It was a really nice day today and got up to around 70. I ran a few errands until it warmed up a bit and then I came home to hook up the trailer and move it over in front of the garage to block the wind off of it.

I was thinking that I last pulled the trailer here in May after packing Meghan’s stuff in a truck so it has sat for 10 months. Seems a waste, but it was a bit busy around here so I really could not go anyplace. It’s already earned its keep so this is gonna be fun.

!!!!!!!!!!

A few days ago I walked full speed into the trailer hitch on my truck. And, of course I did it in front of a crowd at the dump. I put on my big boy pants and got into my truck, shut the door & screamed several profanities quite loudly with the windows up. There may have been some new ones I created on the spot. It hurts so bad I am concerned about it. I will give it a little more time to see if it calms down but if I bump it it’s sheer agony. I hope it ain’t broken. It is not bruised so I don’t think it is broken, but it hurts so damn bad. What a fantastic time for this to happen.

🧠💻

I have posted about my limited usage of AI in the past on here. I will NOT use AI to write any posts, or for anything grammar-related, since I am perfectly capable of doing my own writing with proper grammar. I do not use it for a writing assistant for personal use; I don’t care because I enjoy writing and always have – even in high school and also in college. Honestly, that is pretty damn lazy. I even feel weird doing the voice typing. I use AI mainly for replacing a search on the web, to ask questions, or clarify an AI query I already searched for by asking follow-up questions. It is a fantastic tool for many things. Just not ALL things.

I have looked at my intended route piecemeal, keying off a few main cities to check weather and string a route together. I was able to figure out that it is not looking too bad but I wanted more & better info. With such a long route to drive at a less than optimal time to travel, I thought I would use AI to see if it could give me some useful travel weather advice. I did not know how it would do with a future prediction for a trip starting a few days out.

I used Lumo, a private AI model from Proton for this search. My search was for weather leaving in a few days into the future (input actual date) with my start & end points. I got back a really comprehensive answer on my query that had quite a bit of useful information.

First, it gave me thorough weather for my start & end points. It also gave me some “Travel Considerations” talking about going from the plains to the mountains, clothing considerations, and mountain driving. Then it asked if I wanted info on a particular route or any additional travel details.

I input my possible route and it gave me weather forecasts for the different segments of the route, lumping them into larger segments if the weather would be similar in those areas – a nice feature.

This is much easier than trying to do it the way I did with looking up the weather for cities along the route and I got the info I needed MUCH faster. The thing about searching with an AI model is to be precise as you can be. Another thing is it will always ask you if you want clarification or need other related info you might not have considered.

It is seriously cool to use for that.

Many are intimidated by AI (for good reason or because of bad press) but I think it is worth a try for everyone as long as you are careful. I ONLY use a private AI model when searching. DuckDuckGo, Lumo & Brave are just a few but I think I have been most impressed with Lumo. With Duck, you can actually use various popular models like ChatGPT but your searches still remain private.

I do not want or need an AI “chat buddy” for a “friend”, but I do use it on occasion for information on helpful things like I mentioned above. I want to learn things. If you think about it, I could spend hours looking up all the weather along my intended route…IF I could find what I needed. I had my AI trip weather results in seconds after asking what I wanted.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks for having a read.

Shawn