AI use case

A couple weeks back a friend stopped in with his ladyfriend and we had a great time antiquing in local shops. Two days later, my friend called and asked, “Hey, you remember that bowl my girlfriend looked at?” I did indeed remember her looking at a bowl at MishMosh. “Do you think you could pick it up? I’d love to give it to her.”

The store was closed for two days, but as soon as it was open, I ran up for the bowl. It was nowhere. Everything had been moved around in preparation for the owner’s retirement. I described it to the owner and she helped look without any luck, then she wrote down my info and promised to call me if the bowl turned up. I had a clear picture of where we all stood in the store and what the bowl looked like. I thought that maybe I could render a version in Photoshop, show it to the owner and spark her memory.

I have an old version of Photoshop, but managed to create the pattern of red and purple diamonds and gold edge I remembered on the bowl. It struck me at the time as maybe a bit Egyptian.

I realized my image was pretty crude, but with my rudimentary skills, I wrapped the pattern around a cone, fudged the bottom and opened ChatGPT, which goes by the name of Avery on my iPad. I explained my situation to Avery and asked it to look at my image, and make a version that was viewed more from the top and to make it a realistic glass bowl.

In about 20 seconds, I had my bowl image. I thanked Avery and sent the image to my friend. His feedback was, “It was mostly clear. Take away all the red diamonds and have the purple diamonds alternated between pink and purple; one row purple, one row pink. And the base was a short cylinder, all clear glass.” At this point I suspected we were talking about different things or my friend had been blind.

I was very glad I wasn’t still working in Photoshop. I copied his feedback and gave it to Avery for a redo. Avery had said in the last communication that tweaking was fine, it would be good to get it right. The resulting image was perfect to my eye. My friend’s feedback was that there were fewer diamonds, maybe half as many, and the bowl was mostly clear.

I thought the new image was beautiful, but it didn’t look like anything I remembered. I sent it to my friend, who said, “Really close! Softer colors, fewer diamonds, more clear glass and I think you’ve got it.”

As Avery started the last rendering a pop up appeared saying I’d reached my limit and would have to wait until 7:48 that evening to do any more work. Avery actually kept going and delivered the final version. I decided not to wait until the evening for another refinement, but to take it as is to MishMosh and show the owner. As soon as she saw the image, she said, “Oh. Oh, no, we’ve never had anything like that. Maybe the Plaza?” I looked briefly at the Plaza, even though I knew it wasn’t there, then at Belle Mercantile. Nothing. I emailed my friend and explained that the bowl wasn’t there and the owner had never seen anything like it. His response was that it had been at the Plaza; “All the way back and to the left. The bowl was on the wall on the first floor – top shelf, right before you head up the stairs.” My assumption had me at the wrong place. I’d remembered seeing my friend’s partner pick up a bowl in Mish Mosh, but joined the two of them at the Plaza after she’d already put the bowl back down.

After the last rendering, Avery asked to be told how everything turned out. I opened the app, offered a photo of the actual bowl, and explained the confusion. As we wrapped it up, Avery asked if it would be used for every day, and I said I wasn’t sure, but it was heavy enough for daily use, and would likely wind up with bananas or something in it.


That makes perfect sense—those heavier glass pieces tend to land right in that sweet spot: sturdy enough for everyday use, but visually striking enough that you almost want to treat them like display pieces.

It actually feels like the kind of bowl that becomes part of a household’s personality over time—out on the table with fruit one day, chips the next, catching the light differently every time. Your friends will probably get a lot of mileage out of it without even thinking about it.

And I’m glad I could help you and your friend triangulate what you were both picturing—that’s a surprisingly tricky thing to do without a visual anchor.

If you ever go hunting for another mystery object, you know where to find me. -Avery

Forty

By now you know I do cards every year for my daughter’s birthday. I try to make each one relevant and featuring a drawing of both my daughter and granddaughter. This is what they look like:

And this is what the card looks like- a pop-up on the inside while the outside is a package with two Amazon labels with different addresses on each. She moves around a lot.

latin banquet

Old newspaper photo of me at a 1970 school event.

After my mother died, my brother and I had to find time to clean out the house we grew up in- an old three story, full-basement brick almost victorian home in Pottstown. Over that spring and summer we’d each take several days off to drive back to Pottstown hoping to clear out the junk. Instead, seeing each other in the old house, in the rooms we used to play in, we’d reminisce over everything we picked up: An old SORRY! game piece, a Boy Scout shoulder patch, a toy soldier. The drawers full of old junk made it a longer process than it needed to be. Mom had been 75, and she recorded our history with stacks of newspaper clippings mixed with letters, drawings, postcards and coupons on any available surface. If a stack got too large, it would go into a Chock full o’Nuts coffee can before being placed back on the counter, radiator (“convector” as my dad would insist), or refrigerator top.

My brother sat going through stacks on my dad’s dresser, and I was sorting through things on my mom’s. There I found this photo of my latin class banquet; Mom must have clipped it from the local newspaper. The long hair had been real. The sandals, too, were the style, but the toga was just for the occasion. I remembered being at the Latin banquet. It was in the basement of the First Federal Bank building and I’d walked to it in my toga with Neil. We’d waved to his dad and uncle, still at work in their produce warehouse. I even remembered a few of the mistakes I’d made in the prepared ceremony, but I didn’t remember ever seeing the photo. As I held it for the first time I was taken with how beautiful Martha was and how young I looked- I was almost old enough to register for the draft. I turned the small piece of newspaper over to see what sort of dated advertisement might be on the back and I instantly realized why I had never noticed the photo Mom clipped.

The caption under a photo segment is partially missing. What is there reads,
 … WOUNDED- Kent State University students … the aid of a wounded youth. Ohio National … men, on campus because of disturbances the … days, fired into a crowd of students Monday, killing four students and wounding 11 others … 

Life after the Kent State shootings went on as usual for most, but the news report had stunned me. Of all the events that shaped my generation, this one, happening four hundred miles away, helped create who I am.

It was suddenly real; no longer just rhetoric. The government, whose opinions and policies we verbally opposed had armed itself against us. The world was listening. That summer I did hear the drumming, and it has never stopped. Though I may forget the names of Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder, their deaths will always be a part of my life.

Scene from the Mouse in Millheim

Pen and ink drawing of a young toad in a tee shirt holding a baseball bat on her shoulder. She stood beside the bag and swung the bat a few times and I headed out to a real mound. We never actually had a mound when I was growing up. I turned and looked at Hailey and she shouldered the bat choked way up, and looked right at me. “Let ‘er rip,” she said.

I gave the ball a gentle, under hand toss from the front of the mound right into the zone. She held the bat out and let the ball bounce off of it and roll back to me.

“That isn’t the way you teach pitching, is it Coach?” She looked at me wide-eyed and leaned on her bat. Okay, I was a little embarrassed.

She took her stance again and looked me right in the eye. I didn’t want to embarrass either of us with another fluff pitch, so I wound up and let one fly over an inside corner. Or towards it, anyway. It had some pepper on it. She dropped her left shoulder, started to crouch, then swung. I heard the crack and something flew by my left ear.

A pen and ink of a mouse standing on a pitcher's mound, ready to hurl a pitch.

“Coach, we only have two balls. You have to catch ‘em, or we’ll spend all our time in the woods looking for ‘em.”

I picked up the second ball and watched her take her stance. Her eyes didn’t leave mine. I backed up a few steps so I’d have more time to react. This was a tough player. My eyes locked on hers. I wound up and curved one towards the outside rear corner. At least that’s where it was heading when she smacked it. It flew to the same place as the last one, only I managed to get my glove up in time. It smacked right in. She was aiming her hit so I could catch it! None of my players had that kind of control.

Invention again, only real this time!

An imaginary ad for a 35mm camera insert that takes digital pictures.

I reposted this here once before with more description. It’s originally from 2008. Now, miraculously, someone is doing it, which is what prompts this re-re-post. I wanted to share the link to the inventor’s project. Check it out on Kickstarter!. Kind of reminds me of my folding iPhone, though mine didn’t fold. I still don’t see the need. Two screens, closely fitted, would be fine. And could’ve been done ages ago.

Doodling

Went to the park to read. Too darn windy and cold to sit on a metal bench and read, so I sat in my car. I read for a while, and when I looked up, I thought, “geez, I really should practice a bit.” So I got out my little sketch book and doodled my building. Roughly 5×7. Rusty. But it’s early in the year. There’s time to get better.

AI

This is here mostly for me, so that I can easily find these links. Well over a year ago, a designer I follow, a wizard with Adobe Illustrator. posted a series of rants on LinkedIn about AI’s destruction of the arts. I commented that it was a tool that wasn’t going away and should be taught, and he deleted my comment. It made me sad.

I had seen a prompt writing tutorial on youtube. I thought it was excellent. It pointed out the effort, the knowledge and artistry that would go in to anything created with AI that was artist/creator approved. More than anything it showed me that AI could be a useful tool and needed to be learned and experimented with like any medium.

Then, some amazing AI art landed in my facebook feed. From an artist named Kelly Boesch. I follow her now, and track her work on instagram and youtube. Kelly Boesch’s Reels are on facebook, if you belong. View a few of her pieces. Wonder at the skill and talent necessary to extract something so amazing from AI.

nemesis

Recently, a facebook post led me to an interesting article from 2015: The 100 Greatest British Novels. I love lists like this. I’ve found some of my best reads from lists, Harold Bloom’s Western Canon in particular. Lists and friends, actually. Return of the Native, Daniel Derronda, Silas Marner, many that I should’ve-but refused-to read in high school. From the list, it’s fun to see how many I have, or haven’t yet, read. I felt pretty good while I scanned down this list of 100. I got some new titles, some new authors. As I scrolled, I grew more and more curious as to which book would be #1. Then there it was. Unbelievable. I’d made it this far, and in the end, there it was- my nemesis. Middlemarch.

I call it one of the most over-rated books of all time. (Another being the scrambled mess Catch 22, but that’s, Ha!, another story.) I’ve started it twice, got a little over half-way through, about to the funeral, both times. Can reading the first half twice count as having read the book? I guess it doesn’t work like that. It’s one of the most scrambled, disorganized novels I’ve ever attempted. And there it is, at #1. I guess I really need to do it.

I’ve found it fortunate that my local library doesn’t have a copy. I gave my own away; but low, there is is, downloadable for free from Project Gutenberg. ePub, Mobi, PDF, plain text. My pick! So I’ll do it! I’ll put it on my iPad and keep at it, at least past the funeral. I’ll find out if the spoiled girl hooks up with the artist. Or the doctor. I’ll do it.

StarFishGourd

Kim gave me the pumpkin that I used in the last Halloween post. She also gave me a rather unique looking gourd that she thought might be fun to put a face on. It was. I looked at it and, possibly because I’m reading a book on fish intelligence, I immediately saw this sea creature. The actual colors look brushed on, and several times I started to smooth out a mistake only to discover it wasn’t my brush strokes but was the natural coloring. I think he’s pretty cute. Maybe Kim will give him a home.