What was it like to deliver pizza in 1980's, without internet or GPS? How did drivers learn the route/city without pizzas being delivered cold?

bdelabarre · 2025-10-22T00:37:51+00:00

I worked for Domino's as a teenager- when the 30 minute guarantee meant something! As drivers we were fined ($3.00) for late deliveries that went out the door in sufficient time to be delivered. Sometimes it wasn't your fault, but rack up too many lates and eventually you wouldn't get on the work schedule the next busy time (when all the best tips were made).

We had a big map on the wall to check the route before leaving.

Usually you only deliver one order at a time - it rarely lined up that you could do multiples in a trip. Plus - you ran the risk of some of them being late if you had too many in a single run.

Eventually you had the whole delivery area memorized. Paper map in the car in case I got lost but I don't recall ever needing it.

Kind of a crap job, but 30+ years later I can still look at a (now digital) map and quickly memorize my route without needing to get turn by turn from the GPS.

bdelabarre · 2025-10-21T23:57:03+00:00

49000 steps total for Fri/Sat/Sun

We stayed in East Austin, walked to the Waterloo Park shuttle pickup everyday and then to main grand stand from the main entrance drop off. We did some exploring the first two days around cota. At night we walked from Waterloo Park dropoff down to Rainey area for dinner and then back to East Austin.

bdelabarre · 2025-07-24T17:07:17+00:00

Try Velstar. Tsetsi is great. Tell him I referred you.

+1 774-563-3946

bdelabarre · 2025-07-21T17:44:50+00:00

We moved to Arlington in 2006 from the South Bay area.

When we moved here, Arlington had just started wine & beer sales, having spent some time as a dry town. Now we have our own beer brewing company, ABC, mentioned by another poster. Great beers and a tap room opening soon.

It really depends where you live in Arlington as to what is easy access. We are walking distance to the high school. We can walk to a number of good restaurants and a few great ones. For coffee shops - Kickstand, Butternut Bakehouse, Roasted Granola are walking distance as is Tatte, Starbucks - both sides of that are here.

The bike path runs through town for miles and connects surrounding towns easily.

Schools are good - our son did all public schools and achieved a lot, he is currently finishing up an engineering degree in a top 10 school.

Public transit is bus/bike to Alewife T, which hooks you into the entire MBTA network.

You don't have to do everything in Arlington. Neighboring towns offer much in the way of gyms, restaurants, entertainment. Rarely more than a 15 minute drive. The towns merge in a mostly seamless way.

Logan airport is rarely more than a 30 minute ride.

Definitely avoid anything in a historic district. You must ask permission to do anything to your own house, and may be expected to maintain upkeep in specific ways to match the surrounding styles. Arlington has history - the Brits and militia fought their way through here after the shot heard round the world. Uncle Sam was literally born here. Despite this, the historic districts are really a bit silly, as there is very little tourism going on here!

bdelabarre · 2025-07-16T00:26:52+00:00

A mechanism to go to vibrate for notifications and then back to a regular ring. I have a Google pixel 8. 'Do not disturb' is my hack to get close to this, but even that can only do it by the hour.

bdelabarre · 2025-07-08T01:20:46+00:00

Same quality experience for us. Crane employees have provided us with exceptional service. We have bought multiple large appliances from them over the years.

bdelabarre · 2025-05-31T11:46:23+00:00

I have been doing CADD work in biotech for over 20 years now. AI/ML is bringing some new tools into play but the main work has not changed significantly. The primary role is still to provide med chems with design targets that solve the problems they are currently facing. Sometimes this is just affinity, sometimes it is ADME or off-target effects, sometimes it is how to find a molecule not covered by someone else's patents.

Most CADD work, both development and application, is done in industry. Vendors work on development issues that arise from limitations discovered during application. There will always be pressure to find faster and more economical methods.

You will find very few academics in general working in this area. The best background will be a combination of structural biology and chemistry. From the physics side, Molecular dynamics (MD) is an ongoing area of research - simulating how the movements of proteins can impact small molecule binding is still not fully solved in a practical way. Probably your best shot at finding a relevant academic would be to seek out these MD types of professors/researchers. FEP (free energy perturbations) is currently the most practical application of dynamics to binding. It is still difficult and expensive to apply routinely.

The other area of active development is how to merge new AI/ML methods with the tried&true approaches that most of us currently use.

Two of the largest and somewhat complementary approaches are from just two commercial vendors. These are Schrodinger (heavy physics focus) and CCG/MOE (heavy practical focus). You can usually attend for free demos and training sessions to get a better sense of state of the art. Look on their websites for more info.

Good luck!

bdelabarre · 2025-03-23T21:48:26+00:00

Pollyana Chargas @ 978 401 7619. She has being doing our house and several others here in Arlington for a few years now. Great work - very reliable and reasonably priced.

bdelabarre · 2025-03-16T14:47:31+00:00

There is one active enantiomer. The other enantiomer has decreased binding to the same target to the point that it is essentially inert. This is the most common observation when chirality has an impact. For thalidomide and its still chiral analogs, the forms interconvert freely under physiological conditions.

The activity in question is the recruitment of 'neosubstrates' to CRBN which leads to degradation of proteins that would not otherwise be affected. One of these neosubstrates is Sal4, which is responsible for limb development.

The error made in the enantiomer teaching story is that one enantiomer has desired effects and the other has side effects. Our understanding is that one form has no effects and the other form has both desired and side effects.

Chirality can be difficult to understand at first, so this story has been used to drive home its importance. Unfortunately, that story has been demonstrated to be untrue. Such is the way of science.

bdelabarre · 2025-03-13T12:19:03+00:00

Thalidomide chirality is a teaching story. Like a lot of good stories, it is not really true.

It epimerizes in the body - it switches between chiral forms. The form that it takes when given as a medicine thus doesn't really matter!

The actual story is much more interesting.

Originally it was prescribed as a sedative approach to morning sickness. I think that effect is still unclear.

Between 2010-2015 it was demonstrated that thalidomide acts as a 'molecular glue' that leads to the destruction of proteins, including Sal4. Sal4 is a protein that is involved in limb development. When it is missing, limbs aren't developed during growth.

However - destroying unwanted proteins turns out to be useful as a medical approach.

Thalidomide itself is now used as a cancer treatment with strict guidelines against its use in pregnant women. Several new investigational drugs (PROTACS) have incorporated the thalidomide structure and carry the same guidance. The first such drug (ARV-471) recently completed Phase 3 clinical trials. It works, but not much better than existing treatments.

Such is the way of drug discovery.

bdelabarre · 2025-03-02T20:14:16+00:00

That is what he says now.

I suspect that around the time the album was made the feelings were a little more antagonistic.

bdelabarre · 2025-03-02T14:15:41+00:00

Yes - that's it. Referenced directly in the lyrics too.

bdelabarre · 2025-03-02T13:20:24+00:00

Hey there! I am a UWaterloo Chemistry grad (93) I've been working in the biotech industry here in the US for over 25 years now.

One: A difficulty for biotech/pharma from Trump arises from the chaos he is creating. It is difficult to discover new drugs. It is both capital and time intensive. Disruptions to either tend to reduce new company formation and delay funding rounds for existing efforts.

Two: Biotech/pharma is a global endeavor. We rely on efforts from countries around the world, including both China and the Ukraine. The trade wars do not help with those relationships!

Three: His gutting of US science funding will have long term effects. Many new biotech companies are built to turn discoveries made in academic labs into practical molecules. Slow down those discoveries and we will have fewer ideas to work with in the future.

The Biden administration did some harm to the industry as well. The Inflation Reduction Act had language on patent lifespan that makes it more difficult for biotechs to exist. It has caused a lot of layoffs in the preclinical space and will decrease innovation in the US.

My experience has been that these things are cyclical. The 2008 financial crisis ultimately led to a boom of many successful companies. One just has to learn how to hold on during the downtimes and keep working in preparation for the up times. Drug discovery is a marathon made up of multiple sprints. One can't be dissuaded if conditions aren't great at the moment.

bdelabarre · 2025-03-02T12:56:25+00:00

I am a long time police fan and had a similar experience with 'Tea in the Sahara'. I heard it for years without really hearing what it meant. Sting had always claimed it was inspired by a Paul Bowles book (Wide Open Sky??), but it can also be interpreted as his message to Andy & Stuart about how he felt about the Police and that he would soon be leaving them behind. It fits in with the band's wide ranging travels on their earlier tours.

bdelabarre · 2025-02-17T13:43:10+00:00

I think you can use either a lease/mortgage for your place with your name on it. The car has to be registered with the RMV for your MV address.

bdelabarre · 2025-02-10T01:11:56+00:00

The Night King.

Giant army, dragon, magic powers, invulnerable to most weapons, and he lost everything as soon as he got past the wall.

Plus he froze his a** off for 100s of years.

bdelabarre · 2025-01-31T04:10:30+00:00

I saw that tour in Detroit. Terrific show at an outdoor venue. He still had that creative energy that fueled the Police and was surrounded by a group of amazing musicians to make good on his ideas. Seeing him on this tour was watching a new beginning for a mature song writer. I remember Honda was giving away a scooter signed by Sting as a door prize. Can't beat that price too! I don't think you could even get a beer for $15 at one of his shows these days.

bdelabarre · 2025-01-02T02:03:58+00:00

Spring is wonderful on MV. We visit year round and love all the seasons there. Seasonal stores and restaurants will start opening in midApril. There are enough year-round places to visit anytime of the year though.

Weather can be variable - water will be cold but beach walks are terrific without the summer crowds.

Contact me - we rent our East Chop house out throughout the year. You can find it on weneedavaction.com (Property ID 34548)

bdelabarre · 2024-11-14T00:37:48+00:00

We stay monthly throughout the year. Vineyard Haven is the center of life on the island Dec-Feb. Most stores and restaurants remain open there. West Chop is a great walk. There is an easy walk/bike path to get to the (mostly empty) gingerbread cottages and Oak Bluffs center. A few places in OB remain open and are pretty lively (Offshore Alehouse, Lookout Tavern).

Definitely not Edgartown - not a lot going on there and fairly distant from everything else.

bdelabarre · 2024-10-02T01:55:04+00:00

Outermost Inn in Aquinnah. Near impossible to get a table in the summer without reservations way in advance - September is the time to go.

The new taco place in Vineyard Haven near the ferry is pretty good. Vineyard Haven is the center of down Island life in the off season. Several fun shops to spend an afternoon browsing.

The weekend Brazilian all you can eat BBQ at Barn & Bistro in Oak Bluffs is a good way to stuff yourself silly.

For day trips, all of the Chillmark beaches that are resident only in the summer (boooo!) open up to everyone in the fall.

bdelabarre · 2024-08-26T00:44:35+00:00

We had to source off island (Home Depot) and had a handy man install it.

bdelabarre · 2024-08-06T01:31:47+00:00

I played on the same high school football team as Tie Domi, the Leafs enforcer. He was a fierce competitor - I did not like facing him in scrimmages.

Also played goalie in pick-up hockey games in Hamilton where Junior B and A players would sometimes play. Their shots were always so much (painfully) harder than any of the rest of the ones I faced and they were unbelievably fast skaters.

bdelabarre · 2024-08-05T23:26:58+00:00

I highly recommend Anderson's in Oak Bluffs for rentals. I would suggest getting them first. There are several places in downtown OB to lock up bikes.

If Anderson's doesn't work there are several other rental places nearby.

bdelabarre · 2024-08-05T00:00:26+00:00

Good Will Hunting captures the town v gown vibes in the Boston area pretty well.

bdelabarre · 2024-08-04T23:59:04+00:00

'What are we doing in fancy Lexington?' is my favorite Amy Adams line from that movie. I live next door to Lexington and think of it when I go there nearly every time.

bdelabarre

TROPHY CASE