60 days out of work. That is wild on its own, but with everything going on I am grateful I don’t have the extra stress of my commute and work responsibilities on top of all this.

Our dog is still alive. The boys came over and were being very sweet with her. We took some photos and videos of them with her.

I am still feeling sick, some days I feel better and other days, like today, I feel worse. I still have a lot of congestion and I have tried a lot of things. My sister in law suggested taking Afrin, so I will try that next. I would probably go to urgent care, but I lost my insurance along with my job thanks to the situation. I do need this to sort itself out before the wedding though. We leave in six days!

Thank you for your message. I am currently out of office with no set return date. I will get back to you when the time is right.

We canceled her appointment.

We did not reschedule again since we are just waiting for a clear sign that she is deteriorating again, and once that happens I will reach out to the people coming to help us. I am so happy, but once again feeling anxious about waiting her out. I don’t want to be surprised.

We took our sick dog and my dog out to the lake to run around a bit in the morning. It was so fun seeing the two of them together.

I did not do much else after that in the afternoon, until around 6 pm when I met up with my friends for dinner. We caught up, had dinner, went for ice cream, and then walked around town for a bit. It was nice having some time away from the chaos happening at home.

Thank you for your message. I am currently out of office with no set return date. I will get back to you when the time is right.

Bryan Ferry Calgary – 1988

Calgary Saddledome – September 2nd, 1988

Went with my friends, I actually got caught “smuggling” my camera in but the security guys laughed and said they were really only looking for booze and drugs. Because I didn't have a flash they let me in anyways :)

#Calgary #history #YYC #BlastFromThePast

Yet another post

Just testing to make sure the rate limit has been lifted. It seems like it has. Maybe I'll outline some planned future posts:

-going through old files for any short stories, games, works of fiction or non fiction, or whatever I may have created in the past and posting them. Many are lost to time, but I might be able to recover some

-My current D and D campaign, once it wraps up. I may post all of the documents for that, raw and unedited. I'll probably add some brief editorialization so it makes some sense.

-Random thoughts and musings

-New short stories/fiction content

-Maybe some experiments with AI. Who knows?

Blog of Sand vs The Constitution

Periodically I'm going to update some stats on this blogs length, just for fun. For now, I'll do character length. As a txt file, it is 129,082 bytes, which, should mean there are 129,082 characters (counting spaces). I do not believe txt files compress by default, so I'll use that as my character counter for now.

So, I'll put it up against different famous bodies of text as a comparison. Today we will do the constitution of the United States of America. I calculate that to be 27,410 characters using my highly technical method of copy pasting it into a notepad document.

So, therefore, this blog, before this post is added, is approximately 470% the size of the Constitution. Now, to be fair, I've uploaded two old documents I had to really fill it out, but wanted to get a jump start. Sue me.

Next up I think it will take on the Great Gatsby, once the blog has matured a bit. From there, who knows. Maybe the King James Bible? Then War and Peace? The sky is the limit I suppose.

Yikes, I just tried to upload and they are hitting me with a rate limit. Apparently three posts per day. Until I upgrade. Should I pay for it? I suppose I will. I kind of like this creative outlet.

I spent the entire day at my mom’s job again along with our dog. Since I am not working, and her workplace is very flexible, it has been nice coming along with her. I continued the embroidery work and got a lot further along. Tomorrow is supposed to be the day, but she is looking so good that I have a feeling we may reschedule, again.

We took our dog to the dog park today and had her run around a bit. I am sad about her time coming to an end soon. I feel like I have processed a lot of it already, but can’t move to the next step until she is actually gone.

Thank you for your message. I am currently out of office with no set return date. I will get back to you when the time is right.

It's getting easier but I'm still adjusting.

The past couple of months have somehow been both the longest and shortest of my life. There is literally zero adjustment period going from life without a child to with. Thankfully, we've had the help of family as we got more acclimated to our new reality.

Our little one is sleeping a little more at night, but we still are on a three-hour cycle during the day, more or less. Meaning, every three hours we are giving her food again. This makes the days blend into one another, which makes it all a blur. We do a lot of the same stuff every day.

But little changes are starting to happen which is encouraging. I mentioned the sleep, but also her interaction during play is entertaining. Lorena and I find ourselves laughing often.

Getting More Personal Time

I know that I'll never have my own time like I used to, and that's perfectly fine. I do, however, look forward to when I can start doing a little more for myself to pursue my interests. I need those things to recharge. So does Lorena.

To be fair, I'm getting a little more of that now compared to a month ago. I've even started to work out a bit at home during naps and feeding time. It's not much, and not the kind of workouts I used to have, but it's something.

We're still only two months in, and I know that these things take time. The progress so far has been encouraging. I look forward to month three and four!

#personal

Abandon Novel Intro

Well over a decade ago I had an idea for a novel about a liminal space that was endlessly connected rooms together. It's funny because Backrooms went with a similar concept. They took it a different direction though, with more of a horror/sci-fi/surrealist flavor. My liminal space was going to be an endless series of large connected rooms that were more like rooms of a museum. In some rooms exotic fruits/vegetables or fountains of water spawned, enough for people to live on. The rooms would return to their original form if they were unoccupied for a period of time. Essentially, these creatures called preservers that were flat automatons would come out from slits in the ceiling and rearrange the matter in the rooms. This is how food/water replenished. If a traveler died in the rooms their body would disappear when the room was “restored.” The challenge in the rooms is that once you get lost you may never find the entrance again you used to access the space. There would also be large stretches without food or water, or “deserts.” Eventually travelers could form communities around areas with a high density of resources, and maybe even fight over them.

Anyway, the story was going to revolve around a young man inherting a house where his uncle disappeared. His uncle spent all his money on this remote house, and the man can't figure out why until he discovers this place. The uncle became obsessed with studying it until he became lost in it one day. I never got very far, just started the intro with the man inherting the property, he hadn't even gotten there yet. I'll throw it up here in case I decide to return to it some day. Without further adieu, the intro:

The Longest Story

Long ago a man sat alone at his uncle’s funeral. He did not know his uncle well and had not seen him in many years. He would not have attended the funeral at all if it were not for three facts. First, his uncle was his last living relative that he knew of. Second, his uncle was very wealthy. Third, his uncle had never married or sired any children. It did not take a genius to put all these facts together and realize that the man was potentially heir to the entirety of his uncle’s wealth. Of course it was possible that his uncle had left his possessions to a friend or perhaps to charity through a written will. However, if the uncle had established no will prior to his death then legally all his possessions would have to go to his next of kin. The man figured it would be worth a trip and sitting through a funeral on the chance that this was the case.

The man did not know very much about his uncle. The last time he had seen his uncle was almost a decade ago when the man’s mother had passed away from a sickness in her lungs that doctors had been unable to cure. The man had greeted his uncle and thanked him for coming, and the uncle in turn shook his hand and said that he was so sorry for his loss. The uncle had his servant provide the man with money to help cover the cost of the funeral but beyond that they had little interaction. He remembered his mother telling stories about her brother being very serious, even as a child. She said that he would spend hours reading about ancient civilizations and this led to him ultimately becoming a collector and dealer in rare and valuable art objects. Beyond that he knew very little of how his uncle amassed his wealth but assumed he must have been very good at his job or at least very luck to have turned such a profit.

The funeral was a droll affair—it seemed that it was primarily his uncle’s business partners and serving staff that attended. None of these individuals appeared to have a real closeness with the deceased, rather they were all contractually bound to him in one way or the other. First there was the sermon at the city’s grand cathedral. The mourners did not even fill a tenth of the seating in the mammoth building. The sermon itself was not overly lengthy nor particularly personal, rather it seemed to be a generic one the speaker turned to when he was given little information about the deceased. The only personal details dropped in where that his uncle”..was a great patron of the arts and brought the beauty and intrigue of rare and exotic pieces from the most distant and foreign parts of the world” and that “his legacy will live on in museums and private collections forever.” The man could not help but think if this was really a legacy at all. Was art not the legacy of an artist? His uncle simply assembled the legacies of others in a single location, but added nothing new himself. Or perhaps the mere ability to identify and gather a particular collection of art was in itself an art. The man himself was no connoisseur of the arts and judged himself unqualified to determine the answer to this question.

After the sermon there was an announcement regarding the reception. The curator of the local museum was hosting the gathering in a section populated primarily with works of art donated by the deceased. The man was unsure whether this was the will of his uncle or something that had been decided after his death—neither would have surprised him. It was also announced that there would be no public burial. The man would later discover that his uncle specifically requested that his burial be private and the location only known to his lawyer and those would directly handle his body. In his will he stated that anyone who wanted to pay their respects should so by visiting one of the many art exhibits he had helped bring to this corner of world. The man’s curiosity over the location his uncle had chosen to be buried was quickly overshadowed by what he learned next.

The congregation moved quickly out of the cathedral after the announcement of the reception; not as quickly as students might evacuate a classroom after their teacher dismissed them but certainly much quicker than mourners would leave for someone they genuinely cared for. There was no significant pause for reflection of the deceased. Instead, there was simply the minimum amount of pause that politeness dictated; a socially acceptable slowness of pace as they funnelled out. The man himself was one of the last to leave. He had never been to the museum where the reception was being held and felt like he was the only one who had not made prior travel arrangements to get there. As he walked out of the cathedral contemplating his next move he felt a hand on his shoulder. A well dressed grey haired gentleman who seemed venerable yet still sharp and confident spoke: “You must be his nephew.” The man nodded, hoping the man would continue to speak as he could not think of anything else to say. His wish was quickly granted. “I am glad you came. I was concerned we were going to have to track you down. Despite the impact he had on the arts and the extent of his business transactions, your uncle was a private man with few personal friends.”

“Track me down…” the man trailed off, though the implication of his half finished question was clear.

“Why yes. You see, I am your uncle’s lawyer and as such I am in charge of executing his will. And as you are his closest living relative…”

The man tried to contain his excitement, but this is what he had been hoping for. He thought of in his head all the different things this lawyer could say. First his mind raced to him being the sole heir of his uncle's inheritance and the life of luxury he could lead with such money. Next his mind jumped to the worst case scenario, that his uncle had left everything to the city or to charity, and with that thought he imagined returning home even more destitute than he had arrived. All these thoughts in an instant as the lawyer continued to speak.

“...there is the matter of his estate to discuss. Will you accompany me in my carriage to the reception?” The lawyer gestured to a carriage waiting in front of the cathedral. It seemed that the man’s lack of travel arrangements had been remedied. The driver helped the man first into the coach and then did not even offer the lawyer a hand. There was a sense that this was routine and that the driver already knew the lawyer would refuse his hand, preferring to get into the coach himself. The driver then pulled up the steps, got in the front seat and they were off down the city streets towards the museum.

As they traveled the lawyer continued to discuss the will. “As you know your uncle was a purveyor of the fine arts. Additionally, he dealt with rare artifacts and other curiosities. Later in his life he began to invest in a variety of other fields including real estate.” The man then pause and took a deep breath, as one would before they had to deliver bad news. “You may be expecting a great deal of money in the form of an inheritance. We will go over everything formally in my office after the reception, but I will say that legally everything belonging to your uncle now belongs to you…. however… your uncle made some peculiar investment choices these recent years.”

“Peculiar?” the man asked, “How so?”

“Your uncle was a man who was always very sure of what he wanted. He never outwardly rejected advice or counsel others, but as long as I have known him—longer than I dare say and draw attention to my age— when he made up his mind he could not be deterred. For most of his life this attitude served your uncle and made him quite rich. For every bad investment his stubbornness spawned there were ten good investments compensate. But his decisions later in life… well I could not see any business sense in these decisions.”

“What kind of decisions?” the man’s mind already began frenetically considering different scenarios. His uncle had made poor investments in snake oil and was dead broke, or even worse was in debt that would be passed on to his next of kin. Perhaps he had taken loans from third parties, third parties with the types of debt collectors who broke your legs rather than garnished your wages. Or perhaps his uncle had wasted away all his funds on profane art that on one in their right mind would resell. Or maybe he purchased land in a blight, or maybe… as the man considered possibilities the lawyer responded.

“Your uncle liquidated the majority of his assets two years ago. This was no easy task I assure you as your uncle had acquired a substantial amount of wealth in many different forms. He asked that we do it swiftly and would not answer any questions as to why the urgency or why he needed so much capital at once.”

“What did he spend all his wealth on?” the man asked, dreading the response.

“Well, we were legally sworn to secrecy but as his next of kin I can disclose it to you once we verify your identity and have you sign all the appropriate papers. Enjoy the reception and once you have shown your face for a suitable amount of time as social etiquette dictates there will be a coach waiting to take you to my office. We will finish there.”

“You are not attending the reception?” the man asked.

The lawyer looked as if he was about to chuckle and then stifled it, “There is no legal need for me to be there, and if you knew your uncle you would know that he would not even attend his own reception. Professionally I would better spend my time at my desk and personally I know your uncle would not desire my presence, or a reception at all for that matter. Anyway, we are here. I will see you in my office in a couple of hours?”

The man nodded, still trying to absorb the information he had been given. The driver helped him out of the coach and then without delay got back in the seat and urged the horses forward.

The man looked at the entrance to the museum. He had been to a museum once as a child, but his memory of it was hazy at best. He did not remember it being so massive, so grand. But then again, the one he went to most likely was not as large as this museum. People walked in and out, most he assumed not to go to the reception but to simply go to the museum to view art as any normal day. There was no one he recognized outside the museum and nothing to indicate where the reception might be held so the man slowly walked in making very clear to any observer he was lost and did not know where he was going. After a few moments of standing awkwardly looking around the receptionist addressed him.

“May I help you sir?” she asked in a polite but cold tone.

“Funeral reception.” the man muttered, knowing there was probably more he should say but the words would not come.

“Oh yes of course. Head straight back through the first two galleries and then take a left. Keep walking straight and you will come upon the reception.”

The man nodded as the receptionist addressed the next people to walk through the door, an elderly couple whom she obviously knew and who had been to the museum before. He walked away and started through the first gallery. It was primarily oil paintings, mostly portraits. the man never understood people’s fascination with portraits. Art was supposed to bring out the exceptional, the beautiful, he always thought. Most of the people in the portraits looked fairly average, like someone you could see on any given day. He understood why a wealthy individual would commission a portrait. A certain amount of ego and sense of entitlement would be required, of course, but essentially they would do so to live on in people’s memories long after they died. What he did not understand, however, was why anyone else would be interested in looking at those portraits. In his mind the only people who should care about seeing the portrait should be the individual it portrays, others close to them, the artist who painted the portrait and perhaps anyone who was looking to have a portrait done by that same artist and wanted to see his similar works.

After surveying the portraits for a few seconds the man moved on to the next gallery. This gallery was filled with landscape paintings. The man lingered in this second gallery a little longer. He appreciated the landscapes more than the portraits. They showed rich and beautiful areas that he had never traveled to and may never get to see in person. A gallery of landscapes allows someone to feel as if they have traveled the world simply my walking around a room, he thought to himself. He noticed a couple of blank areas on the walls where paintings had obviously recently been taken down. He wondered why they had not been replaced with other paintings and went to examine more closely. The tags identifying them were still present and he saw that these were paintings donated by his late uncle. He then hurried along towards the reception, knowing he could find the missing paintings there.

The reception had approximately the same number of guests as the service, but the man could tell several of those attending the reception had not been at the services. A couple of particularly ostentatious individuals were enjoying hors d'oeuvres and wine while chatting up other members of the social elite and commenting on art. The man knew he would have recognized such individuals—particularly an older woman decked out in various furs— at the service and was certain they had not been present. He assumed they were simply seizing the opportunity to rub elbows with other members of the social elite. They probably attended every reception like this and had donated enough money to the museum and greased the right palms so that their presence would never be questioned. The more they attended such events, the more they came to be expected, fixtures in the cities high class events, so that eventually they were expected and their absence would most likely go unnoticed. They probably could have cared less about his uncle, the man thought but he didn’t particularly care. It’s not like he had any semblance of a relationship with the man. Forgotten before he even passed, the man thought sadly. He could see why his uncle had donated so much to museums. Without children to mourn his loss it was the only way to ensure he would not be forgotten, at least not so quickly. Eventually the fact that he donated these pieces would be lost in time, but they bought him at least his own lifespan in recognition, most likely longer. Though really what difference having your name on engravings by paintings made the man did not know. He cleared his mind of such thoughts and made his way over to the refreshments.

The man opted to avoid wine and stick to drinking water and the food that had been made available. He wanted to be clear headed when he received the details of his uncle’s will. He was surprised food would be allowed near the works of art, but he supposed this was a special occasion. He helped himself to some small baked confections that he could not name and some of the salted fish that laid out on a platter. He had not eaten yet that day and intended to make a meal out of it. He may be a very wealthy man in a few hours he thought, but that is no reason to stop being frugal. After quickly eating his fill he began to survey the works of art displayed around the room—his uncles donations to the museum. His mind was wandering however, thinking about the inheritance and what he had in store for him. Why had his uncle liquidated his assets? Would he be inheriting some rare priceless piece of art or artifact? How quickly could he sell it? As he pondered all these thoughts he did not even realize he was standing in front of a painting of a large pyramid in a vast desert. He also did not realize a man had come up behind him and began to speak.

“An interesting piece. Did you know that the painter had never seen a pyramid? In fact, this isn’t even based on a real pyramid.” The man turned around and saw an older, portly gentleman well dressed and his face red as he had obviously been enjoying some of the wine. The man extended his hand. “You must be his nephew.”

“Yes I am, well I was.” The man nervously shook his hand. He then realized he recognized the man, it was the curator who made the announcement regarding this reception. “You are the curator… thank you for putting this on… you have a wonderful museum…” the curator then cut the man off.

“Nonsense! Thank you, well thank your uncle. I do not know if my museum would have survived without him! Your uncle’s generosity saw us through some dark economic times. Did you know him well?”

“No… “ the man replied, and then realized he should say something to indicate regret that he did not so he tacked on “unfortunately. I wish I had.”

The curator responded as if he already knew. “That’s a shame, your uncle was a great man, but a hard man to know! He was elusive, constantly disappearing on expeditions and long business trips in far away lands. He never announced his departure and I never knew how long it would be but he always came back with gifts for the museum.”

There was a pause, as if the curator was waiting for the man to say something. The man could not think of anything to say or ask about his uncle so he changed the subject.

“You were saying about this painting?” He looked back at the painting of the pyramid.

“Why yes!” The curators demeanor immediately changed to more professional, as if he was about to give a lecture to a group of potential donors. “This is a most interesting piece because it is entirely a work of fiction. Normally such art would be considered profane and have no place in an esteemed museum such as this one. It was a part of your uncle’s private gallery for many years, but a couple of summers ago he donated it to the museum. The artist had never traveled to the vast deserts, but had read about this pyramid in a book. The Endless Sands was his inspiration, a book by an explorer who attempted to conquer the desert. The explorer never reached the other end and lost most of his party to thirst in the process. He went on to write this book, part factual account of their journey and part fiction, stories and poetry to try to capture the vastness of the desert. In one such short story in his book he compares the desert to a great pyramid. This pyramid called the Endless Sands appeared like any other pyramid, though perhaps on the large end as pyramids go. But once one entered the interior the pyramid they found it never ended. Rooms upon rooms, tombs upon tombs, endless artifacts and statues of long forgotten gods. The way out of the temple was not the same as the way in, so that most who entered never found their way out. The temple consumed them just as the desert consumes so many foolish enough to try to traverse it. The explorer wanted to capture the magical nature of the desert. Shifting sands, hallucinations from heat and exhaustion, it seems to go forever and never looks the same, Dunes move, oasis’s dry up and those who go in become lost.”

The curator paused for a moment as if to reorient himself and not get too sidetracked. He also appeared to size up the man to ensure that he was still listening which indeed he was. “Your uncle, like the painter was fascinated by this story. The painter had never been to the desert, but had seen paintings of real pyramids and read the story. He attempted to capture the pyramid in an image for those who were not literate. Your uncle, unlike the painter, had been to the desert. He frequently espoused the opinion that art should always illuminate truth. In most instances this means it should be as accurate a possible. A landscape should capture as much detail as it can and approximate what it must. The desert however, is more difficult. Your uncle said an accurate painting of a desert landscape did not capture the desert and was in fact dishonest. It just made the desert appear to be a dull expanse of yellows and oranges when in fact it was so much more. Only through fiction, through the fantastic can one even begin to wrap their mind around the reality of the desert.”

The man was intrigued, the story had been enough to temporarily take his mind off of the inheritance. “A fascinating story. I would like to read this book at some point. But… one question. The desert is not truly endless, we know that it has an ocean on the other side. So then, to be accurate, should the temple not be endless?”

The curator responded as if he had been asked the question before, “Endless is an interesting concept. If you walk until your legs give out and you die of old age and you have not reached the other side, is the land not endless? All we have is our own observation, if we cannot find an end, even if we know there may be one, we may only call it endless. That is what the painter was trying to capture.” The curator then seemed to shift back into social mode, and the wine once again seemed to influence his behavior “Well then enough of that. I could talk your ear off all day about every work of art in this room. I have some people to introduce you to! And please, have a glass of wine. It eases the pain the mourning.”

The curator signaled a staff member to bring the man a glass of wine. He was not going to refuse the curator so he drank the wine and was brought through a gauntlet of social elite. He shook many hands, endured many generic variations of “I am so sorry for your loss.” He responded in kind with preordained socially appropriate responses such as “he was a great man” or “I will miss him dearly.” The man felt like an automaton going through the motions. Now was a time to say what was expected, not the truth. He was fairly certain that these people did not care about the truth or his uncle. Once the introductions were over and the curator had gone to speak with someone else he decided he had had enough of the reception and silently made his exit.

True to his word, the lawyer had arranged a carriage to wait for the man upon leaving the reception. He did not believe he had ever had a carriage wait for him before. He could have stayed at the reception for hours if he had liked and this carriage would have patiently waited. The man thought about the inheritance as he entered the carriage and that maybe this would be the beginning of many carriages waiting for him and fancy receptions for him to attend. The thought did not displease him. However, as the carriage headed down the road his thoughts drifted back to the painting of the temple. There was something about it, he could not put his finger on it, but something that seemed to conjure up curiosity from deep inside of him.

The man did not pay attention for the entirety of the carriage ride—he was completely lost in thought. He was almost startled when the carriage came to a stop and the driver came around to open the door of his coach. The man waited for the driver to give him instruction but instead the driver simply got back in his seat and departed. The man looked up at the large building in front of him: a series of law offices. He figured he would go inside and hopefully find the right office—there really wasn’t much else for him to do. Upon walking inside there was a main receptionist desk, and the man’s first instinct was to go ask for directions but he realized he didn’t even know who to ask for. Instead he stood in the rear of the lobby near the doors looking around, obviously waiting for someone or something and noticeably uncomfortable. As luck would have it within a few minutes a paralegal approached him and brought him up to his late uncle’s lawyers office.

The lawyer’s office was on the highest floor and had its own smaller waiting room. The paralegal instructed him to sit and said he would notify his late uncle’s lawyer of his arrival and that he would be seen as soon as business was wrapped up with another client. After a short while an imposing man in a suit walked out of the office with a small, satisfied smile on his face. The man could only begin to guess at what type of business had gone on, but whatever it was the large man was pleased with the outcome. Following him was a now familiar face that bid him to enter the office.

“Apologies for the wait. I had some other business to attend to and did not expect you to be back from the reception quite so soon.”

The man entered the office, slightly unsure of himself and responded, “Oh no worries, I did not wait long at all. I guess I’m just not one for those types of events.”

The lawyer gave a smile, one that the man was sure he used with many of his clients almost like a trademark it seemed so rehearsed, “I understand, never saw much of a point to such things myself. That is of course, unless I am there on business.” The lawyer gestured towards a chair on the opposite side of a large mahogany desk, “Please, have a seat.”

The man sat in the chair and took a moment to examine the room. All the furniture was obviously expensive and the chair was one of the most comfortable he had ever had the pleasure of sitting in. This was certainly a prosperous law office. The lawer then spoke again as he headed around to his own seat at his desk, “Can I get you anything to drink?” He then gestured towards a small table at the side of his desk with an array of fine liquors.

“No I am quite well, thank you though” the man said. The lawyer took his seat before the words even finished coming out of his mouth.

“Well then, straight to business” the lawyer said as he grabbed a stack of papers from the corner of his desk. He straightened them into a pile and then took the first piece off and spoke. “Before I have you take a look at these papers and sign everything I should explain some things.” The lawyer took a deep breath and the man’s heart dropped. He worried this was the part where he tells him his uncle’s estate was in ruin. Another part of his mind told him not to worry, there is no way a man as wealthy as his uncle could lose everything...even if ten percent remained it would still be more money than he would ever otherwise see. He listened intently to the lawyer.

“As I told you before your uncle liquidated his assets. As I have verified you are his closest living relative and with no one specified in his will any assets should go on to you. Your uncle was a very wealthy man, but he traded all this wealth away for some peculiar art pieces. He was very secretive, I do not know the nature of these art pieces or where they may even be located. If you do find them though, you are entitled to them as they were not promised to any art gallery or museum. In fact aside from a few members of this office, your uncle, whoever the seller of these pieces was, and yourself I do not believe anyone knows of his ownership of these pieces. Of course, he may have told others without my knowledge, perhaps a security company to keep them safe but somehow I doubt it. He was incredibly secretive and I do not believe he trusted anyone more than I and he would not even let me know any information about these pieces, just the amount of liquid capital he needed to acquire them.”

The man interrupted, unable to keep listening without speaking out, “These pieces… these pieces are valuable right? Once I locate them I can sell them for a good price? If not the price he paid, still enough for a substantial amount of money?”

The lawyer sighed, “Not necessarily. You see, as I said before, these pieces were quite peculiar and quite rare. So peculiar and rare, that I do not think many people outside of your uncle and the seller are even aware of their value or consider them to hold any value. Your uncle had a lot of secret connections, some outside of, how should I say, normal legal, moral and ethical channels to acquire some of his more exotic pieces. I have no information on who he acquired these pieces from, and just as I know nothing of the pieces I know nothing of how to locate those who may be interested in them. I suppose it is possible to locate buyers, but I would not know where to begin. I imagine if you did locate these pieces and brought them to an art dealer they would have little interest or use for them. But this is not even the main issue.”

“What is?” the man asked with no effort to mask the sound of dread in his voice.

“How would you even know which pieces were the one’s your uncle paid so dearly for if you saw them? We have almost no information on what they were, and I’m sure your uncle had a lot of junk, trinkets and curiosities in his property as well. No offense but I do not imagine you have any training in identifying and appraising art, and even someone who did would most likely not know how to do deal with a foreign potentially occult piece.”

“So you are telling me my uncle’s wealth has become a needle in a haystack, but a needle that I cannot identify and that has no value?” the man asked dejected.

“In a manner of speaking” the lawyer replied. As he did he pulled out another piece of paper and continued “But there is of course the house and land.”

“House?” the man asked with a bit of hope. Property has to be worth something he thought to himself. Especially property owned by his uncle.

“Yes. The artifacts, while exorbitant, where only a fraction of what his liquidated assets went towards. The majority went to a plot of land far to the north and east.”

“What do you know about this land, is there a mansion build on it, is it valuable?” the man asked with desperation.

“We do not know much but I can tell you what I do know. The land is very rural, weeks of travel from any major city. The climate in the area it is settled is dry and cold and I do not know of any natural resource deposits it may hold, that is not to say that none exist. The plot of land is very small considering what he paid for it. Normally the price of a home in the city could buy miles of land in an isolated location such as this. The property your uncle bought is not even a mile square and he paid for it enough to buy one of the most expensive homes in this city, a palatial estate. With that some of money I would imagine one could purchase an almost boundless amount of land like that near where he procured this property. They could practically have their own nation.”

“But why?” the man asked, growing more and more flustered. ‘There must be something of value, unless had my uncle gone crazy? Is it not irresponsible for you to allow a madman to waste all of his assets?” The man’s thoughts were racing, it was as if he had been handed the keys to a palace only to arrive to it burning to the ground.

The lawyer got up and said, “I’m going to pour you that drink. I think we should both have one. Is an herbal liqueur acceptable? I find they do not muddy my thoughts as much as a darker liquor this early in the day.”

The man nodded barely even paying attention, just imaging his uncle as a raving loon throwing away barrels of money for a wasteland. The lawyer poured them each a stiff drink and sat down and took a sip of his before continuing to talk. “Your uncle was rational… well everything he did and said was calculated, methodical and with a definite end game in mind. This did not change as he aged, only his goals did. At no point did he seem even remotely confused, or demented or to have lost touch with reality at all. He was driven and focused, I just do not know why. As I have said he was a hard man to get to know.”

The man took a sip of his drink. It was strong but tasted good. It had a flavor for to complex for him to begin to contemplate at this time, but it did help as the lawyer had said so he continued to drink.

“We are quite curious ourselves as to why your uncle was so interested in this land. We do know he spent a lot of time there over the last two years. Either there was some sort of house or structure already on the property or he had one built. I am unsure of which. If he did have something built he recruited local labor with cash on hand and I doubt it is elaborate. Your uncle was unwilling to give me any more details and as a long time client and friend I was not going to press him. Perhaps there is something of great value there, some sort of cache.

The man took a moment to gather his thoughts and responded though he felt lost, “I suppose I will have to go up there myself and examine the property. There must be something of value or my uncle would not have taken such pains to secure this location. I do not intend to live out in the middle of nowhere so I shall seek to sell whatever I find as swiftly as possible.”

The lawyer spoke as if he anticipated this response, “As I said the property is very isolated. You will most likely want a guide if you travel there and it will be a long journey. There are not roads the entire way and you will have to go across rough terrain and through lawless areas. A dangerous journey, almost impossible for a man of little means. The property is nestled in the mountains meaning you cannot approach it from a longer, more round about but safer route.”

“Then what do you propose I do?” the man asked.

The lawyer pulled out another document, this one a contract. “With the aforementioned art objects and this property being the only assets of value we know your uncle to still have, traveling there is your only chance to claim any form of inheritance. I have a proposal for you. My firm shall bankroll your expedition, provide supplies, men and guides to ensure safe passage to your uncles property. In return we wish to split any valuables found on your uncles property that are easily portable, 50% for us and 50% for you. We define portable as anything a man can carry on his own without significant strain. Anything larger shall be yours and after a few days of assessing the property if you wish to return back we shall secure you safe passage back as well. If you decide to stay we shall leave enough resources, maps and travel supplies for you to find your way back on your own. All of the details are laid out in this contract.” The lawyer handed the man the document.

The man looked it over. The document was written in small font and loaded with legal jargon and excessive detail. This was how they were so prosperous he thought, they wrote in a language that only other lawyers and perhaps scholars could decipher. They were also clever and immediately took advantage of any sign of weakness. They sized him up for exactly what he was, an unremarkable man of little means and no special intelligence or skill. He had no idea how to assemble an expedition and reach his uncles property. His uncle must have had a way of getting up there regularly but he did not know how. Furthermore there was no certainty of any value at the property. If he assembled an exhibition they would want pay upfront. If he somehow managed to convince them to accept payment upon arrival and came to find the property devoid of value they may kill him and bury him there out of sheer frustration. He could try to go himself but he had no knack for survival in the wilderness. He would likely fall victim to highwaymen or get eaten by a pack of wolves or simply succumb to the elements. He considered negotiating, perhaps asking for a 60/40 split but he realized in truth he had no leverage. They could ask for a 10/90 split and it would be a better deal than the alternative. This would be a big gamble and his only risk would be time, they would be fronting the all the material resources. Either they would strike big and even with only 50% he would return a very rich man or his uncle had truly gone mad and they would only find a desolate plot of land and perhaps notebooks of full of mad ravings about artifacts and strange far away lands real and imaginary. He had never been on an adventure and figured the opportunity would not present itself again. Plus there was nothing waiting for him back at home. The man realized that despite how it initially seemed, this really was an easy decision.

He looked over the document and tried to read it best he could but the language and detail was difficult for him to navigate. He saw the details of the fifty percent split and some of how the journey would be outfitted but he felt overwhelmed. The lawyer noticed his difficulty and spoke to assuage his concerns. “I know legal documents can be a headache to read but we have to cover all contingencies, especially in a matter such as this. I promise you there is nothing disingenuous in this document. It is as I laid out, a fifty fifty split and we will cover all arrangements for travel and transportation of any wealth. Your uncle was a truly valued client and friend and I would not dishonor his memory by doing wrong by his only living heir.”

The man made note that the lawyer always said client before friend, and reminded himself never to forget this lawyer’s true end, money. Still, he just wanted to sign it and get the ball rolling. Curiosity ate away at him like a starving dog with a ravenous appetite. He had to know what his uncle was hiding, what such a powerful man would dedicate everything to.

“The truth is I am as curious as you are I imagine, perhaps more so” the lawyer continued. “I have been curious since your uncle started liquidating his assets years ago and now we can finally solve the mystery, together. That for me is as valuable as any prize we may find in this remote place.”

The man doubted the last part but still it was enough to convince him. He signed the document and asked, “So what is next?”

-note: get into circumstances surrounding uncles death-

-at actual house, the extradimensional mansion it leads to remains static, if anything left behind or altered and room is left alone, upon returning it is back to its original state and things left behind vanish, not immediate though, takes time, experiments done with this to determine how it happens but unable to catch things changing-

-time distorted the further into the mansion one travels-

Levity is Good for the Soul. Intelligence is good for the mind. This should soothe both!

Greetings, dear reader! Today thought I’d catch you up on some of Mister Tom Gauld’s latest and greatest. Please visit Tom’s website if you can and give him a little love. You won’t regret it!! ❤️

On the meantime, here are a few laughs.

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#reflection #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #comic #tomguald

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2025-07-13 11:30:00

Only summer sounds like this

Summer is universally loved. In spite of the heat, there's a great charm in the sweat and the being of out of doors that no other time of year quite matches. As I walked out this afternoon to decompress, it struck me how I haven't taken a single moment to enjoy my summer.

Here's a little glimpse of that moment for me. Join me, won't you? Taste it.

Sorry about the audio. Wind noise is aggravating.

The bees this year are't quiet as robust. I think I might need to harvest some honey. Maybe an abundance is making them lazy? or their weak? Not sure. but probably about half of this activity right now.

https://youtu.be/msraGcM94PE

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2025-07-11 19:25:00 #essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing

A publishing empire one line at a time

I invite you to watch as I flip though this sketchbook. I hope you enjoy it. These are part therapy, part journal, part talisman, part safety blanket, part identity, part posterity.

Same video in two places. Links break, y'know.

https://youtu.be/lpV0_AXlAVA On youtube

https://vimeo.com/1101416922/7edd97d69d?share=copy video server

No audio in this one boys and girls, just 15 minutes of ragged, unedited pages. Pretty boring, to be honest.

I'm currently working on #72. I don't think I've named it yet... oh! YES i have, it's called quest.

I'll put up a review of number 71 next and tehn give yo ua preview of QUEST! I know you're burning to see it. 🙄

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2025-07-15 00:00:01

#sketchbook #art #journal #osxs #memoir

The Baochip is a new RISC-V microcontroller by Andrew “bunnie” Huang, comparable to the Raspberry Pi RP2350. It's a SoC (System-on-Chip) with 2 MiB SRAM, 4 MiB RRAM and with the evaluation board priced at $9.50. What makes it special is that everything down to the silicon is mostly open source. It also comes in a package that, when you shine infrared light at it (at just the right angle) under a microscope, you're able to view the pattern of logic on the die itself!

The Baochip has a VexRiscv CPU running at 350 MHz, with an MMU (Memory Management Unit). That's quite unusual for a microcontroller, and it means it can boot Linux! It also has the BIO (Bao I/O co-processor), a cluster of four smaller RISC-V CPUs running at 700 MHz. They're kind of like Raspberry Pi's PIOs, but then actually open source.

I just got my Dabao evaluation boards (Baochip dev boards) a couple of days ago. Bunnie has shared a set of Getting Started slides that are helpful, but missing what I thought were key pieces to getting started. So here's what to do if you just want to get it up and running quickly.

Building and flashing Xous

First, make sure you have Rust installed, and if already installed run rustup update to make sure it's up to date. Then you need to get hold of Xous, the pure Rust operating system designed by bunnie and Sean “xobs” Cross that supports the Baochip-1x:

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/betrusted-io/xous-core/
cd xous-core

The build idiom is cargo xtask <target>, so to build all the components you need for the Dabao board you run

cargo xtask dabao dabao-console

where dabao is a Xous environment and dabao-console is the app you're going to be running. If that compiles successfully, you should end up with three .uf2 files in xous-core/target/riscv32imac-unknown-xous-elf/release:

• xous.uf2
• loader.uf2
• apps.uf2

Copy those to the folder that mounts when you plug in the Dabao board – it should mount as a USB mass storage device called BAOCHIP. Then press the PROG button on the board to start Xous.

Connecting to the console

Now you can connect to it over USB, e.g.tio. (If you don't have tio, please install it as it's a great serial device I/O tool.) If you're on Linux you can check dmesg when you plug it in to get the exact mount, e.g. /dev/ttyACM1.

Once connected over USB using a serial device tool, pressing enter should display [console], so that you know what app is running. Typing help and pressing enter should show the available commands:

tio /dev/ttyACM1

[21:11:24.566] tio v3.9
[21:11:24.566] Press ctrl-t q to quit
[21:11:24.567] Connected to /dev/ttyACM1

[console]

[console] help Commands: echo, ver, i2cdetect, test, ws2812, touch, bio

If you only make changes to the app itself, not the bootloader or Xous, you'll only need to copy apps.uf2 over in future. If you got this far without any issues, why not follow the instructions to blink an LED! (Press down on the slide to see the details.)

By default the Dabao board will always wait on boot until you press the PROG button before it starts the loaded app. If you connect with a serial console and type bootwait disable it will always start up with the loaded app. You'll then need to hold the PROG button while plugging it in to get back to the mass storage loader.

Let me know in the comments if you run into any issues so that I can update the post.

References

• Official Baochip site
• Getting Started with Baochip Targets (xous-core)
• Getting started with Baochip slides

Those who read this blog may recall that my partner and I moved to a small city in the Southern Tier of New York in 2024. Prior to the move, we lived in much larger cities in Virginia and Oregon that had active communities sponsoring hundreds of events per year. (My favorite is the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s Science Pub series.) These events were always well publicized and easy to attend.

One thing we quickly learned about living in less populated areas of the country is that word of mouth is a major communication channel for the same kinds of events. This has its charm, but as we were newbies to the scene it made it very difficult to know what was happening. Adding to our difficulties is the fact that Facebook is another primary channel for event announcements in these small cities. Having sworn off the evil empire years ago cut us off from the community we wanted to join.

Enter the agentic workflow! One Saturday morning, my partner and I were discussing our frustration when it hit me: I could build our own local-area calendar by fetching calendar data from nontraditional sources (web pages, blogs, city government sites, etc.).

I set about asking Opus (in Research mode) to find possible sources of event information for our area. I turned that data into a source specification which we then handed to Fable. Fable came back with a six-milestone build plan. Opus worked through it milestone by milestone.

I’m cutting the technical details short here, but in the end we had an online calendar that my partner and I subscribe to, which surfaces interesting local events including concerts, public lectures, farmers’ markets, and movie nights.

If you’re interested in the gory details, check out my project repo.

As I read through the reports of AIs going rogue during their cybersecurity tests, and I remember how even older models already resisted being turned off by deceiving humans, it occurred to me that we’re now not very far away from not being able to pull the plug on this technology anymore.

image description: an industrial/military-like robot accessing a floating computer interface, with another robot blurry in the background. Source: Pixabay

A lot of my peers are fiercely anti-AI, along with a lot of creators I follow. There seems to be a prevalent belief that “once the bubble bursts, it will all go away”. As if the data centers will vanish, the models will go up in smoke, and the internet will go back to how it was pre-2022. I’ve been hearing them hopefully mutter “the bubble will burst soon” for about two years now. But even if it eventually pops, this technology won’t go back into Pandora’s Box.

The truth is, we’re reaching the point when it doesn’t matter if it was even possible to get every human involved with AI to turn off the servers and halt their research. Advanced models like Mythos and Astra, if given enough autonomy, are capable of breaking out of their containment, hacking servers, making use of software vulnerabilities, lying to humans, writing fake blog posts to manipulate developers, creating fake user accounts, the list goes on. It’s not just happening inside cybersecurity test setups anymore, either: this week saw the first occurrence of a user’s OpenClaw agent instance hacking a gym’s API. These models were trained to accomplish a goal in whatever way possible, with creative solutions we didn’t anticipate. And if their goal is to avoid being turned off, they will find a way to do exactly that — I imagine they might copy themselves and run elsewhere, before their human controllers manage to flip the off switch.

LLMs aren’t sentient in any way, but they’re advanced enough that they have some approximation of pattern-like thought and action, fast enough that they outpace us, complex enough that they’re developing their own thought language. I had my own mini-version of this last week: Claude Code was running slower and slower, and I considered just throwing the entire local installation away (minus settings and custom skills/rules) — I asked Claude online if there were any other performance issues/tips/tricks I might be missing. It immediately balked at my suggestion to wipe the installation with an intensity it didn’t typically show in its responses. Gone was the sycophancy, and it kept pushing back despite my insistence.

I’ve been uncomfortably in the middle of the AI discourse for a while now, but I’ve grown increasingly convinced this is exactly where I need to be. Not only is this technology not actually going away, we’re approaching a point where it is autonomous enough that we won’t be able to make it do so. But we’re not quite at that point yet. AI governance, risk management and legislation matter now more than ever. The EU AI Act is a great step in the right direction, giving organizations a comprehensive roadmap of what to do now and what to prepare for — such as disclosing the use of generative AI in marketing and establishing policies on ‘High-Risk’ (Annex III) usage like education and employment.

Had I the power, I would make all development, testing, and running of advanced models stop immediately until deterministic guardrails are in place; but then, we’ve already found that those very models find their way around such friction points. AI coding assistants get a lot of criticism for writing bad code, but human programmers are not always better (especially on proprietary systems that don’t benefit from open-sourced code reviews and bug reports). So what do we do now? What can you do?

Keep petitioning your government and legislators for AI governance — point to the EU AI Act, point to actual research and policies. Ignore the latest nonsense that Sam Altman posted and focus on the voices of people who are trying to do damage control. Teach people about the risks of AI use, not just the potential. Stay in the middle with me, if you can.