Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

This afternoon, Lisa (whose sleep schedule has rotated back to the Dreaded Day Shift) asked if we could go to Reno for some grocery shopping and other errands. After I said goodbye to Kayla for the rest of the day and packed the small coolers with ice, Lisa and I headed into Reno. First we went to Staples for something Lisa wanted, then it was off to WinCo Foods, where it was much less crowded than it usually is on a Sunday afternoon. There were a few things she wanted that she couldn't get there, so we went to Raley's for them.

I'd been up since around 4 AM, which isn't that unusual for me, but my eyes were burning as we turned for home. I think there is a lot of pollen in the air. I can see that the cottonwoods are starting to shed. I'm glad I have tomorrow as a holiday and am not traveling this weekend any farther than I have already gone over the past two days. Kayla might go to the Wigwam tomorrow, but that's about the limits of our ambition at the moment.

One of the tasks that Lisa and I had yesterday (and a contributing factor to why we got home relatively late) was that I decided that I'd better buy a new computer. While the one I have here is working okay, the vendor won't renew the hardware service plan. Some of you may recall that I used that plan last year. Also, it still is on Windows 10, which is also nearing end of service, and while I could and will update the machine, it did seem like it was time to do something. So we went to Best Buy to look at computers. We also were hoping to get a machine before The Regime's tariffs double the cost of the computers for the benefit of His Orange Highness enriching himself at the expense of everyone else.

There's no obvious direct replacement for my current machine. I want what is often placed as a "gaming laptop," not for gaming, but for video editing. That ups the cost because I want a powerful graphics card and a fair bit of memory. However, when I bought the current machine, the difference was like night and day when doing video work.

The machine we settled on buying wasn't in stock, but they said that they could have it by Friday. They offered free delivery, but given that package-delivery services have done things like just toss packages over the fence, that didn't seem like a good idea. Lisa reminded me that Kayla was coming into Reno on Friday. The sales person confirmed that as long as she brings the documentation for the sale, Kayla can pick it up for me, so she'll come over after her doctor's appointment on Friday afternoon.

After buying the computer, I bought several computer accessories. Among these was a USB-to-USB-C cable, which I need for my new iPhone and the external auxiliary battery, both of which only have double-ended USB-C cables. Also, I got an external hub with an Ethernet port in it, because the new machine doesn't have a built-in Ethernet jack. The older computer does, and we connect our computers to the wired network that Lisa installed.

I'm not looking forward the the hassle of setting up a new computer. That is one of the reasons I tend to stick with my computers as long as I possibly can. But with luck, this one will work for several years. I'd have to go back and look, but I thought this one lasted four years.

Update: About 4 1/2 years.

Yesterday, Lisa and I had cause to go over to Big R in Fallon (which is bigger and has a better selection of things than the one in Fernley). On our way out, I stopped at the post office to officially add Kayla's name to the list of names that receives mail at the PO Box. As I expected, there was no problem, although I had a brief moment of panic when they asked for my ID to prove I was the person who owned the box. I thought I might have left in the van, or worse, forgot to bring it with me at all; however, after a bit of fumbling in my tote bag, the wallet resurfaced. (I think I need to get a different color of wallet; a black walled disappears inside a black bag.)

Kayla can now order stuff shipped here without having to put "c/o Kevin Standlee" in the address, which doesn't always work anyway because some vendors, even if they have a 2-line address field, don't include both lines on the shipping label.

After refueling the Astro, we made the trip to Fallon. We did not find the primary thing for which we were looking, but did end up buying a whole bunch of other things, such as some new long work gloves (welding gauntlets, actually) to use for moving firewood. They've stopped carrying the long-wearing socks that I wear, though.

Because of both me and the Astro being out of service for the past two weeks, we were behind on our grocery shopping. So this morning at 2 AM, we set out to Winco Foods in South Reno and did a pretty large grocery run. It took a while and cost a lot, but we have the larder refilled. The minivan ran without problems.

Lisa's sleep schedule is such that when got home, it was the end of her "day." I, however, had slept for about four hours overnight and drank a bunch of coffee to keep me awake for the drive to/from Reno, and consequently I could not go back to bed. I went and had breakfast at the Wigwam (arriving just as they opened), then later in the morning ran over to Walgreens for a few miscellaneous items that I've wanted to get for a while, and otherwise took it relatively easy. But there's a good chance that I'm going to fall into bed early this afternoon.

Mid morning today, I had a number of errands to run locally. The first was to drop off a parcel that was a return merchandise item for Kayla. To my annoyance, when I got to the UPS agency, they said they can't process the QR code that the vendor said would print a return label. I had to print one at home, tape it to the package, and bring it back, which I did later in the day.

Speaking of packages, there were a whole bunch of them waiting for me at the post office. I've been so busy with the Day Jobbe today that I still haven't had a chance to open any of them. I do know that one of them was a package of some European-made toothbrushes that Lisa found on her train travels last year. We found one place in the USA that sells them, and I got her five of them.

At Big R, I paid for a pallet of firewood, which will will collect by Thursday, and probably sooner, because there is snow and rain in the forecast for Wednesday night into Thursday. (The pallets of Press-to-Logs are wrapped in plastic.) The weather has been quite cold, with highs just above freezing and overnight lows down to -12&Deg;C.

Finally, I went to Grocery Outlet, which is running a promotion to win free groceries for life. Today was the last day to enter, and by spinning their virtual wheel online, I got 75 bonus entries. Not that I expect to win, since the promotion is for the entire chain, but it would be nice! At Lisa's suggestion, I bought a pound of ground beef. She's making spaghetti for us tonight.

Today I am burning the pallet and logs that Lisa cut up yesterday. It looks like it works out the about one day's worth of firewood, and thus one day's worth of Press-to-Logs that I don't have to burn.

The alarm went off at 2:00 AM, much too early for my liking. I dragged myself out of bed, went and set a cup of coffee to brew, and got dressed with minimal prep. While I was answering messages, Lisa came in at 2:30 as we'd discussed last night. I finished the food bar (which she had brought home with her all the way from her train from Munich to Hamburg), took the coffee, and we headed for Reno.

As usual when you shop at WinCo at this hour, there are more shelf-stockers than shoppers, and we spent our shopping dodging forklifts and piles of goods being put on the shelves. However, we had no wait to check out, and we did a very large refill of our pantry.

We got home around 5:30 AM, unloaded everything, and Lisa said goodnight. I had drank enough coffee that I would not be able to go back to sleep, so shortly after 6 PM I walked to the Wigwam and had breakfast. I also retrieved my players club card from the casino, where kayla_allen had left it after she used it yesterday.

Much of my day today was taken up by a Montreal in 2027 Worldcon Bid Committee meeting. As part of my contribution, I sent a message to BayCon/Westercon asking for a bid table for Montreal. I won't necessarily be around for much of BayCon, but Kayla is probably going to be doing stuff there, and the Montreal committee didn't seem to have a problem with her doing the bid table work.

We originally meant to do a bunch of errands in Reno yesterday, but the forecast was for snow, so we held off for a day. There was no snow either yesterday or today (except up in the mountains), so we took a shot at getting things done today.

We did most of the errands we planned to do, including getting a small Christmas tree. It was pretty time-consuming, through, as a whole lot of other people also were out there. In the end, we skipping the largest grocery shopping stop and went home, because we were both worn out. So the errand list ended up being: Drop off recycling; try to go to Cost Plus World Market but balk because the queue was much too long; Whole Foods Market to return bottles and buy a couple of things; Stop at Best Buy to buy Lisa's Christmas present (a large SSD drive); Get a tree from Home Depot because I forgot we planned to go to Moana Nursery and we didn't want to back-track; Stop at Work World and get a couple of pairs of slacks for me (hooray, I've dropped down one size); Raley's for some groceries we can't get at WinCo; then go home instead of going to WinCo.

We'll have to make at least one more trip to Reno between now and Christmas, in order to do major grocery shopping and buy a ham for the holiday.

Lisa is still having some difficulty getting around, as she also injured her shoulder during the fun and games installing that door. We'll see if it's serious enough to take her to Urgent Care and get her shoulder X-rayed.

Aside from my emergency extra trip to Reno to buy a new cable modem on the day I got home, I'd gone no father from home than Grocery Outlet, Walgreens, and the Renown Health Urgent Care clinic since I got home. I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about going anywhere this weekend, but I've recovered sufficiently (including from the leg infection) that it seemed like I should go take care of things. Also, I had a birthday offer from Cost Plus World Market that would have expired if I didn't use it this weekend. So I decided to get mildly adventurous.

I haven't been to any Reno buffets since the pandemic started. Unfortunately, the pandemic killed my favorite, which was the Peppermill's — they've remodeled it out of existence — and the three major downtown hotels ("The Row") have also discontinued buffets. The Atlantic still has a buffet, and it still has a weekend brunch, so I decided to give it a try.

Brunch doesn't start until 9 AM, and I woke up much earlier than necessary, but I killed enough time so that I arrived just after they opened. It was not that crowded, which was a relief. It's not cheap, even after my 10% locals discount. Unfortunately, it turns out that I did not bring a big enough appetite. I don't care for lobster (too much work to crack it; the lobster Newberg was good, though) and I don't drink alcohol, so the free-flowing champagne was not for me. They did have a good omelette, and a fine Asian and Mexican section. But the real issue was that I wasn't nearly as hungry as I should have been for such a huge selection of food. I felt stuffed after far less food than I would remembered getting from places like this. Maybe that's good.

One thing that was good, and partially makes up for the cost of the buffet, is that I was so full that nothing looked appetizing, so I didn't really overspent at Cost Plus World Market or WinCo Foods, the latter of which was nowhere as busy as I'd feared it would be. Between the two I went to the Reno Lush store, because I was nearly out of both of the things I use from them. I was in the UK for so long that I ran through what I'd bought at the Lush at Paddington near the beginning of the trip, although admittedly I bought smaller sizes to reduce how much I needed to carry around.

While I was in Lush in South Reno, I told the staff there about visiting the biggest Lush store I've ever seen, and as luck would have it, one of the two staff members had also been there. He said that apparently there's at least one larger one in Liverpool and another large one in, as he recalled, Amsterdam. The Glasgow Lush on Buchanan Street is four stories tall and very wide too boot. I mentioned later to Lisa (I went by this store shortly after dropping her at Chris off at Glasgow Queen Street for the start of their rail journey) that if I'd had more time, I would have sprung for their one-hour foot spa treatment, after the days in Iceland and London and a lot of time on my feet at Worldcon (albeit less than usual thanks to being sat in those marathon Business Meetings). She told me that she wouldn't have blamed me for doing so.

I was out for about six hours on Saturday, and was a lot more tired than I expected to be. Unless I've done my sums wrong, I may not need to go back to Reno again until Lisa gets back home a month from now.

It has been more than a month since we did a major grocery shopping run to WinCo Foods in Reno, so we made a trip to town this morning, leaving just before 1 AM and getting home just before 4 AM. This was our first shopping trip since we got the Astro back, and we're both much happier doing so. Not only does it cost half as much (the Astro gets twice the mileage of the Rolling Stone), but it's easier to pack the minivan compared to the RV.

As usual, we made two trips in and out of the store: the first one was for heavy/bulky things like bottled water, soda, and juice. Then we return for everything else. Total damage was just short of $400, but again, that's a month's worth of stuff, not counting perishables like milk and meat we get locally in Fernley.

It took about 30 minutes to unload all of these groceries once we got home. Lisa says that putting stuff away after a trip this comprehensive reminds her of the movie Das Boot with how they crammed the submarine full of supplies at the start of a mission.

Lisa and I planned to go to Reno for grocery shopping at WinCo at about 1 AM Friday morning. Unfortunately, I never was able to get to sleep yesterday afternoon (which is odd because I've been doing so a lot lately, but I had a lot on my mind yesterday and couldn't sleep). So a little after 11 PM we decided to go ahead and get it done while I was still awake.

Fortunately, aside from the aisles being full of boxes, forklifts, pallet jacks, and people working on same, there were not a whole lot of actual customers. As usual, we did two trips: once for bulky things and then again for smaller stuff. (Otherwise we'd need two shopping carts, and we'd rather make two trips with one card than one trip with us both pushing carts.)

The weather was mostly clear, and so were the highways; however, there were strong gusty winds in the Truckee River canyon between Sparks and Fernley. I'm glad traffic was light, because the Rolling Stone was getting pushed around. A couple of times, I felt the need to reassure Lisa that I was awake, just being buffeted.

We got home around 1:30 AM and got the goods unloaded and put away before 2 AM. Given that I'd been awake since 5 AM the previous day, it was definitely time for bed for me. The next eight hours was pretty sound sleep for me.