A few Measly Steps a Day #2

Sent off the book review. I reminded myself the last one I did was late 2024 and invoiced in 2025.

Near the end I got more excited about finishing. The idea was, "Oh, I'll have more time for the condo stuff." And I stopped cold! NO, no, can't have THAT as my motivator.

After sitting with it, I shifted my motivation to getting back to routine, connecting with friends I'd had to put off, see more art, music, movies, and theater. Read books. There are some fun half-day errands to complete as adventures. As soon as I sent the email, I went and checked out 4 books from the library.

Much better.

I think I am onto something useful!

Yesterday, I alternated preparing Google Slices for a presentation at work and sweeping the floors/tidying up during break. I rather liked both the process and the results, in both spheres (work and keeping my little household). I plan to do more of this to see whether it can be made into a long-term habit.

Yes, TCJ, I do the same sometimes. I call it The Weave and I discovered the same thing: At the end of the day you have 2 things done and both were manageable.

Today: we have a jump in appt with yet another bookkeeping service. 3rd. And I have some other drafts to complete, related.

Yesterday, my afternoon suddenly opened up so I moved a short trip I thought I'd do today a day earlier.

Today is already re-filled.

Sigh.

Hi, friends,
I can't believe I've been away for so long. Tomorrow is our plant sale, and I've been busy and tired, so that's why, I guess. All kinds of drama regarding the plant sale. Last September a friend showed us how to propagate roses, and I ended up with seven beauties. As the weather warmed up, I battled rust, powdery mildew, aphids and white fly. Annoying but manageable. Three days ago, two roses went from healthy to droopy to dead - as if I hadn't watered them, which I had. I found no help either from the internet nor from any of my friends. Meanwhile, my other roses were looking less than wonderful. i brought them inside, and that seemed to help. This morning found aphids - armies of them. I'd been picking them off the plants as I found them, and I've been checking almost every day. I will never again try to propagate roses. We have a LOT of succulents. No surprise, since they're so easy to propagate. And I'm really tired. I haven't done that much. I guess I just tire easily these days. Rats.
On the bright side, I'm writing like crazy and it's coming out better than it used to. Well, you're supposed to get better the more you do something.


Good wishes.

Elaine

Yesterday I spent almost all day in bed with a bad case of vertigo, but in late evening I felt better and tidied up the apartment to my delight. Now I look forward to doing great things in this bright, picked up environment.

CTJ, I'm also dealing with recovering my full health. I've been youtubing on the construction of pianos. Of all things. It began when a musician in an interview mentioned her new Fazioli grand piano. I'd never heard of the brand so I looked them up ...

One interesting tidbit to fall my way out of all of this was a short "improve your practice" style video's advice to listen more. And he had a story of one person who'd advanced to some amazing level in just one year. An n of 1 is a start, but not convincing.

Still, I am doodling and drawing as a hobby and wondered if I might apply this advice to this skill. What would that be? Hm, watch more people drawing and sketching. And youtube casts another sticky tentacle around my brain.

After cancelling a stack of appointments, I had time at home to dig my out some from the stack of magazines set aside "to read some day." Mostly NY Review of Books. Yesterday I followed up on 3 I thought might be interesting to read by borrowing them from the library. Today I've looked into all of them. All passes.

This reminds me that the most frequent "bid" in bridge is pass. I'm sure I can find a lesson there, too.

plant sale went well. Yay!
Square Peg, does your wife like her permanent teeth? I think my problems stem more from the incompetence of the dentist than from the appliance, plus my own teeth plus dentures was a better choice than the hybridge.

My writing is going well most of the time. I'm a bit stalled today, because I'm heading into unknown territory. My heroine is discovering Austin Texas, and that means I'm discovering it too. Have any of you been there? Apparently, sixth street has some great places. My heroine is going for the rowdier parts of town. I'd probably hit up the more conservative places.


Good wishes.

Wow, just propagating roses is a major accomplishment! Maybe you could run classes on the subject. Roses do tend to require a lot of maintenance.

Keep on writing!

If piano construction interests you, you might like the book "Grand Obsession" I could see myself falling so madly in love with an instrument, too.

Austin. I was in my early twenties waiting to have my car's oil changed. An older, not unattractive woman makes small talk with me. She says "Austin Texas is a really great city." It's forty years later and I still believe her.

Oh, well, Mrs. SPG would like her permanent if they'd stay in her mouth and didn't cause pain.

Being that I'm unemployed, we put on hold any major effort toward restoration or replacement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SquarePegGuy If piano construction interests you, you might like the book "Grand Obsession" I could see myself falling so madly in love with an instrument, too.

Oh, my, this comment is WHY I love sites like this. As I write, I'm listening to an interview with Perri Knize on KPFA and just placed a hold on the book from the library.

Had this been a private journal entry, I'd never have gotten your tip and possibly never heard of this book. Just in the bits of video where players compare brands and models I've seen how each piano has a soul and this calls to players in ways that are beyond description or prediction. The president of Steinway, in a segment on Tiffany Poon's video log (vlog) goes on camera saying each separate piano has a soul.

Ah, then there's Tiffany's vlog ... I've been watching this off and on from about 2019? Pre-COVID in any case. She began it while a student at Juilliard. She lets us watch her rehearse. Tells us how she's feeling (fingers feeling stiff today) and where she's needing to focus, etc.

Can I play the piano? Naw. Any musical knowledge. Nope. Just like watching people being passionate and sharing the experience excites me.

I am taking an online course that promises to teach me mastery of ChatGPT. It is quite engaging, but the whole thing gives me an eerie feeling. When I think about how AI might have crafted an email I receive from a person, I am not sure I even want to read it.

Still, we must learn to be competent and proficient users of this technology, and I will keep at it.

Your right about needing to stay current. It drives me crazy, but I know AI is here to stay, and I must accept.
I just drove my friend to :Lighthouse for the Blind. Speaking of adjusting, she's taking a class one-on-one about using AI on her phone and Ipad. If you can't see, this is your ticket for connecting with the world. Meanwhile, I'm writing, and I'm having motivation problems. I noticed that in my last post, I mentioned Austin Texas. Well, my character is still in Austin. I'm trying to describe the University of Texas using info on my computer, and it's going slo-o-o-o-wly. Not a whole lot is going to happen in Austin. She's just crashing in her brother's dorm for a few days until she figures out what she's going to do with her life. Okay, back to writing. Wishing all of us luck, and wishing myself words - may they be many and richly satisfying.

I can tap the keys and make chords on a piano, and play a major scale in any key, but I don't know how to play either.

I played bass guitar (mostly), which is similar to piano in that you have wirewound strings made from metal stretched across a wood "frame." But with the bass, well, it's more intimate. She's in your lap and you embrace her, feel differences in the vibrations. Some notes she sings out gladly; others she provides begrudgingly.

I wish you all the best, delightful! In my eyes, you are amazing because you have published more material than I've ever dreamed of doing myself.

I met yesterday with a career counselor from the state dept of labor. The purpose was to review my resume.

Mine looks really neat, professional-looking, so we were allotted an "easy" appointment for 30 minutes.

Well, there's a lot wrong with the PDF I generate. The worst is that I use tables to position certain elements on the page. But when the AI "reads" the resume, parts in the tables get cut off. (ouch!)

The second worse thing is that I show the year that my degree was conferred (1992) and that I started my first (real) job in that year. Then I told her that I got that degree when I was 29 years old. And I left off my really first job that started in 1982. So that raised an eyebrow for sure. LOL Yeah, no one wants to interview an old person.... Somehow I have to figure out what year I got promoted in my "first" job and list that year as my starting date.

Then she explained how to respond online to an ad. The idea is to ask the AI to compare the job description against the resume and suggest ways that the latter can be improved to align better with the job. Thus, every resume I upload should be unique. As well, you can do something similar with the cover letter. She said I should take the AI's suggestions and then make the changes using my own voice.

If the job description requires a Master of Science (I have a Bachelor of Science) the AI could also suggest saying that the resume should have Master of Science, too. However, I certainly would not do that.

Hi, Everyone,

Square Peg, I'm so sorry your wife has such a bad experience with the teeth. I will not complain about mine anymore (on this site.)

Good luck with the job hunting. I have a friend going through the same thing as you are. He's been getting interviews, but so far, no job.

Hi, R.
Hi, Tart Cherry Jam.


Me - I'm hopefully coming out of a lazy slump.


Usually, if I keep at it, eventually, I get back into the swing of writing.

Good wishes to everyone,

Elaine

I continue playing with AI. In text generation, it leaves much to be desired OR my promoting techniques need a serious jump start. But images .. it generated and tweaked an awesome image for me, the Microsoft Assistant did. Now, I am dumy impressed.

I think part of my reactions are so different have to do with my own skills. I like writing and hence am not easily impressed by human-like text, which is boring-er than what I write, methinks. But since I cannot draw, it is easy to impress me with generated imagery that obeys my textual commands

Hi All,

SPG, yeah, the advice offered when job hunting is bizarre. I have a PhD, and someone advised to take it off my resume! Nothing doing. That was the last he heard from me.

And I got laid off around the age of 60 and it was a long slog getting either work or gigs. And then when I did get traction, it was way too much ... almost. But I survived it.

Oh, thanks for suggesting Grand Obsession. Just finished reading it. She's a great writer, and I was cheering for her the whole time. [I had time because I staying close to home due to feeling "out of tune."]

D, enjoy the slack period. Some ideas are always building during those times.

CTJ, after I watched a demo using AI to generate text for grant proposals I realized my career drafting grants was near its end. The thing I learned, and you're probably getting to see, is that you have to figure out the prompts that get the better results. And also how to teach AI what it needs to do better.

What was most startling was when the presenter gave Chat GPT (Chester is my nickname) a budget with a couple of amounts (total, how much to rent the hall and for the keynoter's fee) it spewed back a detailed draft for us. It also added 7.5% for evaluation. The presenter hadn't even thought about that, and that percent is the about what the industry roughs in for estimating purposes.

Now I use Chester a lot to draft letters. For example, I needed to close out a contract with a bookkeeping service. I gave it the dates, that 30 days is the notice time, and what we needed from them. And it gave a decent draft. I've also used it for meeting minutes, where it's a whiz. For an actual grant, I needed 50 suggestions for how people might volunteer to support a community garden: a minute later I had them.

I just used it to clean up the transcript from notes I voice recorded as I read a book I had a contract to review. I then had it cycle through and point out sentences longer than 12 words and suggest alternative wording (which I usually had to tweak from there).

Anything factual needs to be double checked. Just got a reference to a piano recording by Anton Rubinstein (should be Arthur). And once some legal case citations were totally bogus when checked into. Hay, it's 2.5 years old. When I was that age I knew only 647 words, according to Google's AI.

Oh, I missed this post! Are you doing something like the Pomodoro Technique?

This alternating of computer work with physical activity is something I need to start doing. I sit staring at the screen for hours, legs tensed up (sometimes squeezed together because I need to pee) and I tell myself that I'll get up right after I figure out how to get a certain bit of code to work. Dozens of minutes go by.... And you'd think I'd learn to relax a bit when I lost my job! LOL

Please don't suppress your complaints -- this is where we let go of everything that's holding us back or annoying us! Besides, I'm NOT the type to think, "Oh, so you think you have it bad -- what about me!"

I've been scrolling back to find my steps regarding the unemployment thing. Then I saw a few posts about writing, proofreading, spell-checking Grammarly, etc.

One amazing bit of advice I got was to set up text-to-speech on your computer. Some folks read their words out loud; this advice goes beyond that and says to get your computer to read it for you.

This catches cut and paste errors very well, or the kind of typos where you write "no" instead of "on." But watch out for homophones, witch yule all so have two bee vigilant too avoid.

Another update (the previous one was on March 29!):

• Find an employment attorney to review the terms of my termination letter. DONE
• Identify popular skills I might lack and self-train (Python scripting?) IN PROGRESS I'm still teaching myself Python. My application for job training through the DOL was accepted, but I haven't started training yet.
• Apply for jobs IN PROGRESS -- ongoing
• Network IN PROGRESS -- ongoing
• Total up the dollar amount of the severance DONE
• Figure out insurance matters DONE
• NEW: Use the legal plan to create a will and an estate before I lose the benefit. CANCEL I think that benefit lapsed on my last day of employment. So that's over.
• Think of more stuff to do and write that down IN PROGRESS -- ongoing

In the "more stuff to do" category, I've reached out to the Social Services and submitted an application for "SNAP." While doing that, I requested a few more benefits. I'd like to see if my wife can get some compensation for her disability, such as: a reduction in property tax; a stipend for a home health aid; additional medical benefits; whatever else.

I actually got the SNAP card in the mail within a week of applying, even before getting approved.

Even more "more stuff to do" involves taking as many job search workshops as I can. Aside from learning stuff, each workshop counts as a "work search effort" so there's one less job I need to apply to.

Today I am doing something like Pomodoro and during breaks from reading work-related material (I have a meeting on Tuesday morning for which I am unprepared, hence working on Sunday) I do the stretches that my former hand specialist PT prescribed back in late 2022 when I overworked my hands. It is a good cadence. Next my plan is to tackle a physical task of caring for my leather boots before assigning them to summer storage. It would be great to alternate reading work-related material and doing such a physical task. What stops me is that I do not know all the right moves with tending to leather and nubuck boots: I need to watch relevant YouTube videos first.

Hi MSAD crew. I find I recycle among lots of methods for getting on with the work. Maria Ines Fornes says the doer part must constantly trick the lazy part in order to get anything done. This is for us self-directing creatives; millions of people have off-loader the "doer" function to others (their work site, their faith leaders, and so on) and when they become estranged or get cast out into exile, they are lost, and the lazy side takes hold and plops down on the couch, gets high, and channel surfs.

I've found my next creative outlet: making 10 minute dialogues. I'd like to be able to add slides, maybe animated slides, if I can do so with a free app. Otherwise, I might just have fewer slides. I'm also interested in letting A I script read the text. Free apps only, of course.

My first topic was shame. I compose it as a movie script so I can get my turn at my online table read group. My next one is under development.

Why do I enjoy this: one it lets me get on paper my stances, 10 minutes is a great constraint and it's the limit for my script read group, doesn't take long to get to the finish line.