Today 18July2023

Today, Wednesday, I am still writing the blog in the morning for Tuesday. It is another perfect sunny day.

Tuesday started with me waking from my alarm. I had to prove my hydration at 3:30 and again at 5:30, and the bright clear sunlight woke me at 6ish. I did try to return to sleep but was up at 7AM, only having lightly slept since sunrise. I finished the pastry and had yogurt with fruit (not sure how Organic can be a thing for yogurt, but it is claimed to be organic too). I made coffee, liberal Equal Exchange, in the coffee pot without covering the counter with used coffee grounds (which I had to clean up from yesterday–I had not noticed the spill until the morning). With breakfast summoned and the coffee reminding me of MacBeth (“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”), I took my meal to the office and started ninety minutes of blog writing.

Barb started while I wrote; Susie’s sister is visiting for a week (ending soon on Wednesday–we will miss you, Barb!). She found the coffee and managed on her own. I continued to write. I finished the blog just before Barb headed out early to see Susie.

I continued to organize the house, recycle things, find things for Goodwill, and generally clear the floor of stuff that would be better on a shelf or drawer. The dishes got done. Questionable board games, those not likely to be played, are returned to the garage for possible disposal (selling, trading, or Goodwill). Finally, shower and get dressed to catch Air Volvo’s next flight to Susie’s place at the hummingbird house in Portland (Tigard) at Allegiance Senior Care LLC, 9925 SW 82nd. Ave. Portland (Tigard), OR 97223; phone (503) 246-4116.

I arrived without entanglements with Beaverton’s Finest or traffic snarls at about 1PM. Barb had been with Susie and helped Susie with breakfast and was with Susie in her room when I arrived, listening to music. Susie agreed that I could take Barb to lunch and be back in about ninety minutes. Air Volvo took us to Broder Soder Beavert, a Scandinavian restaurant only a few moments from Susie’s place. 

The Broader Soder Beavert is a Scandinavian cultural center cafe serving only breakfast and lunch. Their food is excellent, with Barb enjoying the meatballs in cream sauce with potato pancakes and mushrooms on the side (so good the mushrooms are not just delicious but proud), and I had the hash with smoked trout. We shared some pancake balls with lemon curd and jelly, lingonberry, of course.

Needing a nap, we returned to Susie’s place as promised. I stayed for only a few minutes, with Barb staying until 7PM as it was her last full day with Susie. They rented (Amazon) the film High Society with Grace Kelly and enjoyed that–a favorite for Susie and Barb. Barb helped feed Susie. Barb left Susie, promising to say goodbye on the way to the airport on Wednesday, and met me at the food trucks at Beaverton Central. Susie forgot that Barb was leaving on Wednesday, and the parting was hard on Barb.

I had dinner, and Barb was still stuffed full of meatballs and consumed only a local brew product. We sat outside as the sun set over Beaverton Central. Beaverton Central is a new group of buildings that include a food truck park, the Metro to Portland (and beyond), and towards Hillsboro, the end of the line. There is also the Beaverton City Hall, a newly built cultural center, high-end restaurants, and parking garages. Plus, local coffee, a plant store, and a taphouse. An excellent place to have dinner, play board games, or attend a cultural event.

While Barb was hanging out with Susie, I was at the Volvo Cave, having returned by Air Volvo without incident. I submitted my 500-word horror story to the H.P. Lovecraft Portland Film Festival. It is always a nervous process as you don’t want to make any mistakes, and then the doubts that it is not ready or has more than 500 words start to haunt you. I submitted it on the fourth try, discovering that it must be .rft and having to resave the story and add a title and my information to the text. I was just checking out the festival’s status and discovered that link to submit the stories with a deadline of 1Aug2023! I almost missed out.

I also worked on my next submission, editing the Howard story and letting Grammarly have its way with some of it, but only to fix some extra words. I canceled the majority of the suggestions as I have found that the latest Artificial Intelligence-based style suggestions are simplifying and do not improve my writing. The AI likes unambiguous text–no surprise there, as the code will want everything to fit an approved pattern. You only get the extra help if you buy the professional version (I did), and I could start the blog by having their version of a chatbot review my previous blogs and generate a new one. Not happening.

But I am tempted to connect a CC text flow from a work status meeting and have a chatbot read and consume it. I could ask the chatbot to send me alerts if there were any issues on things I or my team are responsible for; yes, very tempting. The advanced class would be to have the chatbot then control my Avatar at the meeting, and when asked, it could supply vague but appropriately satisfying answers. “I don’t have an update on that, but we now are focusing on it, and I am sure the team will get back to us soon,” for example. So tempting.

Barb and I returned without issue via Air Volvo and stayed up until 10ish. Again, I decided to put off writing the blog until morning and went to bed early.

A reminder that my article, “Turing’s Battle,” was published in 2600 Volume 40, number 2. This issue was just released to hacker-supporting bookstores (Barnes and Noble and Powell’s here) and is available online. Please consider buying a copy to support all of us hackers out there.

Thanks for reading.