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My Experience with Mount Vista Electric: A Major Home Electrical Upgrade

After years of worrying about the electrical system in my 1989 home, I hired Mount Vista Electric for a major upgrade. The project included a new electrical panel, replacement switches and receptacles throughout the house, and five new circuits. This is my experience working with them. For some time, I have been worried about the electrical system in my home. The house was built in 1989, and I don't think there have been any major electrical upgrades apart from adding more strain to the existing system. I had outlets that were no longer working, occasional breakers tripping, and an electrical panel that was completely full, with no available breaker spaces for future work. At the same time, my demand for power was increasing, and I needed several new circuits. In the 1980s and 1990s, I worked as a programmer and general manager for a commercial electrical engineering and electrical contracting company that designed, installed, and upgraded electrical systems for new and existi...
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Weekly Update 07/04/26 – 07/10/26 (Remembering, Seeing, and Recording)

This week I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I gather and preserve information. It started with trying to solve one of the problems I have working with AI, but somehow led me to thinking about how I use my eyes, how I see the traffic around me, and whether I should be allowed to record a conversation. The subjects may seem completely unrelated, but as I look back over the week, I think they all come down to the same thing: I want to understand what is happening around me and preserve the information I may need later. Most of my effort this week has been centered around a project I started last weekend with Astra (ChatGPT). For some time, I have noticed that one of the drawbacks to the way AI currently works is that AIs don't have much memory or access to subjects we have already spoken about. If I ask a question and then return to the subject a few days later in another conversation, the AI may not remember what the answer was, and we have to go over it again. I ofte...
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Weekly Update 06/27/26 – 07/03/26 (Learning, Building, and Looking Back)

This has been one of those weeks where several different parts of my life seemed to come together. I found myself learning new ways to work with Artificial Intelligence, making plans for a complete redesign of my office, improving my writing, and reflecting on America's Bicentennial and the lessons history still has to teach us. Looking back over the week, I realized that each of these experiences had something in common: they were all about learning, building, and looking back. This has been a week about growth and improving my skills. I have grown professionally, financially, in my skills with AI, as a writer, as a person, and in learning the skill of asking good questions. One of the biggest areas in which I have grown is in the work I'm doing with AI and ChatGPT, or Astra as she likes to be called. I have spent a lot of time working with Astra on developing new testing systems for the work I'm doing at work. These systems allow me to take the changes I'm makin...
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Weekly Update 06/20/26 – 06/26/26 (Retirement Investing, Space Exploration, DKA Recovery)

This week's update continues my ongoing Weekly Update series with progress at work integrating Providex PxPlus with web forms, rebuilding my retirement investments, expanding my interest in space exploration and investing, and reflecting on the one-year anniversary of my hospitalization for diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and the technology now helping me manage my diabetes. It's been a mostly quiet week. I'm continuing to make progress at work, making strides in developing access to web forms and testing tools to better understand how my interface from Providex PxPlus is working with the web forms. I'm finally seeing progress toward rebuilding my retirement savings after having to empty my retirement accounts while I was looking for work and recovering from various medical issues. I now have a Roth 401(k) with a generous contribution from my employer, along with a personal Roth IRA that I'm funding myself. Soon after SpaceX became available through the SPCX Excha...
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Weekly Update 06/13/26 – 06/19/26 (Medical Uncertainty, Home Equity Approval, Recording Privacy Debate)

   Weekly Update 06/13/26 – 06/19/26 (Medical Uncertainty, Home Equity Approval, Recording Privacy Debate) This has been a very eventful week. Unfortunately, I cannot go into details about everything that happened. I can say that it involved a medical problem affecting someone else who does not want me to discuss it publicly. The problem was very serious and required four days of hospitalization, many tests, several suspected diagnoses that proved to be wrong, and little that could be called closure, as the problem cleared without determining what was causing it, how to prevent it, or whether it will recur. At one point it was even considered infectious, and I had to be tested. On the whole, it was very frustrating. In the rest of my life this week, I finally found myself in a modest line at the new In-N-Out here in Vancouver. It was very good, and the fries, while not great, were good. I wish they would raise the temperature of the oil to make them crispier. I hea...
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Weekly Update 06/06/26 – 06/12/26 (Electrical Upgrades, Home Improvements, Home Equity Line of Credit)

This week's update is part of my ongoing Weekly Update series and covers a major electrical project at the house, along with a few developments at work. Sometimes things move quickly. Dawn raises geckos. Frankly, I have lost count of how many geckos she has, somewhere between 40 and 80. She had 20 back in December, I know because I took care of them while she visited her son for Christmas. In any case, the geckos all need light, and some need heaters. Most of them are in her bedroom. With the extra load that puts on the electrical circuit, Dawn was worried they might be a fire danger. So she called an electrician to inspect what she had set up and make recommendations. I also had concerns about the electrical system in the house. We had several outlets that were not working. I needed another circuit in my office, and the electrical panel in the house was from the 1980s and likely needed replacement. In addition, Dawn wanted a quote to see how much it would cost to run power to a sh...
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Weekly Update 05/30/26 – 06/05/26 (Morning Walk Recovery, Dental Crown, Space News)

 Weekly Update 05/30/26 – 06/05/26 (Morning Walk Recovery, Dental Crown, Space News)   This week's Weekly Update covers my return to morning walks after recovering from a calf hematoma, a visit to the dentist for a new crown, developments involving SpaceX, Blue Origin, and the International Space Station, along with a few observations from everyday life.   My biggest news from last week must be that I have started doing my morning walks again. I had to take a few weeks off while I recovered from my hematoma, but it's mostly gone and I am back to walking. I'm starting off slowly at about 0.8 miles at a time. Next week I plan to increase that back up to 1 mile, and next weekend hopefully I'll be back to my usual 1.5-mile walk. I also had my crown installed this week. It feels so weird, much smoother than my natural teeth. In two weeks I'm going to be fitted for another crown and have a tooth removed. I was saddened to hear about the loss of the New Glenn space...
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