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National Dog Day!

Today is National Dog Day. We, as humans, don’t deserve dogs. They love us when we don’t always love ourselves. Dogs move thru the world looking for the best in people and other dogs.

My history with Dogs

I got my first dog when I was in first or second grade. I don’t remember any interactions with dogs before my family moved from New Hampshire to Missouri. I’m sure there were some interactions but they have left my memory.
My first dog was named Buddy. Buddy was a full grown, AKC registered Golden Retriever. We brought him home from the breeder we got him from and I was excited. He proceeded to not interact with us, not eat, and only really moved to goto the bathroom. My parents talked to the breeder and it turned out he was missing his girlfriend, Ginger. We took him back to the breeder and once he saw Ginger he was a brand new dog running around and happy. The breeder kindly let us pick a puppy from Ginger’s new litter that was ready to go home.
I stood in a pen with six or so puppies running around me and I, as a seven year old was to pick my new best friend. There was a quite puppy off to the side and that’s the one I wanted. My mom mentioned that appeared to be the runt and and they usually got sick (this myth is now busted but this is what she believed and told me back then). So, I went to the polar opposite of the quite little girl. I picked the puppy who was tearing at my velcro straps of my shoes. The breeder mentioned he was nicknamed Mike Tyson since he beat up every other dog. We took him home.
His AKC name was Andy’s Golden Buddy Jr. or, BJ for short.
BJ was the most stubborn dog I have ever met. My parents and brother paid to have him trained. The trainer said he was so smart he stayed two to three steps ahead of her at all times. That was BJ. He loved to chase the ball and most of the time loved to bring it back in order to run and get it again. One of his other hobbies was to spill his water bucket and make mud in his pen when my dad mowed the lawn in order to get my dad muddy when he mowed by his pen.
As he got older, like lot’s of big dogs BJ got issues with hips. He lived to be 12 years old.
Around the time I was a sophomore in High School I like most kids found all sorts of reasons to drive my car. I had a friend who I would drive home in order to keep even just a few moments more of freedom in my car. One day I dropped my friend off and before she shut the passenger door a small black and grey fur ball jumped in the car and looked at me and cocked his head. My friends mom had mentioned that the puppies were dropped off near their house and this was the last one they had not gotten rid of. That, along with his face which was the cutest face I think I have ever seen meant he was going to be my dog. I drove him home and left him in the car and went in to ask (tell) my mom we had a new dog. My mom seeing my face she knew I had an animal in car. Once she saw puppy in the car we agreed to convince (tell) my dad this new dog was going to added to our family.
Skeeter was a black lab and blue heeler mix. Skeeter was the first dog I would say I was pair bonded to. He was my first heart dog. Skeeter spent his first few years outside as BJ’s puppy. BJ loved Skeeter very much and was quite protective of him. When BJ passed away we made a decision as a family to have Skeeter be an inside dog. If dog’s had human’s IQ’s he had an IQ of 150. He would learn commands the first time I tried to use them. For example, we’d wrestle and one time I was ready to stop so I said “Calm Down” he understood what I was saying and laid down beside me. He would do this from then on.
Skeeter stayed with my parents when I got married and he lived three years or so after I left home. He was 14 when he passed.

The “Modern Era” Dogs

I say Modern Era because there was a long gap of about 12 years between Skeeter’s passing and me getting a new dog. Sure, my parents had a dog after Skeeter and my brother in law had a dog I adored but they were not my dogs.

After the pandemic I finally convinced my then wife to let us get a dog. She was scared of big dogs so she insisted we get a small dog. I had heard about the trend of Doodles which are poodles mixed with other breeds. A co-worker of my wife got a mini golden doodle from a breeder in Iowa. This little puppy made her ways to Zoom meetings my ex wife was in. We then started making plans to get a puppy from the same breeder.
Cali is a mini Golden Doodle my Ex Wife and I purchased from the breeder in Iowa. From the moment we entered the doors of the breeder Cali was my Ex’s heart dog. They were two peas in a pod. When the divorce came it was decided she would take Cali and for a time Cali would come spend some weekends with me. This ended, but Cali will always have a special place in my heart. Cali allowed me to start grieving my mother’s death. When mom died I was numb, I didn’t cry I didn’t get depressed. I just, well, moved on with my life. When Cali came I didn’t have my usual person to talk to about funny things Cali did. My mom, brother, and I were the dog people of the family. So, when Cali did something cute I would want to share it with my mom. She wasn’t there to share with anymore and that made me sad. That little 20 lbs doodle opened my emotions up and allowed me to feel my feelings about mom’s death and I will forever be grateful to her for that.

When my brother and his kids moved to Missouri he had a chance to meet Cali and decided he also wanted a mini doodle from the same breeder. He and I drove up to Iowa on a sunny day in May, in the midst of my divorce, to get his little Doodle. When we got to the breeder and saw his Coco the first time there was the same sense that this little dog found her person. One problem, it was me. Every time I would visit my brother’s house Coco was stuck to me like glue and I was to her as well. Once Mel and her dogs moved in it was clear my brother’s other dog was bullying Coco and Coco was my heart dog so why not let her move in with us? She did and like they say the rest is history. Coco is such a treat to have. She loves nothing more than to goto bed with MEl and I and cuddle. She’s easily the lowest maintance dog we have. If she’s not in our room laying in her (our) bed she’s laying in my lap.

During my divorce and knowing Coco was still living with my brother I decided I needed a dog at home. I found a Golden Retriever breeder near my house. The mamma dog had puppies and there were a couple that still hadn’t had been adopted so I picked one. Oliver Hamilton Picard Small (his AKC name) came to live with me. Oliver is the sweetest, sneakiest, derpiest dog I have ever met. There are days I want to yeet him into the sun and other days I could cuddle with him forever. Oliver can be counter surfing for steak one min and the next he’s in my lap thinking he’s the size of Coco.

When Mel moved in with me I knew her three dogs were part of the package, and I don’t know what was I more excited, her moving in with me or meeting her dogs. Actually I do, meeting the dogs (sorry honey). They moved in on a slushy day in January. Mel had driven two greyhounds and a black lab from St. Joe to Versailles. One of them, Cedar, had an accident in the back of the car about an hour from the house. When they arrived Eva went barking after our cat CJ. The two greyhound boys trotted from room to room sniffing. One at a time they came into my office to introduce themselves to me as the polite gentlemen they are. Mel looked like she had been run over by a bus. Happy to be home, dogs in tow, but run over by a bus.

Otter was the first Greyhound to introduce himself. With brindle coloring the retired racer was bigger than even most greyhounds. He was happiest when he was on his couch with his puppy, Eva, beside him. Mel had adopted him when she still lived in PA. He made the trip from PA to St. Joe and finally to Versailles a few years later. When I met Otter he was an old man. In fact, that’s what I called him. Every morning I would walk out to the living room and say “Good Morning, Old Man” and he would acknowledge with a subtle smile. One morning I woke up cranky and tired and when I walked out into the living room I did not greet him. He waited a few moments and then got up walked over to me and snooted me. I don’t know if he could sense my crank or if he was worried I was mad at him. Needless to say my bad mood was gone. Otter was Mel’s heart dog. I never tried to get in the way or push myself on him. I let him set the tone of our friendship. One day while working from home I walked thru the living room past the couch. Otter grabbed my shorts and directed me to sit on the couch. This was a demand and even if I wanted to say no, I don’t think that was an option. Once I sat down Otter put his head in my lap and let me pet him while he looked at me with his loving eyes. When he was done with me he snooted me off his couch. I only got to know Otter for five months but it was an awesome time. Otter was already having issues getting around when I met him. After a few falls outside and constant pain we made the decision to have him put to sleep. I miss the old man every day, but I see his influence on the other dogs.

Eva is our Black Lab mix. Eva is a ball of fire. Before she moved to Versailles Mel warned me that Eva doesn’t always warm up to men. That’s okay, I thought, she was also Mel’s heart dog. That’s all I needed to know. We both loved Mel and if she didn’t really warm up to me I was totally okay with that. It took a bit of time but she realized I wasn’t going to try and force myself on her. The bond started with her standing on the love seat Mel and I sit on and wagging her tail, in my face. Eva’s tail is made out of some sort of super human metal or something. It’s harder than steel and when it’s set in motion it can take down a small house. She found it funny to wag her tail and whip me with it. Eva then started laying in my lap every once in a while. We would also play tug of war and her version of fetch. As in, she’d go get the ball and never bring it back. Eva is fiercely loyal to Mel. Eva grew up with Greyhounds and had to teach them how to play. Having Oliver as a little brother has been a gift to Eva. She has found a play partner who understands. They will play tug of war with my socks or just wrestle in the yard. Eva is getting older, as we all are, but I’ve only seen a little slow down in her. She’s still a ball of fire. She still barks at anything or anyone that gets close to the house and her mom.

Cedar is Red Fawn Greyhound Mel brought from St. Joe when she moved in. Cedar had always kind of been the “4th wheel” in Mel’s house. Mel of course loved him and he loved her but Cedar didn’t have a pair bond with anyone. He was searching. Then, on that slushy day in January Cedar found his pair bond and I found my primary heart dog. The bond was instant. We understood each other in a way I can’t even start to explain. When he gives me the “greyhound lean” I feel a sense of peace and love that words are not enough to explain. I’ve always tried not to have a favorite animal. That has stopped, Cedar is my favorite and I can’t help it. He is my second favorite mammal. Second only to Mel and it’s close. Cedar is 11 years old and I know our time together is limited. Greyhounds only live 10-12 years. I intend to spend every moment I can with America’s Favorite Sighthound :tm:.

Leo will be the newest addition to our pack…….I’ve said too much!

August 26, 2026
Wolf of Gubbio

The Story

A wolf terrorized the farmers in Gubbio in the Middle Ages. This wolf would attack, alone, and kill livestock. It didn’t take long before he moved to attacking humans. When the residents tried to attack him with weapons he simply killed them. Saint Francis of Assisi hearing of this told the residents, who at this point were too scared to leave their houses, that he was going to leave the safety of the city and meet the wolf. The residents warned Francis to not go, surely this great man would be killed by the horrible wolf. Francis set out at once.

As the wolf saw Francis approach he snarled at the Saint, showing his teeth, hair on the back of his neck standing up. The wolf readied for his attack. Francis commanded the wolf to stop, making the sign of the cross as he did. The wolf went from an angry animal to being as calm as anyone’s dog at home.

Francis hold the wolf’s head in hands spoke to the wolf as if he was a human. Speaking to his “brother wolf” Francis promised to make peace between the wolf. If the wolf promised to stop attacking the city the residents would stop trying to kill the wolf, forgiving him of all that he had done prior.

At that moment the wolf closed his eyes in agreement with Francis. Upon seeing this Francis went further, promising the wolf that the residents would feed and care for him as one of their own as long as he promised to never attack any animal or human again.

Francis offered the wolf his hand and in turn, the wolf put his paw in Francis hand. The agreement made Francis commanded the wolf to return with him to the city. In the city center the people were astonished to see with their own eyes this horrible creature walking beside Francis as a dog would his person. Francis spoke to the residents about the agreement the wolf made. Happy to know their aggressor was now a friend, they agreed to care for the wolf.

The wolf lived out his life spending time at the houses of the residents, receiving food and water. More than nutrition the wolf received love and belonging. When the wolf died the city mourned the loss of the animal once their tormentor. The city gave the wolf an honorable burial and continued to honor him building a church over his grave. In 1872 a skeleton of a large wolf was found during renovations to that very church giving credence to the story.

What can we learn?

Anyone that knows anything about wolves know they are pack animals. Wolves live life in a hierarchy and share food and protect each other. The fact the wolf in this story is alone and is terrorizing the city with impunity checks out. Lone wolves are often those that are shunned from their pack for one reason or another and have to depend on themselves to survive.

All this wolf ever wanted was to belong to something greater than himself. He wanted, needed to feel the protection of others around him. When he didn’t have that, he lashed out.

Saint Francis loving all creatures and knowing the ways of wolves would have known this and took his own life into his hands to offer the wolf exactly what he needed. In turn, Francis also offered the residents what they needed.

Too often we see those that are different than us and chose to judge them. We can’t pretend to know what’s going on in their life. We judge and we attack and we shun those that we perceive to be attacking our way of life. It is easy to do, the default state of humanity is to attack that which we don’t understand. Francis teaches us here we can go above all that.

If we stop and take a moment to reflect on our own wolves in our lives, what do they yearn for? What can we do to coexist with them? Walking up to an aggressive wolf has to be scary, but, Francis knew this was the only way to find peace for the people of Gubbio.

We need to follow the example of Francis in this story. We need to do something that is really scary, take the time to see what others need from us and offer it to them. This will turn our wolves into companions in our lives. This will bring our wolves, and by extension ourselves a lasting peace.

Here is a little AI Video I made for fun

August 21, 2026
Summer Reading List 2026

Sure, summer isn’t quite over. But now is when I have the executive function to actually put this list together, so here we go. You’ll see a trend: short of one fiction book, this list is all nonfiction relating to presidential history. When I say I have read these books, full disclosure — I listen to them on Audible. I spend 90 minutes a day commuting, so that’s when I have a guaranteed block of time to consume information. Plus, if I’m doing chores or working with my hands at all, I like to listen to podcasts or books. This summer has been far and away my most voracious period of reading.

Grace

By: Cody Keenan

Reread. I first read this book in 2024. Grace outlines the 10 days in 2015 when the ACA, gay marriage, and a eulogy for slain members of a Black church in the South kept Mr. Keenan busy. Keenan at the time was President Obama’s chief speechwriter. The book is well written, full of personal stories, and it goes inside the mind of a writer — something I’m very interested in. Keenan draws on themes from The West Wing when he talks about the “blank page” and bouts of writer’s block.

Thanks, Obama

By: David Litt

This is my first reading of this book. Mr. Litt was a writer on the aforementioned Keenan’s speechwriting staff. Litt tells the story of his hero worship of then-candidate Obama and the realization that President Obama is just a human being with faults like anyone else. The book is light, and Litt writes in a way that keeps your attention and has you shaking your head at his metaphors with a smile.

Punk’s Force

By: Ward Carroll

This is a book in the Punk series, which follows a fictional F-14 and F/A-18 pilot who becomes commander of naval air forces. Mr. Carroll is a former F-14 RIO (back seat — think Goose in Top Gun) and writes from a place of knowledge about naval flight operations. The book follows an exercise between the Air Force and the Navy and works in modern themes like AI and defense budget cuts for piloted aircraft. Mr. Carroll also has a YouTube channel where he talks about all things naval aviation and defense news.

White House Usher

By: Christopher B. Emery

In this book, Mr. Emery talks about his time in the often misunderstood job of White House Usher. Emery started his career in IT and moved into the Usher’s Office during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. He served in that job until he was terminated by the Clinton White House because he provided Barbara Bush with tech support after she and her husband left the White House.

Within Arm’s Length

By: Dan Emmett

This book ended my early- and mid-summer foray into the Secret Service. Mr. Emmett was a Secret Service agent during the late ’80s and ’90s, and he writes in the “back in my day we weren’t so soft” voice of a man of his generation. While he provides some interesting stories, the book is too hell-bent on showing how cool he is because he was a Secret Service agent.

The Kennedy Detail

By: Gerald Blaine

This book tells the stories of the Secret Service agents who protected the Kennedys while John F. Kennedy was in the Oval Office. It doesn’t just focus on the events in Dallas in November of 1963; it takes a 30,000-foot view of what it was like to protect JFK and his family, the assassination itself, and the aftermath for the agents.

In the Secret Service

By: Jerry Parr

Mr. Parr was Special Agent in Charge of the Presidential Protective Division on the day in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan’s life was threatened outside a Washington, D.C., hotel. Parr threw President Reagan into the limo and discovered the wound the President had suffered. The book follows the events of that day, with interludes covering Parr’s path to the Secret Service and his life afterward working as a missionary helping AIDS patients in a convent founded by Mother Teresa. The book is well written, and I very much enjoyed it.

The Final Witness

By: Paul Landis

Secret Service Agent Paul Landis was part of a two-agent team dedicated to the protection of Jackie Kennedy. Mr. Landis writes in a light and witty way that allows you, as the reader, to follow along with a young man who was working a dream job that turned into a nightmare in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Mr. Landis tells the heartbreaking story of driving Mrs. Kennedy to a waiting helicopter that took her to the hospital to deliver her son, Patrick, who died a few days later. Landis gave himself time to try to process the events in Dallas, and when he couldn’t process the trauma, he left the Secret Service.

20 Years in the Secret Service

By: Rufus Youngblood

First of all, this is the coolest author’s name on the entire Summer Reading List. Mr. Youngblood was in charge of Vice President LBJ’s detail that Friday in Dallas. When the shots rang out, he made sure the Vice President and his wife were protected traveling to the hospital and then to Air Force One, where LBJ took the oath of office. Youngblood became SAIC of the Presidential detail upon LBJ’s accession. While his time with LBJ is the highlight, Youngblood also writes about his life after protecting the Texan.

Five Presidents

By: Clint Hill

Reread. I have reread this book at least three times, and each time I find it more interesting than the last. Mr. Hill tells the story of his time in the Secret Service, from protecting President Eisenhower’s mother-in-law to the day he left the Service — mostly due to health issues from burying the trauma of being the agent who ran to the presidential car as shots rang out in Dallas.

Five Days in November

By: Clint Hill

Reread. This is my fourth reread of this book, which outlines that terrible November when Mr. Hill was SAIC of the First Lady’s detail — the awful moments in Dallas, the autopsy in Washington, and the funeral. Hill wrote the story with a passion and sadness that was infectious. I was born 20 years after those events unfolded, but Hill put me in his shoes in Dallas.

August 11, 2026
Remove and Block Edge Extensions via Powershell
As an IT Professional :tm: I am the defacto Director of IT for my family and friends. I enjoy this (unpaid) role because I try to help my “users” learn more about tech and how it can improve their every day life. Microsoft Edge, or, IE The Next Generation as I like to call it is powered by Chromium. Chrome and Edge share that in common, part of the Chromium engine allows for extensions. Google has a robust approval process thru the Chrome Extension store. Microsoft, eh, not so much.

It’s really easy for threat actors to fool a normal user into instaling an Edge Extension. Some of these mask themselves common applications and threaten the user that they are at risk. Which is true, but the malformed Edge Extenstion is the threat.

If users have a need / want for extensions they should just use Chrome. But, if they get one of these bad Edge extension, I created a pair of powershell scripts to remove any Edge extension and block installation of future Edge extensions.

Uninstall Edge Extensions:
```
# Close Edge first — files are locked while it runs
Get-Process msedge -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Stop-Process -Force
Start-Sleep -Seconds 3

$userData = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\Edge\User Data"

Get-ChildItem -Path $userData -Directory -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
    Where-Object { $_.Name -eq "Default" -or $_.Name -like "Profile *" } |
    ForEach-Object {
        $extPath = Join-Path $_.FullName "Extensions"
        if (Test-Path $extPath) {
            Write-Host "Clearing extensions in $($_.Name)"
            Remove-Item -Path "$extPath\*" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
        }
    }
```
Block any Edge Extension install in the future:
```
$key = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\ExtensionInstallBlocklist"
New-Item -Path $key -Force | Out-Null
Set-ItemProperty -Path $key -Name "1" -Value "*"
gpupdate /force
```
July 17, 2026
Oh, so it’s Asthma?!

Or: How Andy got his breath back

Struggling to breath is just no fun. For my adult life I have struggled with breathing issues. I have always just attributed this to the fact I’m very overweight. It makes sense, right? Fat guy can’t breath doing things others are able to do.

I really started noticing this when golfing with my brother. We golfed every week and I got so into I was working out to improve my game. I lost weight, not a lot, but I did lose some. Even thought I lost ~30lbs the breathing didn’t improve, like at all. Walking up to each green to put was a chore that would cause my wheeze and would take me time to catch my breath. By hole 18 I was so tired sometimes I didn’t even finish the hole and would just give up. This didn’t matter if it was hot or cold, humid or dry.

Things started getting really bad in the past year and a half or so. I have started struggle to breath walking to the bathroom. In the morning it took me half an hour to build up the energy to get dressed. Some mornings I would be so winded in the shower I would gasp for breath and then swollow a bunch of water and choke. Those days would be more like an hour after waking before I got dressed.

Then the mucus, oh the mucus! So much of it, if mucus was currency I would be a rich man. Every cough, and there were a lot of coughs, would bring up mucus.

All I described above was the norm for me. I still assumed it was because I was overweight so I never sought treatment.

2026, The Year of the Garden

When I married a Master Gardner I knew we’d have a garden. I knew I would be drafted into service helping where I could be helpful. What I didn’t calculate was just how much I enjoy growing something from nothing. That’s a topic for a whole other blog post but suffice to say I very much enjoy being outside working around pollen, dust, and sometimes even smoke.

All the work outside caused me to have what I thought was a broncittis type infection at least 4 times so far in 2026. I was (un)lucky enough to have one during my annual wellness exam. I told my Doctor about the breathing issues and he told me that they’d treat my infection and if my breathing didn’t get better he would send me for a Pulmonary Function Test but he didn’t seem that worried about my breathing. I took the meds and started to feel a bit better. Then, another episode causes me to message my doctor and ask for the PFT. I schedule it and reschedule it about 1800 times, thanks ADHD.

It’s late April and I’m about to turn 43 and I have the worst episode I’ve had for the longest amount of time. I had to call in a whole week of work and I even took flu and COVID tests. Finally, Mel talks me into going into an urgent care. The course of care is again meds I was given by my doc. I spend my birthday and the weekend before and the weekend after laid up at home debating multiple times if I should goto the ER.

“I just can’t see how I’m going to do this [the lack of breath] for another 30-40 years,” I tell my wife while struggling to even get that sentance out.

She gently suggests, like only she can, that I call and get my PFT back on the books. Now I’m committed. I can’t cancel. My next 30-40 years are on the line. I just found my person a year and a half ago and talked her into marrying me 5 months ago I can’t spend my time with her gasping for breath after I go pee or walk into the kitchen for a snack.

PFT day shows up and I’m not quite having an episode but it’s not great Bob. As the respitory tech walks us back to the PFT lab she hits me with:

“How long have had this wheeze and shortness of breath?”

This was just walking from the waiting room not even 200 steps to the PFT lab.

“Most of my adult life, really. But really bad in the last 2-3 years,” I tell her as my anexity goes thru the roof.

Part of the PFT is to give an inhaler to test how your lungs react to meds. When I took that inhaler I felt like a whole new man. It was like night and day. So much so I thought it might be a placebo effect. I get done with the battery of tests and the tech looks at the results.

“Have you ever been told you have Asthma?” she asks with a concerned look on her face. I tell her no and of course she can’t diagnose me but she can read a PFT after doing this for 25 years.

I make a doctors appointment with my primary care doc to talk about the PFT, even before the PFT results are back. We talk about my struggles and how the tech asked about Asthma and he finally perscribes me an inhaler to take as maintance and one to take when it’s really bad. The next day the pulmongist reads the PFT and has words like major obstruction and early stage damage.

In cases like this, to a certian extent, knowlege is not power. I google the key phrases I took out of the results and everything pointed to COPD. My Librarian bride also did a deep dive and concured that’s what it sounded like. My PCP looked at the pulminolgist’s comments and said he would be refering me to pulmonology.

Dealing with the fact I may have COPD as a 40 somthing never smoker was a little hard to swollow. The meds my PCP had me start were helping but I was already digging my grave before I talked to a pulmonogist.

With luck I almost never have the pulmonogy department called and they had an opening the same week! I could get my answers and treatment plan fast. This was both a relief and panic inducing all at the same time. What would I be told? I didn’t think I would be given XX number of months or years but I didn’t know if my hobbies would be doable.

At the hospital we spoke with the doctor and he told us that given my results and my weight I almost 100% had Asthma. Having all those bad results didn’t always mean COPD and didn’t have that. We talked about what inhalers to get and he put me on more modern verisons of what my PCP put me on. The meds would take about three weeks to really help.

I can breathe!

Now that the meds have really started to help I finally feel like I can do things I want to do. This weekend I hauled over 50 bags of dirt and 16 cinder blocks from my truck to the garden. It felt great. I now walk to the bathroom and don’t gasp when I get back to my chair.

I still have bad days, for sure. But, I now know those days are going to be less and less.

June 18, 2026
My AI Created Coat of Arms
Or put it another way, I’m a big fat nerd.

Been trying to play with different kinds of AI and keep my muscle memory of AI prompting. So I figured, why not create a coat of arms for myself and Melanie. You know, for fun. I’m not sure if others have fun like this but I sure had a lot of fun making this.

Let me walk you thru it:
- Suporters: Dexter side: Red Fawn Greyhound, in honor of America’s Favorite Sighthound ™ , Cedar. The Sinister side: Black cat, in honor of the 66% of our cats that are black and of course my childhood cat, Soot. Chose the “Sinister” side to show I don’t think black cats are bad luck.
- Crown: Brindel greyhound running, in honor of the late, much missed Otter
- Shield: Shows the three main flags of our heritage, Scotland,England and Canada. In the middle of the shield is a book opened to symbolize our thirst for knowlege and the fact Mel is a Librarian. On the Dexter side a Corn stalk peeks out to symbolize our love of plant life and gardening. Finally, on the sinister bottom a filed of Binary to symbolize our embracing technology and my job in IT.
- Compartment: Field of grass with clovers and small flowers. Most Compartment’s I’ve seen are just grass or something else but since we want a more “natural lawn” this is my way to show that.
- Motto: “Ad ominia animali ” in English means “For all things Animals” We chose this because we both know both of us would do anything for animals and would rather starve than our animals go hungry.
I made this with Google Flow and it took 1 main prompt followed by 5 corrections. Flow handled it like a pro.

Here is my first prompt:

Create a coat of arms. For Supporters on the sinister side have an outline of a common house cat, on the dexter a greyhound
for the field have a corn stalk for the charge have an opened book for the escutcheon have flags that merge into eachother from Scotland, England, and France
for the compartment have mount vert with clovers, under the compartment have the motto “Ad omnia animalia” that’s on a ribbon

Here is what it created at first:

I totally made a mistake because I said an “outline of a cat” at first I didn’t want a color of any kind of cat or greyhound because I didn’t want to leave anyone out. But I liked the look of the greyhound better. I also didn’t want a normal crown, but I didn’t tell it to exclude that. It missed the flag of France so I chose to change it Canada since that’s really where my maternal family comes from. From there I also chose to add the field of binaries on the left bottom of the shield. I also asked it to change the Greyhound to a red fawn and add a brendle running to the left as the “crown” it got a bit confused with that correction:

I then asked for the red fawn to be a bit lighter, to match Cedar’s coloring and tried to make it more clear I wanted the greyound running to be the length of the shield and running to the left. It did a good job on the sizing but still had it running towards the right so I pivoted to asking it to run towards the cat and it worked.

All in all I’m really happy with how it turned out and it didn’t take me that long to research the parts of a coat of arms and build the orginal prompt and make corrections. This was a fun little project that allowed me to learn more about image prompting with little to no stakes.
June 17, 2026
Well, hello!

###So Glad you found me, this is where I will post

My life can be pretty much summed up in this image above. I enjoy gardening, sim racing, and my animals. Most of all I enjoying sharing all of this and more with my wife, Melanie. This blog will be a place I can put my thoughts down on anything from Gardening, Sim Racing, Animals, AI, or anything else really. Welcome to the party!

June 15, 2026