The Borders of Livermore Valley Have Expanded.
In Civ IV, when one of your cities has increased it's cultural influence over a wider area, you hear a "buh-dum" sound to alert you. I swear this morning I heard that sound as I reviewed my orders for the day.
Hey, a map!
I had to go to to Vacaville, which is normally way outside my service area. To be honest, it's normally in our Sacramento office's service area. But a shop for one of our big clients needed material we had, so off I went. I only had a handful of other stops (one of which was pulled enroute) so I didn't mind the drive. Because Vacaville is far outside the range of our mapbooks, I snagged the GPS unit from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kshandra's car (Darby still needs to go in for servicing) and used it to find the place. Worked like a charm. I then needed to get from Vacaville to Stockton, and had no clue how to proceed. So I gave the GPS the address, told it "shortest route" and headed out.
What followed was the reason I love driving for a living. I was flying down farm roads, state highways and passing through tiny hamlets that barely rated a gas station but were obviously home for some folks. I crossed the Sacramento, Mokelumne, and San Joaquin rivers, and saw a lot of cows. Just a beautiful day for driving, and I was getting paid for it.
Today also saw me testing our newest toy, a hand held thingy that is supposed to speed up our billing cycle. Pretty much a clone of the "sign here" device used by UPS and FedEx, this one scans a bar code on the invoice and allows an electronic signature. Going to take some getting used to, but it will cut our paper usage in half, and speed billing, which is good for both us and our clients.
My pure moment of coolness came early on when I spotted Mercury while fueling the truck. Made a nice triangle with the Moon and Saturn. I had never spotted Mercury without binoculars before.
Hey, a map!
I had to go to to Vacaville, which is normally way outside my service area. To be honest, it's normally in our Sacramento office's service area. But a shop for one of our big clients needed material we had, so off I went. I only had a handful of other stops (one of which was pulled enroute) so I didn't mind the drive. Because Vacaville is far outside the range of our mapbooks, I snagged the GPS unit from
kshandra's car (Darby still needs to go in for servicing) and used it to find the place. Worked like a charm. I then needed to get from Vacaville to Stockton, and had no clue how to proceed. So I gave the GPS the address, told it "shortest route" and headed out.What followed was the reason I love driving for a living. I was flying down farm roads, state highways and passing through tiny hamlets that barely rated a gas station but were obviously home for some folks. I crossed the Sacramento, Mokelumne, and San Joaquin rivers, and saw a lot of cows. Just a beautiful day for driving, and I was getting paid for it.
Today also saw me testing our newest toy, a hand held thingy that is supposed to speed up our billing cycle. Pretty much a clone of the "sign here" device used by UPS and FedEx, this one scans a bar code on the invoice and allows an electronic signature. Going to take some getting used to, but it will cut our paper usage in half, and speed billing, which is good for both us and our clients.
My pure moment of coolness came early on when I spotted Mercury while fueling the truck. Made a nice triangle with the Moon and Saturn. I had never spotted Mercury without binoculars before.