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Here’s the Prompt

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With AI, and using ChatGPT or Claude as an example, what you get out really depends a lot on what you put in, the prompt. Even then, the results can often be a mixed review. If you have a paid subscription your results may vary: mine is a free subscription and so far I have been happy with the results. But sometimes I just have to wonder…

Over the past several weeks I have been working with a team from our church to create a warm and inviting atmosphere for our Christmas Eve services. Yes, it was 90 degrees yesterday, it’s only August, but with projects like this you really need the time to think about, create, socialize or promote the ideas to the team, and have time to redesign or adjust. So we are working on an event that isn’t scheduled for nearly 4 1/2 months from now. And now you know a bit about church planning.

The area I am working on is our Lobby. It won’t be the first thing our guests and member see when they arrive December 24–hopefully we will have added some Christmas decor to the parking areas and our patio areas before folks ever enter the building. But once in, what will they see?

Our church has a Mid-Century Modern design aethetic in a very contemporary brick, concrete, and glass building. Whatever we come up with has to fit in with our furniture, concrete flooring and that massive glass curtain wall that overlooks our patio and a forested area beyond. It isn’t quite “Colorado cabin” style but at the same time, it isn’t MCM Palm Springs California either. But by rearranging some of the seating areas, perhaps adding pillows and blankets, area rugs and smaller design elements, we might be able to transform a very large space into something a bit smaller and more welcoming.

However. We are visual people and I’ve found it’s easier to present a few pictures of what I have in mind than it is to describe the changes in a Word document for nine people.

Below I have presented the original photo I uploaded to ChatGPT and the initial prompt. It took five iterations before I got what I thought I would have received as a first try. Let me know if you think I could have been more specific with Chat in my instructions. Or perhaps this is how we work with AI? a little trial and error until we say, “that’s good enough for now.”

Here is the prompt I gave ChatGPT: 

I’m looking for another Christmas decor idea here. Please remove the two chairs on the left and replace with the yellow couch. To the right of the brick pillar place a lighted and decorated Christmas tree. Remove the round coffee table and place large wrapped Christmas presents (4-5) up against the brick. Add a sled leaning against the brick.

Below are the images I received back. I like #6 and think that it most closely resembles what I had asked for, but you be the judge.

The final image (couch on left facing the two chairs, Christmas tree with presents and a sled against the brick wall) looks the most like my original intent. We did gain two pillows in the final design, and after the first image I had Chat brighten up the room. And for some reason the couch seems to have grown two feet wider but overall, not bad. I forgot to add the area rug but I’m not one to test the fates, this will do.

How about you? Have you gotten more or less than what you’ve tasked AI with? I have Photoshop, and when it comes to time spent, ChatGPT beats me hands down.

By the way, if you are looking for a warm and engaging church to attend for Christmas Eve services this year, give us a try at Christian Fellowship Church in Ashburn VA. Or stop by any Sunday and try out the couches–they are very comfy!

Walton’s Mountain: A Visit to Schuyler, Virginia

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Take Highway 29 south of Charlottesville. The broad four-lane highway rolls gently away from the crowded streets of this college town, climbing into the wooded ridges of Nelson County. Mountains? Having lived in Nevada, I still think of these as hills. Beautiful, forested hills—but hills nonetheless.

The road passes wineries, cideries, and bed-and-breakfast inns that seem perfectly at home in Virginia’s countryside. As pleasant as they are, I found myself wondering what this landscape looked like during the 1930s.

Twenty-four miles south, turn left onto Route 6—Irish Road. A few minutes later you’ll arrive at the Walton’s Mountain Museum in Schuyler, Virginia.

Walton’s Mountain Museum building front

That’s how I drove home.

Getting there was another matter.

From Somerset, Virginia, I followed State Route 20, where road construction narrowed an already winding highway. Cars crept through one lane at a time, each of us patiently following the next toward destinations that, in my case, were entirely unfamiliar.

July in Virginia is predictably hot and humid. But on this particular day another visitor had arrived first: smoke from the Canadian wildfires, nearly 900 miles to the north. I had hoped that by climbing into the mountains I might outrun the haze—or at least rise above it. Instead, the smoky air that blanketed our valley had settled over Schuyler as well. The destination proved both new and strangely familiar, but the clear mountain air I had imagined never appeared.

Housed in the former Schuyler High School, the Waltons Mountain Museum features carefully recreated sets from the television series, including John-Boy’s bedroom, the family kitchen, and Ike Godsey’s store. Opened in 1992, the museum has become an important part of the local economy, drawing fans from across the country and around the world. During my visit, guests had come from nearby Charlottesville, North Carolina, and much farther away. A glance through the visitor log confirmed that the appeal of The Waltons extends well beyond Virginia.

Walton’s Mountain Tshirt signed by Richard Thomas
Newspapers remembering Earl Hamner
Original Hamner Home
The Hamner Home-TV version

The television series ran for nine seasons and 221 episodes before concluding in 1981, followed by a number of reunion movies through 1997. Nearly three decades after the last of those specials aired, visitors are still making the pilgrimage to experience the world of a family who, though inspired by real people, largely lived in fiction.

The museum occupies an interesting space somewhere between celebration and remembrance. Visitors come to relive the lives of the fictional Walton family, but the museum never lets them forget the real family behind the stories. Earl Hamner Jr., whose childhood inspired the series, grew up here with his parents and seven siblings. Throughout the exhibits, photographs place members of the Hamner family beside the actors who portrayed them, gently reminding visitors where fact ends and storytelling begins. The Hamners first became a novel, then a film, and eventually one of television’s most beloved series. Yet behind it all remained a very real family from a very real Virginia town.

Spencer’s Mountain, by Earl Hamner, Jr. image from Amazon

The museum’s caretaker that afternoon had grown up in Schuyler. She was old enough to have known many members of the Hamner family personally, although I never quite sorted out exactly who or when. What mattered was that she transformed the exhibits from static displays into living history. She shared firsthand stories, local memories, and bits of background that never appeared on the exhibit labels. More than anything I read on the walls, she brought both the people and the town to life. I found myself disappointed when she excused herself for a break.

Earl Hamner Jr. was born in 1923 and died in 2016. He was only three years older than my father, one of five children, and five years older than my mother, who grew up with six siblings of her own. Like the Hamners, my parents lived through the Great Depression. Yet standing in Schuyler, it was easy to imagine that those difficult years were considerably harder in the hills of rural Virginia than they had been for my parents in Southern California.

Still, hardship has a way of producing stories worth telling. In this case, those stories have endured for more than fifty years, continuing to draw people who long for a glimpse of a simpler world—or perhaps simply a kinder one.

I spent an unhurried afternoon wandering through the museum, complimenting the caretaker on the thoughtful exhibits. I lingered longest in John-Boy’s recreated bedroom, which somehow felt exactly as I had imagined it. Before leaving, I picked up a few jars of Waltons Mountain jam from the gift shop. The Moonshine Jelly contained considerably more “moonshine” in its name than in its recipe, but it was enjoyable all the same.

After more than thirty years producing graphics and exhibits for museums and visitor centers, I’ve seen displays of every size and budget. Every exhibition hopes to honor its subject well. Could the captions have been more legible? Certainly. Would improved lighting and newer display cases have showcased the collection more effectively? Without question.

But they also might have polished away some of the museum’s charm.

John-Boy’s Bedroom
Waltons Living Room set
Waltons Kitchen set

For me, the exhibits were memorable. The stories were unforgettable. And the best exhibit in the building wasn’t behind glass at all—it was the woman behind the front desk who remembered when these stories were simply the lives of her neighbors.

If you’ve been to the museum, let me know in the comments below. 

The Mountain

Trains and the Sounds of Morning

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In the distance I hear the rumbling freight cars passing by. The CSX Washington Subdivision, running west from Orange to Charlottesville, still sees regular freight traffic. Coal once dominated Virginia’s rail economy in the 1970s. Today, while coal trains still pass through, there is a broader mix of intermodal containers and general freight.

The long horn sounds, followed by the rushing anticipation of rail cars clacking by. I rarely see the trains—they pass more than a mile from the house—but the sounds take me back to an imagined childhood. We never lived this close to tracks before, yet somehow this morning rhythm reminds me of home.

Now the cows are sounding off. I’m always surprised I can hear them from this far away. Their calls drift up the hill from Fairfield View Dairy Farm. Historical records suggest Orange County once had nearly 100 dairy farms in the 1960s. By 1992, that number had dropped to 33, part of a decline that likely began decades earlier as the industry shifted toward larger, more specialized operations. Today, only a handful of active dairy farms remain in Orange County.

So the sound feels fleeting somehow—cows calling to one another in the early dawn from down in Somerset along Route 231, near the Somerset Steam and Gas Engine Association. Occasionally we hear some of their antique equipment come to life as well.

Our next-nearest neighbor owns a small construction company. Early each morning we hear his employees arrive, bouncing up the gravel road we share, older pickup trucks growling and downshifting as they dip and then climb the rise past our house. Thirty minutes later they all leave together, a small parade of trucks and trailers heading off toward whatever job site awaits them that day.

My neighbor’s rooster has been going on all morning too. Yes, we hear you.

Then there is a brief pause.

For a little while the gravel road grows quiet before the garden café opens for lunch and traffic on the road picks back up again. The European Market and Café anchors a large nursery nearby. We’ve bought a few plants there over the years, but mostly we go for lunch on the patio, lingering over sandwiches and coffee while looking west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Some mornings, before the day fully arrives, all of these sounds seem to overlap at once—the distant train horn, cows calling across the valley, gravel crunching under old trucks, a rooster insisting upon himself. None of it dramatic. None of it remarkable on its own. But together they form the soundtrack of this place, a kind of rural liturgy announcing that another day has begun

Let’s Make Ice Cream

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The hand-crank home ice cream maker was invented by Nancy M. Johnson. She filed the patent for her “Artificial Freezer”—the world’s first hand-cranked ice cream machine—on July 29, 1843, and was officially granted the patent on September 9, 1843.

Nancy Johnson’s patent (“Artificial Freezer,” U.S. Patent No. 3,254) was granted on September 9, 1843. Her design introduced the familiar hand crank and internal dasher that churned the cream mixture while surrounded by ice and salt — the basic principle still used in many traditional ice cream makers today.

The oak bucket design became the standard because the wooden staves insulated the ice-and-salt mixture surrounding the metal canister. That basic arrangement — wooden bucket outside, metal cylinder inside, hand crank on top — remained essentially unchanged for generations. 

I asked Mom what she remembered about growing up—did her family ever make homemade ice cream? She grew up during the 1930s-40s in Southern California. 

“When I was a kid we had a 2 quart one I think…maybe only 1  1/2…not sure.  It was green, and rather large.  With 7 kids and Mother and Daddy, it took a lot, but we had cows so we had plenty of cream. Strawberries from the garden, or chocolate, usually. And we had an ice box that held 300 pounds of ice, if I remember correctly.  We only bought 100 at a time. It was a real chore, getting it just right at the end, then packing it to ‘ripen.’”

There were many years, looking back even before the 1990s, when our church would celebrate the Memorial Day weekend with a church-wide Strawberry Social. Church members would prepare flats of fresh-picked strawberries, ice cream makers would be brought out from home storage and dusted off, and the chocolate syrup bottles and shortcakes or bisquits would be layed out on tables in the Gym. In those days, the weather would always cooperate and we would all sit outdoors under the trees, picnic tables and folding chairs set up in the parking area, eating and talking and enjoying the promise of summer.

When I bought the electric one, one of my friends said that he had a similar one but that they seldom use it. Even with the ease of an electric ice cream maker, it’s definitely more convenient o buy a half gallon at the store and skip the effort. But you miss the excitement of watching the miracle happen!

Our friends at Liberty Mills Farm in Somerset have a rather unique way of making their ice cream, hooking up a vintage John Deere tractor to power up a couple of units; so much fun to watch!

So, I guess the question isn’t “are you a Ben and Jerry’s fan or a Häagen-Dazs fan?” no, I think the real question is “hand crank or electric”? After all, anyone can buy ice cream. But dedicating the time to making it? Now that’s commitment! 

After trying the egg custard base, vanilla recipe, we are ready to venture out. I’m guessing the next culinary adventure will be double chocolate, and for the addition of small marshmallows and walnuts to make rocky road will be heaven. But I’m not opposed to trying out a good strawberry ice cream recipe. 

While there are millions of variations, most online recipes fall into a few primary methods:

Vanilla Ice Cream

  • French / Custard Style: Uses a base of egg yolks, sugar, milk, heavy cream, and real vanilla bean or extract, gently heated and then churned.
  • Philadelphia Style: No egg yolks used. The base is just heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, and vanilla extract.
  • No-Churn Style: Whipped to fluffy peaks with heavy cream and sweetened condensed milk, then frozen without a machine. 

Chocolate Ice Cream

  • Standard / Custard: Starts with a vanilla custard base, with unsweetened cocoa powder or melted chopped chocolate whisked directly into the hot milk and cream.
  • Two/Three Ingredient: The no-churn method, blending sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, and cocoa powder.
  • Double / Dark: Typically adds both cocoa powder and melted bittersweet chocolate for a very rich, fudgy flavor. 

Recipe suggestions from Asktheicecreamqueen.com

Top Five most consumed ice cream brands in the US are (statista.com)

  • Ben & Jerry’s
  • Blue Bunny
  • Breyers
  • Dairy Queen
  • Blue Bell Creameries

That Didn’t Age Well

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Fish, milk, fast fashion: some things just don’t age well. You can add to that list my somewhat junior prognostications regarding urban growth. 

A bit more than five years ago, having just moved to and still getting to know our new community here in Ashburn, I wrote an article on my blog about data centers. You can read it here, Go Big. Big Brutalist Boxes, just crushing the once-rural landscape of the area and we’ve gradually come to accept their presence. Data centers seemed to be everywhere and yet—we couldn’t imagine what was to come. 

In my article I cited then-current stats indicating approximately 70 data centers in the Ashburn area with more on the horizon. Currently, Loudoun County handles more internet traffic than any other place on earth. And the number of under-construction and planned data centers seems hard to believe. I’ve put a map at the bottom of this article of the ones located here in Ashburn, along with a link to the data source. It’s quite…impressive. The Ashburn, Virginia area (the heart of “Data Center Alley”) now hosts between 133 and 199 operational data centers. The “Data Center Capital of the World,” routes an estimated 70% of the world’s daily internet traffic. 

But what happened to Ashburn in those five years? Well take a look.

The building on the left is our church back in 2020. It was sold and the land later developed as a data center. At the time I thought it was large, but it is merely one of the new, even larger configurations going in here in Ashburn.

And in an almost funny cosmic twist of fate, call it irony, the AOL campus which seemingly introduced us all to the internet was itself sold, demolished, and is now undergoing it’s own transformation from managing internet traffic to, well, storing and managing the data of the internet.


There is growing sentiment in communities across the US to restrict or prohibit data centers from moving in, not accepting the current tax tradeoffs for the strain on electric grids and water resources that the centers produce. I’ve been discussing/arguing with friends online about where, exactly, we should be placing these behemoths. Their great need for resources, particularly water for cooling and electricity to run their operations, places some limits on where they can be feasibly located. My home state of Nevada seems like a great location. The Bureau of Land Management (under Department of the Interior) manages nearly 48 million acres of public land for multiple use in Nevada, which accounts for about 63 percent of the state’s land base. Surely they can host America’s growing number of centers? Not so fast! I’ve been told. And indeed, Reno City Council just voted on a 30-day moratorium as they wrestle with the concerns of citizens and the offers of developers. Across the US more than 60 local municipalities have enacted similar moratoriums. Good information can be found here at US Data Center Moratorium Tracker.

And it’s not just undeveloped land that beckons the centers: here in Ashburn a local neighborhood has been offered up to $4M an acre for their homes. MSN has an article on that proposal here, though no plans have been filed with the county as of yet. But this is what they would be looking at, several data centers I snapped this morning on my drive thru the area and along Belmont Ridge Road. It’s hard to believe there could be any undeveloped land left in our 20147 zip code but apparently there is.

My article back in 2020 has not aged well. I don’t think it’s as bad as day-old fish, but something does smell. Take a look at the map below to get an idea of what’s going on in our Ashburn neighborhoods. It’s something alright.

Screenshot of Data Centers in Ashburn (datacentermap.com)

Where the Apple Falls

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I have always loved art. Art with a capital A, though I’ve generally favored painting over drawing or sculpture. Loved art and loved making art.

One of my earliest memories is of attending an outdoor art show and offering my unsolicited — and at that point hardly well-trained — critique of a painting. The artist took it in good humor, though having stood in that same spot years later, I can say it must have been a little unsettling. Everyone has opinions about Art, of course. But a youngster critiquing technique? That’s a different story.

In junior high school I was given the opportunity to practice what I had been preaching. I loved helping paint the backdrop flats for our school musicals — one each year from 7th through 9th grade: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, The Pirates of Penzance, were two that I remember having worked on.

Through high school and college I continued to paint, though I stayed away from the theater department. Perhaps I assumed large-format work would never be my strength, or that there couldn’t possibly be a future in scenic design. My loss.

Rehearsal on stage at Immanuel Bible Church (2008)

Then, in my late 40s, I picked it all up again when I volunteered to help with the sets for our church’s annual Easter pageant productions. These were full-scale presentations: scenery, actors, singing and dancing, orchestra, theatrical lighting — the works. With nine or more performances each spring, they aspired to a high level of theater quality using all volunteers. At the time, much like that young art critic years before, I thought they could probably use a little help with the painting. And so I volunteered, first as a background painter working on rocks, and later as scenic designer with a team of volunteers helping to bring to life the 1st century world of Jerusalem. 

Cleaning the stage before rehearsal

One of the great blessings of living where we do is easy access to world-class theater. We’ve taken the kids to see Wicked, Mary Poppins, The Lion King, and other productions at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And of course, a train trip to New York City for a weekend Broadway show was something we could never resist.

This year my oldest granddaughter graduates from high school, and in the fall she’ll attend a local university majoring in theater set design. I couldn’t be more proud of all she has accomplished — from the ten productions she participated in during her school years to the way she has branched into hair and makeup, costume design, props, and stage management while also earning a certification in cosmetology, a skill I’m certain will serve her well wherever life leads.

On the set of Macbeth (Freedom High School Theater)

It’s far too early to know the trajectory of her career, or even whether she’ll remain in the theater world long term. But as the coming tsunami of AI reshapes so much of the workplace, careers rooted in craftsmanship, creativity, and personal expression may prove more enduring than many expect.

What a blessing. Congratulations, young lady. Keep shining and paint your world. 

Settling In

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It’s now been a month since we made the move and downsized from a 1900 square foot townhouse to a 1,00 square foot, two bedroom apartment. It hasn’t been without a few challenges. Overall, however, I’m surprised at how well we have managed. 

Boxing, packing, renting a storage unit, more sorting thru, donating and discarding all helped to prepare our townhouse for sale. The final move was over in a day—we had movers come in and load all the boxes and furniture and after that it was just directing where things were to go.

The pictures and family photos have now all been hung. We have fewer walls than our townhome so not everything went back up. And there has been some rearranging: the Nevada Room is now the living room, before it was the decor for the guest bedroom. The second bedroom in the apartment has been reconfigured as our Den/TV/Office. A small daybed serves double duty as a couch and a bed for future guests. 

Previously we had a separate kitchen, dining room, and living room. In our new place, those are all combined in one large central room, which I thought would be too small but actually functions quite well. The big bonus for me is the extra kitchen storage and the large kitchen island. The granite countertops are an upgrade as well as the under-cabinet task lighting. Really, it’s been quite an improvement. And having the washer dryer in the kitchen is a huge blessing! No more walking down two levels to do laundry.

We are getting spoiled by a couple of amenities that the apartments offer. A covered parking garage means no more walking in the rain between house and car. “Trash Valet” picks up our trash and recycling every evening at our door. The trip from the townhouse backyard up a snow-covered slope with our trash receptacles was more adventure than I cared to repeat, especially in dark December and no walkway. Now we just set the containers out and bring them back in before 9am the following morning. Sweet!

We’ve had to bring our small wheeled cart out of storage to use transporting boxes and bags from my truck, through the parking garage and down the long hallway to our apartment. I think it’s seen more action this week than in the previous four years of use. As boxes make the trip from our storage unit to the new apartment, I’m struck by how many we have. I had packed boxes and moved them to storage over the course of many weeks, stacking them until I couldn’t reach the top of the pile. Everything got packed. Now, as we unpack and try to find room for what we have, we are continuing the process of sorting, donating, and trashing, looking at every memento, book, or CD with a more discerning eye. Out it goes!

The 424-acre Kincora site has 180 acres of natural area with scenic nature trails bordering the Broad Run River, a tributary of the Potomac. I hope to get out and start walking some of them once the heat of summer begins to fade, right now the humidity is oppressive (typical Virginia summer!). There is quite a bit of construction activity in the to-be-developed area here at Kincora. More apartments, townhouses and retail will join the Northern Virginia Science Center under development. We had looked at moving here back in 2019; as we begin this new chapter in our lives, it looks like we picked a great time to relocate!

It’s Been a Week

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It has been a week! Which started roughly six months ago, but finished up today.

When we first moved to Ashburn, it was the beginning of a rather long and protracted downsizing. I had recently retired, we were in a house which over the years had begun to feel too large for us, and my wife had just a few years left in her then-current job when she would have to decide, “what’s next?” Moving from Fairfax, we expected that the townhouse we had bought in Ashburn would be an interim step for us as we downsized, expecting it to last us for perhaps five years. We ended up staying six before selling and moving this spring, downsizing again.

The process of getting ready to sell our home began in earnest back in January. While we debated the pros and cons of buying or renting another place (we eventually decided to rent), we knew a lot had to go to squeeze the contents of a 1,900 square foot townhouse into a 1,000 square foot apartment. Here’s a great hack: get a storage unit close to where you will be moving: those hard decisions about what to purge can be made later when you aren’t under pressure to pack up everything and go.

So it’s been six months of preparing followed by a long day of movers wrapping and packing and moving us into an apartment. Most of our boxes have now been unpacked, newspaper and bubblewrap cleared out. I’ve run the dishwasher once; we have trash valet service which means no more trips with trash cans up an icy or snow-covered hill to the street. We’ve run a load of wash in the new full-size stackable washer/dryer and tonight I’m planning on using both the gas range and the stove to make dinner. Big steps!

We had two assigned parking spots at our townhouse, here we have a parking garage with open parking. An elevator provides a quick ride downstairs to the apartment lobby and the mail room, the gym is on the ground floor level and a rooftop deck is great for viewing the sunset.

Already I miss our bit of yard and common area green space from the old home even though the deer here in Ashburn ate almost everything I ever planted. I have to say, all-in-all it’s been a good experience. Deb has never lived in an apartment and it’s been nearly 40 years since I have. The times we’ve moved as a married couple can be counted on one hand, not all that bad for boomers. My Mom wrote recently that she had moved ten times in the seven years after she had graduated high school in 1946. I’m not complaining! It’s another My Retired Life Adventure.