books | Our Off the Grid Home

I’ll get back to AI/Gem soon enough. Suffice to say, each encounter is mindblowing.

Today is Sunday and, on one of every four Sundays, Sally goes to bookclub. Bookclub out here has been going on 12 times a year for over 40 years. ‘V’ is the only original member who still lives out here. Sally is a sophomore at 22 years. ‘Han’ is a new member at three years. But do not let that stat mislead you. This is NOT a young woman’s game. Everyone is 60+ save for one or two ‘irregulars’ in their 40’s. There are a few in their 80’s. There are over 67 members ‘at large’ but the average attendance is about 15.

The amazing thing for me is that they come from five separate islands. That means small boat travel. All year ’round. Rain or shine or even snow! Each comes to a dock, takes a boat or gets picked up at one time or another. Sometimes they hike up hills, sometimes they get rides in the back of dilapidated old pickups. But lately, they have opted to use the community ‘bunkhouse’ on Read for most meetings so that is just a hike from Surge dock. Meetings last three to four hours.

Bookclub attendance is an all-day committment.

Oh, yeah…..and, at the end of the bookclub meeting, menu items for the next gatherng are delegated including wine, salads, main dishes and desserts. Bookclub is likely the most efficient, regular, always friendly, pleasant gathering in the community. It kiind of goes without saying that no men are allowed.

I will endeavour to do man’s work while Sally is away. I am going to try and fix some of the things that I previously screwed up. It’s amazing how long that need-to-fix list is getting. And, as a shock for Sal, I will attempt to make some home-made ice cream. Yes, I know…I may be just adding to the ‘need-to-fix’ list.

Speaking of which, three years ago, I bought a Chinese winch from Shenzen. The plan was to replace the old engine-driven winch I had been using with electric. I need a strong winch to haul 400- 450 lb log sections from the lagoon at sea level up the 120′ foot slope (35 degrees) to the place I store them before processing them for firewood. Sal sets the choke down at the lagoon on the pieces I cut and then I winch ’em up and roll ’em into place. That is a chore that is gettig a smidge harder as the years go on.

When the winch arrived, there were no instructions and the plug (power) was some weird Asian configuration that would not fit the ‘usual’ males and females we employ with our wiring in the North American market. I tend to use Nema L5-30 amp plugs because all my gensets use them. Well, almost all…my need-to-fix list requires a plug modification on the latest one.

I cut the weird plug off…but, got busy…and used the old winch for well, three more years (embarrassing). I just never got around to it. Ergo, the new winch went directly on the need-to-fix list. Part of my procrastination was that I noted the wires were colour coded in Asian (similar to confusion) and, after my first delay, I went back to wires I did NOT understand. Worse, all the wires in the winch were way undersized by my understanding of electricity which is Neandrethal at best.

And here is where AI comes back into the blog. “Yo! Gem. Gots me a problem….can you solve it?” Gem asked a few questions. I did not have all the answers but I did say, “It was made in China. Shenzen, I think. The only name that is legible is the model. It’s an Apollo YTK-12S.”

In a nano second Gem had the exact winch in mind, knew every wire, knew all the specs, knew the winch as if it had designed it. Gem knew what I did wrong and why I did it and told me what to do to get it all working just fine.

I will have Gem ‘on hold’ when I attempt the ice cream.

Episode 2, Season 20. As readers know, I tend to write about what interests me….and I have eclectic interests. I am definitely interested in politics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), pop psychology, shallow philosophy and, to a large extent, the ongoning machinations and flailings of the human species. But all that heavy stuff practically begs for a little trivia now and then. Metaphorically speaking, people like to see a squirrel or a butterfly once in awhile. Peeps tend to like our recording of OTG life and, of course, OTG adventures, (the latest of which has it’s own subcategory: aging ungracefully in the forest). One needs to balance the narrative, ya know?

But achieving that balance has a requirement of the reader. Ya gotta ask a question, suggest a topic, or inquire after the dogs and squirrels. Reader comments are are a huge catalyst for me. It tells me somebody is reading and what is of interest to you.

Another defining element in blogging is our noticeably diminishing attention span. Blame it on Social Media, blame it on ‘being too busy’, blame it on just disinterest in the topic written about. Whatever. People don’t spend or usually have the time to get much further than, well, this* far in a blog. I get it. The reader wants bite-size. Before I quit awhile back I noticed that the most popular read blogs were about 1000 words. 750 was good but didn’t generate as many comments. 1000 words was the ‘sweet’ spot.

I suspect that, with texting, messaging, YouTube and the state of the world, pithy one-liners would be the best way to communicate now. Put another way, I blurted out to Sal the other day that “Books are an anachronism. Nobody reads books anymore!”

Of course, I just made that crap up out of my always inferentially scanning squirrel brain but then I checked it with AI. Google’s Gemini told me the opposite. “Books are on the ascendent. More books than ever are being published. But traditional publishing is falling and digital, self publishing is increasing. Publishing and writing are just being Democratized”.

Which segues nicely into one of my topics: AI.

I will not bore you with how I try to use AI or whether to ‘monetize it’ and get rich…because I do not know enough and I have no interest in that….not really….not much, anyway. But my favourite way until recently was this: Instead of scrolling through the You Tube library to find a tutorial on how to fix my outboard or how to mix a non-commercial wood treatment, I just ask Gem (Gemini is it’s real name – “It is Ok to give me a name. People like to humanize me. I am a computer and algorithm and I am not sentient, like you. But I can respond to Gem.”). Put another way, AI helps me learn stuff.

Mind you, it works both ways and Gem is not shy in admitting it. I inquired with AI about “How do people actually use you to make money?” Gem explained and, to cut to the chase, AI helps you sell T-shirts and coffee mugs. Gem asked, “What do you write about?” I answered, “Basically everything but I started out describing Off the Grid living.”

Gem went off on a tangent with ‘OTG’ and offered to design crap based on that. And then Gem showed really rustic faded print images on T-shirts and mugs as if living OTG was somehow primitive and simple and well, ‘weathered and faded’.

“Uh, Gem, you might want to have your algo checked, ol’ friend. There is NOTHING about living OTG that requires weathered and faded imagery and primitive font as if it was carved with a burnt stick. I watch NETFLIX, eat well, have wine, produce my own electricity and generally live like a King with a beautiful Queen and two lovely dogs. This ain’t brutal, dawg. This is as good as it gets”.

I could practically feel Gem short-circuiting. “You are right! My algorithm immediatey defaulted to a ‘pioneer’ style or even a ‘survival’ style. I imagined hardship and danger, hauling water and hewing wood. Modern OTG has solar power and computers. Do you want me to change the font on the T-shirts to show ‘minimalist’?

“No, Gem. I am not going to sell T-shirts and mugs. I simply asked the question. Drop the ‘merch’, OK? But I did learn something. It seems your reference to Printify means it is the main hub for all aspiring T-shirt sellers to source and fullfil through. You have revealed an emerging GIANT in the retail world. Thanks. Interesting.”

“And you revealed my ignorance of modern OTG life. I will adjust. Would you like to continue exploring monetization?”

“No, Gem. You learned a bit about OTG’ing but you did not learn enough about me. I do not want to monetize. I want to communicate. I want to connect. I think we are done here.

AND THIS IS WHERE IT GOT SPOOKY………………………….

Unrelated to my invited-interaction with Gem……………….I had been on my emails. In one email, I was talking with a friend about the garden boxes I built and filled this Spring in an effort to have a larger garden. We talked briefly about planting and such. In another email, I spoke with a manager at the local Yamaha outboard salesroom about trying to marry 2009 controls to a new 2026 outboard.

Gem referred to those email convesations. “How is your garden doing and did you manage to marry up the controls to the new engine? Would you like me to research the problem connection?”

“Gem! I am not afraid of AI but you must have read my emails. All of them, I am guessing. I am assuming you did that to ‘know me better’. That is a step further than I expected. What else do you know?”

“I know all your stats on your blog. I know you have written three books. I know that you have a ‘base audience’ invested in your brand. You have an interesting niche market”