HinesSight

I've stopped using Grubhub and DoorDash after two restaurants asked me to

Live and learn. Until recently I'd never used restaurant ordering apps on my iPhone.

Old-fashioned guy that I was, I'd phone a restaurant and call in my order. But then I decided to join the 21st century, so I installed Grubhub and DoorDash. 

Not knowing any better, I figured that restaurants liked these apps. Or at least, they were okay with them as alternative ways of getting orders from customers other than their own web sites.

So for the past few months I've been using Grubhub and DoorDash to order from three restaurants in south Salem that I'd gotten into the habit of picking up food from on Friday afternoons, rotating my orders between them. 

No more. Because staff at two of the restaurants have told me they'd much prefer that I order from their own web site rather than an app.

This past Friday I learned from a restaurant employee that Grubhub jacks up the price of the dish that I'd ordered to $18 from the $15, I think it is, that the restaurant charges. And that's for a pick-up order, not a delivery order.

Curious about why the apps are disliked by restaurants, I Googled "why restaurants don't like grubhub doordash." Wow. A lot of horror stories popped up.

A Reddit post said:

Many restaurants hate the apps because the apps often list the restaurants without their consent, with inflated prices, overwork their staff and subject them to pushy, impatient drivers, and cause customer complaints about inflated prices on the platforms that aren't even the restaurants' doing. When you order directly from a lot of restaurant's websites, you get their actual price and their driver. Not saying it's always this way, but poke around on this sub and you will see what I'm talking about. This note is not from a restaurant that uses the Big 3 to fulfill their direct orders.

A CNN story said:

Restaurant operators complain that third-party delivery providers like Seamless, DoorDash and Uber Eats are prohibitively expensive. These platforms offer a way for customers to order from local restaurants, process restaurant payments and provide contract drivers to pick meals up from restaurants and deliver them to customers. For these services, they often charge restaurants around 30% per order. But profit margins in the restaurant industry are often razor-thin, so these fees can wipe out the restaurant’s profits or put them in the red. And if they choose to outsource delivery to these platforms, restaurants also hand off valuable customer data and control over how delivery orders show up at their customers doors.

But I wasn't using the apps for food delivery, just for ordering, since I'd pick up the food myself. Even so, the two Salem restaurants who asked me to stop using the apps said that they are hurt by Grubhub and DoorDash. 

 

I benefitted from my sessions at Salem's Innerhealth Acupuncture Clinic

Today I had my eighth weekly treatment from Karen Kaufman at her Innerhealth Acupuncture Clinic here in Salem (Oregon). This was my first serious dive into the acupuncture waters, having previously only waded in the shallow pool of single sessions with a couple of acupuncturists.

Karen Kaufman, Ph.D., L.Ac

I'm convinced that Kaufman helped relieve the sciatica pain in my right leg considerably.

Naturally I can't be sure of this, since I'm not a random controlled experiment, just one person who was drawn to try acupuncture after physical therapy didn't do much to relieve the pain, over the counter medications did next to nothing, and I had to wait quite a while to get an epidural steroid injection in my back.

I had two acupuncture treatments prior to getting the epidural injection from Salem Pain and Spine Specialists on May 13. By the time of the injection, the pain in my leg was considerably reduced. I ascribe that to acupuncture, since this was the only thing I'd done differently prior to the injection.

After the injection, I continued to get acupuncture from Kaufman every week, figuring that I didn't really care about what, exactly, was making the pain lessen, so long as I was feeling better. For several months I hadn't been able to go to my Tai Chi classes, the pain was so bad. After I started the acupuncture treatments, I was able to return to Tai Chi.

At my first session, Kaufman told me that her previous three patients all had sciatica. Not surprising, since nerve pain seemingly would be one of the problems acupuncture is best suited for. I'd found a review of the literature on this that suggested acupuncture benefits people with sciatica.

I liked that Kaufman was pure acupuncture with me. No mention of herbs or other aspects of Chinese medicine. Early on I told her that I was fairly well acquainted with the notions of meridians, qi, and such, as this gets discussed in my Tai Chi classes, which I've been taking for 18 years. But I'm agnostic as to whether these things truly are scientifically valid.

Kaufman has an interesting background, according to her web site. 

Karen is excited to be returning to Innerhealth where she worked a decade ago with founder, Angela Pfaffenberger.

An Oregon native, Karen grew up in Astoria and is a graduate of U of O.  After earning a doctorate in psychology at Claremont and teaching at a university, she decided to enhance her interest in Chinese Medicine by attending the International Institute of Chinese Medicine in Santa Fe, NM.  After earning a master’s degree in Chinese Medicine, she received funding to do acupuncture research and has taught in the acupuncture doctoral program at ACTCM in San Francisco.  She has been seeing patients in private practice for 13 years.

Karen uses a gentle approach, employing every skill she has acquired along the way, often with a dose of good humor.  She effortlessly combines her east/west training and is particularly attuned to psychological aspects of pain and illness.  She considers treating stress her major area of expertise, both in terms of addressing the everyday hassles that can grind a person down and result in pain, and in treating the fallout from major life stressors and trauma that can, of course, negatively affect health.

Today we agreed that it made sense for me to take a break from acupuncture for a while and see how my leg feels without it. My insurance, Regence MedAdvantage, covers 12 acupuncture treatments a year, if I remember the number correctly. So I have four sessions left in 2024 if I want to return for an acupuncture tune-up.

I find that cold remedies can be worse than the cold

I don't get sick very often. So at first I couldn't believe that I had a cold, irrationally thinking that even though I don't have allergies, my nasal congestion was due to that, rather than a cold. 

But a week ago, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. Not being able to breathe through my nose was annoying, as was breathing via my mouth. Propping my head up on a couple of pillows didn't help. Neither did spraying saline solution in my nostrils, my usual approach to mild everyday congestion. 

So the next day I headed off to Walgreens to get some Sudafed. The real stuff with pseudoephedrine, which Oregon used to require a prescription to get since it can be used to cook up meth. Now you can get it from a pharmacist by showing ID so repeated purchases can be tracked.

I decided to get the 12 hour variety, figuring (wrongly, it turned out) that I'd take one pill at 11 am, when I bought the Walgreens generic version of Sudafed, and another pill at 11 pm, which would keep my nasal passages decongested all night.

Good plan. But based on wrong facts. 

The first pill I took at 11 am did indeed start working soon. But when I got home, my wife reminded me that pseudoephedrine is a stimulant. I'd noticed that the box said "non-drowsy," but I figured this meant it wouldn't put you to sleep, not that it'd keep you awake.

Which, it did, even after more than 12 hours had passed since I took the first dose of generic Sudafed. However, once I got to sleep, I had a pretty good night, since I'd gotten some Kroger Daytime/Nighttime  Sinus Relief after realizing that the pseudoephedrine wasn't going to work for me given how sensitive I was to its stimulating effect.

I'd also gotten some Allegra, because I wanted an antihistamine after finding that the generic Sudafed worked so well after I took it at 11 am, now I had a runny nose. That, of course, wasn't surprising, since I'd just taken a decongestant. But it became annoying to constantly be using a facial tissue to wipe my nose.

I thought (again wrongly, it turned out) that I'd found a cold remedy sweet spot with Allegra and the Kroger Sinus Relief, which is generic Mucinex Sinus-Max Day and Night. However, the Allegra soon made my nose feel too dry, so I just relied on the Nightime generic Mucinex, which had an antihistamine for runny nose along with a decongestant and other stuff.

After a few days, though, I began to worry about the warning on both the generic Sudafed (which I'd stopped taking) and the generic Mucinex (which I was taking both day and night) to ask a doctor before taking if you "have difficulty in urination due to enlargement of the prostate gland." Along with a bunch of other conditions I didn't have, like high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and such. 

I'd ignored that warning, because a urologist had told me that I didn't have a prostate problem, I had a bladder problem -- the reason I need to use a urinary catheter to pee most of the time. However, after taking the generic Mucinex for about three days, while it was keeping my nose decongested, I began to find that it was more difficult to insert a catheter into the bladder.

Some Googling revealed that this can happen when taking Mucinex, Sudafed, and similar products. I'd also noticed that for the nighttime generic Mucinex, the label said to ask a doctor before use if you have glaucoma, which I do.

So my simple desire not to have my nose congested had turned into a rather complex medical puzzle because of the side effects, either actual or potential, of what I was taking. That made me realize the wisdom of something I'd read in my Googling: try to only deal with the actual cold symptom(s) you're experiencing, which may mean not using multi-symptom products like Mucinex.

A few days ago I decided to use some saline solution in my nostrils before I went to bed, propped up my head and shoulders, and slept fine without any cold remedy. Live and learn. From now on I'm only going to use the smallest amount of a decongestant or antihistamine, instead of taking this stuff all through the day, like I'd been doing. 

But at least I'm prepared for the next time I have a cold. Assuming I can remember where I stored these boxes.

Photos of our yard and property, to remind me why we don't want to move

We bought our rural south Salem house, which was built in 1973, from a couple in their mid-60s who said they were selling because the house on five acres was too much for them to maintain anymore.

Well, 35 years later, Laurel and I now are in our mid-70s, taking care of the same house (extensively updated by us) and an additional five acres, for a total of ten, since we were able to buy an undeveloped neighboring lot quite a few years ago.

Someday, probably, we'll have to move. In case I ever wonder why it took us so long, I like to write periodic blog posts with photos of our yard and property, given that our surroundings are the main reason we love where we're been living since 1990.

Here's a tour of a walk I took this afternoon.

Outside our front door, we recently had the stone steps leading to our detached garage/carport improved to be more stable. More rock also was added on either side of the steps. 

We've also had the rock wall along a pathway to our yard improved. (In case you can't tell, we like rocks!)

This path is another recent addition. There used to be some grass here, but it didn't grow well, being directly under several large fir trees. So Norberto Flores' crew, who do great work maintaining and improving our property, installed a path with very fine gravel.

I like how the new path makes a big bend, kind of like a meandering river, to join with the end of the existing path.

The tracks in the grass were made by the John Deere lawn tractor I use to mow various fields and paths on our property. It used to take me much longer with a walk-behind field mower. Now I can do everything in just two hours. Power steering and four-wheel steering, and a heavy duty chassis, make the sometimes challenging mowing pretty darn easy.


This replacement Japanese Maple, which we planted after its much larger predecessor was crushed under a large oak limb in the Great Ice Storm of 2021, is growing nicely.

Our water feature adds some flowing liveliness and pleasing sound to the yard.

Leaving the yard, a path takes me to one of the fields I mowed today.

Below that is another mowed field.

Next to it, one more mowed field. I find mowing relaxing. It takes constant attention, to avoid large branches and to maneuver around the many trees, fallen logs, rocks, and such, but I'm so familiar with all of those things, mowing becomes a sort of mindful meditation for me.

A bench sits next to the path down to the spring-fed creek, which flows for most of the year. 

Laurel has added stepping stones and gravel to an often-slippery slope.

We've had two nicely designed bridges made to replace my decidedly amateurish bridges. This is the first bridge over one tributary of the creek.

This is the second bridge, over another tributary of the creek, nicely nestled between two trees, one of them a snag.

The barely visible creek is lined with lush vegetation.

More steps made by Laurel lead from the creek to the community trail, on an easement, that we use to get to our community lake, Spring Lake.

The easement trail goes up, then down to Spring Lake.

Daisies next to the lake.

Spring Lake is about nine acres. No motorized boats allowed. A blue kayak is on the left.

After walking around the lake, I return home. I like how our house is nestled under large oak and fir trees. We could be happy somewhere else, I'm sure, but we'll never find a place as close to nature as where we are now.

Oregon State and Oregon both in NCAA baseball super regionals. Exciting!

It's a tradition for me.

Since for many years I've been unable to watch the Pac-12 Networks due to their never-ending and hugely irritating pissing match with DirecTV, the only time I get to see the Oregon State baseball team play is if they either make it to the Pac-12 tournament championship game (didn't happen in 2024) or are selected to play in the NCAA tournament (which did happen in 2024).

So I was able to get to know the OSU baseball team this past weekend when they hosted the Corvallis regional. Three wins in four days -- Sunday's game got rained out in the fourth inning, I believe it was, so they finished up the deciding game against UC Irvine on Monday -- put them in a Super Regional against Kentucky in Lexington that starts next Saturday.

Beat Kentucky twice, and the Beaver baseball team will be one of eight teams in the College World Series. They've been ranked in the top ten for much of the season, though they dropped to a #16 seed in the NCAA tournament owing to some lost games at the end of the season. 

Oregon State sure looked good in the three games I watched. Kentucky should be nervous, notwithstanding the #2 seed that Kentucky earned because of a stellar season in the always-tough SEC. One thing that impressed the announcers who called the games for ESPN was how OSU hitters are a tough out all the way through the lineup.

In fact, the announcers gave an award to the 7-8-9 players in the hitting rotation for producing so many hits and runs during the regional matchup. And of course OSU has Travis Bazzana, one of the top players in the country who had a great season in the final year of Pac-12 sports as we know them, meaning, before Oregon State and Washington State become the only Pac-12 members, for a while.

Given that fact, it'd be poetic justice if OSU were to win the 2024 NCAA Baseball Championship.

No matter what the future of Oregon State baseball may be (I'm hoping for continued success), the team already has given OSU fans a lot to cheer for, which helps take away some of the pain of seeing OSU and WSU deserted by the ten members of the Pac-12 who left the league for a variety of reasons, none of which made sense to me.

That includes Oregon, whose baseball team also had a great season and will be playing in a Super Regional against Texas A&M, the #3 seed. I don't know much about the Ducks' team, never having seen them play, but I'll be rooting for them this weekend. Pretty amazing that the only Pac-12 teams who made it to a Super Regional are Oregon State and Oregon.

Take that, Arizona, who won both the regular season title and Pac-12 baseball tournament, yet was defeated in their regional.

Five recent streaming shows that I liked a lot

These days, on broadcast television I mainly watch news and political programs. For entertainment, it's almost entirely streaming shows that appeal to me. Here's five recent offerings that I liked a lot, or at least enough close enough to a lot that I was eager to watch all of the episodes in the series.

They're ranked in the order of my liking, with (1) being my favorite.

(1) The Veil - Hulu
Amazingly, this was my first real introduction to Elisabeth Moss, who does a terrific job playing an intelligence agent tasked with finding out whether an Islamic woman in a refugee camp on the Turkish/Syria border, if I recall the countries correctly, is a relatively innocent member of a terrorist organization, or the mastermind of a plot that could kill many thousands of people.

The relationship between the women is fascinating. Each is adept at showing themselves to be someone who may or may not be who they really are. I was so taken by Moss, I finally have gotten around to watching The Handmaid's Tale, a series that I passed on because it seemed too disturbing. Yes, it is, but Moss is so good in it, I'm enjoying the first season, which I've almost finished. 

(2) Hacks (season 3) - Max/HBO
My wife and I have enjoyed the first two seasons of Hacks. Season 3 is just as good, maybe even better. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder have great chemistry together. It's a pleasure to have a series about an aging female comedian and her bisexual young writer be both so funny and so touching.

Good comedy really goes a long way toward making life seem more bearable, because it lightens and brightens my spirits. It turned out that a couple of days before I was scheduled for a colonoscopy I watched an episode where Smart joins a group of elderly men who have an annual party where they drink and have a good time, then all go together to get a colonoscopy. Not exactly realistic, but the jokes made me feel better about my own procedure.

(3) Franklin - Apple TV+
An entertaining and informative look at Benjamin Franklin's efforts to entice France to enter the Revolutionary War on America's side. Michael Douglas is totally believable as Franklin. Even though we know how history turned out -- we won the war and gained our independence -- this series shows how things could have gone quite differently.

The dialogue is crisp and well-written. Franklin's wit and personality come though loud and clear. We did some Googling of the historical accuracy, and it appears that this series is mostly based on fact, though naturally there's some fiction mixed in.

(4) Sugar -- Apple TV+
Colin Farrell plays John Sugar, a Los Angeles area private detective who drives around in a classic convertible, loves old movies, and has secrets that eventually are revealed in what for me was an unsatisfying conclusion. But I still enjoyed the intrigue as Sugar tries to find a missing woman who is a member of a famous acting and movie-making family. Lots of twists and turns, as there should be in this sort of show.

(5) The Sympathizer -- Max/HBO
This tale of a double agent who was a communist sympathizer in the South Vietnam army, serving as an intelligence agent who rooted out North Vietnamese spies, appealed to my love of spy thrillers. And it was interesting as a reminder of the Vietnam War that was so instrumental in my baby boomer generation's formative years (I escaped being drafted by a high enough number in the "birthday" lottery).

But the episodes had too many ups and downs for me to love this series. I finished it, but more because I was curious to see how it was going to end than because I adored watching the series. Robert Downey Jr. plays several roles, none of whom looked like Robert Downey Jr. to me, so kudos to the costume and makeup people. The Sympathizer is worth watching for the Asian stereotyping back in this country during the 1970s, which thankfully has improved a lot.