americans remain without health insurance.
Wages have risen
Inflation has decreased.

Ideally a third party candidate could win the election. I think I’m done voting for any party who’s goal is to divide and conquer. We should be about uniting a nation rather than dividing it.

Religious freedom, government jobs and individual rights

Recently the clerk of Rown County Kentucky lost a court case in which she was sued for not signing marriage licenses of same-sex couples due to her religious beliefs. She was ordered to pay $100,000 to the couple along with court costs.

This brings up several issues – individual freedoms, religious freedom, and separation of church and state.

Should this clerk be allowed to have religious beliefs that contradict her civic duties? Yes, of course – the constitution allows for religious freedom. This concept is one of the reasons why the US sought and won independence from Great Britian. Does this permit her to deny another US citizen their constitutional right to get married? No. Should she leave her religious beliefs at home when she comes to work at her government job? Absolutely. The separation of church and state disallows the government from adopting a single religion or favoring one – religion has no place in government.

This is a no brainer. It’s very clear and although the media states that it is a complex issue, it really isn’t. It’s very. clear. Perhaps if your beliefs contradict your job duties you should find another job. In this case the voters took care of that for her. She wasn’t re-elected.

Sometimes the justice system does work.

Remodeling Lessons Learn(ing)ed

So I can’t be without at least 3 projects going on simultaneously without completely losing my mind. One of the three that I’ve been working on lately is remodeling the camper. It was very cramped and crowded in there and I didn’t really have enough space so I decided to remove the dinette and turn it into an office and then flip the bed around and make a bench, put in a credenza and give myself a little more space. I was constantly tripping over shit and swearing at everything and I thought that a little more space would be good for everybody involved (you know those voices in my head). Below is a picture of what it was before and what it is now and how I created a bunch of space.

As you can see, I’ve created a little more space as you walk in the door and a lot more space with the dinette used to be. One thing I didn’t mention is that I converted the shower into a closet – I just shower in the campground showers. I’ve also taken it upon myself to paint the entire place. I’ve chosen a nice light black almost a gray for all of the cabinets and a deep blue for accent walls and a nice gray for the rest of the walls. I’ve purchased a decal that is the night sky that I’ve placed around the bed as that wall curves up into the ceiling. I’ve added LED lighting so I don’t really have the overhead bright lights that a camper provides. I still have way too much stuff and I can’t seem to get everything put away at the same time so everything’s always just kind of messy. Every time I start a project everything gets put everywhere and it becomes a problem.

The challenges that I found when painting a camper especially when you’re living in it: If you want to take the cabinet doors off, you only have room to put one somewhere to dry so taking the cabinet door off, painting it on one side, allowing it to dry turning it over and doing the other side, allowing thjat to dry, turning it back over repainting the first side turning it over repainting the second side takes about four days and it was making me crazy so I gave it up and just started painting with the doors on. There’s nowhere to put anything so in order to paint you have to move stuff around they’re just isn’t room so unless you have a lot a large outdoor space that you know it’s not gonna rain, It’s really difficult to do painting in a camper that you’re living in. The paint store is about 35 minutes away so I’ve had to go back there three times because I’ve run out of paint and I decided one of the colors I got it first I didn’t like so that’s been also a challenge. It’s been a project though and I really like how it is turning out.

The other thing I learned about being in a camper is that you constantly have to recheck the seals on the outside because the rain will come in and the sealant that you put up there won’t last forever. In fact I sealed before I left and it already needs to be resealed again. I looked outside after a storm the other day and there’s plastic like Camper sealant all over the place and it’s almost depressing. I really hope that I’m not destroying the inside of the camper and it gets moldy. I’ve taken the suggestions of some online forums and purchased two dehumidifiers – one of them is doing a really good job in the bathroom and the one in the main room doesn’t seem to be collecting any water – so I don’t know what’s going on with that. I think it might be broken, but it’s important to keep the humidity in the camper or it will start to mold especially if you cook and shower in the camper.