HOME: Pismo Beach. What's not to love?
This has been a quiet month, no deployments to anywhere, (although I was asked to return to Jamaica -three times-) Time to catch up on little household stuff and get busy organizing some travel plans for the coming months. We have always traveled all over creation for years but paused it for some time to purchase our new property in France, have a pool built and do some pretty significant landscaping. A new boat was needed at the island, then we had roofs redone on our home in France as well as in California. A 160-foot retaining wall took what remained of any coins found in the cushions of the sofa.
That being behind us, we are dying to get back to our first love.
Travel!
This month, we had the pleasure of receiving our friends Keith and Lisa from Florida, who also happen to be Team Rubicon disaster responders. Repeat visitors, they have joined us both in France and at the island in the recent past.
We spent a few days showing them the local sights, then drove up to Big Sur along the coast, to visit the Redwoods there. Moving along, we went to Carmel by the Sea, Monterey and the huge Redwood grove near Felton. The photo above shows them standing at the base of the trunk of a nearly 300-foot-tall tree.
Project of the month
Someone in our household (Name withheld to protect the guilty) decided that we needed to upgrade our guest bathroom sink.
Oups!
"Resistance is futile", I was told, "replace it!"
Ta-Da!
Huh?
I take no satisfaction in the fact that as much as I am a clever, forward thinking, astute guy, I have a habit of being well behind the eight ball when it comes to innovations. I was the guy who bought Betamax when VHS was soon the rage. (If you are under 50, you have not the slightest clue as to what I am talking about) I got a Walkman when they were all but relegated to museums. CDs? Yea, I got them just as they were removed from computers for hard drives, USB and HDMI ports. Some of my woodworking tools are 40 years old, but work just fine, thank you very much.
Cell phones? A good 5 years behind the curve arguing that my flip phone made calls just like a smart phone. It wasn't until Janice got hers that I saw it also had a great camera, GPS, maps, App's and on and on. My family says it is because I am cheap (frugal would be a nicer word) but I do draw the line a reusing toilet paper.
Yikes!
This past month, a friend (Lisa in the pic above, actually) turned me onto Open AI, ChatGPT. Yes, I was well aware of the program but had not a clue as to how to use it. In 5 minutes, it was like my eyes were opened to the miracles of the universe. We quickly got better at our queries and planned a two-week trip to Scotland with more detail and suggestions that we could ever have come up on our own in very little time.
To say I am astounded as to its capabilities would be an understatement. I am a total fan; completely sold on it and will vote for all the data centers it needs. I read that one in 7 people in the world use it every day. Michael strikes again.
A day late and a dollar short.
