A dogs day afternoon...

Avon Drone

Quick drone peek at the surrounding vistas of Avon, Ct.

Literary Lights

Celebrating the Boston public library, and its recent renovation and digitization of 1000s of original manuscripts, paintings and books.
Inspiring and humbling.

Happy Easter

A fun way to celebrate the start of year 5 in Red Sox nation ⚾️#openingday

One Less Reason To Own A Car

Its hard to explain but life in the city is simpler than life in the suburbs or country. We do most of our day to day grocery shopping by walking to one of several regular stores or speciality shops. On days when we need more than a few bags of groceries, there are 3 options for online shopping. Each has a delivery charge or subscription fee, and each charges the same as what you would find in the grocery store. We tend to eat similar foods week to week, and each offers, "Fill my cart with what you think I need", basically looking at common last orders. I usually tip the girl/guy who lugs up all the food 3 floors.
At the end of the day its a bit more expensive than driving to the grocery store, but the time saving and convenience is win. We basically shop on a phone app while eating breakfast, and each delivers to your kitchen.


Peapod: Online ordering, and delivery from a local chain of grocery stores. It has your typical large grocery store feel to the web site, nothing special, but everything has been good that we have ordered. We order staples, meat and produce. There is delivery fee ($7) for orders above $100. This was our first experience with online grocery shopping.  Deliveries can be scheduled for 24 hours or more ahead. 12 hours before the delivery there is a cutoff time from changing your order.

Instacart with Whole Foods: Instacart is not a part of Whole Foods, but rather a pick up service from many stores, Whole Foods, Costco, Petco, et al.  Just about anything our local Whole Foods sells, you can order. This is basically shopping and delivery on demand. You can get  groceries delivered right away. The fee is either subscription based ($100) or ($5) per trip. Prices vary on the per trip depending on demand. You can be thinking about dinner at 4, and have groceries delivered by 5. Its Whole Foods (Whole Paycheck) prices, but there is no better quality of food anywhere, including Wegmans. They offer our favorite loaves of bread, and vegan cookies. I was getting messages from the shopper as he made 2 substitutions, asking if it was ok.

Amazon Fresh: The most interesting of all 3, as they offer many choices from local stores that we frequent. Cheese from a local cheese store, or meat from our favorite butcher. Also they are the cheapest for everyday items. The packaging is very nice, all in refrigerated, but collapsable containers, that you return on your next order. The price is an add on to Prime membership of $15.00 per month.

After trying all 3, I suspect we will stay with Amazon Fresh, and use instacart when we need something for an evening meal, and don't feel like walking 10 minutes to go get it.

wework

Compromise: When everyone looses something.

Thats how I feel about cubicles. They are neither private or communal. Something brought to by a forgotten era of work. Fortunately companies are searching for something better. Enter wework, a company the retrofits existing space (usually old factories) into a collection of private offices, very private phone booths, large open floors of desks, and conference rooms. You choose what you want when you need it. There are currently 3 locations in Boston, housing over 5000 people and 100s of companies. Everything from large insurance companies to one man start ups.

My company is looking to experiment for the summer in such a venture. The Doc and I went and got a tour of the locations. They provide the office space, desk, chairs, custodial, internet, food (tea/coffee/water/beer). Thats right each floor has a stocked kitchen. Did I mention local draft beer on tap? Some are pet friendly. The atmosphere in the open spaces is one of soft-spoken nerds discussing who knows what with new found friends. The offices are quiet, but open feeling as they are all glassed in to let natural light penetrate.