Hey – I discovered something you should never do! Well, I’ve actually stumbled upon quite a few. Phew. What a year!
So, the kids came home for the holidays – well, two out of three. The youngest daughter and the son and his wife. All was warm and cozy and happy, and the day after Christmas the son and his wife flew off to Omaha to embrace the balmy winter snow storm that dropped six inches…
The youngest daughter decided she’d like to stay the rest of her holiday vacay on the same bed the son and his wife had used. As the daughter’s bed had been brute-hauled into my wife’s office to make room for the son and his wife, no hearts were broken.
But, what to do with the daughter’s bed? The thing was easily 25 years old, and not worth a plugged nickel. We’ll call the garbage man!
Sure, says he. Put it out at the curb tomorrow morning and I’ll pick ‘er up for free. Won’t cost you a plugged nickel.
Well, my wife and I both work, see. So, we dutifully hauled the beast, bedframe, box spring, and twelve-ton twin-sized mattress down to the curb that night. What could go wrong with that?
Enter the Atmospheric River. Dang if it didn’t POUR on that poor mattress.
Two o’clock in the morning and I’m listening to the rain pounding on the roof, and I get the wise idea to put a tarp over this enormous marshmallow of a bed at the curb. OMG it rained and blew, and I had to lug the entire bed… thing… out a little into the street because it was blocking the gutter!
Now, I know the thing was already sodden, but I thought, maybe, if I could just keep extra water from coming in, maybe it would drain off into the now-unplugged gutter.
Just as I finish tying down the tarp, soaked to the bone, the rain lets up.
Sigh.
Also during her holiday vacay, my daughter suggested I add closed captions to the YouTube videos at California Air Museums.
Sure. No problem. Piece of cake. Alls ya gots ta do is tell YouTube that you want to use the closed-captions, and their AI does the rest.
Great!
I didn’t look until just last night, and OMG, they’re a MESS!
The AI tries to match the rhythm of the soundtrack, but just plain doesn’t spell or understand context or know placenames worth a plugged nickel.
Google counted spell Mugu to save its life! Mcgoo, Mago, MGOO…
And me, Mr. Professional, sent emails off to other museums, offering to come shoot videos at their facilities, unaware that I’d added these whack-a-doodle, nonsensical captions to my professional work!
I’ve spent the last two evenings fixing and correcting and spelling and spacing and timing… in truth, now they look pretty good.
But, note to self: do. not. trust. ai. It does some stuff pretty well. But closed captioning? Eh…
What ties these two stories together, of course is my daughter, who has jetted off to Hawaii, yes, Hawaii, to finish out her holiday vacay.
Probably ran out of helpful suggestions…
John D Reinhart 