Good Day, No Colonies, Uber Drivers Strike

Hey guys, hope you Tuesday is going great!  My day has been pretty good, made it to the gym today and had a good workout.  I did some different things with my chair and the bands.  Yesterday marks the 2nd day this week so far and I don't think I'll be skipping any day.  I have to make it on Saturday because one of the girls that works there wants to get into my wheelchair and see if she can push.  I told her what muscle groups to work on since I am giving her a few days.  This all came about because I made it to the front door in 38 pushes.  Now I park all the way at the back of the lot, I make fun of the people that park up front since they are always able-bodied people.  But anyway, I have been keeping track of the pushes it takes for me to get to the front door and I always talk about it.  38 pushes as far as I go is really fast and I bet her that should couldn't even make it to the front door in 140 pushes.  Don't think she realizes how hard it is to do simple things like push and turn in the chair as that can be the hardest thing for someone who has never really been in a chair before.  I told her the most important thing to focus on would be your forearms.  So I guess we will see how good she will do.  So anyway, let me get into it!

History Day!  I'm going to talk about why the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not have colonies like other empires at the same time.  I watched a good video about this earlier and thought I would write about it here.  There are a few different reasons why and I will outline them here.  The first reason would have to be that the empire was not as long lived as the others such as the British Empire or the Dutch Empire, only lasting from 1867 to 1918.  WWI put an end to it pretty fast.  The British Empire lasted for a lot longer than most would remember, I would say that the empire started in 1490 and lasted until Hong Kong was given back in 1997.  That was the last overseas territory of Britain.  The Dutch Empire which lasted from 1543 to about 1975 and it was a little strange for the Dutch to have such a large empire since the country of the Dutch was so small, much smaller than the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The Dutch even had colonies as far as what is now Indonesia.  The second reason would be that the Dual Monarchy, what the Austro-Hungarian Empire was called from time to time, did not have a strong navy to speak of.  It was so bad that the listing of their navy is relegated to one sentence in Wikipedia.  The third reason would be that there were so many problems in the Empire at home that they had no business looking for land elsewhere.  They were invited to the Berlin Conference where the European powers sliced up Africa for their own gain.  Little old Belgium even got out of that conference with an African province in the Congo Free State, it really wasn't very free.  So all this together makes the Austro-Hungarian Empire the saddest empire to ever exist, at least in my eyes.  What do you think?

I feel that I need to say something about this.  Recently there have been a lot of strikes or protests of Uber and Lyft drivers and I think it is dumb and I'll tell you why I think that.  First off and most important is that Uber was never meant to be a full time job, if you want a full time job where you drive people around then apply for a job at a taxi company.  If you put in 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week then that is your fault and just remember that it is your vehicle you are putting all that on and if you got a job at a taxi company and you won't have to use your own vehicle.  The only thing I have that I think Uber needs to change, and I have told Uber about my feelings on this, is that we should get paid a nominal amount when travelling to pick up the rider.  If I notice that to pick up the rider I have to go more than 7 minutes I will decline the trip since I don't get paid for that.  Soon Uber and Lyft will have automatic cars and will not need us drivers so you should just be happy with what you have.  There, that is what I had to say and if you want to debate me on this then go ahead and message me.  Here is an article on something like what I talked about;  https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/14/federal-labor-lawyer-says-uber-drivers-are-not-employees/

Well, that is it for me tonight.  I really do hope that all of you have a great day or night, take care!