bobmacliberty

They're also smaller than I expected at 4 inches wide by 3 1/4 inches high by 2 inches deep. Were the older blocks the same size?

One of the two C&A blocks that I've been waiting on showed up today. It's the new style block. Micheline's first impression..."they're ugly". I'm leaning in that direction, but I think it might grow on me. It's our first block so I can't compare to the old ones.

The best part of having pizza for dinner...leftover pizza the next day for lunch. Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers. Yum.

I was thinking just that. While working, I never would have spent a day like that. It would have felt like a waste of precious time off. Now, it's a relaxing, enjoyable day.

The tiki bar is Sliders where Sadler Road meets the beach. Micheline's favorite pizza is Coastal Pizza in the same shopping plaza as Publix, around the corner facing 14th. I mentioned V Pizza (on Sadler) which I like. They're a small chain with 10 locations that make Naples style pizza in Italian brick ovens. We'll also sometimes go to First Love Brewing for beer/wine/pizza. Their pizza can be hit or miss but I like their beer. Some people think that Townies (in front of Walmart) is the best pizza on the island.

We had a fun day yesterday. For most of our day to day lives, we never go more than about 6 miles from our house, and never leave our island. We decided yesterday to get out of our little bubble and go down to the Jacksonville area. It's a nice drive thru some other barrier islands and the weather yesterday morning was perfect. We drove to the St. Johns River Ferry and took the ferry across to Mayport, where we had lunch at Safe Harbor Seafood. Safe Harbor is one of those right on the dock seafood places that is not at all fancy but has fantastic, very fresh food...often literally caught that morning. We got there around noon and because it's popular, there was a line to order. You place your order and then take a number to your table, and they deliver your food when it's ready. We sat outside overlooking the river where we could see the fishing boats docked. Sorry...forgot to take food porn pics but we had your typical fish baskets with grilled mayport shrimp, cole slaw, lots of french fries, and a couple of tasty hushpuppies. After lunch, we went to the PGA Superstore, a couple of furniture stores, a great plant nursery, and a few other little places. We didn't buy anything. We just looked around and did something different than most other days. Once we got back to Amelia Island, we decided to grab a drink and have dinner at our local ocean side tiki bar with nice views and live music. Untitled video (1).mp4 As you can see in the video, it had gotten windy, so we gave up after one drink and went to our favorite local pizza place instead. It probably doesn't compare to Joe & Pat's but it's Micheline's favorite here (I prefer V Pizza but happy wife...). Sorry, but again no food porn. All in all, a nice day that was different from the routine.

I read this quickly and thought you said "No more tips planned..." 🤣

That sounds like a fantastic use of technology! I'm convinced that it's just a matter of time before medical science will use our relatively recent understanding of DNA sequencing to lead to individualized cures for things like cancer, ALS, Alzheimer's, etc.

Definitely scary. We're going to need some sort of embedded ability to see if a photo has been manipulated. Experts can do that by examining a photo's data in detail, for example in a court case where a photo may be evidence, but the average person will no longer be able to tell the difference. Still, this pales in comparison to deepfake video capabilities that have existed for a while. Sorry...didn't mean for this to turn into fear mongering.

Correct. Firefly is Adobe's "creative generative AI engine". This is the Firefly engine embedded in a new Photoshop beta. That didn't take long. You learn quickly. Nice new backyard!

Dani - I'm not an expert in this new technology, but I don't believe that it is used to blend 2 separate photos into one, like removing a person from one background and placing them into another, or blending a candle flame onto the top of a lighthouse. I think, but am not sure, that this is what your DH is asking. Blending 2 photos is difficult because you need to match lighting, color, shadows, etc. or it doesn't look natural. Rather, this new Photoshop feature puts an AI generated image into another existing image, or adds AI generated details where none existed previously. I would not be surprised however if Adobe is actively working on an AI powered ability to blend 2 photos together in Photoshop. Photoshop over the years has added capabilities to their core program that were previously addressed by other apps that worked with Photoshop, essentially making these other apps no longer useful. "AI blending" would seem like a natural next step for them.

It would be very interesting to see what you can do with your video skills once Adobe Firefly AI is in Premiere.

Yes. Open up your Creative Cloud desktop app and click on the Beta apps category on the left. You'll see Photoshop (Beta) listed. Click Install (I've already installed so mine says Open). My understanding is that any beta apps that you install will be completely separate from the production version, so you can add/delete at will without impacting anything. EDIT: You might need to update your production version of PS to the current version to be able to install the beta version. EDIT2: I haven't installed the beta version version of Premiere Pro but it's supposedly getting the Firefly AI technology also so that you can do similar things to a video. Lots of YouTube videos on this feature. Here's one of the intro videos from Adobe:

Photoshop recently came out with a (scary) new feature called generative fill. You draw a circle around an area of a photo and it will delete whatever is in the circle and generate a replacement based on what's around that area. Some phones do this already but the AI that Adobe uses in impressive in terms of the detail in what gets inserted as a replacement. Maybe more impressively, you can provide a few words and Photoshop will put whatever you describe into your photo. I played around with some photos from our trip last fall. Here's a picture of the Seattle Great Wheel Let's say that I don't want the Ferris Wheel in the picture. Notice how Photoshop rebuilds the building where the wheel was. Now let's add a cruise ship. Here's a shot of the Flowrider Let's add a dog surfing. Here's the Sky Glider Gondola at Icy Strait Point. Since they are prevalent in that area, let's add a bear. Finally, here's the view from Coastal Kitchen at dinner one night. Let's add a breaching whale. This feature is still in beta, and the blending of something new into an existing photo isn't always great (e.g. the whale doesn't look very natural). What they already do however with new shadows matching a photo's lighting (dog and surfboard), and with some foreground elements sitting on top of the newly inserted element (grass in front of bear) is both impressive and scary. Photoshop actually gives you 3 versions to look at and if you don't like any of those 3, hit the generate button again and it will give you 3 new ones. Rince and repeat until you find something that you like. This is only going to get better to the point where almost anyone will be able to modify a photo and it will be VERY difficult to tell.

Here you go. Untitled video.mp4 I love the Bellagio fountain. I was always partial to the Sinatra songs. The choreography for them seemed to fit perfectly. I've also seen the similar fountain in Dubai at the base of the Burj Khalifa that's probably 50% bigger (sorry Texas, but everything's bigger in Dubai). That was very impressive to watch.

We don't have a cage/screen around our lanai/pool. We said that we'd see how buggy it gets before deciding to add one. It really hasn't been a problem for us. We have friends in the Ponte Vedra Beach area (southeast of Jacksonville) who installed a natural bug repellent system. They have little sprayers attached to their house gutter and their backyard fence. They spray some sort of flower based oils twice a day and it does a fantastic job of keeping the bugs away. They sit on their lanai with no screen and never have a problem, even though they have a wooded area behind their house.

Thanks Ken.

That was a new one for me. Had to look that one up.

I've never been to the original Bar Bill in East Aurora, but I've been to their new location in Clarence (next town over from Williamsville where I grew up). I agree that they have the best wings and weck in Buffalo.

We put a new tile floor in our kitchen in Ohio many years ago. We had the grout sealed. I think it makes the grout last longer and helps keep it from getting stained due to any spills. The kitchen remodelers did the work and I don't remember exactly what they did. I'm sure Google/YouTube would give you a good answer.

I didn't look at the dates initially and thought...Bob is back! 😁

This brings back so many memories. Sounds like your granddaughter is on the same path that my daughter was on...meaning lots of dance competitions, costumes, and various other ways to spend dance related money is ahead. 😁

Here's the sealer that they said they would use: Sealers (tridentprotects.com) The sealer probably isn't cheap, but they said it would take a couple of guys about 8 hours over 2 days, so a big part of the $2K sealer quote was probably labor. If you do it yourself, you can probably save a big chunk of money.

We just talked with the guy who cleans our gutters about this (since he also power washes driveways, cleans windows, etc.). Our pavers have not been cleaned since we moved in 2.5 years ago and they don't look too bad. He told us to seal our pavers after cleaning and re-sanding. That will keep the sand in and any weeds/moss out. The sealing however would cost an additional $2K over the $500 for cleaning and polymeric sand. We're going to skip the sealing and see how often we'll need to clean.

I've had the same problem Bonnie. You get "stuck" in the quote box while trying to reply and can't get out. I think it's due to accidentally clicking in the quote box before typing something outside the quote box. There is therefore no empty space outside the quote box where you can click. The only solution that I've found is to delete everything in the quote box, and then the quote box itself, and then refresh the page. I can then start over. It's a bit of a pain so I am VERY careful now with hitting the enter key before typing or clicking anything when quoting someone. This puts a blank line below the quote box so that I always have someplace outside the quote box to click, and I like the blank line of separation after the quote box.