How I See It: Reflections on spirituality, technology, and the art of everyday life

This week's Weekly Update is a short one as I get ready to leave on a business trip. Things at work are going well, but with September 11 marking 25 years since the attacks, I've also been thinking back to that morning and what I remember seeing, thinking, and worrying about as the events unfolded.

This week's Weekly Update comes a day early as I turn 65, look back at the year when September 3 disappeared from the calendar, remember an unexpected visit from the FBI involving my father's fingerprints, and set myself a new goal of getting back to an 11-minute mile. I'm getting it out early so I can spend the three-day weekend working on my office remodel.

This week's Weekly Update covers a few observations about President Trump's latest renaming and remodeling efforts, the surprising number of rabbits I've been seeing on my morning walks, a major change in how I'm using AI at work, and continuing progress on my office remodel. I have been racking my brain for what to say in this week's Weekly Update, and I don't have anything major to report, so just a couple of observations will have to do.

This week's Weekly Update covers six new puppies, lunch with some old friends from DM2 Software, a frightening fall that sent Dawn to the hospital, my disappointment in discovering that there is now a Hathaway in space (and it's not me), and continued progress on my office remodel. Well, while I was working on my Weekly Update last week, Maggie May, one of Dawn's breeding dachshunds, was busy having babies. Maggie had six wonderful little puppies. Each is doing well, and we are looking forward to the next eight weeks as they age and get ready to find their forever homes. As far as Storm is concerned, the puppy with the heart defect, she is recovering wonderfully and has an appointment back in Corvallis next week to see how she's doing. We are looking forward to her and her mother moving to Canada, where they will have their forever home. Dawn feels that little Carolyn, the mother, did not do well with her pregnancy and should no longer be used for breeding. Also,...

This week's Weekly Update starts with some news about my thyroid cancer and diabetes, along with the progress I'm making on remodeling my office. I also take a look at some of the playlists I've been building and how hearing the 1812 Overture led me down an unexpected path exploring Artillery in Music , from ancient attempts to represent the sounds and feelings of battle to cannons and even a nuclear explosion being incorporated into music.

This week's Weekly Update covers a mixture of memories and projects, from an anniversary that still brings complicated feelings and memories of wildfire smoke when I was young, to the work I've been doing on my office and an unexpectedly useful new computer mouse.

This week's Weekly Update covers some of the annoyances I have been dealing with, along with some thoughts about old cars, how we perceive the passage of time, and technology that can track where our cars go.

This week has been one of endings and beginnings. Little Storm is finally home after surgery, I learned that my childhood home has been reduced to bare earth, and I found myself reflecting on memories stretching back more than fifty years. Along the way, I also share a unique Christmas in July tradition from Bryce Canyon National Park, an update on my office remodel, and what's happening at work.

Weekly Update 07/11/26 – 07/17/26 (Apollo 11 Memories, Technical Leadership, Office Remodel) This week's update continues my ongoing Weekly Update series. It includes an unexpected encounter with a summer thunderstorm, memories of Apollo 11, progress at work, developments in my office remodel, and some difficult news involving one of Dawn's puppies. Thursday morning started like most mornings. I got up, took my meds, and went for a walk. I did not get very far when I heard something strange. At first I thought it was the sound of a jet airplane taking off. I live only 4.5 miles from the runway at PDX, so we sometimes hear the planes, although not very often because they normally take off and land on a path parallel to my house and do not fly over it. But I noticed that the sound level was increasing and decreasing, so it was not a plane. The next possibility, of course, was thunder. I was not overly concerned. I did notice that there were occasional raindrops falli...

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...

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...

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...

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...

   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...

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...

 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...

This week's update covers progress at work, upcoming dental treatment, and a significant development regarding my ongoing urinary issues. Things at work are going well. I'm making real progress on the project I'm currently working on, and it is encouraging to see things moving forward. My dentist contacted me this week to let me know that my new crown is ready to be installed. Unfortunately, my appointment is not until Thursday, so I'll have to wait a little longer before that work is completed. For several years I have been experiencing urinary difficulties, including frequent urination, occasional bladder control issues, and problems initiating urine flow. In 2022, I saw a urologist and tried several medications to treat the problem. At that time, my urologist wanted to perform a cystoscopy, an examination in which a small camera is inserted through the urinary tract to determine what is causing the symptoms. I decided to hold off on that procedure until the pro...

  Weekly Update 05/16/26 – 05/23/26 (Medical Week, Dog Fight, Hematoma Recovery) This week’s Weekly Update was dominated by medical appointments, an unexpected dog fight, and continuing problems with my right leg. Despite all of that, work is going well and there were at least a few reassuring medical results along the way. This has definitely been a medical week, but I managed to get through it. While I was in Irvine I was walking about four miles a day without pain. I returned to Vancouver on May 6th after a 2.5-hour flight. I did not notice anything immediately, but sometime during the following week, around May 10th–15th, I started noticing pain in my right calf. At first it felt somewhat like shin splints along the ridge of my leg below the knee. Since I thought it was a shin splint, I decided to take a day off from my usual one-mile morning walk to give the leg a chance to heal, but that same day the pain started getting worse. I checked with Astra (ChatGPT), and she sug...

 Well, the big news this week has all been around the arrival of the new puppy. I do not yet know the puppy’s name, as Dawn likes to give her dogs “special names,” like Boudica, Gurta, and Bouraged, and I cannot promise I will either remember or spell the name of this dog correctly. We picked the puppy up on 05/10 in The Dalles and drove her home to Vancouver. The puppy is what Dawn calls “dapple,” which apparently means having dappled spots on her coat. She is a nice little puppy and very affectionate. This brings the number of dogs we have up to seven, I think, not including the two puppies from Carolyn, who are now about four weeks old and growing fast. Unfortunately, on the evening of the 10th, Dawn noticed that the new little puppy was coughing a lot. It looks like the poor little thing has kennel cough, a highly contagious condition. So now we have the dogs broken up around the house and are quarantining the new little girl. Otherwise, it was a normal week of going to w...

Weekly Update 05/03/26 – 05/08/26 (California Business Trip, Alaska Airlines, Rental Car Problems) Sorry this is late. I did not have enough energy to write it on Saturday. Last week was an eventful week. This post is part of my ongoing Weekly Update series and covers my trip to Southern California for work, a visit with family, and a few unexpected travel surprises. It started Saturday morning as I was getting ready to go to the airport. I thought I would take a minute and empty the kiddie pool that had been sitting in the backyard for months. Dawn uses it to help sterilize branches she wants to use in the vivarium she built for her collection of geckos and other lizards. She fills the pool with water and Clorox and lets the branches soak for a few days. I thought I could simply lift one side of the pool and let the water spill out the other side. When I tried, I found it was too heavy, so I had a bright idea. I could lift the pool enough to create a wave that would splash over ...