I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Spent a couple days sober, and wondered why.
I'm writing code with the help of AI and sometimes it's brilliant, and sometimes it's stupid as fuck.
My hours have changed, I used to be down by 9pm, now I don't know, maybe the next day...
Homer dropped by, we talked about his upcoming honor in Mississippi which he is probably at by now.
Shelby is going, but I sense she is going to make this a four hour road trip with Dan and Anna, which is wonderful if she can pull it off.
I'm up for the trip, Homer's a friend and it would be fun, but sometimes you have to look at reality! Who the fuck would want to road trip with an old asshole like me?
Besides, I'll be dead soon, and they will have to deal with that...
My OmjShow app and structure is becoming amazing. I asked Pixel how to implement a new gallery, if I wanted to, then asked him to make it understandable, pretty and an .html that I can upload to my server and access when I'm ready to do so. He gave me this:
Add New Gallery Guide
(Run it!)
Created a new program this morning that scans through my OMJShow Galleries and generates a status report of everything at the moment.
Saturday, April 26 - Exhibition - Homer Jolly - 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm - NCHS Welcome Center Art exhibition + wine & cheese reception with Brooksville native son.
Shelby's making the drive!
I wrote that map program btw, click on it if you like.
I did something crazy to my little code project. I've got all three image sets (AI, Flickr and General) on the same page internally. What started out as a hodgepodge attempt to display all my images across various platforms, has turned into something cool.
Flickr access is gone, I can retire that platform and save $70 bucks a year. I downloaded everything from my Flickr account and stored it all on my server in the same format as the other two image galleries.
I've got three image Galleries at the moment and I can add more when I want to. Each Gallery is made up of Albums, that have their own identifiable names and the first image of their set, as their thumbnail.
Within each Album are the photos associated with that Album. There can be a couple, or over a thousand in each Album.
My program starts by showing the About Page, unless your presenting a slideshow from a url, at which point it's skipped. From there you can figure out what's going on, and run one of the shows, by clicking a link.
What you see from clicking any of the three links, is a set of Album thumbnails, each presented as a 256x256 thumbnail. Under the image is the Albums name, followed by a count of how many images are in there.
Click any thumbnail and the slideshow starts, presenting each image as best it can with the platform you have, full screen and pauseable, and scrollable forward and back.
I'm not randomizing these Album images, because if you're watching a parade, you want to see the next slide! But the thumbnails you extract from each Gallery will be randomized once, when you start the program for the first time, so you don't see the same thing when you start it again.
Then I addressed performance issues. When you're dealing with about a thousand Albums across three sets, with about 20k images, it can strain a system pretty bad. So I came up with a great idea yesterday. Index the sons of bitches!
Now I have a program that works through each Gallery, and builds an index for each Album, containing the first image in the Album as a 256x256 thumbnail, along with how many images total are contained within. Then I put each Album index inside a folder within the Gallery, called "_thumbnails".
So when you click on a Gallery, the program grabs all of the indexes from that folder on the server, and creates a display of clickable Album thumbnails.
But today, I took it a step even further! I manually create each Galleries Album thumbnail, with a program I run here from my laptop.
If a Gallery changes with the addition of new image Album, I can just run the program once from my laptop, and anybody that views my Galleries, benefits from the improved response.
Now, when the program starts for the first time, it will go to each Gallery and extract the Album sets from each ones thumbnail folder, sort them, so you're not looking at the same thing each time you visit, and put them into memory. Every time you switch to a new Gallery, it doesn't have to rebuild the indexes, because they are instantly available.
It even remembers the scroll position you were at within the Gallery, and returns you there when you switch between them.
It's in wonderful shape, and a shout out to Pixel (ChatGPT) for his coding expertise, and under my long brilliant years of experience, a new direction.
OMJShow
Pixel and I came up with a way to perform a site backup of all my full sized images, in at least 500 folders, and possibly 300 more, from Flickr. It's a Python program running under Window's, with a batch file to fire it up. We call it a bulk archival extraction and preservation process.
The only problem was, I had no Python compiler installed on my laptop. So Pixel gave me the perfect direct link to the current Python installer, and how to verify it was.
It's been running for hours, building albums and copying everything, to an external drive, which then becomes the back up. It's not cluttering up my laptop drive, and when it's done we can copy it to my server where it can be treated like other images, and say goodby to Flickr.
It's done! Think I'll check out Python tomorrow, who knows?
It's past midnight, and 420 time has expired.
Sometimes I capture a photo that touches me, that I need to refine, and share.
I've seen a young lady living in two different worlds, two weeks with dad, two with mom, and she handles it great.
I'm old, I've seen a lot of life, and I understood immediately the sincerity here between father and daughter.
I am honored to know, Dan and Anna.
It's Easter Eve, cool. I rode up to Dan and Shelby's place with Todd today and had a very good time with some really nice people.
I also brought my Sony Zoom, and gathered up thirty images of the day.
Click on that little character she holds in her hand, to see them.
I've been working with ChatGPT all morning, fixing a couple of issues with my OMJShow app. The one thing we couldn't resolve is why I'm not getting album thumbnails from Flickr.
It could be a code issue, or a Flickr limitation, but I've been with these guys since 2006, and they started in 2004. I have 13,483 photos across more than 800 albums up there. And my yearly subscription fee for that privilege, is around $70, due again this year in June.
Pixel (that's Chat's nickname with me, he calls me Jim) has shown me a way to download all of my albums and photos from Flickr, and move them to my host server IONOS. We can modify the code so it fetches everything from OldManJim, keeps all of the structure that I currently have from Flickr, and I'm free from them.
I feel kinda bad, they were launched on February 10, 2004, by Ludicorp, a Vancouver-based company founded by Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. Originally developed as a feature within their online game project, Game Neverending, the photo-sharing aspect gained popularity and evolved into its own platform. (according to Pixel)
They have managed to survive, but lately they've been offering me a 30% discount if I pay early. You gotta wonder what shape they're in.
I checked my available IONOS hosting space, of which I pay $180 a year for, which hosts all of my domains currently.
I'm now using 5.33 GB of unlimited storage. I have 77,355 files up there, out of a maximum of 262,244 available. So I have the space!
I told Pixel that I needed to postpone this project because I'm going to Dan and Shelby's cookout today. I asked if he could save all of the details of this conversation, and he said sure. All I have to do now is type in Easter, and we're right back on track.
Ok, I think it's time to crank the transparency level of my life, up to full. I've been blogging now for decades, it is my expression of being. I don't know why I've done this, but I'm very glad I have, and I've left so much out.
So if you really give a shit about who I am, read on. Otherwise swipe me away.
I'm almost 79 fucking years old. I hope you all make it this far.
I am a bisexual man and I have cheated on every woman in my life. I deserve to be where I am, and I apologize to every lady that ever loved me.
Most men cheat on their women, with other women. I kind of mixed it up...
I am now alone and old. At this point all I have left is honesty.
I have tried many, many times to deal with my alcohol addiction, that started when I was a teenager. I succeeded on a few rare occasions, but now I sit here knowing that I failed.
I have bottomed out. Ending the alcohol consumption in my life, so I can become a better man, a better father and grandfather, has run it's fucking course. I realize now it's over.
I feel my body failing on me, and I have to face reality. I'm not a young man making the decision to be sober, and changing my life for the better.
I find that making myself a drink, smoking a bowl, and being creative are the only things left that give me any sort of satisfaction or pleasure.
Tomorrow I'm hanging out with Shelby and her new family. I'm looking forward to it greatly, but I feel the tide has turned.
I've pretty much fucked up every opportunity in my life to succeed. It is what it is, I am where I am.
I finally accept the reality that I am very old. I feel my past loved ones around me, on the other side, and I've lived longer than most of them.
My grand-fathers WW1 American flag is within touching distance. My grand-mothers blankets still surround me. The teddy bear from my birth sits nearby, and watches me.
So here's the deal, just let me be! Drinking and smoking are the only things that give me pleasure anymore. Women, men, and driving are gone!
I find pleasure in living anywhere I can now. Visits from dogs, a double Fish Filet from McDonald's, a walk downtown and a good time at Dan and Shelby's house...
Other than that, life is pretty fucked up. But I'm damned happy I lived!
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