October 2024 – snand.org

aw, forgot about this.

thanks for the reminder A. This really needs more views!

basement coming along.

put up the feature wall. finished the wardrobe. started painting.

taking shape anyway. Michele started crying when she saw the progress, I think she can see the end of this now too.

the future is meh..

https://www.spacebar.news/new-slop-just-dropped-from-openai

I imagine it will get there someday but we’re so desperate for shortcuts that we’ve convinced ourselves that this is quality stuff. AI produces drivel, guided by people it can be cool, heck, it’s only due to AI that I was able to build my little junky personal site. In that case, it you look at the history, the little hamfisted site I created took over 100 commits as I tried one marginal improvement after another. eventually I gave up and now I have it work on tiny small pieces here and there but there is simply no way I could create a prompt that would spit out what I’ve got, this is hundreds of prompts.

so, imagine trying to build out a non-static piece of media, every frame can have more errors or hallucinations, I just cannot imagine the workflow necessary to create a feature length, much less even 2 minutes.

let’s hope they can figure it out but I’m starting to wonder when we’re going to hit a wall.

check it out…

figured I needed a professional profile on the tubes: https://www.gradyp.com/

honestly, came out exactly as I pictured and is crammed full of easter eggs. more to come for sure but a weekend of work well spent.

update- been hard at work on it today, nearly done, it looks like I want it, It’s as modular as I want it, now it just needs content. I did add some old videos from my career, I’ll dig around and find old photos next. added some tooltip functionality so I could add some context but keep the layout clean. should work well for my plans, which is just a static site to host my professional artifacts. honestly, I’m really proud of how this turned out, it came out exactly as I envisioned.

I do not want do this as a job, that’s not at all the point, but I guess I do need a professional profile out there since I am supposed to be one. If I am hosting a resume in public, I need to at least look the part.

the Windy City, day 3.

today we hit the art museum, had a nice walk through the city, and another trip to the pier for a walk, dinner and now waiting for a boat ride.

for some reason I love the exposed infrastructure of Chicago.

too late for the spit fountains but a beautiful day to walk around.

I’m not one to display pictures of art, unless it’s seeds, but this was really cool.

Dorian Gray, I remember seeing this in back and white in the movie. every bit as terrifying in real life.

I’ve got a lot more to share but it’s on other cameras. here’s a couple more I can post.

thanks to Jake, our awesome tour guide. we’re watching him on the news right now!

caught the moonrise over the pier from the lock.

I no longer drink but had to get a photo of this sign from dessert. just for you Dan.

I’ll try to post more once I go through my photos. else for those of you who want to see more, all of them will be posted on immich.snand.org. so, if you would like a login to see them, let me know.

Chi-Town day 2

low key but we’re having fun. today was the museum of science and industry, one of our favorites.

found this little bit of scouting lore on the way to dinner.

first up though, last night’s dinner. had to stop by for the original.

quick snap looks like it came off a menu.

all these years, I think this is the first one of Michele I have in the tractor.

from here, I’ve got a number of shots taken by the boys. I’ll make sure to credit the photographer in each caption.

E has some talent, he framed up a few nice shots. here’s one of A playing one of the farm games.

another artistic E shot, this time of me inspecting the Mold-A-Rama’s.

half the dang exibits were crashed out at windows error screens. we walked across a windows 11 start menu on the way into the place for cryin’ out loud. luckily E got some picture evidence.

man, I still look fat from E’s perspective 😂

boys getting ready to fly. OMG it was fun to watch.

E, dude, I need to get you your own camera! nice shot.

A loves planes and got a nice dramatic diving shot of this bad boy.

I like the hodgepodge of eras and transportation modes. good shot A!

neat, I think this is my dad’s favorite car, a Duesenberg!

more to come, E and A took loads of pictures with my camera but I’m car posting right now ~~so I’ll need to do more from the hotel~~ (update- done, added a bunch more photos). we ran into some of our very best friends at the museum! unfortunately they were being far more efficient than us so they were finishing up as we were just stopping for a snack. still, always fun running into people you know out in the world :).

ha! not us thankfully but ruined this persons day.

and that brings us up to now. we’re back in the hotel, planning the next move as A puts together his model. check back again later for more 🙂

update- more!

been a lazy day but we headed out for dinner.

nothing like that quality Chicago infrastructure! oh well, didn’t collapse when we headed up.

next up, dessert.

not sure they deserve it but it is vacation so we found the boys a fish. boys, do better tomorrow, you’re welcome.

and that’s it for now. heading back to the room so we’ll see if the spirit moves me to post more.

back in the room, we made a stop.

and finally, on the way home we passed a fire emergency being handled by Chicago’s Finest. this truck was a foot from my car window.

aw :)

G has a job interview! where did the time go?!?

new site vacation compatible workflow

someday snand may become modern, but then again, this garbage is supposed to be as simple as possible. I’ve got my professional side, gradyp.com up and running via GitHub pages though. I’ve plumbed my backend so that I can build and update this site all via markdown and since GitHub pages automatically builds when I push to the repo, I can essentially live edit the site in obsidian and it’s pushed within a couple minutes.

it’s not going to be snand, it’s my professional profile. I just feel like I’ve been at my current gig long enough that I need to get my profile back in order. May as well polish up the resume while I’m at it.

nothing there yet but been fun getting it going.

Chicago!

I’ll keep a running update.

E wanted a picture of the inside of the Adler planetarium dome.

been a relaxing, fun day so far at the Adler planetarium. this is quite a planetarium, so many theaters, lots to do and learn. we saw two shows, the super cool Skywatch Live and somewhat hokey Destination Solar System. can’t complain though, excellent family memories.

we’re headed out for pizza soon, we might head up the sears tower later as well. always a good time here in chi-town.

I overthink everything.

here I thought I needed to put forth all my effort, skills and knowledge into a thing when it really just takes the simplest approach.

I’m doomed.