At Home AI Build Project Update

It turns out if you are going to build an AI at home you really need quite a lot of space. I have a grand total of one quarter of one side of a two car garage. I asked for more but when I told mom and dad what for they both looked at me long and hard, shook their heads slowly, then turned around and walked away. I took that as a no. I tried to tell them that this was not going to be a repeat of the at home electron microscope build disaster from when I was in middle school. In that instance, a gasket blew the first time I tried to draw a vacuum in the chamber. A bolt flew loose from the housing and somehow managed to break the front driver and passenger side windows on both my dad’s Honda and the family Ford Aerostar minivan. What a piece of shit that thing was, but it was the first car I ever saw with digital gauges.

The two for the price of one car window breakage was a million to one shot but it really soured my folks on the idea of letting me do anything remotely fun anywhere near family property. In any event I was basically out of space as the various electronic whatsits and computers whyfores were piling up left and right. As it turns out there is an old shed in the backyard of my parents small property. It sits abandoned and unused. When I asked my folks if anyone ever did use it they said they did not know but that they heard it’s ownership was somewhat in dispute among the two neighbors behind us. This was news to me as I had assumed it belong to my parents and came with their house when they bought it. My space problem had made me desperate so I hatched a fiendish plot to commandeer the shed for my AI build expansion. It was totally hidden from the two neighbors in terms of line of site and no one ever went anywhere near it as far as I could tell. My parents basically confirmed this when I asked them again about it.

Over the course of the next couple of days I slowly transitioned all my equipment and consumables to the shed from my cubby hole in the garage. Mom and dad were ecstatic as I had told them I was giving up on the project and taking everything to be recycled or to the dump. They are so gullible sometimes, particularly in the case of things they really want to believe are true. In the end it took about eight hours total spread over three days to get everything moved and setup. Just as I was settling in and preparing to fire up the main CPU and beta test my tools and a few gamma prototypes of robotics parts that would make up my AI’s “body” there was a loud banging at the door of the shed. “Who the hell is in there.” I heard, shouted in a loud and very irritated tone of voice. “That better not be you Ted, this is my fucking shed and you know it.” Crap, it was Mr. Sparks one of the neighbors that claimed ownership of what had become my new workshop. I had to think fast but for some reason I was drawing a blank, the pounding was growing louder and more urgent, “Listen you son of a bitch if I catch you in there I am going to call the God Damn cops and have them arrest you on the spot for trespassing.” Great, the police, that was all I needed. I could not afford yet another dustup with Johnny Law. I was and am still on their shit list for several (not my fault minor misunderstandings) jobs I did for the department which they claim were never completed. This is neither the time nor the place to delve into the details but suffice to say I fulfilled my end of the contract to the letter.

I was out of time, any second now Mr. Sparks was going to break in the door. Bereft of any other ideas I decided on the one course of action that I typically avoid all costs, I would be honest, confess what I was doing in the shed and why. I have got to try this honesty thing more often because wouldn’t you know it, it turns out Mr. Sparks is a big fan of my writings on Medium. He even became a follower recently. I asked him playfully if he was “sure you are not a bot?” and we laughed and laughed like little schoolgirls. We talked for hours and before you know it the sun was setting and it was time for me to turn in for the night. We shook hands then hugged it out before saying our good nights. As we were parting he turned to me one last time and said “Dan, get your shit the fuck out of my shed. I will give you until noon tomorrow, after that I call the cops.” Mother fucker, I knew honesty never pays. I am going to need a bigger garage.

As you can see things have been pretty crazy on the AI project build front and after all that excitement I was and still am wiped mentally and physically. It is exactly at times like these that I hop in the trusty old Honda Fit (thanks mom!) and head straight on over to Arby’s for a delicious beef Gyro and small Mountain Dew, or as I call it, Dan’t little slice of Heaven. If I’m lucky my old manager Mr. Tims will be working and he’ll give me the 2.5% ex-employee discount. I know it isn’t much but when you are as broke as I am every penny counts. I am definitely going to make a stop in the men’s restroom to check out my nanodegree in machinge learning from UdaCity (the fightin Udes!). It still hangs in it’s place of honor above urinal #2 there. I remember the day it arrived in the mail like it was yesterday. God, I was so young then. Oh shit I almost forgot to mention, I’m out of power strips.