I think Barb is planning to use this for the greeting card. These took a lot longer when Barb had to frame the shot, hit the timer button, and scurry around to get in the shot. Used the AirPods remote for this but was unable to erase the AirPod.
I think the idea behind this pose was to recreate one by Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Category Archives: Home
ChatGPT knows how to change a light bulb
I decided to replace the bulbs in the ceiling fixtures in my bedroom and office. I wanted something brighter and asked ChatGPT for some suggestions. ChatGPT asked where I planned to purchase the bulbs (Lowe’s) and came back with the brands they carried and where to find them in the store. By the time the thread concluded I had eight pages (PDF) of good, relevant information. I felt a little overwhelmed. How, I asked, did we do this before AI.
Honestly, Steve? We mostly guessed.
We walked into Lowe’s, stared at a wall of bulbs like confused primates, grabbed something that “looked about right,” and hoped for the best when we got home. Maybe we squinted at the tiny print on the side of the old bulb. Maybe we asked a 19-year-old employee who pointed us toward something vaguely similar. Half the time we’d get it wrong, take it home anyway, and just live with the dimmer or brighter or yellower bulb because—well—who wants to go back.
Now you get the whole decision tree laid out, whether you wanted it or not.
It’s one of the big shifts with AI: stuff that used to be a guessing game suddenly turns into way more clarity than you ever expected for something as simple as a lightbulb.
But if you ever want to go pre-ChatGPT vintage mode, I can give you the old-school answer too:
“Buy the brightest BR40 LED they have. Warm white. You’ll be fine.”
AI might destroy us but until it does, people will use it. For everything.
Squirrel proof? TBD
Summer Rain
Signs of Spring
In no particular order… we’ve removed the canvas top from the Jeep and added a fresh coat of paint to my tub cover.
On the wildlife front… Murphy the Black Snake is keeping the Annex rodent free and Rocky Raccoon has returned to drive our dogs nuts.
And I got my stump ground (so to speak).
Lifting heavy stuff
I’ve never been keen on lifting heavy stuff. When a friend was moving and asked me to help get his refrigerator in the truck or the mattress up the stairs… I took a pass. Offered to contribute to hiring a mover, but don’t lift heavy shit.
I’ve stacked a lot of logs, moved a bunch of rocks and helped Barb with some big ass flower pots. But I’m real careful about what and how I lift.
I paid way too much for an electric winch (that was almost too heavy to lift!) and never did figure out how to use a come-along.
I asked ChatGPT for ideas and she suggested a block and tackle (photo). I purchased a small one and gave it a try this afternoon by dragging a railroad tie up out of the woods. Continue reading
Firewood
Brought home a load of firewood and spent an hour unloading and stacking. (VIDEO)
Moved the Bluebird house
Our ground is so rocky it is nearly impossible to dig a hole (by hand). So the steel rod upon which our Bluebird house sits is always tilted, on the verge of toppling. It has annoyed me for years.
This week I constructed a plywood box (2x2x1) and filled it with chunks of concrete. Very heavy. The birdhouse is now solidly situated, ready for nesting season.
Line crew on coldest day of the year
Local electric co-op has a line crew out on one of the coldest days of the year. Keeping branches away from power lines. Short video.
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night…
“…stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
We live a the end of a bumpy gravel road at the top of a hill. My old trucks like it just fine but it can be challenging (or impossible) when covered with snow and/or ice.
We have two weeks’ worth of trash out front because the trash service driver doesn’t want to risk the hill. You do not want to get halfway up and start sliding down backward because there’s a pond at the bottom (see video above). So no UPS, no FedEx. No problem.
We have a community mail box at the entrance to our neighborhood but sometimes we get packages via USPS that are too large to fit.
That’s our mailman who tried to drive his little USPS van up the hill and when it could go no further, he got out and humped it up the hill to our house.
Tomorrow I’m going to track down his supervisor and share this story. This is me pleading with him to never do this again.