It's almost time for The Vaporware Marathon.(tm) It's like running a 10k while being stuck in an enormous Ikea. With travel luggage obstacles.  Eight day warning.

Now they just need to start making bumpers bigger.

Round up your shopping posse People!

California just can't be talked out of it's ridiculous ideas. Now we have shopping carpoolioke. Luckily they shaved down the handicapped spots which I guess is a win for everyone. Said in the most sarcastic way. But it was super odd that there were more carpool spots than even EV spots. Which makes sense don't you think?

In the new year.

I'm not much for resolutions, but Lacy hopes to be a mature girl this year. She's sort of been on rolling restriction. But she's three now.... and I'm hoping she's finally grown up.

Merry Christmas!

Still alive but barely breathing.

I had to visit Fry's again because I read all these stories that the people who work at Fry' have been telling people that inventory was suppose to arrive any minute now. There was a rumor they were going to become a consignment only store or something like that. Which is code for going out of business. I figured if they really were going to get inventory - it would be for Christmas - right?

Nope. I expected as much. I didn't even take many pictures because nothing much has changed. The empty isles are evident right at the front now. It is super fascinating they still get people to work there at all. Everyone must ask them the same questions.







I was taking pictures in the computer department when one of the workers looked at me. So I asked him - where is all of your inventory? He replied - we sold out. I said - you must have had a good holiday season then, right? He replied they had. I sort of liked that they had come up with a new story. I think no one was believing the trade war one.

When I met back up with Mr S. I relayed the conversation. He's like - well,  he is "technically" correct. (which is the best kind of correct) they just aren't restocking. Me - well, you've run circles around me logically.



They were still handing out Fry;s credit cards though. LOL.



The TV department.

Mini light crawl day 2.

Grinchy this, Grinchy that.

I finally got some light crawl in. Better late than never.







Santa is wearing bunny slippers!







Push the shiney red button.

How would you play this?

I want to buy a material for a project. But the company is not really set up to sell to people like me. You need to set up an account which I'm fine with. But to set up an account they want to put you through a credit check because they really want to sell to large customers. I want to pay right away and pick the material up myself. There is a distribution warehouse inland from me. The home office is in Italy.

How would you persuade the company to let you buy a sheet or two of this stuff? I.E. set up an account without a revolving credit element. I don't want to be a dick about it. There are lots of construction companies that don't want to deal with end users. But I really want to get my hands on two sheets of this stuff.

They initially were going to let me piggy back on someone else that buys from my city. But what motivation do they really have to help me? They could charge mark-up and I would pay it, but that must not have gone well because I'm sort of on ignore now because I am small potatoes. I haven't really pushed things because I kinda feel like I only get one chance at this and want to make it count.

What would you do?

I have to take a beat. Then I'll circle back.

December is the worst time for this blog. I just have to regroup and take a couple of weeks where I don't have to think - how am I going to turn this into a story? Or more importantly - how am I going to get these words out of my head! You try being interesting every single day. By the end of the year it's huge grind and I start wondering why I even do this. And how I'm going to make things more interesting next year.

I do appreciate the people who manage to hold on. Although I'm not sure why you do.

Then it's back on the treadmill in January. Which is potentially shaping up to be interesting. But I can't plug anything because the minute I do, everything falls apart. And it doesn't involve CES. I'm hot on a different sector this year.

Lantern festival.

The rain is eating into my light crawl budget, but at least I got some shots of this tonight. It was also way smaller. They had to put out hay because a bunch of the area was mushy. It's probably been hard for them to set up, and I can't imagine that many people are going in the rain.

























Mr S. was a little confused as to why sea turtles would need to get on the ship. They can swim. They also had some seals.