Playing with the AI image generator…
22 minute read
October 27, 2023, 10:02 AM
Recently, a friend of mine posted some computer generated images from the Bing Image Creator, which uses the DALL-E system as its base. I enjoyed their posts, so I decided to take it for a spin myself with subjects that were more relevant to me. My first idea was to have it generate me. The way I saw it, ChatGPT kinda sorta knew who I was, so it seemed reasonable to see if Bing Image Creator could perform similarly.
The first prompt that I gave it was “Ben Schumin in Washington, DC” and this is what it produced:
Continue reading…Categories: Afton Mountain, Artificial intelligence, Baltimore, Fire alarms, Honda HR-V (2018), JMU, Kia Soul, Mercury Sable, Stuarts Draft, Today's Special, Toyota Previa, Washington DC, WMATA
It’s been a year since the car fire…
5 minute read
February 7, 2019, 1:18 PM
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day that I lost my Kia Soul in a massive fire. I’ve chosen to commemorate the occasion with a photo set called “Remembering the Soul“, which looks back over the entire life of the Soul, from test drives to the end. I made the set in part for Elyse, because she had a harder time getting over the fire than I did, and I also wanted to put the fire in perspective with the rest of the Soul’s life in an attempt to somewhat curate the way that she is remembered. In the past year, it’s been very easy to think of the Soul only for the fire, because the last memories with her involved standing on the roadside and watching her burn to death. But there were quite a few happy years and wonderful memories made prior to that, and the photo set is a reminder of that, even if she never made it to 100,000 miles.
Meanwhile, in the intervening year, I’ve watched as Hyundai and Kia have gotten some major criticism for other fires in their vehicles, including another 2012 model Soul in Virginia. From what I can tell, it’s involved the Hyundai Sonata and Santa Fe, and the Kia Optima, Sorento, Sportage, and Soul. Most recently, I’ve seen a recall that focuses on the above named models, minus the Soul, and it seems to explain everything adequately as far as my fire goes. According to an article on the subject:
Hyundai and Kia started recalling 1.7 million vehicles in 2015 – about 618,000 of which are Kias – because manufacturing debris can restrict oil flow to connecting rod bearings. That can cause bearings in 2-liter and 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines to wear and fail. The problem can also cause fires. The repair in many cases is an expensive engine block replacement.
Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), Kia Soul
They listed the color as black…
4 minute read
April 2, 2018, 2:23 PM
In the time since the Soul burned a little less than two months ago, Elyse and I had been wondering what happened to it afterward. We knew that it had been taken to Terry’s Body Shop in Purcellville immediately after the fire, and then the insurance company moved it to a facility in Culpeper in order to do their investigation. The sequence of events that I described and the photos of the fire itself pointed to a fuel fire, i.e. that fuel started leaking out near the engine, and then, presumably, once the leaked fuel hit the hot engine, it ignited, and the rest was history. However, the results of the insurance company’s investigation were inconclusive, as the fire had burned everything so thoroughly that their experts were unable to formally determine a specific cause that triggered the whole sequence of events.
Elyse had wondered if the car would end up on one of those auto salvage auction sites, and went hunting online to see if she could find it. Her search came up empty. Then, a few weeks later, I put the Soul’s VIN into Google to see what came up. I didn’t expect to find anything, so I was a bit surprised to hit pay dirt. I found a page from Insurance Auto Auctions with photos of my former car. The listing indicated that the damage was “total burn”, with a black exterior and a black interior. The black interior was correct, though I imagine that they weren’t thinking of the one that I remembered, but rather the one that existed after the fire. The description of the exterior color as “black” amused me, because most of the body was no longer green following the fire. Considering that, it’s pretty hard to argue with that description of the color.
Right front view. I imagine that this side, with its heavy smoke and fire damage, is what led the auction site to list the car’s color as “black” instead of green.
Categories: Kia Soul
Now I’m a Honda driver, but I’m still missing my Soul…
6 minute read
February 26, 2018, 1:56 AM
No one ever told me that losing a car would be so difficult. The car itself is gone, and after about a week in a rental car (a Hyundai Accent), I am now the proud owner of a Honda HR-V, a crossover SUV:
Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), Kia Soul
I guess that I can cross “escape from a burning car” off of my bucket list…
9 minute read
February 13, 2018, 2:40 PM
Sad to say, my 2012 Kia Soul is no more. On the night of February 7, in Lucketts, Virginia, as Elyse and I were on the way back home from a trip around the area with friends, my car caught fire and was destroyed in the resulting inferno. Thankfully, we both escaped without injury.
The day had gone pretty well. We had gotten together with two friends, Trent and Jackson, and we went from Gaithersburg to Rockville to Silver Spring to DC to Alexandria to Annandale seeing various things, with a focus mostly on elevators, as Elyse, Trent, and Jackson are all elevator enthusiasts. I have somewhat of an interest in them, but not nearly as strong as the other three. At the end of our day, we dropped Trent off at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, and then took Jackson up to Dulles Airport to meet up with family members of his that were flying in from out of town. After we left Jackson with his relatives, Elyse and I headed out. We took the Dulles Greenway to Leesburg, and then headed north on Route 15, intending to go over the Point of Rocks Bridge, and then continuing to follow Route 15 until we reached Frederick, after which we would turn south to head home.
However, circumstances would dictate otherwise. As we were going up Route 15, the car suddenly started losing accelerative power, getting it back, losing it again, and so on. The end result was that I was rapidly losing speed. Elyse thought that it was the transmission slipping, and with that in mind, I was trying to see if I could get the car to a safe location in order to stop and call AAA for a tow truck. A transmission problem would be covered under the Kia 100,000 mile powertrain warranty, and so, like the engine replacement that I had a couple of months ago, I would take it to the dealer to get it fixed, and everything would be fine.
Categories: Elyse, Friends, Kia Soul, Loudoun County
I suppose that this is why you buy a Kia…
6 minute read
December 4, 2017, 2:59 PM
I suppose that what happened to me recently is exactly why you buy a Kia. My car had been making some funny noises for a while, but since the check engine light had not come on yet, I figured that I had time to deal with it, and put it off until later. This past Monday, the noises got noticeably worse, and the “check engine” light finally came on. That’s when I scheduled a repair with a Kia dealer (since I suspected it might be covered by the warranty) and booked a rental car for the upcoming repair. Then the car finally quit on me on the way to work, i.e. it just cut off in the middle of Georgia Avenue in Olney. Thankfully, I was able to coast to a safe location to call for a tow truck.
The car ended up riding on the back of a tow truck from Olney directly to the dealer, and then I took the bus the rest of the way to work. Then the next day, Elyse and I took a bus down to Rockville to pick up the rental car and talk to the people working on my real car. I decided to kill two birds with one stone on that one, because I had planned a trip to IKEA during that time anyway, so I rented a truck. So for a few days, I went from a Kia Soul – a compact – to a Ram 1500 pickup truck. That thing was massive:
Snowzilla!
5 minute read
January 24, 2016, 10:55 PM
So the “Snowzilla” (as named by The Washington Post) storm has come and gone, and it left a large pile of snow in its wake – enough to kill part of the roof of the Safeway in Bel Air, Maryland, and the roof of Wayne Lanes in Waynesboro, Virginia. Thankfully, I came through this storm just fine, and it was just a matter of digging out. This storm dropped light, powdery snow (as compared to wet, heavy snow), and there was a lot of it. I got more snow on my balcony in this storm than I did in 2009 and 2010’s major winter storms, for one. Check this out:
Categories: Kia Soul, Winter weather
How stupid do they think that I am?
2 minute read
March 31, 2015, 1:08 AM
I recently received an envelope in the mail that looked like this:
I saw this envelope, with just an address and what appeared to be a handwritten address, and thought “bill”, since this is how I’ve seen some smaller doctors’ offices do billing.
Categories: Companies, Kia Soul, Some people
Digging out of the snow…
4 minute read
February 13, 2014, 6:55 PM
So considering that the pool is closed tonight due to the snow, I still got my exercise today, pool or no pool. For those not familiar, the east coast of the United States got hit with a pretty significant snowstorm. This is the biggest snowstorm that I’ve seen since Snowmageddon in 2010. And hitting in the same week as Snowmageddon did back in 2010, no less. However, this snow has mostly been the light, fluffy kind so far, and that’s the stuff that you can clear off the car with the brush part of the scraper with little effort (and really get some distance when slinging it). However, when more than a foot of it falls in a short time, it does start to compress a bit. But it looked very pretty while coming down last night:
The parking lot at the Safeway in Olney at around 10:00 on Wednesday night.
Categories: Kia Soul, Winter weather
Getting some action out of this snow…
3 minute read
January 22, 2014, 11:37 PM
Let’s admit it: between the wet, heavy snow and the light, fluffy snow, I will always fall on the side of the light, fluffy snow. Powdery stuff is just nicer snow than the wetter stuff. And with the recent snowfall to come over the DC area, we got the fluffy stuff. It’s more likely to blow around and hit you in the face, but it’s easier to clear off of your car, and easy to shovel off of the balcony.
And like any good snowfall, I got pictures. Of course, I got the obligatory off-the-balcony photo:
Categories: Kia Soul, Winter weather
Driving in Virginia on Thanksgiving morning…
6 minute read
November 22, 2012, 7:04 PM
First of all, greetings from Stuarts Draft, where I will be through Sunday. And so far, so good. The drive went surprisingly well, and then Thanksgiving dinner was absolutely wonderful.
Considering how well my drive went today, though, I don’t know why anyone would want to go driving on the day before Thanksgiving. Seriously, this was one of the easiest drives to Stuarts Draft that I’ve had in a long time. I left the house around 8:45, and it was more or less smooth sailing the entire way. Georgia Avenue in Montgomery County, from my house to the Beltway, was no problem.
On that note, by the way, does anyone know what’s going on with the Freestate gas station on Georgia Avenue at Layhill Road? This is how it looked this morning:
Categories: Clothing, Driving, Family, Kia Soul, Language, National politics, Sheetz, Silver Spring, Thanksgiving, Weight loss
Nothing like shopping with an arsenal of snarky tweets…
7 minute read
October 7, 2012, 1:42 AM
So I went shopping in Gaithersburg and Germantown on Saturday night. This was a follow-on from Friday’s shopping trip in Wheaton and Aspen Hill. Today’s goal, as with Friday’s goal, was to find some shirts in my current size that I could wear to work. The shirts that I wore last winter (the thrift store clothes) are now too big on me. So I went off in search of clothing.
First of all, Friday’s mission consisted of Old Navy and JCPenney in Wheaton, and then Kohl’s in Aspen Hill. I quickly discovered that Old Navy was not what I was looking for. It was clear that Old Navy was not catering to my demographic. It caters to the teenage set and to adults who are way hipper than I am. However, I did find a winner at Penney’s:
Making chili!
3 minute read
April 8, 2012, 7:58 PM
I was cooking today, making a pot of vegetarian chili:
I had a blast, too. Anyone who can go on like this for just over 45 minutes had better be having a blast, I’d say. But what can I say? I love performing for the camera. I do, however, need to be mindful about how long I run the faucet. In reviewing the footage afterwards, noticed that at times I left the water running for a lot longer than I needed to (so don’t write to tell me this – I recognize that I was wasting water).
Categories: Food and drink, Friends, Homestar Runner, Kia Soul, Power Rangers, Video Journal
And the Soul is now a Maryland resident.
4 minute read
March 29, 2012, 11:06 PM
At last – my new car is now all registered where it lives. No more temporary tags. No more temporary parking pass. No more Virginia inspection sticker. Take a look at this:
Categories: Kia Soul
For all the trouble I went to…
4 minute read
March 19, 2012, 10:27 PM
So the story of the $150 shoes comes to an end. Kind of anticlimactic, too. Remember earlier this month when I went to Tysons and got those New Balance shoes? Those shoes are now back at the store in Tysons, and I got a refund. So after all of that buildup, and considering I did what my podiatrist told me to do, testing them in the store for ten minutes before buying, why did I never wear them, and ultimately return them?
Well, it’s twofold. First, those shoes cost $150. A hundred and fifty dollars. As I mentioned in the Journal entry linked above, that was more than I’ve ever paid for shoes by more than fifty bucks. That alone made me uncomfortable about wearing them. The fact that they were $150 shoes made me afraid to wear them. So there’s that.
Then secondly, and more importantly, I don’t think now is a good time to buy nice shoes. I have now lost almost 100 pounds since I began this journey a year ago (99 pounds lost as determined at a weigh-in this morning!). In that time, my feet have changed size. Shoes that fit me last year don’t fit so well anymore. I wore flip flops that I wore last summer to the pool recently, and they were too big on me. Likewise, Crocs that I bought during heavier days are now so loose on me to the point that they’re almost unusable. The lined Crocs that I have are also too big for me now, and I only bought those in December. So since I’m not at a stable size right now, it made me even less comfortable with having shoes that cost that much, since my fear was that I would size out of them before getting my money’s worth out of them. It’s happened to me several times already with jeans. First I sized down out of my original jeans, then the jeans I got in August, and now it’s starting to happen again with the jeans I’m currently wearing. Thankfully, though, next time I have to replace the jeans should put me into cheaper sizes – and out of the big and tall store.