Evelyn Day 67

Good morning! It is Monday, 22 May 2023.

I don’t have to worry about the virtual classroom this week, with the exception of cleaning up a little bit. I’m not the best at organizing and staying organized, and when you live out in the country, there is a constant battle against dust buildup on surfaces and inside computer chassis.

Had to pause there to make sure that the plural of chassis was still chassis. Accuracy matters.

I’ve got some errands to take care of this week as we prepare for the beginning of the summer break. Dane will get back into school in another week, and Lisa is teaching a summer class. The pool opens on Wednesday and we hope to have the water chemistry handled by Friday so we can enjoy the pool for Memorial Day weekend.

I’m going in to get my left shoulder checked today. I hope it is a simple issue that can be resolved with some simple joint manipulation. It’s been bugging me for about a week now, and yesterday the inflammation in the joint reached a head, and I decided I had had enough. I can feel the crunch in my should when I move it around, and sometimes the pain is significant.

I’ve got some work projects I want to work on this week as well. The topic of artificial intelligence is a hot property around the office, and there are some opportunities for me to learn more, so all things considered, it’s time to strap on the ol’ thinking cap and dive in. Focus, Bob!

Time to make a pot of coffee and think about breakfast.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 64

Happy Friday, folks! It is 19 March 2023.

It was on the quiet side last evening. Dane went to Kansas City to keep an eye on Bonnie’s dog, as Bonnie left KC to travel north to see a friend this weekend. Lisa went south to visit Gracie and Evelyn, and I camped here, wrapped up my solutions architecture class, and reheated some mango habanero chicken wings… and they were very, very good.

Today I have meetings starting in a few hours. Between now and then, I’m going to clean up my annual review stuff for my manager – my manager is cool ( I have no idea whether he knows this blog exists or if he has ever read it, but if you’re reading this, you’re alright). There are aspects of the annual review process that has always been a bit of a grind. I’ve shared with you all that I’m not a fan of unnecessary embellishments, but there are times that I am asked to puff things up a little bit. I just grit my teeth a little…

Here’s a little experiment that I did. I asked the chatbot to write a succinct review of a book and outline the key points. It wasn’t too bad. I liked the clear, right-to-the-point summary, and that kind of thing can serve as a guide for when I write my own outlines – don’t plagiarize the AI, but I think using it as a suggestion is a good starting place. I then asked for a slightly embellished review and a significantly embellished review. Somewhere along the line, the chatbot sold me a ’77 Caprice Classic with lifetime oil changes and new floor mats. When you ask a chatbot to embellish, they demonstrate an aptitude for puffery seldom seen outside Trump begging a Saudi prince for financing.

I have used AI and I will continue to use AI, but I will likely make significant changes to any suggested content coming from the chatbot. It seems a bit like cheating to just ask the chatbot to fill in the blank, and the chatbot responses often lack the organic nature that many folks prefer.

OK, time to make a pot of coffee and get started with the day.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 63

It is Thursday, the last delivery day for me this week, and 18 May 2023.

Sometimes I’ll take a few minutes and read the front page on my web browser or take a quick look at social media, and this morning I noticed a friend had posted an interesting meme. If I can get it here, I’ll post it at the end.

We’re developing AI and robots now. The question posed by my friend is this – we’re training our AI services to create artwork, and write content. In science fiction, we dreamed that robots would be doing mundane work, dangerous jobs, the manual labor positions. The whole goal of using machines was to have them do the hard work so that we, the humans, could create art and poetry while the robots took care of the day-to-day maintenance and service.

I’ll admit – I like the AI-created pictures. I am working on my prompt-writing skills, and more people should. Heck, I’m looking for a class on it. I want to learn how to write a sophisticated prompt so an AI can best render my vision.

There’s an old expression – “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Well, in the world of DALL-E and Midjourney, a thousand words can paint a pretty interesting picture when those words are processed by artificial intelligence.

I’ve been fooling around with different AI prompts, having the AI create topographical maps (needs work), small snippets of Python code (exceptional!), and chord progressions. The AI engine will not win any awards for originality, and the Grammy Awards won’t have a category for best Country Song written by an AI service… for now.

It will be interesting to observe the evolution of this new phase. I argue that in a few years, there will be folks who have full-time jobs writing good AI prompts.

Maybe we need an AI to help us write AI prompts?

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 62

Hi folks! It is Wednesday, Hump Day, 17 May 2023.

I better check to see if the guys are gathering online tonight. We might have a night off with one of the guys away on a cruise.

I’ll get back into my virtual classroom in another couple of hours. Until then, coffee, maybe a low-carb bagel or English muffin. I also need to get the ladder out for the guys from Wicket Broadband. My terrestrial internet connectivity has been a little off, so they’re coming out to check the alignment on my dish. Satellite internet is doing OK, but we’ll have at least three people on it until we can get the other internet connection adjusted. Rural internet leaves something to be desired. I sure wish somebody was running fiber out this way.

I have some paperwork I need to attend to for my manager. I don’t mind saying, “This is what I did”. I don’t like to overly embellish – I would much rather keep it short and sweet, direct and to the point. I’m not a big fan of trying to describe the molehill in terms best reserved for the Himalayas. Maybe I should have three responses for each topic… the short and sweet, the slightly embellished, and the third option where we drag the topic through all the bells, whistles, and then apply copious amounts of frosting and glitter.

Seems a little fake. I’m not good at fake.

OK, time to get to work on my day.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 61

Good morning, folks! It is Tuesday, 16 May 2023, and today is also the official two-month celebration for my first and only grandchild (I’m ok with the one for now, folks. I’m in no big hurry to get myself to the bottom of a pile of grandchildren).

Yesterday was a good first day for the cloud solutions architecture class. I’m delivering with an instructor that I have not worked with before, but he’s a good guy and things went pretty smoothly. Today will be more of the same as we focus on data storage and integration.

Normally, we avail ourselves of the opportunity Tuesday presents and snack on a few tacos for dinner. Last night Dane told me he would not be around for dinner, so I can cut the taco order back a bit. When it’s just him and me eating, we can polish off ten to twelve tacos pretty easily. It will just be Lisa and me tonight, so six or seven tacos ought to be enough.

I don’t have a whole lot else to share. Got a few loads of laundry done throughout the day yesterday.

Sorry, just not a real exciting day yesterday.

I’ll get this in the can and get on with the most important part of my morning, the preparation of coffee.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 60

Good morning, and welcome to the beginning of a new work week. It is 15 May 2023.

First a recap of the weekend…

We had a pretty busy weekend around here. Lisa had some graduation-related events on Saturday, then she had plenty of other work to keep her busy after arriving home. I spent a good chunk of Saturday on either the mower or the tractor trying to clean up the property a bit. Every weekend it doesn’t rain is an opportunity to get into a wrestling match with Mother Nature over ownership of our lot. She’ll win over time, guaranteed, but I’ll try to hang on as long as I can.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I reached out to my mom, and I was happy to discover she’s been attended to by my siblings in Clay Center. All of our kids came over yesterday as well, and Gracie was kind enough to bring Evelyn with her as well – Evelyn will be two months old tomorrow. It was a good visit yesterday – when you have three adult children, and you all can hang out without some argument about politics or social justice, it’s a good day.

This week I have a cloud administration class, running on central time zone this week. In my virtual classroom at 8:00 AM, start class at 9:00 AM, and wrap it all up at 5:00 PM. I have to admit, it will be a welcome change to teach back in my home time zone. Last week was Pacific, and prior to that, there were a few weeks of east coast classes – which I welcome. Yeah, with east coast, you start earlier in the day, but you also get things wrapped up at 4:00 PM my time.

OK, time to make a pot of coffee and grab a bagel.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 57

Good morning, and Happy Friday! I hope this missive finds you well. It is 12 May 2023, and this weekend families will gather to celebrate our moms.

My mom is in Clay Center. I probably don’t visit as often as I should. The weekends seem to come and go so fast, and with spring, there is much to do around the property here, but I still need to do this. This weekend is full, with college graduation tying Lisa up the next couple of days… next year it will be compounded by Dane’s graduation.

I’ve got a few meetings today. I think I have things settled with my training partner next week, and I am making plans to create a video with another teammate on how to present our content to neurodivergent audiences. I might be joining Dane for lunch prior to meeting with an accountant at 1:00. After that, I have a little more freedom to study in a little more freeform fashion. I have a couple of things in front of me that I would like to get certified in – security operations and artificial intelligence. I think in the coming years there will be a convergence of these two technologies to help thwart certain types of attacks, mainly ransomware attacks that have been so troubling in the past few years.

It’s trash day here as well. I moved our regular trash bin out to the side of the road, but before they arrive in a few hours, I predict there will be a small mountain of empty boxes being transported from my workspace to the garbage pickup site. I need to tidy up my workspace a bit.

Other than that, not much else. I’ll see my other kids this weekend and mt granddaughter as well.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 56

Hi folks! (Good morning, Evie, when you’re old enough to read this, know that I am thinking about you and everybody else in the family).

Today is 11 May 2023. I have the last day of my cloud security course with my training partner – the last day working West Coast time for a while.

It’s not that big of a deal, just a 2-hour shift in my day. It’s manageable, but a little weird at times. Going to lunch at 2 o’clock isn’t something I want to get used to.

We still have finals week stuff happening around here, and that keeps Dane and Lisa focused on school, but for different reasons.

I spent a little time yesterday looking over my scheduled time-off from work. I’ve got ten days ob the books for the rest of the year, and I still have five more days to schedule. Those five days will likely get scheduled during prep weeks in September and October, and I might even sneak in a day in a couple of weeks when I have another May prep week.

Other than that, I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied for now. About time to get some coffee brewing, and reheat the leftover chili and eggs from yesterday.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 55

Hi folks. It is 10 May 2023.

Yesterday was a pretty good day.

My class is going pretty well. One of the challenges with this particular course is providing adequate lab time. In the past, it always seemed like the content on the first two days of class was a bit overwhelming, and the day one lab content could add up to five hours, but after lecture, there might be two hours remaining in the day. The same thing goes for day two. We did ok, maybe even slipping in an extra few minutes of lab time here and there.

There were a couple of political developments. Trump had a jury decide against him in a defamation lawsuit. He was accused of sexual assault by a woman, then he called her a con artist. She sued and provided evidence and witnesses to support her case. Trump filmed a deposition and did not show up for the trial, and his deposition might’ve made things worse for him – he made comments to the effect that the woman was not his “type”, and then confused the woman with one of his ex-wives. He then told the attorney deposing him that she wasn’t his type either. Trump was not happy about the verdict and

A GOP representative from New York, George Santos, is back in the news… this time because he is facing multiple charges from the DoJ regarding credit card fraud and other charges. He’s the guy that effectively manufactured a fake background, claiming Jewish heritage, touting his career as a varsity volleyball player at a school he never attended and other acts of sheer fantasy. I’m not going to be too sympathetic if he gets found guilty. He’s not part of the solution.

Time for me to think about the day ahead. I’ve got to talk to folks about application security and managing keys, secrets, and certificates in a few hours. Plenty of time to look over my content, but still, it’s time to get this in the can and get on with what comes next… and for me, that’s a medium roast Tanzanian peaberry coffee.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 54

Hi. It’s 9 May 2023.

There’s stuff going on in the world. Some of it is good, and some of it is bad. For me, there’s more good than bad, I suppose.

My training partner and I got off to a pretty good start with our security course yesterday. It always messes with me a little bit to teach on Pacific Time. It seems that starting an hour earlier is a little easier than starting two hours later. It’s only four days, and I’m not adjusting my sleep cycle at all, so there’s no messing with my circadian rhythms.

Lisa and Dane are very busy this week. Lisa is giving finals and dealing with school stuff, and Dane is taking finals and dealing with school stuff. Mother’s Day is this weekend, and I need to do a little looking for my wife. Picked up something for my mom yesterday, so one mom was taken care of.

I’m not tremendously motivated to write. I was thinking about the expression, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. A lot of folks don’t do that first part. They don’t understand how people feel, but by golly, they want their feelings taken into consideration. It’s kind of sad.

Meh. Just not into it today.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.