Safety chain for the propane man

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UPDATE: November 5, 2024

Our propane tank sits at the bottom of a small –but steep– hill near our driveway. In hopes of reducing erosion, back in 2015 I covered the hill with rocks.

When the propane company comes to fill our tank, the driver has to drag his hose down this hill which is usually covered with weeds and brush. A perfect place to twist a knee or break an ankle. To make this task a little safer I’m running a safety chain from the tank up to the driveway. Something to hold on to while going down and coming back up.

I needed something at the upper end heavy enough to support the driver’s weight. I was stymied until I spotted some concrete blocks at a nearby cement company. Two feet square and eight inches high, with a handy rebar attachment. I bought two so I can stack them and get the chain off the ground a bit.

A guy driving a front-loader dropped them (gently) into the bed of my pickup truck but getting them out proved something of a challenge. Too heavy for me to budge so I used a winch to get them off the bed of the truck and lowered to my rock sled. I’ll use the Jeep to tow them into place.

UPDATE: Getting the blocks out of the truck was almost as difficult as getting them in. Used the come-along to ease it down the ramps.

The final step would have been nearly impossible without my friend Andrew and his skid loader. Yes, he put that monster on a trailer and hauled it up our hill for this silly little project.

The propane truck driver will weep with joy this winter as he safely (?) tugs his hose (sorry) down this ice-covered slope.

ChatGPT: Advanced Voice

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There are now nine Voice options in the ChatGPT app. Each one has a different tone, style and… “personality.” (I went with Sol) It also has something called “speech-to-speech capabilities.” This means that it can pick up on tone changes, “allowing for a more natural, human-like conversation and faster interrupting.”

I’m not sure about “Advanced Voice.” If you want it to sound more like yourself then you can ask it to adopt a specific accent. It won’t be able to directly mimic your voice but it can sound like it’s from your neck of the woods. I don’t think so. If I want to hear the lilting sounds of Southeast Missouri, I’ll talk to Barb.

The most important vote I will ever cast

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Early (absentee?) voting has started in Missouri so I stopped by the county clerk’s office this morning and voted in the November 5 election. It was surprisingly satisfying. It felt good in a way I don’t recall experiencing in previous elections.

My ballot was (almost) what we once called “a straight ticket.” I did vote for a couple of Republican candidates but a lot of offices didn’t have a Democrat candidate (this is Missouri). So lots of write-in votes.

I thought about standing in line this November (I did that for Obama) but elected to get this important task behind me.

Autumn-izing the Jeep

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Put the canvas top back on the Jeep today. Morning temps in the 60’s now and that’s uncomfortably chilling without the top. Leaving the driver-side “door” off for now. The Jeep has a damned good heater so I might be able to drive this for another month or so.

ChatGPT as fitness trainer

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As I understand it, the Apple Watch needs some initial fitness data to establish a baseline. It suggested I take a 20 minute walk on a flat surface with good access to GPS. I did three miles and noticed the watch was showing a heart rate just over 100 for most of the walk. I couldn’t remember the formula for calculating my target heart rate so I asked ChatGPT when I finished my walk. My pace was on the money and qualified as “vigorous exercise” for a person my age.

She asked if I was starting an exercise program and I explained I had purchased an Apple Watch and was exploring the health and fitness features.

It’ll be interesting to see how your heart rate responds to different activities. The Apple Watch’s trends over time should give you a clearer picture of your fitness progress. It’s a good way to get insight into your cardiovascular health and adjust workouts as needed. If you’re curious later on, I’d be happy to help you interpret any of the data or trends you notice!

I’m going to need a lot of help interpreting data and had not thought about getting it from ChatGPT. And I have a feeling that will get much easier, and more useful, when ChatGPT is fully integrated with iOS.

I left my new phone in the truck so I could try making a call and sending a message with the watch. Worked as advertised. Turns out I don’t have to do the “Hey, Siri” thing. The watch gently pointed out that I can simply bring the watch up toward my face and talk to it. In the immortal words of Gomer Pyle, “Shazam!”