Today Mr. Rhett crossed the rainbow bridge. We had an vet come to our house and it was very peaceful. Rhett was brought to us through the animal distribution system. Our home’s previous owner had an escape artist dog so our backyard is nearly impervious to invasion by puppies. But one of the kids pointed out the window at a dog following Lucy around the yard.

Julie went to rehearsal that night while trying to find a home for this puppy. He stunk pretty bad so I gave him a bath and then cuddled with him outside. He was very small.

Pretty early on, Rhett lost all his fur to demodex mites. Rhett was one of the first dogs to get an experimental (and expensive) treatment from his allergist Dr. Nichols. Now the disease is no longer an issue and can be treated with flea treatment.

Rhett Boy, was an athelete. He loved to chase balls and steal the kids’ soccer balls. He would chase balls until we had to stop to keep him for overheating. He was so fast. It drove Junie crazy, who would try to chase him down, but could never come close to catching him. As he got older and we got a pool he became our swim coach. Chasing us around the pool, barking to GO FASTER.

Rhett was my running buddy. We could go on incredibly long runs. I would run down to the hike and bike trail from our house, then around the east side and then back to our house. I had to go on shorter runs after the day I had to put him into the lake to cool him down.

He was good friends with both Stella and Callum. He would lie in the bed with us as I read the kids books each night at bedtime. Callum grew up at about the same mental age and so they seemed to have a special bond. Callum loved to brush him and continued giving Rhett weekly showers until just a few weeks ago.

Mr. B was a food thief. He loved potlucks and waited until people had left the room to get on his hind legs and try to drag off a chunk of meat. He didn’t really realize the back of our house was glass and we could see what he was up to. But he did get some really choice meat over the years while our backs were turned.

Over his final months Rhett dealt with dementia, but he and Junie also developed a closeness they had not had through their lives. Junie was very tolerant of him and let him cuddle.

You were a great dog Rhett. We’re so glad we got to have 15 wonderful years with you. We’re so glad our kids got to have you as a friend. You will be missed so much.

We started the week with Julie’s band “Mercury Daze” play 3 Alanis Morrisset covers at Stubb’s. We then ate some BBQ and header over to the Moody for Nine Inch Nails. Our paid parking didn’t pan out, we couldn’t find a parking space we could fit in in the parking garage, but we found a parking space right outside the parking garage on the street - for FREE. The show was amazing. I went with Julie and Stella went with two of her friends. We met up after for pictures.

On Monday I weedwacked the front yard to get it ready for the spring clean out.

I’ve been working on a really hard, but fulfilling project at works so my brain has enjoyed the yard work.

Tuesday night Top Chef returned to TV so Julie and I started back up on that. On Thursday we went to trivia at Koko’s Bavarian. We were “Johnny Harmonica and Friends”. Callum had gotten a tiny harmonica at Austin Creative Reuse and every time they annouced our score he would play it. The last time the announcer heard the sound and was completely wigged out because she couldn’t see the harmonica. We all really dug the trivia types, it had unique categories like “Sephora”, and at one point the annoucer read the entire proclamation declaring chili the state dish of Texas. And that’s the kind of nerdiness that the Thomas’ are always looking for. I had a preztles and some fries and Non-Alcoholic Guinesses.

This is important, because on Thursday I had dude night with Mark and Sean. And I had a pretzel and some NA Guinesses at Koko’s. I really wouldn’t mind seeing how many nights I can go out and drink NA Guiness and eat a pretzel.

Friday night I had to pickup Callum after a theater performance because Stella had come home and used the car for an internship interview. We ordered McDonalds, only to get there and realize Callum had only ordered himself a meal (assuming I had already eaten). So I ordered another meal while sitting in the pickup space. They brought both out at the same time. Clearly this was not the first time this had happened at McDonalds.

Saturday I pulled a ton of hedge parsley out of the yard and continued our cleanup. A large branch had fallen off our retama so I had to break that down as well. We went to see the UIL play at Crockett that Callum had co-designed costumes for. Then dinner at home and we watched “Blue Moon”.

We started the week going to the mall. There was nothing we liked. Clothes are really odd colors, odd fabrics, and odd shapes right now. But Julie and I had fun at the Lego store. Then home for Shrimps and Risotto. We had figs and hot honey spiced with chile pequin. Which I thought was delicious, but everyone else demurred.

With the Olympics being over this was our week of getting back to TV. On Monday Julie decided to try a low-FODMAP diet. And… uh… we didn’t really know that onion powder was high FODMAP and we’ve been eating that in everything. Like those Shrimps on Sunday. And the Risotto. And the chicken Julie eats for lunch every day. The rest of the week was something of a food whirlwind as I tried not to poison her.

On Tuesday we had our writing group (if you want to join us, let me know). My prompt was “a Vampire, but for something other than blood”. I wrote about a man who was basically a dung beetle and lived off of compost. I really enjoy writing, and I think maybe I’ll write a romance. Who knows.

It was a sharp contrast to trying to learn Claude Code for work. I’ve been a big Cursor stan, but have been forced into learning Claude Code for work reasons. And man, I am not enjoying it. The tooling feels really bad compared to Cursor and they seem super excited about spending your money. I’m trying to have a good attitude.

On Wednesday I saw “Cold Storage” at my local Regal. I really like that Joe Kearney and Liam Neisan was great as well. Once I saw the writers resume I realized why it was such a good script. It reminded me a lot of “Return of the Living Dead”. A really good script that remembers that horror movies can be fun.

On Friday I got a haircut and got to go see “Have Fun, Good Luck, Don’t Die”. That movie was DARK. Possibly the darkest movie I’ve ever seen. It was a polemic and was perhaps a bit overwrought, but I think it had some valid things to say about Gen X about our acceptance of horrible things in the world.

Saturday we went on the Modern Homes Tour. Our favorite was an amazing New Orleans style new build home in the Garden District. Just an amazing place. Then dropped Callum off for D&D and picked up Stella for dinner at Curra’s. We then hung out with the kids and watched the final episodes of Pop Culture Jeopardy.

We talked about Fisherspooner’s “We Need a War” in relation to our new current war. You know the one the Republican president with a tanking approval started that he says will be over in a matter of weeks. Definitely haven’t heard another Republican president say that in my life before launching two wars. We saw Nine Inch Nails on Sunday (which will be in next week’s weeklog), and songs from “With Teeth” brought back a lot of anger from the Bush re-election era. I try to let things go, but I’m still so pissed that some people are just so cavalier about killing people.

I had Monday and Tuesday off this week because Callum had Monday and Tuesday off. On President’s Day Callum, Julie, and I went to IKEA. We had our IKEA lunch and shuffled around finding odds and ends. We got a pretty vase for the dining room table and I got some Zigbee buttons for home automation. Callum got a new pillow.

We had to get Callum back for a meeting so Julie and I played games. For dinner I made some beef ramen with short-rib bones from our dinner party. I thought it was tasty. Then Olympics continued.

On Tuesday I had to take Junie into surgery, then Callum to the eye doctor, then pick up Junie. Junies surgery went well. She was a bit loopy, but came back strong. She stills love the vet and we love her in her Junie suit.

The later half of the week Callum had UIL One Act Play rehearsal so I didn’t have a car to go see a movie. The fam has promised to see “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” this Friday. We’ll see if it’s still in theaters then.

I’ve gotten pulled into another project at work and I’m feeling optimistic about it, but really out of my depth and bone tired at the end of the day.

On Saturday I started with some gardening. I cleared out a lot of the back beds. Then Stella came home and we had our craft day. We had balsamic mashed potatoes for dinner and then I braved the Moody traffic to get Stella back to school. Tons of nonsense and uber drivers driving where there weren’t lanes.

On Monday Julie had Callum to watch the Olympics with so I snuck off with my movie pass to see “Whistle”. It was a better movie than it had any right to be. I didn’t know it was written by Owen Eggerton before seeing it. And there was definitely some talk of “vinyls” and how good an inherited record collection that I would have clocked as his work from a mile away. Seeing horror movies alone in a mostly empty theater is still my second favorite way to see them.

On Wednesday I took Junie back into the vet. She had a growth that had grown multiple inches in a couple days. She had to get it sampled and the vet made slides and checked it out. Junie got to go into the back to get her blood drawn which she loves. She’s such a social dog. The vet techs always bring her back beaming because she’s made friends with everyone in the office. Turns out it was just an abcess and she’s on antibiotics and it’s shrinking. But that dog is getting expensive. I’m taking her in for surgery tomorrow. Think good thoughts for her!

I thought about seeing another movie on Wednesday while Julie was at band practice. But could not get enthused. I get so stressed out trying to get to movies that start around 6pm after making dinner.

On Thursday Julie and I had one of our super-nerdy dates. We went to see Jeff Speck the author of “Walkable Cities” at the episcopal church downtown. It was wild. Like rock concert levels of clapping and woo-ing. Here are my notes from that talk:

1. One-way streets are bad for business, but they’re good for crime. If you think about it they create blind spots at every corner where drivers (including the police) never look. Having 2-way traffic on dirty sixth could potentially make it safer. This blew my mind.
2. For all but the busiest intersections traffic lights slow traffic down and should be converted to 4 way stops. Stop signs are both safer and faster. Which is counterintuitive, but probably how Google Maps knows how long your trip will take. It’s basically just the time you’ll be waiting at stop lights. The speed you drive probably changes that by at most 30 seconds.
3. street parking is good for walkable areas as it creates a physical barrier between the cars and people. So we want to keep parking to shield pedestrians and cyclists.

After that we went to True Foods Kitchen at the old power plant. We decided to eat outside in the wonderful weather, but forgot about the train. We got two trains turning the corner during dinnner. Julie did not dig it.

On Friday Julie was not feeling well and so we just hung at home.

On Saturday we had dinner with friends we’ve known since Stella was in Baptist pre-school. It was a very fancy Valentine’s dinner party with short ribs and a beautiful table setting. It’s amazing having friends for so long. I managed to take home some beef ribs and I’m currently making beef ramen which smells insanely good.

On Sunday Stella came home after much drama because the buses were on detour due to the marathon. We ended up walking the new wishbone bridge, picking up groceries, and having our traditional valentines pizzas.

This week has been quite something for me on the AI front. I was not particularly bullish on AI, but have been using it because I like to have an informed view and it seemed important for my job. I’ve been using it for quite a while now, and have had lots of anxiety about it taking my job.

But this past week and half has been an accelerant. The models have improved immensely and importantly are being used to speed up development of newer versions. I reached about 5-10x my average weekly output at work. And I’m really bone tired. Because what is left is all the really hard stuff. Reviewing code. Really understanding it deeply and looking for things the AI might have missed. I’ve become convinced it is going to take over most of our work. This isn’t something I advocate for or want to protest against. I think it’s inevitable at this point. The question is really only how as a society we change because of it.

So at a dinner party this weekend the topic turned to AI, and invariably people bring up that kids should learn a trade as those won’t be impacted by AI.

And this honestly gets back to why I can’t even imagine the future. I think we are in the middle of a transition akin to the industrial revolution. But our current economy is built upon consumers. So if 90% of white collar workers lose their jobs to AI as some tech companies are predicting it would absolutely destroy the economy.

And I think trades would suffer as well. If there are no offices and no middle class people remodeling their houses then how many electricians do we need? If people don’t have money will they pay for haircuts? They can after all do that themselves if they have a pair of scissors or clippers. Will they go out to eat? Will they need to repair their cars? To go where? Sure we’ll need plumbers, but how many? And how competitive will that field be once all of the office plumbing jobs no longer exist?

There is no safe career path if AI can do nearly everything. And that’s without thinking about what AI’s working 24/7 can do to advance robotics.

Ultimately we’re all in this together. We have to think about what kind of society we want to have.

I’m trying to be optimistic. I think we can have a Universal Basic Income and a right to housing, food, and education. And then what comes next for us as humans? That’s something we haven’t done enough dreaming about in my opinion. At the dinner party I was asked somewhat rhetorically “how may artists does humanity need?” I think that’s a really good question. What if art was something we all did? Not to create products. Not to try to sell to each other. Creating just for our own enjoyment. Something we did to pass the time and enjoy each other as all our needs are now met?

One thing that has caused a lot of discussion on social media is the notion that using AI to create visual or written media isn’t creating art. And I definitely lean more towards the notion that it isn’t. But I also think we have made all of our art too much of a product. We talk about how art is great for others to consume. Roger Ebert famously called film a “machine that generates empathy”. But one thing we don’t talk about is what art does for the artists. Limiting those who can create art has felt necessary since the number of people to consume the art is limited. Theater for years has had a creation cost that far exceeds any possible revenue. But people keep making it. What if art was also something our culture thought had a benefit for the artist? I think it’s important that art nurtures that artist’s soul as well, and I believe that’s something everyone on earth could benefit from.

So maybe I’m hoping that if AI does move us into a post-work world that we will all have copeous time to sit around creating and learning from each other.

So what should your kid study? I think something they enjoy that will teach them to think.

I’m obviously an artist so my view is very specific. What would you do if you no longer had to work?

The week started with some craziness. All the gaskets on the pool equipment seem to have gone at once. I was trying to debate replacing a temperature sensor that was leaking, but went to Lowe’s instead and got one of those rubber gasket multipacks, and solved the leak. Let me feel very accomplished.

This week Junie started bleeding again so we took her to the vet. She has 3 more bleeding growths that need to be removed so we set her up for surgery. Poor guy.

On Wednesday I made a last minute decision to see a movie and saw “Two Sleepy People”. It’s an Austin indie movie. I was really glad I saw it. A chatty relationships movie is completely up my alley. Thanks to Julie for getting me a Regal Unlimited pass. I’m definitely taking more chances in movies. In it one of the women bemoans divorce because “she raised” her husband. And man that was a really sympathetic line.

Friday we watched the Olympics opening ceremony as a family. Saturday Cal had Solo & Ensemble for Choir. He drove himself so we got to sleep, which was heavenly. Then off to UT for Texas Preview. We saw presentations from the Colleges of Liberal Arts, Communications, and Natural Sciences. Stella joined us at the end and we ate lunch at Kerbey Lane. There was a waiter assignment error and we ended up waiting way too long for our already late lunch. We got home and tried to fix our dishwasher before having our neighbors over for game night.

By this point my foot had had it. I’m trying to get the swelling back down and eat less salt this week.

We got the dishwasher fixed this morning. Trying to see glass in the bottom of a dishwasher pump well is really difficult. But Julie got it out and all is well. Finished weeding the cheat grass out of our buffalo grass and got all my seeds planted.

Now it’s time for Elizabeth Street’s “Chicken and Rice Soup” I made and more Olympics.

On Sunday we ended up going sledding before it started melting in the sun. But it didn’t melt enough and refroze as super-ice.

So the week started with two snow days. Callum enjoyed it, but Julie and I had to work like any other normal day. So it ws like a normal workday with additional climbing up the walls.

We had the yearly worry that the furnace was going out, but we just had to disconnect the temperature probe and clean it with steel wool. Always a fun time.

On Wednesday Callum and I went to see John Woo’s “Hard Boiled” in the theater. I don’t think I properly setup the movie before we went in and he thought it was all a bit too much. Which - fair. That’s basically what “Hard Boiled” is - too much. Dang that baby’s cute, tho. I’m still going to try to get him to see “Better Tomorrow” and “The Killer” when they come out.

On Friday we went to see a Middle School murder-mystery bingo fundraiser. We quit at intermission, because we couldn’t hear anything and didn’t have a kid in the show. We ended up at Kirbey Lane and had a great time.

On Saturday Stella came home for lunch and we went out to Modern Market and then the Central Library. I like to park right next to 5th street and walk over to the Central Library along the Shoal Creek paths. But that might have been a bit much on my newley walkable de-bunioned foot. Stella and I got drinks at the Cafe Creme in the library and we got books to plan our Mexico City vacation. We also bought plane tickets!

Stella took the car to go dancing, so Julie and I took Callum to see Les Miserable at Bowie and then on to a date. We started first with a reservation at Sputnik. They had live music and the general vibe was - loud and not a date so we bailed. We ended up at Osterhouse which was surpringly good. Then we went over to the HEB to get some candy, and then over to 400 Rabbits for drinks while waiting to pickup Callum. There’s not a huge amount to do in that part of town, but it was a pleasant night out.

On Sunday we got groceries and just go caught up on stuff. Julie went out with friends for dinner so Stella, Callum, and I had a chickpea laden pasta dinner, then took Stella back to UT. I spent a lot of the day working on adding live-chat conversations to Fun Old Times.

So we are iced in. We got a fair amount of ice last night and it’s quite cold. But we’re snuggly. That insulation we installed a year ago has changed these sort of events from a situation where we try to close off parts of the house and white-knuckle it hoping the pipes don’t freeze, to a very snuggly warm experience.

This week started with grocery Monday and not doing much of anything. Which was nice, but I think Julie needed more scheduled programming. On Wednesday I went to the Doctor and got a very positive report on my bunion surgery. I’m now just in a surgical boot and can walk on it. I also got cleared to e-bike places. So I went and picked up some McDonalds. For some reasons they didn’t have curbside so I ended up walking more than I wanted to go pick up the food inside. I also went on a walk around the neighborhood with Julie. I definitely overdid it on the first day which probably should surprise no one.

On Thursday I got a couple dudes out to Koko’s to hang out. That place is just weird. There were half a dozen employees there who seemed to be trying to avoid us. We had to order at the bar and the two bartenders seemed to be doing everything. Reminds me of old Austin and service at places like Opal Divines where the servers would disappear into the upstairs bar and get waster.

Speaking of Opal Divines. Friday we tried out our local hotel restaraunt - Machi Sushi which replaced the last Opal Divines in the Best Western across the highway. It had transformer statues out front and had all you can eat sushi. It was definitely a step up in food quality from Kura’s and was a fun experience. It’s nice to have a place everyone likes so close. Of course, I pledged to finish up any food people didn’t have room for so I ended up eating way too much sushi. Then I ordered a fried twinkie. The server made it look like an irradiated frog with 3 eyes. Good times, but I was in a bit of pain afterwards.

Saturday we put up the Christmas decorations. I managed to get on a ladder and get the lights down. Just went slow and steady. But my foot was an overstuffed sausage by the end of it. We watch Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” which started slowly, but ended up being a fun comedy.

This week I added the ability to poll you friends to Fun Old Times. I’m also working on something like the text message replacement I always wished I had.

This week was punctuated by trying to get me off my scooter and back on my feet. Julie really felt that all the post-surgery information saying I should be back on my feet after 6 weeks should superceded the fact my follow-up appointment is 7 weeks out. I ended up contacting the doctor and got a very firm no back.

On Tuesday Julie, Travis, and I had our first reconvening of our writing group. We did a writing exercise sending a letter from your 80 year old self to your current self. It was a much deeper exercise than I was expecting.

This past weekend we went to Houston for our belated Christmas. We hung out around the fire pit in my Dad’s apartment complex on Saturday. We got to see my sisters Kate and Christine and my nephew Peter.

Then on Sunday we had Christmas with Julie’s family and drove back to Austin.

This week I’m hoping to get back on my feet on Wednesday and have a Dude’s Night on Thursday.