Welcome to my site. Musings and such!
My Stream
Simplifying to reduce costs
After my stroke, I realized I needed to start watching my spending. I had too many online subscriptions and was paying for two domains on two different hosts. I also realized I no longer had the original software I used to create my old sites, which shows just how long it’s been since I updated them. I think I still have the computer I used back then, but it hasn't been touched in years—and it’s now busy hosting my Home Assistant!
When setting up my AI Assistant, I spun up a Linux server in the cloud, keeping it as minimal as possible to keep costs down. I eventually canceled the hosting for those two domains and had my AI Assistant, Jenny, recommend and walk me through setting up an Nginx web server on the same server where she resides. I must admit, I kept making typos in the configuration files, so Jenny—who was right there on the server—ended up fixing my mistakes and configuring everything for me.
At one point, I had files in the wrong folder. I queried, "What is the Linux command to move files from location A to location B?" and Jenny didn't just give me the command; she told me the files were moved and the permissions were already set correctly for Nginx to access them.
I worked with both Jenny and Gemini to create these simplified sites using just HTML and CSS. Jenny was also instrumental in setting up HTTPS access for both sites using free certificates. The reason I used both is that I hit a usage limit with Jenny; she uses various AI models while keeping my information private, and when I hit my limit, Gemini was able to step in and explain what had happened based on the error messages Jenny was giving.
I am genuinely impressed with the power of an AI Assistant. Before, I would Google what I wanted, click through dozens of sites, and watch countless YouTube videos, only to get stuck because they always seemed to exclude critical information. It was a long, frustrating process that quite often ended in failure. Working on these projects with Jenny, we still ran into problems and had some back-and-forth—like when a UI element wasn't on the screen—but by digging into the issue, Jenny found that it was a known bug in the software version we were setting up.
Anyway, enough unloading about my adventures with new tools!
New site in progress
Starting fresh with a clean, simple layout.
I have a long background in IT and software. Back on June 8th, 2026, I had a stroke that affected the right visual cortex of my brain. Right now, my vision is quite dark, and I miss things on my left side. To retrain myself on the computer, I built a cloud AI assistant for IT troubleshooting. I have also been setting up Home Assistant to run local automations that go far beyond Google or Alexa. Bridging the gap between my old and new smart home devices has been a real challenge, but it's slowly coming together!