Life On A B-I7

A Sonnet by Microsoft’s Copilot

Brad Adkins: An Ode to Creativity

In Portland’s vibrant heart, Adkins weaves,
A self-taught maestro, colors on his brush,
Poster boy of low-rent art, he believes,
In everyday magic, life’s ordinary hush.

His canvas, the quotidian’s humble frame,
Brushstrokes of curiosity, whimsy, and grace,
Charm Bracelet’s symphony, a whispered name,
Collaborating with time, in life’s bustling space.

From Kalispell’s peaks to Oregon’s embrace,
He curates, orchestrates, and paints the air,
A cotton farmer’s son, a cotton field’s trace,
Adkins, the artist, weaves dreams with care.

So raise a toast to Brad, the unseen star,
His art, a sunbeam dancing from afar.

Note: Brad Adkins’ diverse work spans beyond visual art, touching music and conversation. This sonnet captures a glimpse of his creative spirit.

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The Winner Is…

ChatGPT over Copilot, hands down…

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The Lake

The lake is a strand of dark blue
Surrounded by a ribbon of green marsh grass.
Ducks fly in low, landing in sequence,
They form a line paddling to the opposite bank,
Their purpose unknown.

How long has this rock I am sitting on
Been waiting here for me?
Certainly, since before I was born.
It seems likely to be here
Long after I am gone.

I picture this rock having been placed here
By the cataclysmic uplift that created these mountains,
Or perhaps it broke away from the peak above
like a disobedient child, tumbling and churning
Until it came to rest here, where I to sit.

I don’t want to leave this spot.
It makes me think of places far away,
Sights more beautiful than I can imagine,
Destinations I have yet to experience…
But I think, being here is enough.

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# 158

I threw some money away today. I signed up (online) for a service without reading the fine print. If I canceled (even immediately) I was still obligated to pay a fairly significant “cancellation fee.” Welcome to the “Internet Service” business model. My bad.

I suppose this makes me naive, or worse yet, just not very bright, oh well… I blame the service provider for not making the terms at least somewhat visible before pressing the ever-engaging “Continue” button…

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What is a Bicycle Tour

A bicycle tour is a bit more than getting on a bicycle and going for a ride. You’re stepping out of your normal existence, and you’re entering into an entirely new world. It’s a lifestyle apart from what constitutes “normal life.” Every day requires focus but on a limited number of tasks. This narrowing of awareness results in increased observation of your surroundings, your own feelings, and everything you are experiencing. It makes other peoples’ opinions and attitudes less relevant, not less important or less valuable, just less impactful on you. That allows you to appreciate other people without obsessing about the “rightness” or “wrongness” of what they may be saying at the moment.

Your day begins with a simple meal and a cup of coffee you make with your own hands. It’s enjoyable because you created it. Packing your gear for the day’s ride is done deliberately and with intention. So it is with a myriad of details throughout the day. The simple process of stopping and securing your bicycle becomes a satisfying and affirming ritual. Setting up camp, preparing to sleep, sleeping, and waking, are things that take on a significance that has no counterpart in “normal” life. They are immensely satisfying.

You see things in a whole new way. You are forced to slow down your perception of time and your observational perception. At the same time you are slowing down, your mind is embracing thoughts and ideas that wouldn’t normally be noticed. “Mind expanding” may be a bit of an overstatement, but it’s a good description of the mental experience that comes with the physical exertion of riding for eight or ten hours a day, day after day.

While all of this is part of the journey, the real thrill is completing your adventure and looking back on the experience. You can’t help but grow from the accomplishment. A tour is an accomplishment to be proud of. If you are like me, after you complete your tour, you’ll be asking yourself, “What discoveries will I make on my next tour…”

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My Truck’s Electrical System

Dual battery setups are quite common in overland vehicles. This allows the system to provide auxiliary power for accessories when camping. The system can be used to provide power to accessories when the rig isn’t running (lights, inverter, device chargers…emergency power for a chair lift at Mt. Bachelor, etc.) In a dual battery setup, the batteries can be connected in series or in parallel. Batteries in series will have the negative of the first battery connected to the positive of the second battery. Batteries in parallel will have positive from the first battery connected to positive to the second battery, same with the negatives.[ www.batterystuff.com/kb/articl… ](#)

Unless you drive your rig every day, and a fair distance at that, your alternator may not be up to the task of keeping the system fully charged. I’m told this is particularly a problem when an owner is an old man who just takes his rig out for long-distance adventures occasionally, and the rest of the time just drives to the liquor store. (Fact.) I have also been told old ladies are harder on electrical systems since their trips tend to be shorter, less frequent, and slower to boot. (I have no idea if that is true or not…)

To solve this problem you need to keep a battery maintainer connected to your rig. Here’s where this “interesting shit” actually gets interesting. You have to pay attention to the type of batteries you have installed. There are three types, Lead-Acid¹, AGM, and Lithium. If you have two batteries of different types (I have AGM and Lithium) you need to buy a maintainer that can handle both types. Put the maintainer in Lithium mode and connect the jumpers to the terminals on the Lithium battery. You’re all set. (Note: don’t let this deter you from making those daily trips to the liquor store…)

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# 157

Sometimes I laugh and cry at the same time. I’m going to take that as a healthy thing. It’s probably better than crying. If you are just crying, you probably have given up. If you are just laughing, you probably haven’t embraced the depth of what is confronting you.

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Tire Rotation Schedule & Tracking

Toyota Tacoma - New Tires Installed at 127,149 miles.

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			137,000
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			182,000
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			187,000
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Naturally, this will be updated from time-to-time. I realize this may seem a bit neurotic, but trust me, it’s also fun.

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# 156

I have been told by certain people that I lack “assertiveness” (Oddly enough this corresponds to Grammarly’s interpretation of my writing.) In fairness to myself, I find it necessary to point out what I consider to be a truism, that is: “Genius hesitates.”¹

Albert Einstein in his seminal 1905 paper on Quanta, considered to be the birth certificate of Quantum Mechanics, began his famous paper with the words: “It seems to me…”

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My Grammarly Score

I’ve been using Grammarly for the last 15 weeks (the free version). It analyzes your writing and makes suggestions for improvement, including spelling corrections. Grammarly recently sent me some “insights.” They are quite interesting.

Productivity

I have been more productive than 80% of Grammarly users.

Mastery

I have been more accurate than 60% of Grammarly users.

Vocabulary

I have used more unique words than 65% of Grammarly users.

Tones

• Confident 33%
• Informative 33%
• Formal 32%
• Assertive 1%
• Skeptical 1%

These statistics are based on an analysis of 94,549 words.

Looking over the numbers, several interesting things pop out. My “productivity” is higher than I would have expected. Frankly, I don’t think I write that much, put another way, I would like to write more. On the other side of the coin, My “vocabulary” and “mastery” aren’t all that impressive. I suppose being over 50% is better than being under 50%…

The most revealing statistics are the “tones.” My level of “confidence” is pretty low. I knew that. Along with “assertive,” I suppose this means I lack a fair amount of self-confidence. On reflection, I think that is a bit misleading. I try hard not to use a tone that tells people what they should think or how they should behave. I believe measuring those characteristics accurately would be beyond Grammarly’s ability without perhaps having a complete psychological profile of me at its disposal. (I admit using the word “perhaps” in the previous sentence would tend to lower my assertiveness score — there you go.)

Note to the Reader

The paid version of Grammarly (which I do not use) makes rewrite suggestions that can extend from whole sentences to whole paragraphs. That’s wonderful (maybe…) if you want to impress your teacher or professor, but that’s not why I write. I write because I enjoy the process and also because I think writing — for better or worse — should be an activity that reflects who you are, rather than who a machine thinks you should be.

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# 155

“Thank you.”

At least for me, the previous five entries have provided terrific inspiration. The trick is to revisit these words often and allow them to ingrain themselves into my practice. I have every intention of doing just that, to the best of my ability.

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# 154

“Keep going.”

Find something you like doing and keep doing it. Do it every day. Do it even if you aren’t particularly excited about it that day. Your reward is in the doing. It could be that today is not your day, but that’s okay, there is always tomorrow. Being the best is not the prize you are trying to obtain. Being the best you can be is the prize you are trying to obtain. That only comes with practice. Ask anyone who is the “best” at something why they do it and they will tell you it’s not out of a desire to be the best, I believe they will tell you it is out of a desire to do what they love.

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# 153

“Be kind to yourself.”

Give yourself some grace. Allow yourself to be forgiven when things don’t go quite as you had planned. My goal is to write, I don’t get discouraged when my writing is shit. I may never write like a New York Times columnist, but that’s okay because I’m writing like me.

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# 152

“Track your results.”

It doesn’t get any more simple than that, and the tracking does not have to be complicated. Simply clear your mind of success or failure, and write down what you did today. Don’t judge, just record. Judging will deter you. After a while the recording will become a reward in itself.

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# 151

“Build a routine.”

Someone recently asked me, “how do you have the discipline to write every day?” It is true routines are “built.” To begin building, the most important component is not caring about the result. Especially when the result is not what you hoped for. Make the point of what you are doing, simply the doing and nothing more. The love of what you are doing will emerge and the result will follow. The love of doing creates the discipline.

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# 150

The next five entries were inspired by the author Brianna Wiest.

“Start slow and small.”

Building on small successes is the most reliable way to reach a goal. Do what your goal dictates and do it every day despite what you may perceive as the quality of the result. If a small result emerges, celebrate it.

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# 149

Do I wish that I always followed my own advice?

Yes…

Am I successful at doing so?

No…

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# 148

Yes, we have much to teach our children, but we have much to learn from them also…

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# 147

Instagram isn’t fun, it’s work. Facebook isn’t fun, it’s work. X isn’t fun, it’s work.

Fun is a state of mind. That doesn’t take much work at all…

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# 146

It has been said that cats are not trainable. I can’t confirm or deny that hypothesis; however, I do know that I am trainable. My cat will not take water from his water dish anymore. He insists I lift him onto the counter in the bathroom so he can drink from the faucet. It makes me smile every time we do this dance. I’m quite sure it gives him as much pleasure as it gives me, after all, few humans are trainable.

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January Books

My reading goal for this year is six books a month. I’m off to a good start, I made my goal for January. Here are January’s books.

Title: 101 Essays that will Change the way You Think
Author: Brianna Wiest

It’s not a tremendous read, but it is a thoughtful one. I did take away some ideas for my Year of Living Thoughtfully Project, so all things considered, it was worth the time investment. I suppose one of the more important ideas I extracted from the book is the author’s notion that “thought creates reality.” When you think about it, it’s hard to deny that notion — especially since we have seen that played out so conspicuously (and negatively) in our social sphere these last few years… From a personal perspective, my thoughts have led me to take on projects (like the one mentioned above) and one I have in the wings for next year, so there you go.

Title: Bookbinding A How-To Guide
* Author:* E.P. Carter

This book talks about my dream job. It’s the inspiration for my plan to hand-bind my poetry for my children. There’s a trade school in Boston that teaches this art. It would be fun to establish a school for this in Bend Oregon, if I were, oh, let’s say, 40 years younger… I would skip the clay tablets and pressed papyrus scrolls and focus on hand-sewn and leather-bound varieties of books, FYI.

Title: The Slickrock Desert
* Author:* Stephen W. Hinch

A terrific read. I loved it. This book is worth reading every time before going into the Utah wilderness or the Four Corners area. I loved the story about the establishment of the Grand Staircase Escalante Nation Monument. President Clinton established the monument, but the proposal sat on his desk, unread and mostly ignored until Chelsea saw the proposal on his desk and told him “You have to do something about this!” Children are so wonderful.

Title: The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy
Edited By: John Brehm

Not surprisingly, none of my poems showed up in this collection (that’s a joke). As poetry books go, I love most that I have run into, this one was top drawer. It is simply a collection of poems with no annoying commentary. There is an interesting introduction by the author, and at the end of the book, he says a few words about each poet. This is a book you can pick up from time to time and peruse easily and fruitfully. It is the inspiration for my “64 Poets Project” that I plan to undertake next year.

Title: Novelist as a Vocation
* Author:* Haruki Murakami

My main reason for reading this book was to discourage myself from thinking I could write a novel… Sorry to say, it did not discourage me from writing (stuff like this). I love to write. It doesn’t matter if you don’t do it well, what matters is that you do it. The same is true for all activities I should think. If there is something you love to do, it doesn’t matter if you are good at it or not, just do it (to steal a phrase). Back to writing, we need more writers in the world, and people willing to read. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X don’t count as writing, sorry.

Title: White Holes
* Author:* Carlo Rovelli

There is real science in this book, but more importantly, perhaps is the need to use your imagination to grasp the subject. Even if you are a trained scientist with a firm grip on the equations of General Relativity (I’m not describing myself) you still have to stretch your imagination to see how the pieces fit together. I have a small notion of what Rovelli is talking about. The following does not do his little book justice, but I’m going to throw this at you anyway: There is no solid agreement in the scientific community on this topic, but Rovelli has convinced me, that if you were to travel through a Black Hole, you would emerge in another time and place after having exited a White Hole. In other words, these two features of our Universe are conjoined and work in concert with one another. The only problem is no one has found a white hole (this is me talking) largely because they exist in a spatial and temporal plane that we (humans) can’t observe. Now go smoke some pot. (Side note: The Tralfamadorians understand all of this very well, as clearly insinuated by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five. I will definitely be reading more Rovelli.

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# 145

Often the strength of an argument is better judged by the weakness of the counterargument.

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# 144

Life is precious. That is about as true a statement as one could make I suppose. There are examples of people not using the precious gift of life to make the world a better place there are those who by their actions and words are leading others off the path of making the world a better place. Reconciling this conflict is our greatest challenge. It begins by making our own lives reflect this awareness. That is accomplished by taking care of ourselves, which allows us to care for others. It doesn’t matter if it is in big ways or small. Even the smallest of ways is important.

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# 143

Occasionally I ask myself: what have I done that may cause others to want to avoid me, that may make them want to seek shelter from me? The notion that could not happen is of course preposterous. We harm someone every day, even if it is only slight, even if it is not to someone else but to ourselves. I believe we can seek comfort in acknowledging this, it can also free us to do better tomorrow.

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A Brief Respite From Yesterday’s Promise

Yesterday I said I would refrain as much as possible from engaging in political argument. I’m now breaking that promise. (But I hope not to make this a habit.)

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments on why former President Donald Trump participated in an insurrection and whether or not states have the ability to decide the question of who can appear on their ballot.

The Supreme Court seems reluctant to render a decision on behalf of the plaintiff (The State of Colorado). The following arguments appear to be ones that will weigh heavily into the Court’s final decision:

• Amendment 14, Section 3 Doesn’t apply to former Presidents running for a second term.
• Amendment 14, Section 3 There is a difference, between “Officer” and “Office.” The Presidential “Office” does not make the holder an “Officer.”
• Amendment 14, Section 3 Prohibits states from weighing in on presidential elections without express legislation from Congress giving them that authority.
• Amendment 14, Section 3 States do not have a role in determining presidential candidates, that process is administered by the political parties themselves. It is a “national” process.
• Amendment 14, Section 3 A candidate can not be called an insurrectionist unless convicted of that crime in Federal Court. (The defendant did not agree with this notion because Presidents and former Presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution. This is a proposition not yet legally decided. Based on a now two-day-old Circuit Court decision, that proposition seems unlikely to be upheld.)

All of this is nothing more than an elaborate dance around the issue in question. The issue at hand: Did former President Trump participate in an insurrection? If it were determined that he did, then he is excluded under Amendment 14, Section 3. That determination is the only job of the Supreme Court. Their desire to find an off-ramp to this issue that would allow them to weigh in without determining what exactly constitutes insurrection is a dramatic failure by our highest court in the land.

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