Ponderings and Musings

Dan Robinson from StormHighway.com caught an amazing lightning strike during the storms passing through St. Louis on Friday the 30th. Here’s a video of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis getting struck by lightning.

Earl and I have visited the St. Louis Gateway Arch in the past. The experience was not enjoyable as I had thought it would be. The arch itself is amazing and an impressive engineering feat. But the ride to the top of the arch in an oversize clothes dryer drum with four of your closest friends was not enjoyable. The tilt-straighten-tilt-straighten-tilt-straighten of the vehicle as it made its way up didn’t bother me, it was the close quarters with a tiny porthole that was messing with my head. As long as I could see outside the vehicle I was avoiding a complete panic, but that porthole was small and my eyes were frozen on the “scenery” passing by.

Once we were at the top of the arch looking out the windows I was still a little wigged out about how small the area was; it felt the inside of an airliner but with everyone running around. Again, I’m glad I did it once but I don’t need to go up there again.

I’ve been working from home for 10 years. I love this arrangement and I really appreciate the fact that technology allows us to regularly use video conferencing instead of dialing into a conference bridge and listening to tinny voices. Being able to see folks is important to me because I never know when it’s my turn to talk.

The cheap headset shown in the photo works well for this purpose. I picked it up from Amazon for less than $30. I also purchased a USB extension cord so I can move around a bit, especially when I have my desk in a standing position.

I’ll eventually move to a wireless earbud arrangement, much like what’s shown in Microsoft’s vision of the future back in 2009. I’m particular about this sort of thing, as in ear earbuds give me weird sinus pressure and the inability to hear my own voice the way I want to hear my voice.

I like a lot of things about that Microsoft vision of productivity in the future, even though that future is suppose to be now. We use a lot of Microsoft products at work, and they do the trick, even though they’re much clunkier than Microsoft would like to admit.

I wish AI would make things more productive instead of things like ChatGPT bringing us erroneous facts like the population of Mars being in the millions. They fixed that last point, but there’s a lot of folks relying on “AI”, which is actually not Artificial Intelligence at all and more of a Large Language Model, just pulling words from various sources and putting them together coherently. Some folks think ChatGPT is magic. It’s not. It’s not Samantha from “Her”.

As I ramble through this blog entry with no end in sight, I should probably bring this to a close by once again mentioning where I think AI and collaboration should really be going, and that’s in the direction of the vision of Mercury OS. If you’re interested in the possibilities of AI really doing something compelling, take a look through the Mercury OS website.

It’s a shame the big companies like Google, Microsoft, or Apple don’t seem inspired to try something new. Must be not enough money in it.

The key to a successful workday lunch experience is supporting your husband’s desire to retire young. When Earl made this proclamation years ago, I knew one of the drawbacks would be my weight gain.

Because the man knows how to put together a meal.

We have been trying to eat healthy in June. This was my lunch yesterday and it was wonderful.

It’s been a month since my 2023 storm chasing trip on the Great Plains. I’ve been thinking about this trip since returning home nearly a month ago. I don’t like to use the word “disappointed” because I believe there’s always something we can find to avert the feeling of “disappointment”, but overall I was hoping to see more in the way of storms this year.

Spending a week on the Great Plains, where I know absolutely no one, is something I enjoy. I really like being anonymous and watching people, especially from a far. Grandpa City was known to enjoy people watching as well, and he could sit on a bench and watch the world go by and be quite content. This type of activityI gives me much time to think and to clear my head and to get the world around me back into perspective. As I drove a couple of thousand miles around the (mostly) flat terrain, I realized that I’m having a little bit of a mid-life crisis (again?). I keep asking myself, “Is this it?”. Maybe I’m looking for magic. Maybe I hyped up the trip a little bit too much in my head as I was making plans and watching weather patterns, and thinking of small towns being quaint.

I feel like I may have done a little too much driving on this trip, and that was mainly because the weather was a mess. The high pressure ridge that moved in right before I left pushed any chance of storms (which were nominal at best) to parts scattered all over the region. One day I’m in Northeast Texas, the next day I need to hustle to Northeast Oklahoma, and then the next day I had to get myself to Southwest Kansas.

I’ll be approaching the next trip a bit differently: I’m going to narrow the confines of my “chase area” a little bit and maybe enjoy the downtime a bit more. I think I’m also going to ask my husband to meet me, maybe for the ride home or something.

I did find this video I took in the middle of the night, when the storms finally arrived, way behind forecast, in Liberal, Kansas.

The bonks of the ice balls didn’t hurt the rental car at all. I found this storm enjoyable.

These two are always attentive or at least nearby when a meal is being consumed. Today they kicked adorable levels up a notch.

Ordering things online is convenient. While I tend to look away from Amazon for my purchases, in the interest of supporting smaller companies and entrepreneurial folks looking to make their place in the world, there are times when I find this practice irksome: when folks send two, three, four or more emails a day after my purchase has been signed, sealed, delivered.

I recently bought an item from a small company here in the southwest. I’m quite pleased with the product but when I look at it now all I can think of is the constant barrage of email from this company, trying to convince me to buy something, anything, something, anything again right now.

Of course, in an interest of escaping the mountain of email from this vendor I go to Facebook or something (I know, I shouldn’t do that) where I’m assaulted with ads for the product I just bought, from the company I just signed, sealed, and delivered my transaction with.

I’m trying to cuss less so I won’t type the words that are on my mind around the subject.

I do know I won’t buy from this small company again and I’ll just pay a few pennies less and go the Amazon approach. ‘Tis quite sad, really, but when I’m irked, I’m irked.

I told my husband I was going out for a bit. “Please wash the car if you have the chance.”

It’s the first thing I did. Yay for Mister Car Wash and our subscription! Just drive through the Members Only lane, follow the instructions of the nice attendant and viola, clean car.

I decided to go to the local mall. Park Place is in pretty good shape, despite Macy’s leaving during the pandemic. I enjoy the Nordstroms, the mall is well populated, and the air conditioning works brilliantly. Air conditioning is important when it’s 100F outside.

I found myself in the mood for Chinese food, so I stopped by for a fairly healthy selection from the Panda Express in the food court. Afterwards I did some laps around the mall to get some steps in and then I went to one of those mall massage places. Since there’s big windows looking in I don’t have to worry about something weird going on, so I opted for a 45 minute rubdown.

I was thrown around, prodded, plodded, punched, kneaded, and elbowed the entire time. See? Nothing weird going on and I feel wonderful.

I then opted to do a bunch of laps around the mall again before heading out and parking at our favorite Starbucks. I brought my older laptop along because it hadn’t had exercise in a while and I’m feeling extra geeky today. Someone just said, “YES” to me when they spotted my “Janeway For President” sticker.

I’ve been assigned the task of picking up coat hangers on the way home. I’m not gay enough to know whether I’m suppose to get metal, wood, or plastic coat hangers so I’ll just pick up ones that look like a good deal and call it a day.

Wish me luck.

Life could be harder. I’m happy it’s not.