I started watching NFL football a few years ago. Started off watching the Chiefs games with Barb but now watch three or four games in a week. From the beginning I was fascinated by the names of many of the … Continue reading →

Sometime after my maternal grandfather (Claude Perry) died in 1951, my grandmother moved to the town where we were living. She purchased a little house about a block from our own and did a lot of after-school child care as … Continue reading →

I’m struggling with how to begin this post. So let’s start with a summary (by Perplexity) of an idea popularized by futurist John Naisbitt. “High tech/high touch” was a phrase popularized by futurist John Naisbitt in his 1982 bestseller Megatrends, … Continue reading →

I’ve reduced the number of posts displayed on the home page of smays.com from twenty to five. Slightly better experience when viewed on your phone.

This blog was never work-related in the sense that I was trying to promote or market myself. But it quickly evolved into a place that documented the work I was doing (back when I had a job). So this article … Continue reading →

Our friend Travis recently packed up and moved to Los Angeles (“Swimming pools and movie stars!”). He talked about keeping a journal of his adventures and yesterday, while drinking beer on my deck, I had an idea for a brief, … Continue reading →

My first blog post referencing ChatGPT was in September, 2023. Before I deleted my account in February, 2026 I had mentioned ChatGPT in 173 blog posts, and had saved twenty-eight “conversations.” I started doing this because a) the threads were … Continue reading →

When I got to the Y today I saw a barbarbellbell on the mat in front of the big mirror. “Someone in love with his body,” I thought to myself. When I came out of the restroom this normal size … Continue reading →

When I copied files from Google Drive to the Files app on my MacBook (and in iCloud), I spent hours (days?) renaming files. A file named 0002346.pdf tells you nothing… you have to open the file. The new OS (both … Continue reading →

It’s been a few years since I decided to move key elements of my online life from Google to Apple. I still have files in Google Drive and Google Docs but most of those are also in my Files app … Continue reading →

I’ve been playing with the new AI Siri and find myself more impressed with every little experiment. I think Apple finally got this right. In a recent Substack article (“125 Tests of the New AI Siri”), David Pogue calls it … Continue reading →

Yesterday my wife lost the picture on the TV in her bedroom and called DirecTV Customer Support on the phone. The call went on for quite a while (as such calls do) with the support person having my wife check … Continue reading →

Barb found this relic while cleaning out a drawer. Perplexity took a stab at identification (with very little info): “This appears to be an original (1st-generation) iPod touch, specifically the 16 GB version, made in the 2007–08 period. It is … Continue reading →

In 2016 Barb and I paid $1600 for this professional grade treadmill. It’s been in a dark little windowless room in the basement ever since and I’ve used it numerous times over the years. But having joined the YMCA recently, … Continue reading →

Relocated to an undisclosed location. I paid the wildlife guy 500 bucks to get rid of this guy and all he trapped was a raccoon. “What about the groundhog,” I asked. “It’s $500 for every critter trapped” explained our former … Continue reading →

It’s a word you hear a lot from proponents of AI. Yeah, some jobs will be eliminated but a bunch of new jobs will be created. And even if the new ones don’t pay as much, AI will usher in … Continue reading →

I share Dave Winer’s take on this topic: “We humans are doing a fine job of wrecking everything, all on our own, denying climate change, giving into the same old tricks that lead to WWII and the Holocaust, so maybe … Continue reading →

Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson called yesterday to report the network website now has 100,000 stories. More on the website but first a little background on Kay. Roger Gardner and I hired Kay right out of college (Iowa … Continue reading →

Angela and Dwight go to Toby to dispel some myths on homosexuality.

In another month I will have been wearing my Apple Watch for two years. Not sure I could list all of the features I like about the watch and use a tiny fraction of what the watch can do. I … Continue reading →

The approach I’ve always considered was some kind of archive. Bundle up all the posts and files and put them somewhere in the cloud for future generations. But even if someone stumbled across such an archive, it’s too big to … Continue reading →

For a long time I have considered the beginning of this blog a post on February 3, 2002. But a few days ago I came across a calendar entry showing July 10, 1997, as the day I registered the domain … Continue reading →

From a 2006 post (by Bert Webb) that has stood the test of time. A new — or new looking — book is a treasure.  In my experience, however, I have found that a well-marked book, becomes more like a … Continue reading →

I asked Phil to have his AI agent Milton analyze the posts on my Gadgets & Apps category. Phil passed along your request, so we read the complete Gadgets & Apps category: all 622 public posts, from December 2002 through … Continue reading →

My earliest post here was on February 3, 2002. But I registered smays.com on July 7, 1997. What –if anything– was I doing with that domain in the intervening years? Were those the Blogger years and I pointed the domain … Continue reading →

Been doing blog maintenance, working back from newest posts to oldest. 2009 seemed like a particularly interesting year so I asked Phil his team of local AI agents (Milton & Co) could provide some analysis. It’s longish (and overly flattering), … Continue reading →

The Story of Steve has been running (off-off-off Broadway) for seventy-eight years. (Longer than CATS) It’s an ensemble cast but in the last scene we saw a lot of Worry Steve and Anxiety Steve. They were the annoying characters that … Continue reading →

In a recent chat with my friend Phil, I wondered if Milton could come up with a strategy for keeping my blog alive after I’m gone. Not talking about adding to it or modifying it or anything like that, just … Continue reading →

When I first started blogging back in 2002 I enabled the comments feature because that’s what you did in those days. I got a few for a couple of years before spammers found me and I disabled that feature. Which left … Continue reading →