My Grandpa Car

I was visiting my father-in-law over the weekend, and happened to come as my brother-in-law and their family were leaving after a brief Spring Break visit.

We got to talking about my car, a 2005 Honda Pilot which we bought from my father-in-law for $10,000. I don't remember when it was, but we've had it ever since, which I think is about ten or so years after that.

Carl, my brother-in-law, asked what work we've had to have done on it to keep it running. It's got 260,000 miles on it now.

I had to think about it for a bit.

Aside from regular maintenance, from battery replacement (once), new tires, (once) and oil changes and such, the only repairs I've had to have done is to replace the starter and replace the gas cap.

So it's been a *really* reliable vehicle for us.

I don't have an accounting like the one in this video, but I believe it's comparable.

There are some repairs which should probably be done:

1. I've got an air bag sensor that's gone bad.

2. The power steering has developed a small leak.

We've tried finding a used sensor at the scrap yards, but apparently this is a common failure point on Pilots, so the one we need is always missing.

And as for the power steering, the leak is small enough to the point I'm not that worried about it yet. It's more an annoyance to have to top up the fluid every once in a while than anything else.

Knock on wood, it'll keep running for a lot longer.

The Pie-Industrial Complex

 

I am part of the Pie-Industrial Complex.

My full-time job as a technical writer supports cleanup of waste mostly left over from the Manhattan Project.

While I'm grateful for the work, this commercial from 1971 certainly packs a message. Where do we want our money going?

President Trump is telling us we need money to fight wars, and that money for health care or daycare or whatever it is at home that we need is secondary to that fight. Nevermind it's wars that idiot started himself because War is Cool or something, according to the Beavi and Butt-Heads he's got surrounding him in Washington and elsewhere (I'm looking at you, Israel).

Traffic Blockage

I don't usually go home on Pancheri Drive, but today's activity made it necessary.

I won't do that again.

At the intersection of Pancheri and Utah avenues, this:

Note the green light.

No one was moving. You can see cars trying to turn left off of Utah Avenue went into the intersection on the yellow and got caught on the red. They were effectively blocking the intersection for those trying to turn left off Pancheri to Utah, as I was, because I already know the series of lights ahead (Pancheri and Capital, Pancheri and Yellowstone) are an absolute cluster most of the time and particularly at this time of day, say about 5:45 p,m.

The red circle shows the intersection I was stuck at. Yellow shows the lights further down the line, where reds were causing traffic to back up and idiot drivers were blocking the road.

A complication I suspect: Neither the intersection at Utah or Capital, operated by the city of Idaho Falls, have cameras. The intersection at Yellowstone does have cameras, but it's operated by the state, as Yellowstone is technically US 26/I-15 Business route. I don't think the city and state coordinate these lights well at all, because if they were coordinated, we wouldn't see traffic backing up from Capital or Yellowstone all the way across the Pancheri Bridge to Utah and beyond.

There are four river crossings locally. Two are clusters. This one, and the one on Grandview which turns into US-20 and intersects with an interchange with I-15. I usually take that route and get off and go home via downtown and First Street, which is a slow way across town - a good portion of it is 25 miles per hour - but thus sees a lot less traffic than the other routes.

This city needs some serious traffic planning, as does the county. Bless them, they try. But we have a good contingent of intersection-blocking locals who don't want things to change, even though things are changing. They're idiots.

Where Were You When World War Three Started, Grandpa?

So yeah, these, our modern times, suck.

And so do a lot of people living in our modern times. But I try not to pay attention to that.

A few things I do pay attention to:

-- Those looking at Revelation in the New Testament as a clear play-by-play of how the "end times" are going to come about should really, really be careful in separating those who ask us to humble ourselves and repent and try as hard as we can to get along from those who look at Armageddon and think, "How can I actively make that come to pass?"

What was it he said that got everyone so upset?

Be kind to each other.

Oh yeah. That'll do it.

We seemed to have stepped back from the brink this week. But only just, and our Dear Leaders are still dancing on the edge of the precipice. Kinda like this:

Grab a fence post, hold it tight,

Whomp your partner will all your might.

Hit him in the chin, hit him in the head,

Hit him again that critter ain't dead.

Whomp him low and whomp him high,

Stick your finger in his eye.

Pretty little rhythm, pretty little sound,

Bang your heads against the ground.

So where was I? I was at home, washing my tights.

Because talking to our representatives does nothing. They're so deep inside the machine now they don't really listen to us unless we're echoing what they're already thinking. I wish that was cynicism talking, but it's reality.

Bookshelves? A Zero Sum Game

Between things today, I added another six feet of shelves for books in the study, hoping that extra room would let me squeeze in all of the books sitting near the shelves, plus all the other books we have hidden around the house.

Those of you with books know how this ended. While some of the shelves have more wiggle room, I still don't have enough shelves for the books we have.

And I had to take five pictures off the wall to make room for the new shelf. This is a zero-sum game.

UPDATE: With a bit more shuffling, I was able to get the stray books stuck randomly on top of other books on the shelves put away properly, but there's still not enough room for all the books we have. I have a good four linear feet I took out to work, and between the "to read" piles Michelle and I have, that's another four linear feet, so I don't know what to do. Except to go out and buy more books.

And yes, we are getting rid of books. Well, two books. One is a falling-apart copy of Richard Adams' "Watership Down," and another is a surplus paperback copy of Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken."

I Should Probably Learn how to Lay Tile

One of these days, I should probably learn how to lay tile.

What's left? Well, the tile by the water valve is sunk in a little bit, so I probably have to take that out and redo it. Not looking forward to that. But I've also got to finish the glass accent, then decide how to top if off. I'm hearing rumblings from Michelle that she doesn't want the glass right at the top. But I'm dealing with huge tile, and I've only got four pieces left of it. I might have to go to Lowe's and find something I can put on top of the glass row to make it not at the top (aside from the edge tile, which will be the top).

Getting that row of tile in between the tub and the tile I already placed was tricky as always, but I got it. And only really screwed up on one cut, so I'm feeling pretty good about the day.

I also did some cleaning -- not near enough, but got a start on it -- so the next few rounds should be easier. I want to do some more cleaning tomorrow between Conference sessions.

Book Review: Tales of the Peculiar

Finished reading this book today, and highly recommend it.

I haven't read any of Riggs' other books, though the titles are familiar.  This one caught my eye at the local thrift store based on the illustration, and there are a lot of them throughout the book. The illustrations are by Andrew Davidson, maybe a distant relative. Anyway, anyone with that name is a winner in my book.

Two tales in particular stood out, principally for the morals they embody. The Locust is probably my favorite; a tale on honestly loving those that surround us. Right behind is The Man Who Bottled the Sun, which should be read and ignored by every oligarch on the planet because it couldn't possibly have any bearing on their behavior.

This one's a keeper.

Juvenile

 

I have a problem.

I work in the nuclear field. I encounter mention of the element strontium constantly in the papers I edit.

I'm half Dutch. "Stront" is Dutch for poop.

Did I mention this is a *juvenile* problem?

Shunning the Cross?

This is one of two new statues that find a home at Temple Square in Salt Lake.

What's startling to me about this one is the clear display of the cross -- something that's typically been anathema in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some in the church get sniffy and say they worship the living Christ, not the Christ on the cross. But I kinda feel like we've got to take the full package and ought to acknowledge more in the church that we do outwardly recognize the sacrifice the cross represents.

I'm not going to get tangled in culture -- because culture is about all it is, frankly. When I see someone wearing a cross, or see cross-centric statuary, I'm not bothered by it. The cross is an important, powerful symbol to most Christians.

The lack of crosses -- whether by culture or doctrine, and I'm not sure which holds more sway -- is part of the package of anti- or skeptical-Mormon thought out there. Our outward symbols are odd: the angel Moroni atop the temple, statues of Joseph Smith all over the place. Not that they're wrong; they're doctrinally and culturally significant to us. But I don't think it will hurt our chances if we allow a cross or two to slip into the culture.

I served a mission for the church in France. I loved visiting the churches, from the little parish churches to the grand cathedrals. The history, the architecture, and the deep symbolic meaning in the many depictions of Jesus Christ with and on and without the cross brought significant meaning as I strove to understand the culture and beliefs of the people I served. I won't say I understood everything, and might at times have mocked things. But I was a callow youth who should have been a better ambassador of Christ than I was.

One Case of Tile Left

Made progress today - again - on the basement bathroom. I'm down to one case of tile, so I may have to sneak over to Lowe's to see if I can snag a few more pieces. I might have enough, I might not. We'll have to see. But it is about as high as it's going with some additional trim pieces, so maybe not.

And that's good, because I'm utterly sick of this project.

When I posted this on Facebook, Meta AI offered to answer the question "Why is Brian getting sick of the project?" I'm not really sure they delved the depths of the possible answers:

An Old Lady Fart

A Matchpoint Drive Playlet:

Me: [In the study, reading a book while the rest of the family watches Dr. Who in the next room.]

Alexa, on the desk behind me: FFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPT. That was an old lady one. Ask me if you want me to give you a cheek-wobbling fart.

Me: [Stunned silence.]

Liam and Michelle deny all knowledge of the Old Lady Fart delivered by Alexa.

I have to wonder if Isaac Davidson is somehow involved . . .

Checklist, Check

I'm trying really hard to read and enjoy this book, but the authors are making it *really* hard.

I'm generally not a fan of war fiction. There are so many true stories out there to read there doesn't seem to be a need to get into the fiction end of things. I have, however, made some exceptions, and found some pretty good stories out there.

This is not one of them. I'll finish, but there's not much of a chance I'll get past Book One; this is apparently a series.

I appreciate that writers - myself included - may make checklists as we plan the stories we write, but this book's principal shortcoming is that it wears that checklist on its sleeve.

Americans training in England where they're "oversexed, overpaid, and over here," check.

Spunky member of the crew killed needlessly by his own hubris, check.

Friend of the spunky crew member brooding in resentment, check.

Leader grappling with his own personal demons that he keeps in check because he's the leader, check.

New love interest for the leader, identified in wartime, kissing him out of the blue because it's on the checklist, check.

Member of the French Resistance popping into the story randomly, sometimes interacting with the group, sometimes not, in a subplot that still may be paid off but you never know, check.

War-weary surgeon in a proto-MASH refusing to evacuate the hospital because there's a bomb nearby because his patients "will" die if they evacuate versus everyone "could" die if they're there and the bomb goes off, check.

I'll predict a few more as we go along; I still have about 100 or so pages to read:

Longtime friend of the leader who also went into dangerous work killed heroically in action, check.

Resentful friend of the dead spunky crewmember either

a. Killed in action, mirroring the death of his spunky friend, or,

b. Forged into a new leader despite himself by the leader he blames for his friend's death,

check.

It's good to read these books, though. Inspires me to do better. Checklists are fine, but ya gotta bury them. And a lot of that could be done by showing, rather than telling. Put near all of the resentment in the character mentioned, for example, is delivered in dialogue, rarely in action. I keep forgetting the resentment is there because we don't see it in action, we only hear it occasionally in the dialogue.

UPDATE: Finished. And this is what came to pass (slight spoilers if you don't have the checklist):

Resentful friend of the dead spunky crewmember forged (very preliminarily) into a new leader despite himself by the leader he blames for his friend's death,

The Dreams are Back

There for a long time, I had no dreams.

And by dreams, I mean the weird middle-of-the-night stories the ol' brain produces, from the frightening to the silly to the mundane.

Why are they back?

I gave up caffeine for Lent.

Not necessarily gave up, but certainly cut back.

I'm down from three or four cans of Diet Pepsi a day to only one with caffeine, the rest without.

I should cut it completely - the Pepsi as well as the caffeine - but that'll have to be more gradual.

I'm less jittery now. Getting better sleep. The lack of caffeine has affected my ordinary cherubic demeanor, but even that effect is lessening.

I'm not ready for any blimp attack drills, but it's certainly been better with less caffeine in the system. Because I like my stupid dreams.

It does mean this: I may have to go back to setting an alarm. Before I cut back on the joy juice, I slept much more lightly and was almost always up on time. Now I hit a good bout of deep sleep right around 5 am, and I have to be up by six. That's been tougher.

Beware the Bot Exhaustion

So, I think we're mostly aware that fake news - and fake news purveyors - are a real thing. And while the Venn diagram of such may occasionally include legitimate news outlets, the biggest problem by far are the Joe Six-Packs and Betty Housecoats we encounter on social media.

Only less dangerous than these are the actual real people who believe what the propaganda farm bots post and spread around.

That probably includes me. And you. Nobody is immune.

So we really, really need as individuals to be very careful in believing what we see online. As Benn Jordan says at the conclusion of this video:

"At this point in time, you should always be asking yourself if social media users or features are separating you from your own instincts or logical conclusions because this isn't political; the goal is not to make you support a particular party or candidate. The goal is to make you constantly question your own convictions by filling your entire world with conspiracy theories. The goal is to make educating yourself about your surroundings and questioning what's real or not so exhausting that you're too worn down to care that there's lead in your childrens' drinking water. You're too worn down to care that the American life expectancy has dropped below the average of some developing countries. What politically-oriented problems are bigger than those things?"

Media literacy has entered a new era, and we've got to be really vigilant lest we fail.

What an Odd Thing to Say

I can't read the New York Times story on this, but it sounds like an up-and-coming author won't be coming anymore as accusations of artificial intelligence use are being leveled at her and her work.

In sum, author Mia Ballard's "Shy Girl" - a horror novel outside my area of interest - might be as much as 78% written by artificial intelligence.

Of course, that's a dicey measurement.

AI detectors look at patterns to determine if writing is machine produced, using the same kind of large language models that AI uses, so there's lots of ickiness to go around. I teach at a university in its English department, and we're cautioned about using these AI-detectors as there are plenty of things that trigger the AI detectors that aren't necessarily AI.

I started watching the "Frankie's Shelf" video at this link from Jezebel, but as it clocks in at nearly three hours, there's no chance in hell I'm going to finish it all.

But the evidence presented is telling.

The cover on her self-published book was ripped off from another artist.

There's odd formatting issues throughout the book - something you might chalk up to the initial indie publishing of the story - and readings and analyses by sleuths from Goodreads to the New York Times detect AI patterns throughout.

The author, in her defense, claims it was a developmental editor who introduced AI to the story. And that seems an odd thing to say. Surely an author, whose reputation depends on the words he or she writes, would read anything doctored by an editor and notice enough differences to send up their own red flags before pushing that publish button.

Whether or not that's true should be easy to determine: A draft of the novel before the editor got it could be examined to see if it has the tells of artificial intelligence. I highly doubt that will come to pass.

And Hachette, her publisher in the UK and would-be publisher in the US, should have detected the AI, but clearly the idea of a new novel got in their eyes. Only after the NYT analysis did they pull the plug.

Cadfael for Writers

Yet another lucky find at the local thrift.

A good book for aspiring writers to read, as we get to see Cadfael, a beloved character, develop. We get to see Brother Jerome, fully developed in his righteous smarm. Peters used the stories in this book - in my opinion - to develop Cadfael as a character, bringing in other characters after Cadfael was fully formed. So very instructional.

And the stories are great, though the denouement of the third was a bit abrupt.

A Weasley Way to Meet Constituents

Mike Simpson, a word:

Got one of your robocalls tonight announcing RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW you're doing a telephone town hall and that I should stay on the line to be connected to participate.

This kind of call is a fancy way to say "Hey, I *tried* to meet with my constituents, but, yanno, they didn't stay on the line to participate, so it's on them."

No, sir, it's on you.

You caught me at an inconvenient time. I was just heading into a Scout meeting and could not attend your telephone town hall, as much as I might want to do that.

If you're sincere in wanting to meet with your constituents - and of that I have my doubts - you'd schedule your telephone town halls enough in advance that your constituents could plan for them, not have to drop everything they're doing RIGHT NOW in the hopes of having the blessed opportunity of maybe possibly asking you a question as long as it's not too inconvenient to answer.

Representative Russ Fulcher schedules his telephone town halls and gives his constituents ample notice of them. You should learn from that example.

Do better, congressman. Do better.

NOTE: I sent him this in Facebook Messenger, and posted it on my wall. Will update if I get any response. Which I also doubt will happen.

Cranky Textee

 

Got this text last night.

I seriously hope my last missive was delivered, too, but I doubt it.

Why not respond to an anonymous - well, it's from "Sarah," so I guess it's not *totally* anonymous - text?

Because who are these people? Why do they want me, L.H. Puttgrass, Pundit for the People, to respond? Will they ask a bunch of questions and weed out any answers that don't fit with the narrative they're pushing? I don't know. But likely.

I'm sure they think telling us in advance who they are might spoil the answers they get, so that's why they're mum.

So they get nothing from me. There's so much dishonesty out there, and I'm a paranoid and suspicious bastard, so no thank you.

Ghosts of Nixon

This is the operative statement. All other statements are inoperative.

~Ron Ziegler

Why is our president such a maroon?

He Amused Himself with His Monkey, Part Infinite

 

I'm trying, book, but when you tell me characters are sitting around outside smoking and talking in one sentence and then in another not too far distant tell me there's enough rain and lightning there to menace the airplanes they're watching, I have a hard time paying attention to the story.

Some Give All

In the annals of bathroom remodels, some dog toys give all.

Our Carport Took A Trip on Mother Nature's Rocket Ship

So the carport I set up a few years ago - borrowed from Isaac - because I was tired of tripping over it in the garage and I needed more space for either workspace or to store crap, took a backflip over our fence today, thanks to some rather strong winds we've had over the last few days.

We had wind gusts of 75 mph on Thursday, and Liam and I had to go out to the carport that night to batten down the hatches.

This map is showing a gust of 58 mph for today, which I doubt was the biggest wind we had today.

The mess damaged our fence, breaking one of the fence upright and snapping an old post I kept from the old fence but clearly should have replaced. So now I get to do that this summer.

Low-Stakes Fakery. or is it?

Stumbled across this on the Facebooks this morning:

Sure, sure. The Idaho Potato Museum does exist. Its is indeed in Blackfoot.

However . . .

Most of what's in this photo is fake.

First of all, I don't believe this actual intersection exists, at least not in a location that would have this serious amount of directional signage on it.

Then there's the signage . . .

Blackfoot doesn't have a directional arrow.

US Highway 39 is in the east, specifically Alabama-Tennessee-Kentucky.

Nowhere in the national or state highway code are there red signs indicating states on highways.

Oh, and while there is a Highway 39 in the area, it's a state highway with a very distinct shield:

So this is clearly fake, for clicks. And that's annoying. Low-stakes annoying, yes, but annoying nonetheless. If people accept this kind of low-stakes fakery, how much fakery are we willing to accept?

This kind of fakery?

This one's a little better, but still obviously fakes. The incorrect shield for the state highway really stands out, as does the fake "TOURISM" sign and the wonderfully inconsistent, I guess that's supposed to indicate something about I-15 there? I'm not sure.

The real signage, for those interested:

They didn't steal his photo, but they did steal his text.

These kinds of things aren't hard to verify. But why verify, I can hear you screaming. The museum is real. Blackfoot exists. This is low-stakes.

Yes, it is low stakes. But they ratchet things up, you know. Accept l0w-stakes fakery and pretty soon you're swallowing something fake that's got a lot more import to it.

So beware.

Intelligence or Noise?

So this is interesting. In an attempt to understand the patterns in language in order to determine if signals from space contained intelligence or were the result of some natural phenomenon, linguists developed a model that, at the time, generated actual words using patterns detected deeper and deeper in generating - manually - letter combinations based on examination of what letter came next in real words..

This led, of course, to large language models, the root of today's artificial intelligence, and the booby traps therein.

So even if a signal is detected that passes the test of language vs. noise, it could still be noise.

CANCER TOILET!

California really wants me to know that some component of the new toilet I bought and installed last week may cause cancer or reproductive harm.

Don't care. Still gotta poop, man.

A Facebook friend made a dangerous wish:

Verdict: Duh . . .

You'll remember, loyal reader, that a week or so ago I embarked on a journey to read a book written by Albert Einstein meant to help the layman understand general and special relativity.

The verdict is in: Duh . . . 

I tried. I really tried.

Some of the concepts I recognized, such as relative motion over great, great distances making the speed of light "speed up" or "slow down" based on the perspective of the observer. I also recognized the idea that gravity bends light, and a few other things as well.

But when the book contains things that look like this, well . . . 

I'm certain if I really buckled down and studied I could get Ds in algebra all over again.

I'm such an Einstein.

Dark Sky at Night, Drivers Run Red Light

 

The Idaho Falls Astronomical Society* is pushing a petition to convince the city of Idaho Falls to adopt a local Dark Sky ordinance, with the aim of reducing light pollution in the area.

While I enjoy looking at the stars and other night phenomena myself, I'm not quite sure I can support this.

First of all - and maybe they look at this as a first step - it's not just Idaho Falls, but also Ammon, Iona, and Bonneville County they should be addressing, as there's plenty of light pollution to go around.

Addressing the issue on a county level makes more logistical sense, but I get the feeling they're either looking for the city to test the waters for a dark sky ordinance, or just aren't thinking big enough.

Also: This winter we visited Arizona, including Scottsdale, which has a dark sky ordinance. If it's truly being enforced there, I've got to say as a tourist I wasn't impressed.

The city is dark, natch. Meaning at night it's hard to see street signs, especially off the beaten path. We had to rely heavily on GPS navigation without the aid of many visual cues to get around. Combine this with what appears to be Scottsdale drivers' relaxed attitudes toward red traffic lights, the dark sky situation makes it interesting for visitors.

I also don't recall the night sky being any more visible there, though to be honest I was paying a lot more attention to the road since I couldn't see anything.

My experience is anecdotal, of course.

So I'll watch the local effort with interest, if not with much hope.

*Correction: The astronomical society is promoting the effort being pushed by the Southeast Idaho Dark Sky Alliance.

Curse You, Tiny Toilet!

Two of our toilets have been bad and have to be punished.

The story: The toilet in the kids' bathroom has been running for the last few weeks. I tried a new flapper, a new valve, but nothing was really working.

As I tinkered with it today I noticed a more serious problem: The toilet was leaking via the bolts that hold the tank to the bowl.

So I thought I'd be clever and replace it with the toilet from the basement bathroom I'm remodeling. Of course that toilet was also leaking from the bolts, probably because the seal dried out from disuse.

So we went to Home Depot, bought a new Kohler, and installed it. We're on a leak check for the next 24 hours, but I'm hopeful that problem is fixed. Now I just have to buy a new toilet for the basement.

The Sock

Allow me to introduce The Sock.

It arrived sometime in the recent past under mysterious circumstances. I say mysterious because no one who lives here will claim The Sock as their own. Yet it still shows up in the laundry and after everyone has claimed their clean clothes, The Sock remains on the table, abandoned and forlorn, until someone gets tired of seeing it and deposits it in someone else's bedroom, only for it to resurface again in the laundry a few days later.

So if you need a sock, let me know and I'll happily mail The Sock to you. You'll have to pay postage to get it back if it shows up again in our laundry, though.

Blame "Captain" Kook

If I had a nickel for every story told in our house with this ending, I wouldn't have to work anymore.

Funny thing, though. I have it in my head that it was "Captain Kook's" treasure. That's how I always say it. But I guess that's mandela effect.

Work today was . . . weird. My boss was gone, and other co-workers were at an all-day training session, so it was oddly quiet in our little corner of the world.

It was nice. The quiet is something I miss the most from working from home. Aside from the occasional trip to take the dogs outside, work from home was pretty quiet. No interruptions. No forced small talk in the hallways or restrooms (by the sinks, never by the urinals).

We'll See; I'm Pretty Dense

When I saw this at the local thrift, I knew it was coming home with me.

Not because I think I'll be able to understand any of it -- I peeked into the book before I bought it and saw algebra equations. But I'm gonna try.

Thus far, I'm on shaky ground. I understand the metaphor of lighting striking simultaneously in two different spots on train tracks and the light from the strike we're choo-chooing away from arriving later (relatively later) than the light from the strike we're approaching. On our minute scale the difference is less than negligible, but at interstellar distances, yeah, it makes sense.

But boy, with the first two chapters focusing - I think - on teaching me that we exist in a comprehensible three-dimensional space nearly going over my head, my hopes of understanding the rest aren't high.

Moronic Algorithm

 

Me: [hides a dozen Facebook groups offering AI-craptacular views of the lunar eclipse and the recent planetary alignment.]

Facebook: Oh, you must want MOAR low-effort, craptacular AI-related astronomy-adjacent groups to see.

Seriously, the algorithm is a moron.

Paris Waltz

I stumbled across this video on YouTube over the weekend. I'm a big fan of classical music and spent a few hours Sunday evening listening to various piano music.

I had no idea this was a modern composition by an "unknown" until I started reading the comments because I was unfamiliar with the artist.

Gotta say, well done.

One commenter said it didn't sound particularly Parisian, and I had to beg to differ. It reminds me of Erik Satie for one, and definitely has that vibe. It's got a lot of wonderful color to it, warm, yet spiky, maybe like a spring drizzle. I'd go to a concert or buy the album to hear more of this music.

Honors and Benefits - But A Middleman? No Thanks.

So we are members of AARP. That is supposed to bring us benefits.

One of the benefits is tax preparation help.

And I guess AARP member beggars shouldn't be choosers, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the help being offered.

Apparently, we can go to their tax prep center and they'll do our taxes for free. I would much rather, however, have an AARP discount on tax preparation software so I can not only continue doing my taxes at home as I've done them for many years past, but also help me kids with their taxes using the same software, getting a lot of bang for my buck.

Because with free tax prep help, all I'm really getting is a chose and a social interaction I'd much rather avoid.

With a discount on tax software, I'm getting a chore and the ability to amortize the cost of the software over a minimum of three returns, thus helping more people and not involving an extra middleman in my taxitude.

I'd rather not be Gil in this situation, rocking back and forth with my pathetic bag of receipts awaiting the doom the AARP taxman bringeth. I'd rather see the doom come myself.

I Hope I Got the Stupid Finger Pointing Right

Getting ready to film my own stupid scam Internet video

Old Testament? Not my Favorite

I'll admit the Old Testament is not my favorite bit of scripture to teach.

A few weeks ago, my wife got to avoid teaching this particular tale from Genesis 9:

After the whole ark business, Noah gets a bit drunk and passes out in his tent, starkers. His son Ham comes in, sees the naked dad, and he and his brothers cover Noah up.

Upon awaking, Noah learns of the thing and curses Canaan, Ham's son. Grandkid gets cursed because his dad saw grandpa's ding-dong.

Even our lesson materials has this to say:

This week, I get to avoid talking about other drunken escapades where Lot's daughters get Dad drunk and have sex so he can have, well, I don't know I guess. Descendants? Because his daughters don't count?

Our materials say this is included to show origins:

So that'll be fun. I guess it does show that you could take the daughters out of Sodom and Gomorrah, but not Sodom and Gomorrah out of the daughters.

Anyway, this is what I feel like sometimes:

 

We have state legislators who want daily Bible reading to be part of the public school curriculum. Fine. But they have to read these parts too.

Are They *Really*?

The Guardian is trying to get me upset about the loss of trade paperback books.

Their story sez:

But the era of the “pocket book” is drawing to a close. ReaderLink, the biggest book distributor in the US, announced recently that it would stop distributing mass-market paperbacks. The decision follows years of plummeting sales, from 131m units in 2004 to 21m in 2024, and marks the end of a format that once democratised reading for the working class.

Romero, who grew up in the working-class, Latino and industrial city of Hialeah, Florida, says: “I don’t remember a bookstore. I had the library in Miami Springs across the bridge but in Hialeah around us, what was in walking distance because we didn’t have a car, was the Publix [supermarket] and sometimes we would get books from Goodwill [thrift store] as well.

“They had that democratic aspect to them where you can just find them anywhere and it always felt like it was the pick ’n’ mix candy-type store where there is something here for everyone, whether it’s the Harlequin romance novel or something very pulpy like a sci-fi or horror novel that you could quickly get.”

I'll admit: I don't remember book stores either. I mean, we had Pioneer Book, sure. But I was a big borrower from the library, and sneaked books off the classroom shelves in elementary school. While I do remember buying books from a grocery store as they describe here, they were exclusively Peanuts comic strip books.

When I was serious about buying books, it was the thrift store. Deseret Industries, one of our local thrifts, occasionally ran sales when they had too many books and I could come home with ten for a dollar. Those were heady days.

I still shop a lot there for books, abut also hit up used book sellers on the Internet as well. As far as I'm concerned, there is no book shortage.

I just bought a new little pile last weekend. It's fun.

COOKIE DOUGH!

 

I know that doesn't look like much more than a mixer churning away in a garage, but to us and Troop 1010, it's a big deal.

Since 2019, the troop has made cookie dough as a fundraiser. We've made the dough in a school cafeteria and the back rooms of the scout office and a regional restaurant, but those opportunities were closed to us.

We did score this mixer from the scout office, and Keaton and his Dad got an outlet wired for it in the garage of their new home. Best yet, the mixer works. So we can make the dough. Both kinds.

Help Me Sort This Out in My Head

 

Help me sort this out:

I've been a fan of Vangelis -- and by extension, a certain amount of synthesized music -- since I first heard the music as part of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series.

Obviously, a lot of talent goes into synthesized music; it's not just computers doing the work. Though it is the computers helping the work to have beautiful and dangerous sounds to it.

I'm sure at the time there were people who weren't all that keen on synthesized music: "There's no skill," they'd say, as compared to learning how to make a violin sing, or dare I say it, a banjo plink."

But it's still there. Filling a niche that I'm glad synth music found.

I'm struggling with the battle against large language models and such. Though I agree there's rather a leap from creating "good prompts" that can produce prose that's actually worth reading.

But I dunno. Maybe I'm getting weak on this. Maybe in the future LLMs will find and fill a niche in writing and just be that small part of it that fills a distinct need.

I've seen writer friends experiment with LLMs and I have to wonder: Used right, they're not all that bad. There are certainly ethical concerns based on their use of electricity and their training based on plagiarized works of actual meat-spacer authors, that I won't deny. That's a big part that still keeps me from using LLMs in my own work. Maybe that's too big a leap to make.

But I'm not sure.

Still sorting things out in my head.

Moved

I didn't take any pictures -- which now seems sad -- but we successfully got Lexi and Keaton moved into their house today.

It's a big deal.

They feel like they're rattling around in the space, after leaving a 2-bedroom apartment for even smaller digs with us as they looked for a place to live locally.

But I can see the gleam in their eyes as they look past the piles of boxes and such at the possibilities of having all sorts of places to put the stuff they've got and plan for the future.

It's kind of exciting for them.

And for us, because it means we have a lot of stuff that's moved out of our house now. Last time I had to restart the router, it took ten minutes to move enough boxes to get to it.

And soon one of the two pianos we have in the house will join them. We'll get a wall back. I don't know what we'll do with it, but we'll get it back.

Honda Mileage - Another Missed Milestone

I've been watching the odometer in my 2005 Honda Pilot for this particular set of zeros to come around.

Not that there's anything significant about 260,000 miles other than the fact that I missed seeing 250,000 miles roll in.

So, of course, today this happened:

At least it got warmer.

Summer in Liverpool, 1992

 

We buy a lot of used books. Part of the fun is finding annotations, abandoned bookmarks, and in the case of this copy of "The Complete Ripping Yarns," an inscription on the inside front cover.

I can't make out the signatures, but the text says:

To Lillian,

A bit of very British humour from a very funny T.V. series written by two of the Monty Python team.

Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Birthday.

Summer in Liverpool 1992

With love from (illegible names)

All of this for only $7.