Riley & Grogu

This little monster is now 9 months old. To say the least he has change my life – our lives.

We brought him home when he was 9 weeks old. We did this because we wanted him with us during the window of time when he’d bond most strongly with us. The first 3 months were rough. We’d never had a dog before, either of us. So here we were with a puppy that needed ALL the training, no experience, and a backyard that turned into a mud pit when it rained.

My wife enrolled him in the Great Puppy Day School at the What a Great Dog training center here in town. They were amazing. He is very smart, and requires very little instruction. It helped a lot. Potty training was all on us, and it was tough.

Now, months later, he is indeed becoming a great dog. Sweet, good natured, quiet (an anomaly apparently with shelties).

Tonight he picked up his Grogu toy and hopped up on this air bed with it.

We love him.

AI

I have not delved into the AI stuff much at all. A few months ago I played with an AI art generator until my free tries ran out. I have not used any of the others. When I was doing the art thing I very much wonder what online resources had been evaluated and remixed to create the images produced. I have to think they came from somewhere. Or maybe “everywhere”?

The slurping-in of people’s creative output by these systems is kind of troubling. Even being as ignorant of this stuff as I am, I have to say my immediate reaction is to hate it.

I have stopped posting video to Youtube. I am considering making all my Vimeo videos “unlisted” or “private” from here on out. I’m even thinking about making all my stuff here on CL require a log-in to view, or something like that. I realize this is a meaningless gesture given the nature of this issue, but really it is only a “gesture.” I just really don’t want to feed this beast even my own little collection of thoughts, images, and sounds.

Doing the unthinkable

Well, not really unthinkable. I’ve thought if it many times, and done it many times.

I am getting rid of most of my books. In fact, I just did it. Over the weekend I boxed up 90% of my books, and today at work I donated them to the library, which will sell them either in the book sale or via a vendor who sells our nonfiction donations for a good price and splits the money with the Friends of the library (so it eventually benefits the library, just like the in-building book sale does).

I had a lot of books sitting there, taking up space in my office, doing nothing. I kept a few books about skateboarding. I’m a skateboarder. They are inspiring to me and to some extent represent who I am. I’m not the other things.

It feels good to be rid of them.

Alive

I’m sitting out on my patio this morning. Drinking coffee. It is good. On the left side of my body the sun is hitting me and I’m warm. On the other side of my body the wind is hitting me and I’m cool. The breeze smells fresh. An airplane just flew overhead. There’s a bird singing. The buzz from my tinnitus is less noticeable than usual. Inside the house my wife is getting our puppy ready to go to his manners class. This morning for the first time when he came out of his crate he jumped up on the bed to snuggle with me. He clacked his front teeth in a sassy greeting. Later today, we’re going to see my nephew play in a college baseball game.

But right now I’m just sitting quietly on the patio, soaking it all in. It is good to be alive.