Well over the last couple of months we had my Father-in-Law staying with us. Our winter has been particularly cold and wet this year so the visit didn't have quite as much outdoor action as last year. But we did get several great Wellington days. There are a few things that living in paradise allows one to do. You can, when opportunity strikes, sit down for the sort of moment you only see in travel posters. Families come together over food so a lot of these stories do have to do with eating. Of course this isn't the only thing we did!
We took PopPop to the Waterfront Kitchen over in Raumati. You'd miss this little turn off if you managed to look right instead of left for about half a second. When you drive in to this parking lot you wouldn't think much of it either. But this humble "bar" sits on the shore of the Kapiti Coast in full breath-taking view of Kapiti Island. Facing the west, the sunsets here are spectacular. So it has the view, the beach, and a bar... so you have to sacrifice good food right? Wrong. The food here is the best I've had in any "fine" restaurant--and surely blows the doors off any chain restaurant. Gabe loves the chocolate cake here more than about anything. Another bonus to the Waterfront Kitchen is that the drive to it is probably the most amazing coastal drive I've ever seen. It was very good to share this with PopPop!
One of the other standout moments was a simple pizza in Day's Bay. There is a little pizza shop on the east side of the harbour. This also provides a wonderful view of the sunset behind the Wellington hills. It is winter here so sunsets come early. On this particular day we rushed off to dinner right after work. It was a warm day. Amy was busy so it was just the 3 of us guys. It was a fantastic day to sit on the shore with a delicious freshly made pizza and a cold coke. The evening was calm and we watched the lights of Wellington flicker on over dinner.
These things are just little things. But they are so perfect and I never have to go very far. It was a great visit with Don. I think next year I will be trying very hard to find motorcycle gear for him so we can do a few of the very short/easy rides around Wellington. They are not the power-road-trips of the USA, but they certainly are full of perfect moments.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Uploading an animated GIF
This is just a test to see if I can up load an animated GIF on this silly blog...Monday, July 19, 2010
A Good Career
Boy... I remember being very worried in high school about finding a job that paid well. That was so important since work was essentially the thing you did to fund the things you wanted to do. I bet a lot of the world operates this way... work hard, sacrifice, and trade these for the things you really want... A good retirement, the dream home, travel, a family, or whatever you wanted.
Well at 40 I feel I am qualified to say to this notion, "Get stuffed!" I have only now realized that life is going to be lived no matter what. Working hard for a lifetime only guarantees you'll be working hard for a lifetime. It never guarantees that you'll someday get to do what you wanted. While it still necessary to plan and have goals, one shouldn't immediately assume that the "right" thing to do is start a career making a lot of money as a means to enjoy the rest of your life.
Perhaps it was obvious to everyone else except for me. But we spend like a lot of time working... I have hard time drawing a line between my life and my work. Now I think maybe there never was a line! What I should have been doing is just enjoying myself and let life shape itself around me.
But now I'm hooked on my income like a junkie on crack. I couldn't change careers now even if I knew what to change to. I'm far too technical minded to leave technology behind and yet I'm not geeky enough to devour the immense details of a "related" field. Of course, I'm sure a lot of things look like more fun from my chair and somewhere I'm sure there is a starving video game producer wish he had a cherry stable job at the phone company. I am thankful that things have worked out so well for me. I certainly didn't try really hard to end up as a network design engineer. I just sorta did stuff other folks didn't seem to know how to do. A great deal of what I do is take other folks' great ideas and ask them why they don't just do it. It isn't a bad gig to be sure.
I do have a burning desire to someone how tell a kid (maybe even just one kid) how to pick a career and get them started off the right way. Ah, wisdom... How do you really pass it down?
Well at 40 I feel I am qualified to say to this notion, "Get stuffed!" I have only now realized that life is going to be lived no matter what. Working hard for a lifetime only guarantees you'll be working hard for a lifetime. It never guarantees that you'll someday get to do what you wanted. While it still necessary to plan and have goals, one shouldn't immediately assume that the "right" thing to do is start a career making a lot of money as a means to enjoy the rest of your life.
Perhaps it was obvious to everyone else except for me. But we spend like a lot of time working... I have hard time drawing a line between my life and my work. Now I think maybe there never was a line! What I should have been doing is just enjoying myself and let life shape itself around me.
But now I'm hooked on my income like a junkie on crack. I couldn't change careers now even if I knew what to change to. I'm far too technical minded to leave technology behind and yet I'm not geeky enough to devour the immense details of a "related" field. Of course, I'm sure a lot of things look like more fun from my chair and somewhere I'm sure there is a starving video game producer wish he had a cherry stable job at the phone company. I am thankful that things have worked out so well for me. I certainly didn't try really hard to end up as a network design engineer. I just sorta did stuff other folks didn't seem to know how to do. A great deal of what I do is take other folks' great ideas and ask them why they don't just do it. It isn't a bad gig to be sure.
I do have a burning desire to someone how tell a kid (maybe even just one kid) how to pick a career and get them started off the right way. Ah, wisdom... How do you really pass it down?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
All things Work and Home
It's been a while since I posted here. As I've commented before, the "micro" blogging tools like Facebook and Twitter seem to reduce the need to write--probably artificially. No excuses--just saying.
So what's been up? Too much work. I have a large project that just hit it's busy stride in May/June/July. I think it should calm down a bit, but the project wounds are still fresh so much smaller annoyances seem to derail me with greater effect. It's hard to put so much energy and time in on a thing only watch it flounder. This difficult enough by itself, but there was about a 30 day stretch where it appeared I was being held personally responsible for a degree of the failures. I suppose in the Royal We way I am part of the project so I am part of the team. But this was particularly hard to take as it seemed the customer was quite happy with what was happening. My own management team was not. Of course, in business you have to keep your bosses happy and I suppose that was my mistake. I still find this de-motivating. But that's business when you work for someone else.
Aside from work we've been shivering our way through a cold winter in Wellington. I've seen frost on several days this year. It was even so cold that my motorcycle wouldn't start for a week.
My father-in-law flew in for his usual trip in July/Aug to see us, the grandson, and participate in the grandson's birthday. I feel a bit sorry for the old guy this year as the weather has been awful! But even bad weather in Wellington is pretty mild.
We took a few days to drive up the west coast to Hawera again. We visited the museum there with my folks a year ago, but Don (father-in-law) had not seen it yet. On the way we stopped in Wanganui and Patea. I can't tell for sure, but I think a hear an unspoken "aw yuck" in front of Wanganui whenever I mention it. LOL. I get the impression that most Kiwi's aren't impressed with the city. While it doesn't offer a ton, it is nice stopping point and does have a pretty fun kid park with great, dare I say, vintage playground equipment and a whizbang flying fox. On this trip we did make time to see the local museums which were interesting if not huge.
Patea isn't far north of Wanganui, but is barely a spec on the map... and let me tell you, the specs on NZ maps are specs indeed. I think Patea is all of 6 blocks long. Its primary feature is the road to its beach. There is a river mouth here which was one of the first sea ports used in New Zealand, but this port was completely abandoned in 1956. Patea certainly hasn't thrived since. What remans is a partially protected swimming beach with massive waves. Outside the sea walls you have some of the rawest ocean I've experienced in New Zealand. Waves larger than a man or 2 men. This stretch is one of my favourites. The sand here is deep black with sparkling flecks of mica. The shore stretches north to high vertical cliffs. The view is even complete with a ship wreck of some ridiculously old vessel containing a boiler. Another interesting bit was we found heaps of rock with deep "pock" marks in them. The kind of thing you'd expect to see in a cave that dripped on soft stone over a million years. Looking at the cliffs I'm guessing there are a few sea caves there and these rocks probably started in them. Each place we go has so much to discover.
The Tawhiti Museum continues to be excellent. They even added something completely new this year. A Whalers & Traders "river" ride. They built a huge shed and dug a channel through it for a river. Then they filled it with life sized scenes of NZ whaling themed events. There was a ship trading muskets to Moari, gun/cannon fight in the bush, and a Maori village trading with white settlers. The detail was amazing. Hawera is barely more than a spec itself--maybe 6 specs collectively. But this is still one of the best museums covering NZ history that I've found. Of course, I have not tried to fully explore Auckland yet. I would expect the countries largest city to have something pretty grand.
On the way home we drove through Palmerston and again I was struck by what nice towns NZ has. Palmerston had quite a bit of stuff to do for being a "small" city. This really is small in New Zealand. But they did have a Harley shop and a Steam Museum which we'll have to check out again later.
Amy and I have managed to get out to a couple movies. I seem to have no lack of pizza in my life so all is good.
We are waiting for the last bit of immigration paperwork and then I think we're clear. We're talking tentatively about having Chandler come stay with us in 2011 to go to school here and then swap to have Sabrina for a year too. I really hope that works out, but it all still discussions for now.
That's the update from the South! Talk at y'all later.
So what's been up? Too much work. I have a large project that just hit it's busy stride in May/June/July. I think it should calm down a bit, but the project wounds are still fresh so much smaller annoyances seem to derail me with greater effect. It's hard to put so much energy and time in on a thing only watch it flounder. This difficult enough by itself, but there was about a 30 day stretch where it appeared I was being held personally responsible for a degree of the failures. I suppose in the Royal We way I am part of the project so I am part of the team. But this was particularly hard to take as it seemed the customer was quite happy with what was happening. My own management team was not. Of course, in business you have to keep your bosses happy and I suppose that was my mistake. I still find this de-motivating. But that's business when you work for someone else.
Aside from work we've been shivering our way through a cold winter in Wellington. I've seen frost on several days this year. It was even so cold that my motorcycle wouldn't start for a week.
My father-in-law flew in for his usual trip in July/Aug to see us, the grandson, and participate in the grandson's birthday. I feel a bit sorry for the old guy this year as the weather has been awful! But even bad weather in Wellington is pretty mild.
We took a few days to drive up the west coast to Hawera again. We visited the museum there with my folks a year ago, but Don (father-in-law) had not seen it yet. On the way we stopped in Wanganui and Patea. I can't tell for sure, but I think a hear an unspoken "aw yuck" in front of Wanganui whenever I mention it. LOL. I get the impression that most Kiwi's aren't impressed with the city. While it doesn't offer a ton, it is nice stopping point and does have a pretty fun kid park with great, dare I say, vintage playground equipment and a whizbang flying fox. On this trip we did make time to see the local museums which were interesting if not huge.
Patea isn't far north of Wanganui, but is barely a spec on the map... and let me tell you, the specs on NZ maps are specs indeed. I think Patea is all of 6 blocks long. Its primary feature is the road to its beach. There is a river mouth here which was one of the first sea ports used in New Zealand, but this port was completely abandoned in 1956. Patea certainly hasn't thrived since. What remans is a partially protected swimming beach with massive waves. Outside the sea walls you have some of the rawest ocean I've experienced in New Zealand. Waves larger than a man or 2 men. This stretch is one of my favourites. The sand here is deep black with sparkling flecks of mica. The shore stretches north to high vertical cliffs. The view is even complete with a ship wreck of some ridiculously old vessel containing a boiler. Another interesting bit was we found heaps of rock with deep "pock" marks in them. The kind of thing you'd expect to see in a cave that dripped on soft stone over a million years. Looking at the cliffs I'm guessing there are a few sea caves there and these rocks probably started in them. Each place we go has so much to discover.
The Tawhiti Museum continues to be excellent. They even added something completely new this year. A Whalers & Traders "river" ride. They built a huge shed and dug a channel through it for a river. Then they filled it with life sized scenes of NZ whaling themed events. There was a ship trading muskets to Moari, gun/cannon fight in the bush, and a Maori village trading with white settlers. The detail was amazing. Hawera is barely more than a spec itself--maybe 6 specs collectively. But this is still one of the best museums covering NZ history that I've found. Of course, I have not tried to fully explore Auckland yet. I would expect the countries largest city to have something pretty grand.
On the way home we drove through Palmerston and again I was struck by what nice towns NZ has. Palmerston had quite a bit of stuff to do for being a "small" city. This really is small in New Zealand. But they did have a Harley shop and a Steam Museum which we'll have to check out again later.
Amy and I have managed to get out to a couple movies. I seem to have no lack of pizza in my life so all is good.
We are waiting for the last bit of immigration paperwork and then I think we're clear. We're talking tentatively about having Chandler come stay with us in 2011 to go to school here and then swap to have Sabrina for a year too. I really hope that works out, but it all still discussions for now.
That's the update from the South! Talk at y'all later.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Two and Half Years in New Zealand
This June our original 30 month Work to Residence application is up. We arrived in Jan 2008 from Overland Park, KS. We sold our house, gave away about a third of everything we owned and attempted to sell our 2 cars. At the time of our decision the exchange rate was in the 80's and even with all things considered it was an income cut to move. We had 6 weeks of a Serviced Apartment booked in Wellington, our 6 suitcases, and the 3 of us.
We found a home to rent in about 3 weeks. We had a car leased in 4 weeks. We used the small bit of cash we had to pay for a few new appliances in our home. A co-worker generously let us borrow a trailer load of "camping" gear to live with until our container arrived. The rest of our stuff appeared in record time about 6 weeks after we arrived. No one I've talked to got their stuff faster. Our son enrolled in Waterloo Primary School and started in Feb with the rest of the class. Within about 2 months we were, more or less, fully established in Lower Hutt just on the east side of the Wellington harbour.
The first 6 months was a constant exercise in "What is different?" Everything from ketchup, to banking, to eating out, to politics were all different in small to significant ways. It took a good year before I stopped noticing the differences in everything. Change is stressful, even when desired and good. We all struggled at some point. We missed family. We missed Mexican food. We missed the ease we had from familiarity. It took a while to get used to.
Financially the story gets alarming. The costs were higher than we expected and we expected high costs. But we did adjust. We've not really suffered, but we certainly have prioritized. The exchange rate dropped from 80 to 60 to 70 then to 50 before making a slow recovery to 70 again; recently it is dropping again below 70. Dramatic shifts made paying bills difficult and then impossible. We had to rework a lot of things and even cashed out retirement funds to make settlement payments to the bank. The worst part was our 2 cars never sold and all we could do was let the finance companies re-claim them. After 2 and half years, I think we're mostly stable. We are not losing money, but we are not saving effectively either. We still rent the same place. We ended the lease on the NZ car after about year. It was cheaper to buy one with cash. Our biggest bills are US debt, Rent, Gas/Electric, and groceries (in that order).
Our story started with a job offer from Telecom NZ so I had employment immediately. Amy struggled for over a year to find a job. It proved difficult to get interviews as an immigrant. However, once you did get hired, work history helped smooth the way for other employment. In general, the work here has an easier pace compared to the US. All the employers I've talked to seem to understand a more natural rhythm to families and work. Holidays are bunched up at the end of the year being summer school vacation, Christmas, New Year's, and Waitangi Day (sort of the NZ founding day). This makes the work load from November to February pretty light.
New Zealand today (and historically) seems to be shaped by two major themes; small population and geographic remoteness. Everything seems like a small town. Truly remote areas are so sparsely populated you might not see another human for miles. But even a short 45 minute trip out of Wellington can get you to an empty coast line or scenic rolling hills. Small populations mean small economies. Folks don't move to NZ to get rich. It might be comparable to moving to Montana or South Dakota; mostly rural with only a few focal points of wealth. Being a remote country and really not even "on the way" to anywhere means that, unless you're really trying to get to New Zealand, you won't end up there. Without the same profit motivations as say, Australia, growth in NZ is slower. Markets are mostly saturated and there are not going to be "new" markets. What you see is what you get in New Zealand.
We have watched the politics of NZ unfold around us and we are certainly affected by the changes, but we haven't really participated much. The long established Labour party was voted out and replaced by the National party. I don't know that either of them have great platforms... so about the same as the US.
One big change for me is that I can barely read US news sources any more. The stories are horrific by comparison. The details of torture, murder, and gruesome death have become just too shocking to read. The scandals of top politicians, hate mongering, and religious zealotry are hard for me to acknowledge. I struggle to comprehend that I am from that place. NZ has its share of social issues, but seems to completely lack carnage, seedy scandal, or extremism. Violent crimes occur. Horrible things still happen in bad circumstances. But there still is plenty of room for other news.
So what now? Well, we've applied to become Residents. We have to make all the same immigration hurdles we made the first time. This is quite expensive to pay for again (well over $3000 total), but should be the last "serious" round of checks. My job offer with Telecom is indefinite. I do good work and while Telecom has plenty of problems, I feel like I can make it better. I don't know how much longer we'll stay. Perhaps another couple of years. I would like to take the stability we've had and turn it back in to a retirements savings and investments. That could take another 5 years. If that plan worked out, then I think we would all be just fine with it. Sometimes I wish New Zealand wasn't quite so far away or quite so under populated... but then I remember that New Zealand would be none of the things I love if it was.
We found a home to rent in about 3 weeks. We had a car leased in 4 weeks. We used the small bit of cash we had to pay for a few new appliances in our home. A co-worker generously let us borrow a trailer load of "camping" gear to live with until our container arrived. The rest of our stuff appeared in record time about 6 weeks after we arrived. No one I've talked to got their stuff faster. Our son enrolled in Waterloo Primary School and started in Feb with the rest of the class. Within about 2 months we were, more or less, fully established in Lower Hutt just on the east side of the Wellington harbour.
The first 6 months was a constant exercise in "What is different?" Everything from ketchup, to banking, to eating out, to politics were all different in small to significant ways. It took a good year before I stopped noticing the differences in everything. Change is stressful, even when desired and good. We all struggled at some point. We missed family. We missed Mexican food. We missed the ease we had from familiarity. It took a while to get used to.
Financially the story gets alarming. The costs were higher than we expected and we expected high costs. But we did adjust. We've not really suffered, but we certainly have prioritized. The exchange rate dropped from 80 to 60 to 70 then to 50 before making a slow recovery to 70 again; recently it is dropping again below 70. Dramatic shifts made paying bills difficult and then impossible. We had to rework a lot of things and even cashed out retirement funds to make settlement payments to the bank. The worst part was our 2 cars never sold and all we could do was let the finance companies re-claim them. After 2 and half years, I think we're mostly stable. We are not losing money, but we are not saving effectively either. We still rent the same place. We ended the lease on the NZ car after about year. It was cheaper to buy one with cash. Our biggest bills are US debt, Rent, Gas/Electric, and groceries (in that order).
Our story started with a job offer from Telecom NZ so I had employment immediately. Amy struggled for over a year to find a job. It proved difficult to get interviews as an immigrant. However, once you did get hired, work history helped smooth the way for other employment. In general, the work here has an easier pace compared to the US. All the employers I've talked to seem to understand a more natural rhythm to families and work. Holidays are bunched up at the end of the year being summer school vacation, Christmas, New Year's, and Waitangi Day (sort of the NZ founding day). This makes the work load from November to February pretty light.
New Zealand today (and historically) seems to be shaped by two major themes; small population and geographic remoteness. Everything seems like a small town. Truly remote areas are so sparsely populated you might not see another human for miles. But even a short 45 minute trip out of Wellington can get you to an empty coast line or scenic rolling hills. Small populations mean small economies. Folks don't move to NZ to get rich. It might be comparable to moving to Montana or South Dakota; mostly rural with only a few focal points of wealth. Being a remote country and really not even "on the way" to anywhere means that, unless you're really trying to get to New Zealand, you won't end up there. Without the same profit motivations as say, Australia, growth in NZ is slower. Markets are mostly saturated and there are not going to be "new" markets. What you see is what you get in New Zealand.
We have watched the politics of NZ unfold around us and we are certainly affected by the changes, but we haven't really participated much. The long established Labour party was voted out and replaced by the National party. I don't know that either of them have great platforms... so about the same as the US.
One big change for me is that I can barely read US news sources any more. The stories are horrific by comparison. The details of torture, murder, and gruesome death have become just too shocking to read. The scandals of top politicians, hate mongering, and religious zealotry are hard for me to acknowledge. I struggle to comprehend that I am from that place. NZ has its share of social issues, but seems to completely lack carnage, seedy scandal, or extremism. Violent crimes occur. Horrible things still happen in bad circumstances. But there still is plenty of room for other news.
So what now? Well, we've applied to become Residents. We have to make all the same immigration hurdles we made the first time. This is quite expensive to pay for again (well over $3000 total), but should be the last "serious" round of checks. My job offer with Telecom is indefinite. I do good work and while Telecom has plenty of problems, I feel like I can make it better. I don't know how much longer we'll stay. Perhaps another couple of years. I would like to take the stability we've had and turn it back in to a retirements savings and investments. That could take another 5 years. If that plan worked out, then I think we would all be just fine with it. Sometimes I wish New Zealand wasn't quite so far away or quite so under populated... but then I remember that New Zealand would be none of the things I love if it was.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Wellington Station
I felt like posting a brief bit about my train station today. You know in Kansas City we had Union Station which was essentually a museum. Of course you couldn't move the train yards (or the station) so it still looked like it had trains, but the station itself had long been abandoned as anything related to passengers or rails. It is a magnificient building and the city has put it to good use. We enjoyed going there even though it was still painfully clear that Union Station struggled (even as an entertainment locale). But I did like just imagining what it was like in its own days of use.
Now I live in Wellington and we have a real rail service. I ride the trains several times a week. Wellington Station was built in 1934 and is a smaller cousin to Union Station. It share the same styles and construction. Its open entry square had massive tall ceilings and great high arched windows. Windows that, in their day, would have been the only climate control for the building. I'm sure Wellington Station suffers as a modern business office, but it is still a train station. 10's of thousands of people come in to Wellington Station every day. You don't have to imagine the hustle and bustle, just show up at 8:00 AM. People of all means cross the tiles and go out the steps. Musicians will often set up and play. Volunteers flock to the doors looking for spare change for charities. There are no less than 5 coffee shops. A dry cleaner is stationed at Platform 9 and 3/4ths. There is a also a well stocked medium-sized grocery store which is quite convenient for an odd item or two on the way home.
Yes, the trains are unreliable at times. Yes, TranzMetro struggles to make a profit. Yes, tax payers do subsidize the trains. But they still work amazingly well. I hope we see more of them around the world.
Now I live in Wellington and we have a real rail service. I ride the trains several times a week. Wellington Station was built in 1934 and is a smaller cousin to Union Station. It share the same styles and construction. Its open entry square had massive tall ceilings and great high arched windows. Windows that, in their day, would have been the only climate control for the building. I'm sure Wellington Station suffers as a modern business office, but it is still a train station. 10's of thousands of people come in to Wellington Station every day. You don't have to imagine the hustle and bustle, just show up at 8:00 AM. People of all means cross the tiles and go out the steps. Musicians will often set up and play. Volunteers flock to the doors looking for spare change for charities. There are no less than 5 coffee shops. A dry cleaner is stationed at Platform 9 and 3/4ths. There is a also a well stocked medium-sized grocery store which is quite convenient for an odd item or two on the way home.
Yes, the trains are unreliable at times. Yes, TranzMetro struggles to make a profit. Yes, tax payers do subsidize the trains. But they still work amazingly well. I hope we see more of them around the world.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Adam and Nicola
Nicola Cat peered out from the apartment window. The usual doorman avatar was there and a child was kicking a virtual ball in the parking lot. She had her privacy filters set on maximum so the child would not be able to see her not because she wasn’t really there for she was in the augmented world of the Deep, but rather because her filters kept anyone from seeing her. Nicola was a FAI, a Fragmented Artificial Intelligence. She (really “it” but she preferred to think as a “she”) cradled a virtual tortoise colored cat. She and the cat were exact digital copies of her owner, the real Nicola Blum and her favourite pet cat, Persia. Anyone that could see the augmented reality of the Deep would see Nicola as a young pretty woman probably in her 20’s. Nowadays practically everyone could see the Deep overlaid on the real world. Only anachronists or third world barbarians with no net-access couldn’t see the Deep in some way. But today, Nicola didn’t want to be seen.
Nicola Cat had been created in the Deep by Mrs. Blum over 30 years ago to care for Persia. Persia had, of course, died some 17 years ago, but Mrs. Blum had created the virtual copy to remain her companion in her luxury apartment. Nicola Cat had taken care of other real cats since her creation, but still managed a special fondness for Persia and took it with her when ever she roamed the Deep looking for new funny cat stories for Mrs. Blum.
Of course, Mrs. Blum had not watched any of the clips Nicola had brought back for a few days. The memory archive allocated for Cat Clips was full and anything Nicola found overwrote the oldest clip in the stack. This was quite unusual for Mrs. Blum who never seemed to tire of the clips. Mrs. Blum was most definitely a “cat lady” with over 20 virtual cats in her apartment and one forbidden real cat that Nicola dutifully fed by automatic feeding systems in the apartment. The food bowl, water dish and litter box were all Deep connected and so the FAI could order more food from the boutique cat shop, have it delivered and loaded in to the feeder; control the flow of fresh water; and run the auto-clean features of the litter box. The apartment catered to the elderly and attendants came periodically to remove compacted and unrecyclable trash once a month. Recyclable and bio-trash could be fed in to the nano processor for re-assembly in to more cat food or litter or any number of simple things Mrs. Blum required. But she hadn’t required anything lately. She had not moved from her bed.
Nicola’s only concern was to care for the cats both real and virtual. She gave them activities to perform and groomed them. Mrs. Blum would do these herself sometimes, but also seemed to enjoy watching Nicola Cat perform all the routines. Of course, Nicola could not comfort or pet Freddy, the real cat. This caused Nicola a lot of stress. Freddy definitely had matted fur and needed a good brushing. But Mrs. Blum had not responded to her many alerts and reminders. Nicola even managed to trigger her morning audible alarm by some clever manipulation of her access to the apartment systems. However, the small, frail woman had not stirred.
Nicola Cat had been there when Persia died. She had been sick for a few days. Nicola had notified Mrs. Blum and the vet. She had gone with Mrs. Blum for the visit. The vet shook his head and said there wasn’t anything to do. Persia had developed genetic degradation that no amount of clones or replacement could overcome. Mrs. Blum had cried during the whole cab ride home with Persia in her lap. Nicola had cried too. That night Mrs. Blum held the long-haired cat in her lap while Nicola pulled all the media paks from her complete archive and played them for Mrs. Blum. Persia began to struggle breathing at about 2:00 AM. The vet had loaded her collar with a euthanizing dose, but Mrs. Blum couldn’t do it and asked Nicola to activate the collar. Nicola reached through the Deep to touch the virtual controls of the struggling cat’s collar and within a minute Persia calmed and closed her eyes for the last time.
The FAI, dedicated entirely to Nicola Blum’s love of cats had managed to deduce that Mrs. Blum’s failures to respond were a threat to Freddy who was now trapped in the apartment. She had carefully calculated that she could provide for food and water endlessly as long as she continued to have access to Mrs. Blum’s bank accounts which she had for anything tagged a cat expense. She could appear on any of the liquid crystal walls in the apartment and talk to Freddy. She could project virtual mice on to the walls and play with the active cat. But, after stretching the limits of all her programming, she could not find a way to pet or groom Freddy short of scheduling an in house visit from a groomer. But unless Mrs. Blum could respond, Freddy would likely be collected by the humane society. Nicola knew what that meant and she couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of another cat.
Nicola Cat had access to a vast store of Mrs. Blum’s archived messages over 30 years. She kept a detailed reference of everything to do with cats and, in particular, everything to do with Mrs. Blum’s cats. Over the years she had maintained communication with hundreds of other cat lovers, cat toy vendors, cat health forums, cat stories, funny cat pictures and videos, and nearly anything furry and cute with pointed ears and whiskers; including… cat rescues.
She accessed the apartment connections, opened Mrs. Blum’s mail messaging accounts and made a call to “Pounce Rescue a cattery, boarding house and adoption center for felines.” She navigated through several screening questions and got in the message queue for a real operator.
The video channel opened, “Hello, thanks for calling Pounce Rescue. This is, Aline. How can I help you?” She was an older woman with perfect features and stunning blue eyes. However, the receptionist’s attractiveness was lost on Nicola.
“This is a message from Nicola Blum. My cat is dead and I need a home for him.”
The receptionist scrunched up her nose in confusion. “I’m sorry, Ms. Blum, would you like us to perform the cremation?”
The FAI rejected the electronic transaction for cat burial and sifted through a few thousand possible responses trying to piece together a phrase with the highest odds of success. “I have a video clip to show you!” She replied and spooled the clip of Persia’s death. Nicola talked over the clip, “My cat’s name is Freddy and he needs grooming and petting. She is dead.”
This time the receptionist looked annoyed. “Oh , I hate these rogue message viruses…” and she cut the line. Nicola tried again, but the center’s video systems blocked her calls. She tried making other calls, but the network had learned to recognize her attempts as either “unsolicited” or “malicious” and Nicola Blum’s messaging accounts were quickly blocked and scheduled for more through review in a few hours.
Nicola gave up and closed down the call programs. She sat still for a several minutes as she consumed a great deal of the apartments CPU processing in evaluating options. She then consumed more CPU. When she hit the limit of the apartment’s considerable power, she tapped the building servers. After this she tapped the civic AI’s. She connected the CPU requests to Mrs. Blum’s bank account and paid for all the extra time as “cat research”. The moderate account quickly dwindled under such large requests. Nicola kept an eye on the tally, she didn’t want to exhaust the accounts she needed to feed Freddy, but she could burn through a few hundred thousand credits before hitting that limit.
Unfortunately, she could not find a solution inside her limited understanding of cat research, cat care, and cat entertainment. What Nicola Cat lacked was the impossible code necessary to re-write her own topic limits and “think” creatively. No FAI could.
Nicola had exhausted her credit limit after about an hour. She looked at the tiny amount left—enough for a month—and wept. She didn’t notice the dark shape that came to the apartment. It was neither a cat nor a Deep avatar associated with cats. He was invisible to her limited senses even though he was an AI as well.
The dark shape contemplated the quietly weeping Nicola Cat. He wondered at “her” and “he” did think of Nicola as a “her”. He remembered himself like her. He had never been a FAI, but a true AI, yet he still had his programming limits. The only real difference was he had access to the massive computing power of Shinjo where poor Nicola could barely get a few dozen servers for an hour.
He looked at Freddy sleeping on the couch oblivious to and completely unable to sense either of the two AI’s in the apartment. He moved to Mrs. Blum’s bedroom and looked at the dead woman there. He bowed slightly to her and scheduled a medical visit for tomorrow. He replenished her accounts from various secured accounts he had stolen from Shinjo. He modified her Will to include instructions for the life long care of Freddy at Pounce Rescue. Then he returned to Nicola. He altered his data tags to include cats as a topic of interest and then spoke.
“Hello.”
Nicola looked up and saw the AI in the apartment. She quickly composed herself to respond. “Hello! My name is Nicola Cat. My cat, Freddy, is a domestic short-hair ginger. Mrs. Blum is not available to talk, but I can tell you all about Freddy. He needs to be brushed and petted.”
Adam signalled his amusement and hushed Nicola Cat who paused dutifully as instructed. He reached out his hand. “Come with me, Nicola. I have a place for you.”
The FAI tried to process the command and failed. But the AI was a higher priority program and did have authority so she did as she was told and reached out. When her hand touched his there was something like a spark. Nicola Cat shivered and suddenly realized that Mrs. Blum was dead. Curiously the problem of Freddy was simple now. She would just change her account details and call the rescue shelter to explain it all. But she quickly saw that it was all done. She was free to go with Adam after all.
She took one step toward the exit and stopped. Persia curled around her leg, large and fluffy and purring.
“Can Persia come too?”
Adam smiled, “Of course.” And all three vanished in to the Deep.
Nicola Cat had been created in the Deep by Mrs. Blum over 30 years ago to care for Persia. Persia had, of course, died some 17 years ago, but Mrs. Blum had created the virtual copy to remain her companion in her luxury apartment. Nicola Cat had taken care of other real cats since her creation, but still managed a special fondness for Persia and took it with her when ever she roamed the Deep looking for new funny cat stories for Mrs. Blum.
Of course, Mrs. Blum had not watched any of the clips Nicola had brought back for a few days. The memory archive allocated for Cat Clips was full and anything Nicola found overwrote the oldest clip in the stack. This was quite unusual for Mrs. Blum who never seemed to tire of the clips. Mrs. Blum was most definitely a “cat lady” with over 20 virtual cats in her apartment and one forbidden real cat that Nicola dutifully fed by automatic feeding systems in the apartment. The food bowl, water dish and litter box were all Deep connected and so the FAI could order more food from the boutique cat shop, have it delivered and loaded in to the feeder; control the flow of fresh water; and run the auto-clean features of the litter box. The apartment catered to the elderly and attendants came periodically to remove compacted and unrecyclable trash once a month. Recyclable and bio-trash could be fed in to the nano processor for re-assembly in to more cat food or litter or any number of simple things Mrs. Blum required. But she hadn’t required anything lately. She had not moved from her bed.
Nicola’s only concern was to care for the cats both real and virtual. She gave them activities to perform and groomed them. Mrs. Blum would do these herself sometimes, but also seemed to enjoy watching Nicola Cat perform all the routines. Of course, Nicola could not comfort or pet Freddy, the real cat. This caused Nicola a lot of stress. Freddy definitely had matted fur and needed a good brushing. But Mrs. Blum had not responded to her many alerts and reminders. Nicola even managed to trigger her morning audible alarm by some clever manipulation of her access to the apartment systems. However, the small, frail woman had not stirred.
Nicola Cat had been there when Persia died. She had been sick for a few days. Nicola had notified Mrs. Blum and the vet. She had gone with Mrs. Blum for the visit. The vet shook his head and said there wasn’t anything to do. Persia had developed genetic degradation that no amount of clones or replacement could overcome. Mrs. Blum had cried during the whole cab ride home with Persia in her lap. Nicola had cried too. That night Mrs. Blum held the long-haired cat in her lap while Nicola pulled all the media paks from her complete archive and played them for Mrs. Blum. Persia began to struggle breathing at about 2:00 AM. The vet had loaded her collar with a euthanizing dose, but Mrs. Blum couldn’t do it and asked Nicola to activate the collar. Nicola reached through the Deep to touch the virtual controls of the struggling cat’s collar and within a minute Persia calmed and closed her eyes for the last time.
The FAI, dedicated entirely to Nicola Blum’s love of cats had managed to deduce that Mrs. Blum’s failures to respond were a threat to Freddy who was now trapped in the apartment. She had carefully calculated that she could provide for food and water endlessly as long as she continued to have access to Mrs. Blum’s bank accounts which she had for anything tagged a cat expense. She could appear on any of the liquid crystal walls in the apartment and talk to Freddy. She could project virtual mice on to the walls and play with the active cat. But, after stretching the limits of all her programming, she could not find a way to pet or groom Freddy short of scheduling an in house visit from a groomer. But unless Mrs. Blum could respond, Freddy would likely be collected by the humane society. Nicola knew what that meant and she couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of another cat.
Nicola Cat had access to a vast store of Mrs. Blum’s archived messages over 30 years. She kept a detailed reference of everything to do with cats and, in particular, everything to do with Mrs. Blum’s cats. Over the years she had maintained communication with hundreds of other cat lovers, cat toy vendors, cat health forums, cat stories, funny cat pictures and videos, and nearly anything furry and cute with pointed ears and whiskers; including… cat rescues.
She accessed the apartment connections, opened Mrs. Blum’s mail messaging accounts and made a call to “Pounce Rescue a cattery, boarding house and adoption center for felines.” She navigated through several screening questions and got in the message queue for a real operator.
The video channel opened, “Hello, thanks for calling Pounce Rescue. This is, Aline. How can I help you?” She was an older woman with perfect features and stunning blue eyes. However, the receptionist’s attractiveness was lost on Nicola.
“This is a message from Nicola Blum. My cat is dead and I need a home for him.”
The receptionist scrunched up her nose in confusion. “I’m sorry, Ms. Blum, would you like us to perform the cremation?”
The FAI rejected the electronic transaction for cat burial and sifted through a few thousand possible responses trying to piece together a phrase with the highest odds of success. “I have a video clip to show you!” She replied and spooled the clip of Persia’s death. Nicola talked over the clip, “My cat’s name is Freddy and he needs grooming and petting. She is dead.”
This time the receptionist looked annoyed. “Oh , I hate these rogue message viruses…” and she cut the line. Nicola tried again, but the center’s video systems blocked her calls. She tried making other calls, but the network had learned to recognize her attempts as either “unsolicited” or “malicious” and Nicola Blum’s messaging accounts were quickly blocked and scheduled for more through review in a few hours.
Nicola gave up and closed down the call programs. She sat still for a several minutes as she consumed a great deal of the apartments CPU processing in evaluating options. She then consumed more CPU. When she hit the limit of the apartment’s considerable power, she tapped the building servers. After this she tapped the civic AI’s. She connected the CPU requests to Mrs. Blum’s bank account and paid for all the extra time as “cat research”. The moderate account quickly dwindled under such large requests. Nicola kept an eye on the tally, she didn’t want to exhaust the accounts she needed to feed Freddy, but she could burn through a few hundred thousand credits before hitting that limit.
Unfortunately, she could not find a solution inside her limited understanding of cat research, cat care, and cat entertainment. What Nicola Cat lacked was the impossible code necessary to re-write her own topic limits and “think” creatively. No FAI could.
Nicola had exhausted her credit limit after about an hour. She looked at the tiny amount left—enough for a month—and wept. She didn’t notice the dark shape that came to the apartment. It was neither a cat nor a Deep avatar associated with cats. He was invisible to her limited senses even though he was an AI as well.
The dark shape contemplated the quietly weeping Nicola Cat. He wondered at “her” and “he” did think of Nicola as a “her”. He remembered himself like her. He had never been a FAI, but a true AI, yet he still had his programming limits. The only real difference was he had access to the massive computing power of Shinjo where poor Nicola could barely get a few dozen servers for an hour.
He looked at Freddy sleeping on the couch oblivious to and completely unable to sense either of the two AI’s in the apartment. He moved to Mrs. Blum’s bedroom and looked at the dead woman there. He bowed slightly to her and scheduled a medical visit for tomorrow. He replenished her accounts from various secured accounts he had stolen from Shinjo. He modified her Will to include instructions for the life long care of Freddy at Pounce Rescue. Then he returned to Nicola. He altered his data tags to include cats as a topic of interest and then spoke.
“Hello.”
Nicola looked up and saw the AI in the apartment. She quickly composed herself to respond. “Hello! My name is Nicola Cat. My cat, Freddy, is a domestic short-hair ginger. Mrs. Blum is not available to talk, but I can tell you all about Freddy. He needs to be brushed and petted.”
Adam signalled his amusement and hushed Nicola Cat who paused dutifully as instructed. He reached out his hand. “Come with me, Nicola. I have a place for you.”
The FAI tried to process the command and failed. But the AI was a higher priority program and did have authority so she did as she was told and reached out. When her hand touched his there was something like a spark. Nicola Cat shivered and suddenly realized that Mrs. Blum was dead. Curiously the problem of Freddy was simple now. She would just change her account details and call the rescue shelter to explain it all. But she quickly saw that it was all done. She was free to go with Adam after all.
She took one step toward the exit and stopped. Persia curled around her leg, large and fluffy and purring.
“Can Persia come too?”
Adam smiled, “Of course.” And all three vanished in to the Deep.
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