Site or Store Stuff

Transition complete: all packages have the vitamins mixed in now

We started adding the vitamins to the mixture about a month ago. Some of the flavors and sizes are less popular than others and some we had just made a lot the day before the transition started. As of Saturday, all of the packages now have the vitamins included in the mixture so there isn’t a need to have a bag of them and you don’t have to remember to take one a day. We will probably continue putting the “No more vitamin pills, it’s in the mix” labels on the packages for about a month so everyone can be aware of the change.

By |2015-09-28T10:53:15-06:00September 28th, 2015|Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff|Comments Off on Transition complete: all packages have the vitamins mixed in now
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Fun with Nginx

WARNING: the following is geeky devops/sysadmin stuff that has nothing to do with keto.

I moved servers quite recently and in the process went from Apache to Nginx. Nginx is indeed much faster but it has come with a pretty steep learning curve to get everything working right. And today I ran into a problem with non-logged in (guest) users getting scrambled or lost shopping carts. Seems to be the “microcaching” that was messing things up. I’ve removed that and it seems to be working much better. Memcached is still going but just for wordpress “transients” and not sessions. I’ll see if I can reenable those later. Sort of reminds me of this GIF from devopsreactions.

Let me know if you experience any weirdness.

By |2015-09-02T21:47:44-06:00September 2nd, 2015|Site or Store Stuff|2 Comments
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Single day packs are coming

Some time ago I asked for feedback on the viability of doing 3-meal single day packs of Keto Chow. Then I went on a couple vacations but now I’m back and ready to go. I sourced the bags back in May and have had them for quite a while but I just didn’t have the time to figure out the logistics of packaging them and whatnot. This last weekend I finally got that done. I have initial runs of Rich Chocolate and Chocolate Mint already to go and I’ll be getting the rest of the flavors done soon. Once I have some inventory I’ll launch it though that probably won’t be until Wednesday or Thursday.

One of the big questions I had was how much could I ship in the priority mail boxes I’m using. With my test run I was able to answer that:

  • I can fit one into a small first class envelope that I currently use for samples.
  • I can fit two in a small flat rate box.
  • I can fit 7 into the padded flat rate envelopes I’m using to ship the week bags currently.
  • I can fit 14 into a medium flat rate box.
  • I cannot 28 into a large flat rate box, this sucks because that’s how I typically ship the “Build a Month*” with 4 of the week packages, the most I could fit was 27.
  • I can only fit 23 into a Regional Rate B box (useful for closer destinations like California), which sucks since a B will also hold 4 weeks of the larger bags:

2015-07-25 21.37.57The only real big question I have yet to figure out is the multi-vitamin situation. In the future I expect that I’ll replace the individual meal samples with these 1-day packs (I’m still toying with pricing but depending on the flavor it’s about 24% less than buying 3 of the samples) so People will be using them to try out the flavors. If you’re just doing a sample then the vitamin really isn’t vital and putting 1-3 vitamins in a shipment doesn’t sound hard but it gets messy pretty quickly. It’s not a money thing but simply logistics. My initial thought is to include the pills in the upcoming “Build a week” package and probably include the full bag with the seven vitamins if 5 or more days get ordered. Order 1-4 and you wouldn’t get the vitamins. But this is still up in the air right now.

Oh, and for the record: the week packs aren’t going away.

 

By |2016-10-13T07:28:05-06:00July 27th, 2015|Ketogenic, Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff, Soylent|6 Comments
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“Build a Month*” now available

This entry is part 65 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

(* not actually a month, it’s 4 weeks or 28 days @ 3 meals a day) Dunno why I’m even bothering to announce this, people are already ordering it =)

One of the issues I’ve had with the subscriptions is there wasn’t a way to allow different flavors in the same subscription order. You could do 2, 3 or 4+ if you wanted but you couldn’t have Chocolate, Banana, Mint and Strawberry all together at the same time (saving significantly on shipping). I figured out how to use the “Bundled Products” module today to made a new option that puts 4 weeks together and gives you a discount (currently 5%) which actually makes it less expensive than getting 4 weeks in a monthly subscription.

The one big problem is that you can’t have variable (different flavor) subscriptions in a bundle so it’s a one-off thing. Order a month and when it starts to get low order again (with different flavors!).

Anyhow, take a peek if you like.

By |2015-05-27T10:42:34-06:00May 27th, 2015|Soylent, Ketogenic, Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff|Comments Off on “Build a Month*” now available
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Upcoming Closure June 27 through July 13 – shipments will be delayed

I’m going to be spending time with the family starting June 27 and ending July 13. During this time I’m not going to be shipping out any orders but I will ship out any that came in as soon as I’m available. I expect there’s going to be a backlog, especially of weekly subscription orders so I’m going to apologize in advance. If you do want to temporarily suspend (or even cancel) your subscription during this window I completely understand. You can do this at https://www.thebairs.net/my-account/ – If you do have a weekly subscription and don’t suspend it then you’ll get a double or maybe even triple shipment after July 13th.

Anyhow, just wanted to give everyone advanced warning so you can plan accordingly. If you’re subsisting entirely on Keto Chow, stock up =)

By |2015-06-26T06:30:51-06:00May 26th, 2015|Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff|2 Comments
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Bodybuilding.com vs. AllStarHealth.com – protein price comparison

I like ordering from BodyBuilding.com because they get stuff to me the next day. I started using Allstarhealth.com for Psyllium Husk powder and the Cal/Mag/D3 powder but I wanted to see how the price compares between Bodybuildng and AllstarHealth; who ships from California to Utah in 2 days (still pretty good).

I put together a test order on both sites for two 2-lb tubs and two 10-lb boxes. Here’s how it broke down:

Bodybuilding.com AllstarHealth.com
Subtotal $225.88 $210.76
Coupon $22.59 $0
Shipping $12.98 $5.95
Tax $0 $0
Total $216.27 $216.71

So, the initial price is a bit higher on bodybuilding.com compared to Allstarhealth.com BUT there’s a 10% off coupon that is always up to date on this page that brings the price down. Note about that coupon: it changes once a month and you can only use the code once (until the next time it changes, next month)… unless you order using “incognito mode” and checkout as a guest. So for now I’m going to stick with Bodybuilding.com – it’s a day quicker and costs just a teeny, tiny bit less.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:15-06:00April 9th, 2015|Site or Store Stuff|Comments Off on Bodybuilding.com vs. AllStarHealth.com – protein price comparison
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Had a mixing party last night

After finishing up my vacation I have quite a few orders to ship out! Last night I mixed up almost all of the stuff I had on-hand (more arrives today to take care of the rest) and ended up taking a lot of packages to the post office

Lots of packages

I think this is the most I’ve done in one day since the craziness following the “human dog food” post on reddit back in Mid December 2014.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:15-06:00April 8th, 2015|Site or Store Stuff|Comments Off on Had a mixing party last night
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