Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

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Sunday Dinner

Damsel has a recipe for our Sunday Dinner consisting of Shrimp, Alfredo Sauce and Spaghetti Squash. I doodled the notion of such a meal into the Google Gemini AI image generator on my smart phone, and it produced the (clickable) image shown above. It looks very appetizing for an AI-generated (i.e. “Fake”) photo.

Gemini is a Google AI platform that enables image generation and editing. It uses multimodal input, enhanced reasoning, and natural language understanding to create images. With Gemini, you can generate images with a single model, such as Gemini 2.0 Flash, which combines text and image generation.

Gemini 2.0 Flash can be used for various tasks, including generating stories with consistent illustrations, conversational image editing, and creating detailed imagery with world knowledge
1. It also excels in rendering long sequences of text, making it suitable for creating advertisements, social posts, or invitations
2. Gemini 2.5 Flash Image is another state-of-the-art image model that benefits from Gemini’s world knowledge, enabling new use cases. It can generate images with a wide range of styles and subjects, and it is available via the Gemini API and Google AI Studio
3. To use Gemini for image generation, you can use specific prompts to achieve consistent characters, precise edits, and blended images
4. The platform is actively being improved, and Google is committed to making it more accessible and user-friendly.

Gemini is also integrated with other Google services, such as Google AI Studio, Vertex AI, and the Gemini app, making it a powerful tool for developers and users alike.

Anyhow, the actual meal will be posted on our food blog sometime late Sunday, 09/07/2025, after dinner.

06 Sep 2025 by Arizona Food & Dining Notions Retirement Technobabble

Vacation Summary

Here’s the rundown of the summer 2025 excursion; we traveled through twenty-one of the of the forty-eight contiguous states and camped in all but four of them (Illinois, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas). We enjoyed much scenery, local culture, oddities, skyscapes and other interesting landmarks. The map below shows the states in which we traveled and/or camped.

Clickable map created with MAPCHART.NET

We won’t get into all of the details about the numerous places visited and all that, but will summarize by saying that we visited the resting places of several ancestors and visited the birthplaces of some of them and their ancestors. We were gratified to enjoy the changes in climate, vegetation, livestock and other interesting flora and fauna along the way.

Here’s the specific itinerary of each leg of the trip; not mentioned is the duration of each stop, but you will get the idea of the magnitude of our travels on this trip. We left home on July 8th and returned on August 12th, a total of five weeks.

  1. Wickenburg to Monument Valley, Utah
  2. Monument Valley to Grand Junction, Colorado
  3. Grand Junction to Cañon City, Colorado
  4. Cañon City to Limon, Colorado
  5. Limon to WaKeeney, Kansas
  6. WaKeeney to Lawrence, Kansas
  7. Lawrence to Poplar Bluff, Missouri
  8. Poplar Bluff to Paducah, Kentucky
  9. Paducah to Salt Lick, Kentucky
  10. Salt Lick to Sutton, West Virginia
  11. Sutton to Morgantown, West Virginia
  12. Morgantown to Shenandoah Valley, Virginia
  13. Shenandoah Valley to Greensboro, North Carolina
  14. Greensboro to Wilmington, North Carolina
  15. Wilmington to Charleston, South Carolina
  16. Charleston to Kingsland, Georgia
  17. Kingsland to Tallahassee, Florida
  18. Tallahassee to Montgomery, Alabama
  19. Montgomery to Starkville, Mississippi
  20. Starkville to West Memphis, Arkansas
  21. West Memphis to Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas
  22. Horseshoe Bend to Eureka Springs, Arkansas
  23. Eureka Springs to Lake Eufaula, Oklahoma
  24. Lake Eufaula, to Elk City, Oklahoma
  25. Elk City to Tucumcari, New Mexico
  26. Tucumcari to Albuquerque, New Mexico
  27. Albuquerque to Holbrook, Arizona
  28. Holbrook to Wickenburg, Arizona

Even though we have most of the comforts of home in our motorhome, there is something to be said about being at home and enjoying the good retirement life without the chores of setting up and tearing down while on the road and the sometimes tedious driving between campsites in the various weather conditions. It’s good to be home.

15 Aug 2025 by Ancestors Notions Retirement Wanderlust

Starlink and DirecTV Accessibility

Clickable image – Northern Sky View.

We’re camping in a very nice place in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia. It is a wooded area with lots of large trees. Unfortunately, for the reception of signals from space satellites, the trees attenuate the microwave signals from the satellites, and can make reception difficult or impossible.

The image above is our view of the Northern Sky where we would point our Starlink® antenna for internet access. After trying to access the Starlink constellation, the app on the phone reported that there was no access to the internet. Note that the orbits of the Starlink satellites are moving across the sky with the ground antenna attempting to lock onto and track the satellites as they move across the sky. The access failed and we finally gave up on using the Starlink at this location.

Clickable image – Southern Sky View.

This next image is of the southern sky from our campsite. In spite of the ominous presence of signal-impeding trees, we are getting good DirecTV satellite reception. I suppose that the stationary (geo-synchronous) satellites are visible between the branches of the lofty trees in that direction.

So, we’re watching our TV shows and enjoying them on DirecTV. As for internet access, we have a fallback position for secure access via our smartphone carrier. We pay a few bucks a month to have this backup and it’s doing its job tonight.

24 Jul 2025 by Cyberspace Entertainment Notions Technobabble Wanderlust

Monongahela River

We’re still roaming around the land of ancestors on this excursion. Today, we visited the place of my paternal grandmother’s birth in Barrackville, West Virginia. One of the major landmarks in this area is the Monongahela River, which is in northern West Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania.

Some facts about this river from Brave Leo AI:

The Monongahela River is a 130-mile-long river that flows through north-central West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania. It is formed by the confluence of the West Fork River and the Tygart Valley River in north-central West Virginia. The river flows northward, joining the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River.

The name “Monongahela” comes from the Unami language and roughly translates to “falling banks”, referring to the geological instability of the river’s banks. The Monongahela River is an important waterway for industry, carrying coal, coke, iron, and steel. It is made navigable by a series of locks and dams operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The upper reaches of the Monongahela River basin are known for their whitewater kayaking and rafting opportunities. The river also has a significant history, including being the site of the Braddock Expedition during the French and Indian War in the 18th century.

Clickable image.

23 Jul 2025 by Notions Photography Retirement Wanderlust

Completing Another Orbit

Well, my 82nd birthday finds us in West Virginia, which happens to be a place where of one of the branches of my ancestors can be traced back to the family’s original immigrants who arrived in what was then the Virginia Colony. They prospered after lots of hard work and were actually pioneers to the area.

We will pass through Barrackville, WV, tomorrow on the way to our next campsite in Morgantown. My paternal grandmother was born in Barrackville and her grandfather and possibly more ancestors are buried here. We visited grandmother’s grave in Pueblo CO, a few days ago.

So, we’re camped here in Sutton, WV, and as a celebration of the special day, we grilled a couple of petite Filet Mignon Steaks and Damsel prepared a wonderful Romaine salad as an accompaniment. It was a good day.

Clickable Images.

22 Jul 2025 by Ancestors Notions Wanderlust

Starlink Mini Report —
 Internet On The Road


Last year when we camped at Monument Valley on our way to view the Total Eclipse of the Sun in Texas, our internet service options were terrible. We had both the campground wi-fi and a hotspot provided through the cell phone; either one was very crappy. It was at that time that we decided to (eventually) go the Starlink way.

This year, our first stop was, in fact, Monument Valley. I did not bother comparing their wi-fi to the Starlink Mini. Once I got the unit turned on and the antenna oriented correctly (per the Starlink App), we were off and running with internet speeds adequately high bandwidth to not only run our laptops, but to stream movies and other content on the big RV TV using an Amazon FIRE® Stick.

The screen shots below are typical of the up and download speeds we get in places that are not perfectly clear. There is enough open view of the northern sky, which Starlink seems to like, in these places where we have been camping.

We are even getting good internet in the land of OZ.

Click on any image to enlarge.

17 Jul 2025 by Entertainment Notions Technobabble Wanderlust

A Hardy Feast on Fathers Day

It is interesting that “Fathers Day” and “Hardy Feast” are anagrams of one another; that is, each phrase contains all the same letters in a different order.

In fact, the entire weekend – Friday the 13th, Flag Day and Fathers Day each featured a “Hardy Feast.” Patty Melts on Friday, a Seafood Bake on Flag Day and Surf and Turf with Beef Tenderloin Steaks (a.k.a. Filet Mignon) and Salmon Steaks served with a green salad on Fathers Day.

Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads, Granddads and Great Grandads out there. If there are any Great-Great Granddads left, then a special shout out to y’all.

15 Jun 2025 by Family Food & Dining Holidays Humor Notions

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