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I rose with my alarm, but church is not to 11, so mornings, while time-boxed, are not busy. Coffee was waiting for me (Sleepy Monk; thanks, AJ, Steve, and Niki) as I had assembled it the day before. I doom scrolled as our nation struggles with the death of an ICU nurse who died for no good reason and the resultant smear campaign to justify the execution. I read my emails and updated my Quicken transactions more in a depressed trance than with any emotion. It is impossible for me to feel anything other than that, which makes me want to bring violence to violence with thoughts like, “Go ahead, ICE Agent, make my day.” But I am a peaceful man, and I don’t own a powerful handgun. I am focusing on cooking, food, traveling with Deborah, and baking.

I wrote the blog more as a habit, as all I wanted to do was say “f**k off world, I am going to stay in bed and blow off church and everything.” But discipline, habit, and the impossibility of letting a day go by without a record took over, and I did get the blog done. I would also miss my church folks.

I showered and dressed for church in my pride tie and unarmed. As I said, I do not have a handgun or a concealed-carry permit. I know of others, in the past, who attended church armed, good people. I took the EV to church with an extra-heavy coat and gloves. I also brought a book.

I got to church 20 minutes before the service, then rolled out the round table into the new space and set up the chairs. Others started to help me. I found the chairs in a hallway and brought them.

Jack was out this morning. I covered getting the offering put away, setting up the tables, and then putting them away. It was a bit of a shock to learn that we don’t leave the tables up for my fellow church folks, but the space is to be empty after each use, even ours.

Seth told the story we learned on the Southern trip about Cancer Alley in St. James ‘ Parish. This was bookended by Pastor Ken’s sermon, Grief in a Polluted Land. The scriptures, Amos 5:7-15 and Psalm 10, added a powerful underlying theme to the words of Ken and Seth. For me, Psalm 10 also spoke to me about the terrible actions of ICE and our US Federal government, “to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more.” Today, First United Methodist Church was a refuge with translated Hebrew words from 3,000 years ago ringing anew.

After church and all the words, coffee, tables, and other things, I drove Air VW the Gray to the mothership and dropped it off for its annual maintenance and a safety recall (in the form of a software update to prevent the car from catching fire when using a Tesla charger; I do not have the converter for that). I walked through the cars at the dealership, and there was no temptation for anything new. I joined a gentleman without an iPhone to check the status of the 57. We chatted, and he offered me his seat. I would not take it. I am retired and explained that I sat in church, but he did not take his seat. We both stood.

I felt he was showing me too much respect; some old white guy who cannot help but notice his accent was a threat. I felt terrible, especially after reading Psalm 10. Here was someone who needed justice for the oppressed, and my mere presence was setting him off. The bus came, and he used a monthly pass while I waited for my iPhone to tap.

It was a short trip, and I did not look at the man again, making sure he was not in my sight. Thus, he will be able to relax. Again, I was sad.

I next got off at the strip mall by my house and walked to the local sushi place. I got the last clear space, ate from the track, and ordered tea and muso soup. I read my book and managed to spill some soy sauce on it, but not too badly. I was able to dry it off.

At the house, Deborah and I connected and watched more of Elsbeth together, including the St. Valentine’s Day episode (from last year). I called Deborah later, and we finished her day together. I reheated the leftover Chinese-style food I made from Trader Joe’s stuff. It was good a second time.

I did look at Large Language Models (LLMs) and at some Kaggle and NVIDIA websites on how to load models. Google also had a large section on how to put safety controls on LLMs and newly created chatbots. The data load issues were strongly related to preventing duplicate data from being scanned by the model and to biasing the model by the duplicates. I am tempted to load my text with all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and see what I get. The letters of Lord Nelson from the Napoleonic wars would also be an interesting source.

There was also a suggested JSONL loading format. This fits with my mind that the data contains more meaning than we are assigning. With this format, we ignore the column and row (Excel-like) structure and let each data element tell its own story. It is interesting to me that this is becoming the recommended format.

All interesting to me.

I soon went to bed and read more of Eric Kline’s book: Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed. It is hard to put down, but I nodded off and dreamed of letters and ancient kings. I turned off the light and went to sleep. While my dreams are forgotten, I imagine I wander through a mix of LLMs, JSONL, and chatbots, chatting with ancient kings by letter.

Thanks for reading.

 

Saturday was a good day to sleep in. I woke about sunrise on another cold, clear-skied January morning here in the Pacific Northwest. Later, it would cloud up and even sprinkle, but that was just a brief visit from the Oregon Mist, and it would return to freezing, cloudless nights. Our normal winter/spring weather, endless inbound Pacific-based dampness, has been pushed away by a polar vortex, which is troubling the central and Eastern USA. Today (Sunday when I write this), we will cloud up and endless damp returns all next week.

Returning to Saturday’s memory, coffee was waiting for me, more Sleepy Monk brand (thanks, AJ, Steve, and Nikolas), and I tried to find focus. I had made the bed with clean sheets, and it is always nice to wake to warm, clean sheets. It was difficult to rise and find direction, but at least there was excellent coffee waiting, having assembled it the night before. The coffee and the kitchen were where I left them; they had not moved. But it seems a longer trek on some mornings.

I have to be at Richard’s in Portland at 6 to play games. I invest the morning writing the blog, folding and putting away the laundry, and chatting with Deborah. I make more Trader Joe’s frozen Chinese-style meals, going with Mandarin Orange Chicken and adding sliced bits of orange and green beans. It was good and not drowned in sauce.

I completed The Umbrella Academy series with their final episode, watching the last three episodes here and there all day on Saturday. Like all endings of series, you don’t want it, and it never feels like enough. Still, I enjoyed the four seasons.

Deborah, Dondrea, and I had a call and discussed options for Deborah’s and my trip to Utah at the end of March and the start of April. Deborah and I agree with Dondrea to see the Arches National Park in southern Utah. Dondrea gave a list of walks, museums, and parks to try. I took notes. I will try to assemble a plan from it. Deborah and I are also headed to California again in June. We have decided that we enjoyed having Air VW the Gray when in Long Beach, and this time I will head to Orange County in the EV. I am excited to do another road trip EV-style. We are definitely headed back to the Hollywood area again.

Some time on Saturday afternoon, I take some bread slices (frozen and made in the bread machine), toast them, add some Swiss cheese slices on their last legs, and heat them in a small pan in butter. Add some water and cover with a lid to let the steam heat the cheese. That is dinner.

I never got out for a walk, but I was busy all day. I take Air VW the Gray to Portland and enjoy the interestingly slow, imprecise driving from my fellow Oregonians. How they can drive this badly always amazes me. Coming to a near stop when changing lanes on a f**king bridge with a merge and exit five stories in the air (who designed this!) is insane, but usual here. Still, with no paint loss, I make it to Richard’s.

LOTR: Fate of the Fellowship, my copy, was our game for tonight. Robin, a new player, joined us. Chris also joined. I set up the Pandemic-based game for four players, and we went through the basic setup. We discovered that I was moving too many enemy troops, and that made it easier. The game, I feel, is immersive, and it is also cooperative with the Pandemic-like mechanism that drives the Dark Lord and minions. It is a race to complete various objectives and to send Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom to try to destroy the ring. And while the old War of the Ring board game (and expensive), a two-person game, is immersive and fascinating to play, this new version is a up to five-person game and done in an hour (which might cover the setup time for the other game). I like it and may not return to the other game.

We got lucky, and Frodo got four ring cards on his own. We completed the tasks, and three characters escorted Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom. The ring (represented by five ring cards) was tossed into Mount Doom with no chance of losing hope. We did lose the Shire and barely held the dwarven and elven strongholds in the north. It was fun.

I was home early, we played just one game, and started a small laundry run. As I covered, I finished The Umbrella Academy. I was in bed about midnight; I am, of late, running late. I soon fell asleep. While I cannot remember any dreams, I woke refreshed early, rolled over, and slept until nearer to 8 than 7.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

I rose later, just before sunrise. I watched the dark fade away as I sat in my office (a former bedroom) and began my usual morning, looking out the window. I read (mostly deleting unread) my accumulation of email (and unsubscribe to right-wing stuff that occasionally finds its way to me). I updated my transactions in Quicken and revised those that were mis-assigned or not assigned at all. I doomscroll the CNN.com and New York Times websites. One of the reasons I purchased the NYT is that I like the way they write and put stories together. You can learn by just reading how to write better. Recommended, especailly non-poltical stoires like cooking stories. CNN continues to lock down its content (never well written in my experience), while the NYT is now excelling in on-the-minute updates. CNN is more of a habit than a useful resource.

I must admit that Friday is a blur in my memory, and I wasn’t very well-organized when I experienced it. I will try to compose a narrative.

I recall that I wrote while drinking the coffee I had assembled the night before, Sleep Monk brand (thanks, The Most Rev. Steve and AJ), while I ate a croissant from Paris Baguette that I had sliced to hide that it was two days old. I had stripped the bed and run, for two plus hours, the sanitize washer function. Later, the dryer made quick work of drying as the washer’s spin cycle left the laundry only damp.

I interrupted the writing by calling doctors’ offices and imaging locations, those that accept my insurance, to get my MRI of my brain to check if the tumor is returning or if the stuff they saw was just scar tissue or like unthreatening stuff. I am unsure I really want to invest in another MRI, but if it is terrible news, I have all that IRA money to spend in the next few years (I plan to have none left when I am done). It is extrememly unlikely that it will be bad news. But after three phone calls and stating the obvious a few times, the medical community agreed that they, not me, had something to do. I did get the doctors and imaging places to update my insurance information. I tried to schedule another image; there is a mass in my neck that I would like scanned, but I cannot get through as the phone company says the number is busy. I tried four times all through the day. My doctor is out, and I have not been able to have it moved to another imaging center.

I complete the laundry and my blog at about the same time. I open a can of chicken noodle soup and add more noodles, along with some of the seasoned, crispy, sliced baguette, to the soup. It is good, but I eat it too hot. I shower, dress, and all of that. I do add some extra noodles, and that helps it taste and the texture. I will have to make this someday, and just freeze it and add noodles when reheating.

I feel discombobulated, but my new book arrives via Amazon.com: Love, War, and Diplomacy by Eric Cline. By the end of Friday, I had read 59 pages and had trouble putting the book down. I enjoy his books; he writes well, and the detailed footnotes and bibliography give me confidence in his arguments.

I head to Cedar Hills mall and soon walk through City Home, where I manage to resist a bookcase made from the front of a tuk-tuk (just under $800) or a bar table made from a Vespa. I walked through the store three or four times. In each pass, I find more things that I like or find interesting.

I try to make it through Powell’s Cedar Hills Crossing store without buying anything, but C. S. Forester’s three books of the Hornblower series, which I once owned and read, in a single old volume, gets my $11. I bought the newest copy of Make Magazine and some postcards with the book.

I decided that dinner would not be something I would make at home and headed, after a few thoughts and travelling through the parking lot, to decarli (always in lowercase). There was exactly one seat at their bar, dinner seemed pre-ordained, and I soon was talking to Mary and Charles (I think that was their names), who were enjoying drinks and pizza, and I had a glass of something red and Old World. Meatballs again and still wonderful. I chat with folks and even get a few pages of a book (bringing Eric Cline’s book with me).

(A mixed French wine that I enjoyed)

After paying the bill, getting home, and saying good night to Deborah, I watch more of The Umbrella Academy, but the show is now taking off. This is what I discovered when I first watched it. After a few assembly episodes, the story suddenly becomes binge-worthy material.

I clean up the kitchen and assemble the coffee for Saturday morning. I dress in my PJs and read. It is hard to stop reading, but I am nodding off.

Thanks for reading!

Aside: I forgot to include this picture of Nav in Portland. This is the usual way to move from Highway 5 to Powell!

My morning seemed to be happening all at once. I had slept in until 8ish, knowing I had lunch with Scott (and I invited Joan S to join us, but a scheduling error with another appointment meant she missed us this time). I found the kitchen (it had not moved) and the coffee waiting for me. I also put in a mixed load of clothing into The New Laundry. PGE, my local utility, asked us on the volunteer list to reduce our power consumption on Thursday morning, and I did not use the dryer in the New Laundry until the afternoon. I unplugged various devices and did not use my desk lamp. Not much, but something. It is not all kindness; PGE pays me a small refund for helping.

I started the blog. I included my interest in exploring ancient texts and history, and I discussed it. I did more and more digging to better form my thoughts. I was also doomscrolling the news and reading Facebook items. I caught up on late-night comedians, who are also one of my news sources now (one of them said it is not that the comedians invaded the news, but that the news has become comedy and forced on them—an interesting observation). I was writing, reading, and composing, and soon another hour was gone, and I was late.

I did not have time to shower, but instead washed my face, brushed my mop of thin gray hair, and threw on clothes. I boarded Air VW the Gray and tried not to take it as a personal affront when Oregonians brake for green lights when I am running late!

Late by almost twenty minutes, Scott is only 1/4 through his beer, meaning not that late. We talked about my difficulty being an old, reasonably well-off white guy talking about discrimination that I did not experience. My difficulty with the information I received on the South Church Trip. This contrasted with my desire to have Courageous Conversations (the United Methodist Church’s term) about issues and politics. We talked about travel and my discoveries in coding AI solutions for a Kaggle challenge (Kaggle.com is a website that manages cutting-edge contests for solving AI problems).

Aside: As I discussed with Scott, I am finding that the higher-scoring submissions are scoring under 40 when orchestrating some existing models, and my weak solution using almost no technology scores 6.7. Google and others are supplying Open Source Large Language Model handling engines for general use. I am wondering now if the challenge is really understanding these models, picking one that best works on the crazy language selection (Akkadian to English), understanding the data, learning how to align the data to get better results, and then getting the run using Jupyter Notebooks (A sort of runtime environment for Python) subnitted and in completed in a reasonable amount of time. I am less interested in orchestration problems.

Mariah and I arranged an early dinner at Hopworks, off Southeast Powell in Portland, at 4ish.

Next, I return home in the EV, move the clothing from the washer to the dryer, and, in less than an hour, I am hanging up very dry, clean-smelling clothing. I do wonder if the previous machine left some funk on the clothing. Hmmmm.

I finally get into the shower after finishing the blog. My new OTC anti-fungal (skin rash is not getting better) product arrives, and it helps. By the time I am organized enough, it is time to drive to Portland. I take Highway 5, not 26, into Portland, as it was about the same time according to Nav, and is not a route I usually take. I like the view of Mount Hood. The view was great, and traffic was light, with only some stop-and-go due to an accident (another rear-end wreck). I made it in the VW about 4:15.

Mariah arrived before, and we soon talked about anything except Mariah’s work. We talked about travel and the edge of politics. We talked about money, houses, and laundry. We talked about my belief that data also contains information about itself that we miss. Avoiding the SciFi that there is a ghost-in-the-machine in the data we are missing. I am interested in what Akkadian texts, information from ancient shipwrecks, and ground-penetrating radar and scans can tell, and how to provide this information so AI can find that ghost. There are things to learn.

After some drinks for Mariah (I had one beer), a piece of cheesecake for me with coffee, we headed out. The return was the usual 26 path, as the outbound traffic from Portland was light. I returned home, watched The Two Popes on Netflix (here), and loved the show. It is a story based on events, but is all composed. It reminded me of the Cold War play, A Walk In The Woods (here). The story of two men, with opposing visions of the future of the Catholic Church, learning from each other. I thought it was touching, and I suggest watching the credits, as there are a few messages there.

With Thursday seemingly over before it started, I found my bed (it had not moved) and pulled up the covers and soon, after reading for a while and finding more errors in the book I am reading (the SciFi is self-published), I closed my eyes and was soon asleep. I have no memory of rising at night or having dreams. I woke just after 7 before sunrise.

Thanks for reading.

 

I rose later on Wednesday because I had been up late the night before. I rolled over at 7 and managed to rise just before sunrise. Coffee was waiting for me. My bread machine had danced through the night (more a cha-cha-chá than disco), and I sliced the still-warm bread it finished, rustic French-style but without the hard crust (that requires an oven), put it in a large ziplock bag, and added it to my freezer. Bread turns moldy for me too soon when homemade. Later, I would clean the bake/mix pan and put the bread machine, a cheap but working Amazon Basics version, away until I need it next month. Last night I set the machine on the stove top on a towel. The small lip on the smooth top of the electric range stops the machine from jumping off the surface when it dances.

With some toast (I took one slice of the new bread) with just butter and coffee (Sleepy Monk, supplied by the Most Rev. Steve (Defender of the Realm) and AJ; thanks!). I returned to my usual morning task: Remembering the day before and turning it into a story. Today, I added commentary about various grumpy items. It has been a chaotic week.

President Chaos-Battleship confused Greenland and Iceland in a speech in Europe today and seemed confused and lost a few times. And while I disagree with most of his policies, I hope that he can get help or can retire and make his victory lap. I am worried he will have to be removed against his will as he gets worse. It is clear that his staff is propping him up, a familiar experience for us on the liberal side. It is difficult to wish him good health, but I do. I hope the Republicans and their supporters can find a better solution than we liberals with Biden.

I moved Air VF the Gray to the street and ensured that the garage was available for the new laundry delivery. I checked that way was clear (“Make the way straight for The Laundry” to misquote the bible and other ancient texts). And returned to writing the blog.

I also connected with a dermatologist’s office that took my insurance but no longer takes new patients; the provider is also booked into 2027! Ugh! I tried the next one, score, and have an appointment on 30Jan. Yay!

I completed and published the slightly grumpy blog and headed into the kitchen. I needed to bring some control back to my life. Time to cook something! Trader Joe’s Shiitake Mushroom Chicken and making some rice to go with it sounded perfect. I am happy to work with prepared, cooked chicken instead of slimy, raw chicken or chop-until-you-drop for veggies. I added more frozen green beans, along with the chopped onion and celery that I froze a month ago. I had made too many chopped veggies for my last jambalaya. I washed and cooked basmati rice to go with it. Just a 1/2 cup (rice is bad for my diabetes and my weight–I cannot resist it).  It was hot and fun, but the taste was just average. Still, it gave me back some control.

I watched more of Pluribus on Apple+. It is an amazing show, a SciFi fantasy with a slow-running horror build, with an incredible lead, Rhea Seehorn. The show is now (episode 6, season 1), finally covering some thoughts I was wondering about. And the horror is rising. Wow!

Time runs away from me again. I start on some church paperwork and also start collecting Tax 2025 documents. Portland and other taxing authorities are starting to send out their 1099s. I am expecting to owe the federal government and a refund from the state of Oregon, which is going for another record Kicker. But this is my first year with no income other than transfers from my IRA, interest, apparent refunds, and dividends. Time to learn how retirement impacts taxes. 2026 is my Social Security income year.

It is always strange to reach checklist items (i.e., apply for Social Security) and then do it. It feels so unreal and a bit of a letdown. No longer planning and waiting. Off to the next thing.

The Costco folks arrive, and an hour later, I was running the New Laundry (GE Profile with separate washer and dryer; not a combo machine). The sad LG went the way of appliances via a free haul-away option. The delivery truck was loaded with questionable laundry from previous deliveries and haul-aways.

The process reminded me of many deliveries I did for Wild’s Furniture and Appliances, Inc. I remember delivering and hauling away a washer from an old basement. It was hard work. I was thinking about the delivery guys, Dad Wild, and Grandpa Wild, and about loading up trucks and taking trips to Saginaw, Michigan, to get more stuff. All good memories.

I ran towels in The New Laundry, and everything worked. I started to look at the instructions, surprisingly unhelpful, and just found my way. Later, I learned from the instructions to pull out the pour area to find the detergent tank, which I filled, and to remove the red light indicating the tank was near empty.  The New Laundry is less Internet-based and uses buttons and nobs, unlike The Machine, which required various updates (and allowed you to download various screen changes and sounds).

Again, my closet doors will not close for T he New Laundry. The front-loading doors prevent this. I think I can replace the doors with a curtain later. All good.

Dinner was more Trader Joe’s items, Frozen Chicken Tikka Masala with rice. Just enough to fill you up. Excellent and tasty. Not as good as mine, but it takes about 5 hours to make my version.

More shows, then some Kaggle, without much progress. I returned to Eric Cline’s lecture, a favorite lecture and writer for me on the ancient Middle East, on the Kedem YouTube channel. Mr. Alex Tseitlin hosts the channel; his accent is heavy but understandable, and he is based in Israel, visiting various sites there and interviewing archaeologists at their dig sites. I enjoyed Dr. Cline’s discussion of the Amarna letters, a recorded Zoom meeting with edits. Here is more information if you are interested.  Here is Eric Cline’s new book.

Watching a recent video on Kedem (here), filmed at Tel Hazor in Israel (ancient Hazor from the stories of the Canaanites in the Hebrew Bible — the bad guys in those texts), the hope is that the site may reveal another set of letters, possibly contemporary with the Amarna letters. But one of the Assyriologists working on the site interviewed warned that there are many reasons to believe that the letters are lost. I also learned from the video that the suspected site of the letters, if they exist, is under many excellent Iron Age structures, and that they would be lost if the dig continues. A plan is in place to save as much as possible and limit the size of the destruction. It was an interesting video if you want an up-to-date status of digs and findings.

I checked that the Tel Hazor digs are published, and they are. A complaint from my professors (back in the 1980s) that the digs were for tourists and political purposes. These, at least, were well documented and peer-reviewed.

Aside: I remember my first introduction to these letters and texts in college. There, my professor thought that the chance of finding more lost library of clay tablets was low. In his view, unless the library is burned hot enough to bake the clay, there was little chance of finding a new, partial, or intact ancient library, as the clay would just dissolve in the rains when exposed to the elements or when buried under a new city. Also, the tablets would be junk (later, the text became unreadable when the scribes disappeared from history) to the ancients, and they would not spend any resources keeping them. The Amarna texts were left in the desert and buried when the city was abandoned and overtaken by the desert. Not something that will be repeated anywhere else, my professor pointed out. Now, ancient Hazor was likely burned, and maybe the letters are there. Fingers crossed, but set expectations low (famous sites like Troy and Megiddo have also not yielded libraries, but they are now being sought out).

It was late, and I read for a while in my PJs in bed before taking off my glasses and sleeping. Sleep finally came after a few restarts; best not to describe it here. Thanks for reading!