Q&A: Restaurant

January 5 - What was the last restaurant you went to?

2014 - Menchies or The Ram with Lori for date night. - entered February 1

2015 - McDonalds. Ben, Rachel and I went for fries last Sunday after church. - entered accidentally on January 4

2016 - Wetzel's Pretzels. Yep.

2017 - Sunmoon Garden. Chinese food for take-out for New Years.

2018 - We had Gourmet 88 delivered for New Years.

From Q&A A Day: 5 Year Journal (a gift I received in 2014). A really great way to capture how a particular thought or activity changes over time.

Feed Sift (01/05/2017)

-1-

UNCLUTTERER.COM -- Four ideas for creating New Year's resolutions

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LIFEHACKER.COM -- Here's What Would Make Going to the Movies Worth the Money

-3-

SETHGODIN.TYPEPAD.COM -- Reading at work

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TWISTEDSIFTER.COM -- This Might Be the Best Lightning Storm Timelapse I’ve Ever Seen

-5-

LIFEHACKER.COM -- How You Can Study Snowflakes

Q&A: Best

January 4 - The best part of today?

2014 - Celebrating my birthday with my family (I received this book for my birthday) - entered Feb. 1

2015 - Sleeping in, waking up with Lori (instead of early, by myself) - entered Jan. 5

2016 - Feeling like I was actually contributing to our move plan.

2017 - I was happy to come into the house. Commute was really long.

2018 - Driving around L.A. in the daytime, participating in some great discussions. - entered January 5

From Q&A A Day: 5 Year Journal (a gift I received in 2014). A really great way to capture how a particular thought or activity changes over 5 years.

Q&A: Reading

January 3 - What are you reading right now?

2014 - "Understanding Your Child's Sensory Signals." Just finished "Takedown Twenty" and "W is for Wasted" - entered Feb. 1

2015 - "Amnesia Moon" by Jonathan Lethern. Trippy post-apocalyptic, probably benefits from audio book.

2016 - "Monument 14" by Emmy Laybourne. YA dystopia (I think). Interesting but not well-written. - entered Jan. 4

2017 - "The Annihilation Score" by Charles Stross (Laundry Files, Book 6)

2018 - "Glass Sword" (Red Queen #2) by Victoria Aveyard and "The Power of Moments" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, "The Secret Lives of Color" by Kassia St. Clair. (And continue to slowly re-re-read "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist" by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek)

These questions come from Q&A A Day: 5 Year Journal which I received as a gift in 2014. It’s been interesting to see how things have changed in that time.

Q&A: Change

January 2 - Can people change?

2014 - A little. But I think they have to move and sever a lot of ties. That gets harder to do with social media. - entered Feburary 16

2015 - Yes, but it has to be a daily effort and you have to be aware of triggers that can tempt you to abandon the change. - entered January 3

2016 - Yes, but most don't want to, despite what they say - entered January 4

2017 - Yes, though many would deny needing to change.

2018 - I hope so.

These questions come from Q&A A Day: 5 Year Journal, a gift I received a few years ago. It's a great way to capture small thoughts and memories and see how things change over the years. (This is an Amazon affiliate link, if you buy it, you help support my coffee habit.)

Q&A: Mission

January 1 - What is your mission?

2014 - Simplicity, Serenity, Serendipity (to get there, I need focus) - entered Feb. 16

2015 - Confidence

2016 - Move

2017 - To stay in control. This year, to stay ahead of the game.

2018 - Simplicity

These questions come from Q&A A Day: 5 Year Journal which I received for my birthday in 2014. It's a great way to capture small thoughts and memories and see how things change over the years. (This is an Amazon affiliate link, if you buy it, you help support my coffee habit.)

First Impressions: @Amazon @Restaurants

Ok, it is cool that Amazon Restaurants¹ does have the Twitter handle @restaurants. That's pretty slick.

We used the Amazon Restaurant platform tonight for the first time to order from a local restaurant We tried a few weeks ago, but we couldn't get past the part where you pay. No matter what we did, it wouldn't let us use one of the existing credit cards, wouldn't let us enter a new one on my wife's account using Chrome on a PC. The credit cards on the account did not match the payment options I see in normal Amazon.²

Tonight we had the same problem on my Mac using Chrome but I reloaded a few times and it was finally successful. I was about to try Safari, but I think it's a cop-out if I have to use a different browser to get it to work. (Via Twitter, Amazon Help suggested I clear my cache or try a different browser. That's a lazy suggestion.)

Also, the search box at the top has nothing to do with Amazon Restaurants.³

We put the order together and had it ready to go. The confirmation screen showed the approximate delivery time. We noticed that if we let it sit there for 10 minutes and then reloaded, it didn't refresh. We had to leave the cart and re-enter the cart to get updated delivery time.⁴

A $10 coupon was applied, but there was no explanation why. when I attempted to use one of the ones I'd received in email for No Rush Prime, it acted like it was accepted, but did not change the total.

We placed the order, got a text message confirming. Then another text telling us that the order would be delivered incomplete and to look for an email. Turned out they couldn't provide the appetizer and would be providing me a refund. There was no option to cancel the order and there was no option to add to the order.⁵

There was a map that showed the restaurant and our house. In a cool/creepy way, it updated to show the food making its way to our house. Amazing what GPS and cell phones allow.

In the end, we were able to enjoy our New Year's Eve date-at-home but without me needing to pick up food. It's pretty rudimentary at the moment, not quite as polished as you'd expect from an Amazon product, but we'll use it again and looking forward to seeing how the platform improves over time.

Happy New Year!
¹ Affiliate link. If you buy, I get pennies for books.
² Suggestion for future release - Make AR's payment options match Amazon's payment options; make AR more resilient on Chrome
³ Suggestion for future release - make the search look for restaurants or look within a menu
⁴ Suggestion for future release - the ability to select the delivery window; also make the delivery time refresh if you reload the cart
⁵ Suggestion for future release - the ability to cancel the entire order; a window during which you can add to your order