Author: johnmarkos

  • Weird weekend

    I did not have a great weekend, although there were some highlights. I did spend some good quality time with my son, which was cool, but other things were bugging me. For one thing, I spent $500 on this dumb night guard thing for my teeth, and I really don’t like it. I can return…

  • Star Wars weekend

    This weekend we watched both Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) and The Empire Strikes Back with the kids. One thing that really struck me is how excellent the second movie (“episode V”) is. It’s really well made, and the cliffhanger ending is just awesome. We watched Star Wars on Friday night at our…

  • Hurt Back

    Yesterday, I was putting away groceries, and I turned for some reason, and I felt a now familiar twinge in my back. I had strained a muscle in my back, much as I have done a few times in recent months. It hurt a *lot* last night, and somewhat less today. I’m hopeful that I’ll…

  • Doing things

    Today we did our taxes, and the damages weren’t quite as bad as I feared, so I’m happy about that. We finally got some rain here in San Francisco. I went for a run this afternoon, and it was still sprinkling. I’ve noticed that the rainy season has been coming late to California in recent…

  • Last Cinderella

    Usually my wife watches Korean drama, which is most of what Drama Fever offers anyway. Last week, nevertheless, she was watching a Japanese drama called “Last Cinderella,” which aired in Japan in 2013. It was so well-made — charming and sexy — that I got drawn in and started watching it too.

  • No Instacart, either

    Yesterday we almost tried Instacart. Sara did the shopping, and we noticed from the get go that they have a significant markup — for example, a half gallon of Clover organic milk is $5.19, which is more expensive than the little grocery next door. I know that a half gallon of organic milk is less…

  • Working towards to-do list zero

    Recently I switched from Things to Wunderlist. I’ve been thinking I’m going to switch my phone from iOS to Android either late this year or early next year, and Wunderlist works on Android. Another thing Wunderlist does is allow sharing of a to-do list. So if Sara is using Wunderlist, too, I can share a…

  • First experience with Blue Apron

    Continuing with my outsourcing project, we tried  Blue Apron for the first time this week. Blue Apron is a service where the company sends you a chilled box with ingredients, along with three recipes, and you use the recipes to prepare the meals. My experience was not totally positive, as you’ll read in this post.…

  • Laundry outsourcing update

    Yesterday, I wrote about how we’re outsourcing our laundry as part of my New Year’s resolution, and how we tried a wash, fold, and delivery service. Shortly before our laundry was returned from Prim, I received a notice that the service is closing down. I looked around for other services I could use, and the…

  • A productive weekend

    Yesterday morning, someone from Prim came to pick up our laundry. It really was nice to spend the weekend without a huge pile of laundry to do. In addition to outsourcing laundry, I have been thinking about trying Instacart or Amazon for grocery delivery, but yesterday I decided to go to the grocery store after…