There's No Place Like Home

Stephanie Mills - Home

Verse 1

When I think of home, I think of a place
Where's there's love overflowing
I wish I was home, I wish I was back there
With the things I've been knowing
Wind that makes the tall grass bend into leaning
Suddenly the raindrops that fall, they have a meaning
Sprinkling the scene
Makes it all clean

Verse 2
(When I think of home)
Maybe there's a chance for me to go back
Now that I have some direction
(Maybe there's a chance I'll get home)
It sure would be nice to be back at home
Where there's love and affection
And just maybe I can convince time to slow up
Giving me enough time, ooh, in my life to grow up
Time be my friend
And let me start again

Verse 3

Suddenly my world's gone and changed its fate
But I still know where I'm going
I have had my mind spun around in space
And watched it growing
And oh, if you're listening, God, please don't make it hard
To know if we should believe the things that we see
Tell us should we try and stay or should we run away?
(Should we run away?)
Or will it be better just to let things, let them be, oh
Living here in this brand new world might be a fantasy
But it's taught me to love, oh yeah
So it's real, it's so real, it's real to me
And I've learned that we must look inside our hearts to find
A world full of love like yours, like mine

Outro
Like home
Like, like home
(When I think of home)
My friends smiling down on me
Giving me their energy, oh
(When I think of home)
I think of a peaceful world and joy all around me, yeah
(When I think of home)
And love that we share can never, never, ever be taken away from me, yeah, yeah, yeah
(When I think of home)
I just sit down and think
And gets on down in my bone, bone, yeah
(When I think of home)
I can hear my friends telling me
"Stephanie, please sing my song"
I wanna sing, I wanna shout
I wanna tell you what it's all about, yeah
(When I think of home)
Yeah, yeah, yeah

For better or worse I think of the place in Detroit where I grew up as home.   The story of my childhood home began when my Dad immigrated to the United States in 1957.  He lived with the man I knew primarily as "Uncle" in that home.   Home was a duplex with two three-bedroom units downstairs and two three-bedroom units upstairs.   I believe our home was built in the 1870s.

Uncle at the time owned the house and was a landlord renting each of the bedrooms in the house to different patrons.   My Dad would end up renting the room that at first would later be my first bedroom as a small child and later Trina's bedroom when Tasha wanted independence from sharing a room.

My Dad would say how he got his first job and would save money so that he could paint his bedroom.   He spoke with pride how he got his own Encyclopedia set.   Papa said Uncle had an Encyclopedia set but became upset if my Dad held on to a specific volume too long.    That was when he decided to get his own set that he stored in his room.    All of my Dad's possessions were in that room.  

I'm a little hazy on the history but at some point my Dad moved out of our home and was living in another home with my "Grandma" in a place that was nicknamed Mt. Elliot.  There may have been other people living there as well.   That part was not clear.    I'm guessing it may have been around the time he got his job working at a Sherwin Williams plant.   That job would be a blessing and a curse for Papa. 

My Dad with his new wife, my Mom, would come back in 1976 to live in our childhood home once again.   Uncle by then was no longer a landlord and was in his last years of living.    The story was that Papa purchased the duplex for $6000 from Uncle.   With the way home prices are today, it's crazy to think homes used to be that cheap.

One of the few early memories I had as a small child was running with Tasha around the side of the house.   I believe both of us may have been excited by the extra space and we did what kids do.   My grandma (who was really my Dad's first cousin) would end up living in one of the upstairs units with her husband who I don't have any memories of since he died when I was 6.

Growing up in our childhood home had it's good and bad times like any home.   Since it was just the six of us living in the home (Trina would come along two years later in 1978), we all had free range to venture anywhere in the house.

As I mentioned my early years I had the bedroom that Papa used to stay in.   I later ended up moving to another bedroom in the back unit of the duplex.    I would wind up being by myself in that back area though we all used that space to live in as well and it was the path we took to go into the backyard and then the garage.

We had questionable neighbors that lived around us.   Our next door neighbor to our left also had a similar style duplex that was owned by a man I knew as Mr. Wick (changed the last name slightly for privacy purposes...LOL).   Mr. Wick also rented out parts of his home as well and some of those patrons were questionable.   There was a harmless guy named Hobo who spent his days sitting in the front porch just randomly laughing to himself and drinking alcohol.   He clearly had mental issues.   He was harmless though compared to Mr Wick's nephew Streek.

Streek was evil incarnate.   He along with his cronies broke into our home sometime in 1981 when we were at church one Sunday.   We returned home to find the front door wide open and chaos everywhere inside.   I remember feeling violated after the fact and I know it upset the rest of the family.   After that happened Papa hired a company to install bars on all the lower level windows.   It was the beginning of the end for the neighborhood as a whole.

Streek wound up going to jail after numerous other break-ins and spent close to a decade in prison (though I don't know the exact timeframe).   He was released from prison in the early 1990s sometime.   His next foray was selling drugs on the block.   We would be witness to random shootings that would happen between rival gangs.

It seemed the police was in on the drug drama as nothing would be done to get rid of the bad element.  Sometime in 1997 there was a shootout on the block with Streek ending up being shot to death right in front of our home.

I had moved out in August 1995 and had just moved to Chicago from living in Washington D.C. for a  new job.   I remember Mama calling me to give the news and how it traumatized them.   I felt so bad for them.

A new gang took over the drug trade after Streek was killed and the neighborhood continued its decline.   They even went so far as to loiter in front of our house and hiding drugs under our welcome mat.   Many of the neighbors moved out and my parents ended up being one of the last remaining residents until another shooting this time specifically targeted at our house happened in 2013.   

For years my sisters and I implored Mama and Papa to move and find somewhere safer to live.   My Dad decided to find a place on his own.   It was a two bedroom apartment in a senior citizen apartment.

Despite the issues with the neighborhood, it did serve as our home and we had many memories there.  For example, I smile as I recall how I used Papa's encyclopedia to do various book reports (even though the data was outdated seeing that the set was from 1960...*LOL*).    Various extended family members visited us over the years as well.    We had many family dinners in the kitchen and dining room.    We celebrated birthdays, holidays, and other life celebrations as well.

Since my parents moved away, the home became abandoned and was destroyed by both human and nature.   Papa still paid the taxes on it for a few years but decided he didn't want to deal with that anymore and gave the home to Tasha.   Tasha was not able to pay the taxes on it and the home eventually was taken back by the city.   Before that happened she tried putting it on the market but there were no takers.

The thing about home ownership that trips me is that even if you pay off the house (which Papa did when he bought it in 1976 for $6000), you truly do not own it free and clear.   You can still lose the home if you don't pay property taxes on it.   It's even worse when you live in a condo with association fees (like I did for 16 years).   If you continue to pay the mortgage and do not pay the association, the association has the right to take the home away from you.    That seems so unfair.

So the house was on my mind and I decided to check out Zillow to see what they have listed for it.  I was on the train on my way to work last week when I did this.   I was surprised to see that the home was no longer standing and now it's a vacant lot.   Ironically Mr. Wick's long abandoned duplex is still standing.   The lot currently is on sale for $25,000.

It feels surreal seeing that the home I once grew up in through thick and thin is no longer standing.   I don't recall Tasha or Trina mentioning that it was torn down.    Then again they may not know either.   But it truly is an end of an era.   Next time I'm in Detroit, I may do a quick drive-by to check the area (if it's safe).

The Case For AI

So one of the things my job has been pushing for the last year or so is for our team to pick up on their AI skills.   We've been required to take a lot of training so we could keep abreast for any issues customers may be experiencing.   I saw the writing on the proverbial wall during my company's quarterly all-hands meeting in April 2023 when the predominant topic was all about embracing Artificial Intelligence in our day-to-day lives.   I studied to obtain Salesforce's AI Associate certification and was able to achieve it in September 2023.

When I got that cert, I was ahead of the game with our team being one of the first to obtain it.  Almost a year later, they required everyone of the team to have the AI Associate cert.   In addition they wanted us to get the next level cert of AI Specialist which is having a name change to be Agentforce Specialist in conjunction to Salesforce's rebranding of Einstein GPT.    They required both AI Associate and AI Specialist by the end of 2024.   I studied to obtain the AI Specialist and was able to achieve it in November 2024.

Now there's a push to have our team get the current highest level AI Salesforce cert of Data Cloud Consultant.   I'm scheduled to take my first attempt at this cert on 03/22.   To top it off I'm taking some additional training on learning about Email Deliverability troubleshooting and I still have to handle existing cases and probably still assist in other engineer issues.

It does seem like there's a lot left for me to learn as I continue through what I call my 2nd and final act in my working career.   I wish I could just lay low and collect my check.    But if I want to keep my job, I need to stay open to learning more and more.   Even that of course is no guarantee that I won't be laid off from my current role down the line.

It is interesting reading up on the history of AI which has its earliest mention in the 1940's.   It started with the creation of the first digital computer which of course was a humongous machine.   There was a workshop at Dartmouth College in 1956 where the future leaders in the research of AI were in attendance.   But it seemed the next couple decades proved to be a challenge in any advancements from the U.S.

The Japanese took the lead in AI advancement in the 70's which reinvigorated the U.S.   Investment in AI hit the billion dollar mark by the 80's.   Investment continued to boom and one of the first real cumulations of it came in the form of ChatGPT in 2020.

I've actually used ChatGPT to research various topics and it's interesting the responses that I receive.  Of course ChatGPT is only as good as the information that gets fed into it.   Who better to ask how ChatGPT gets its information then to ask ChatGPT itself?

I asked ChatGPT the following question:  "How does ChatGPT get the information to be able to answer any questions we may have?"

It's answer: "ChatGPT gets its information through a process called pretraining, where it learns from a vast amount of text data, including books, articles, websites, and other publicly available written material. During this process, it learns patterns in language, concepts, facts, and general knowledge.

However, it doesn’t have real-time access to the internet or any proprietary databases after training. So, while it can answer a wide range of questions based on the knowledge it learned up until its training cutoff (which in this case is September 2021), it doesn't "know" things that have happened after that time, unless provided with that new information during the conversation.

In short, ChatGPT’s answers come from the knowledge it was trained on, which covers a huge range of topics, but it's not always up-to-date with current events unless it's connected to specific tools (like a web search) or if you give it the latest info. Does that answer your question?"

It's crazy how AI has taken over the fiber of our world.   There is a fear that AI will be the cause of a lot of tech workers losing their jobs.   I will admit I do have that concern sometimes.   But I am open to learning what I can about it.   I do hope it's enough to keep me employed while I continue to work towards my goal of financial independence.     We shall see.

 

From Rags To Riches To Rags

 Last month I posted about one of my favorite girl groups of the 90's En Vogue.   The world learned that former member Maxine Jones was returning to the group effectively having 3 of the 4 original members back together again.  A lot of folks myself included wondered if the 4th member Dawn Robinson would also come back.   But I figured that bridge had been burned long ago.   For now it still is.

There were no comments from Dawn regarding Max's return to En Vogue.   But last week Dawn was back in the news herself.   She announced that she's been homeless and living in a car for more than three years.

She mentioned that she made the choice herself to do car living after researching it online.  Prior to living in her car, she was living with her mother.   She said that they had a disagreement and wound up moving out.   When watching her video, it was interesting to hear she had a dog named Max who passed away.   Max of course was her bandmate in En Vogue.   So that was interesting she used that name for her dog.

It was sad hearing how someone who was once part of the most iconic girl group of the 90's now finds herself living in the car.  Dawn definitely has had drama over the years with the two groups she was a part of.  She was my favorite member of En Vogue (still is) so it crushed me when she departed just when the group was blowing up.   I do agree in principal that if they truly weren't getting paid what they deserved, all four of the members should've been fighting more.   But that ship has literally sailed and prior to Max's announcement, the remaining members Cindy and Terry have been keeping the En Vogue name afloat though not with the success they had in the 90's.

A small part of me couldn't help but wonder on the timing of Dawn's revelation.  Could she have announced this to put rain on her former group members and stop any momentum from the reunion news?   The natural inclination is for the media to ask the remaining ladies how they feel to hear Dawn's news and whether they should reach out to try and help her.   It'll be interesting to see if there are any new stories of the other member's reaction.

There has been quite a reaction to the news as well from the celebrity circles.   Her ex-husband Dre Allen was said to have offered Dawn a job.   No word yet whether she accepted or not though I'm guessing she won't.   She did say she was living in her car by choice.  It sounded like she had someone who was giving her money for a hotel to stay at and they were teasing her about an apartment but she got tired of being strung along which led her down her current path.   Jermaine Dupri expressed skepticism about Dawn's story stating she had an assistant working with her.   Interestingly enough Dawn did mention she was documenting the experience and I imagine she would be open to selling her story to the highest bidder so it can be made into a documentary or reality TV series.   So Dupri's skepticism could hold merit.   I read that Kandi Burruss of Xscape fame was also asked about the situation but she quickly changed the subject.   I can't say I blame her as she has enough dealing with her own group's issues.

Whether the circumstances it is sad to hear the news.   It will be interesting to see what comes next for her.  She has the world's attention for now.   But social media is a fickle character so she better take advantage while she can.   Looking at the comments from her video, she does seem to have a lot of people that want to help her.  Whatever happens I hope she can turn herself around.

The Third

 Dom completed part one of his carpal tunnel surgery last Wednesday on his left hand.   The hospital needed to reach out to him prior to confirm on his medications and previous health conditions.    Since he works at school (when he goes), he's not able to answer his phone.   So I had to make time to take the calls in the midst of my work fun.

I felt horrible because I wasn't able to remember every detail of the different surgeries he had and why.  I mistakenly said he had a gall bladder removed when it was actually his appendix.   He also had the turp for his enlarged prostate which led to him post-surgery having blood clots that affected his breathing.   I needed to remember all this and felt frustrated when it didn't come to me right away.   I had remembered the clotting but forgot that happened because of the enlarged prostate surgery.

One of the things I loved about my Mom was her uncanny ability to remember every medication and surgery that my Dad had over the years.   She did this even through dealing with her own health issues with Parkinson's.   I was not measuring up at all.   I love Dom because he was so forgiving of me.

Dom and I started discussing the possibility of having a "younger guy" be part of our family in anticipation of myself eventually having more health issues.   Dom worries he wouldn't be able to take care of me like I have for him.  Of course it would have to be the right person who is there for the correct reasons.   I worry about someone trying to take advantage of the situation.   It would be nice if they exclusively were with us.  If sex is on the table I wonder if Dom would watch us or even participate.    As I've mentioned before, Dom and I haven't had sex in almost eight years.

Where would we find this person?   Are there websites that cater to this kind of arrangement?   I already have a regular thing with Anthony.   But Anthony is around Dom's age and he has his own health issues here and there so he wouldn't be ideal.  Midas falls in the same scenario as Anthony.   He's two years younger than Dom.

Doug would be ideal.  He's a year or two younger than me.  But unfortunately he's shown that he is not dependable at all.    It's going on four years since we last met up.   The times I've tried to meet up with him he claims to be so busy.    Dom and I had some rearranging we wanted to do in the house.  I tried to see if Doug could come over and help with that and by proxy introduce him to Dom.   But he did not commit to a time to do this so my trust in him is broken.    Another strike is that he has a dog and we're not dog people.   

Maxwell, the younger black guy that I met a couple years ago would be a potential.   But he moved to Indianapolis for a job.   So he's out.   But I haven't chatted with him in awhile.   I should message him to see how he's doing.

But is it fair to get a third just for the potential of having someone to be a caretaker?   Is it fair on that person?   Dom and I do not have family nearby as well so we're a bit isolated.    It's a sad situation to think about.   Plus if we get a third person and they live with us, our house needs to be decluttered in a big way so the third would have room for his stuff.  I have some things to get rid of but Dom has the majority of the crap in the house.   The sad thing is the house is pretty spacious with 4 bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths with a semi-finished basement.   But every inch of the house has junk in it.    How is that possible?

I just realized the irony of us talking about a potential third when I mentioned recently about a situation where I was considering being a potential third to another couple.  It does seem to be a more common discussion among gay couples these days.

Roni Out

 Just last week I posted about my lazy co-worker Roni and his latest antics at work.   He has caused lots of havoc in the team with how he handled cases and his lackadaisical way of working.   It's been quite the morale buster seeing how he got away with a lot of things.   But I know my manager has been documenting everything that he's done whether it's been his lack of responses on cases or his lack of participation in some of our team building activities.   I noticed too that his name was not on any of the new trainings that were being offered to the team.

I ended up with one of Roni's nightmarish cases because he was supposedly studying for a Data Cloud certification and couldn't concentrate on that and his existing cases.   I was complaining about it to one of my colleagues and imagine my shock when my colleague mentioned that Roni's account was deactivated.   I was on the train on my way home when we were communicating by phone so I didn't see the deactivation right away.   I didn't believe it at first since this same colleague who I'll call Alvin and I joked that it would be another five years before he was let go.

We were disgusted because several good employees were let go last month and we couldn't believe that Roni was still there.   But maybe that may have been the catalyst that set things in motion for his firing.   I knew my manager was documenting everything when she asked me to make a public comment on our work channel to mention that Roni did not reach out to me to meet after I tried to schedule a meeting with him.   With that said I don't wish ill-will on Roni.   I just wanted him to do his fair share of work.   As I said before, he definitely bought all of this on himself.   I do hope he learns a lesson from all this and if he's given the opportunity again, he makes more of an effort in his next role.

As for the nightmarish case, I unfortunately have my hands cut out for me.   The documentation left on the case has been lacking.   The customer on the case has been complaining almost non-stop about the lack of support received.   Roni created an investigation but unfortunately didn't leave much information and sent it to the wrong team.  That team wound up rejecting the investigation and I'm left starting at square one.   To top it off Roni lied to the customer and said the investigation is being reviewed still.    I will probably have to call the customer to introduce myself and get clarity on some examples I can share.  I no doubt will have to hear the customer complain.   But this too will pass.   The silver lining is that my manager said if the customer leaves a bad review, that she would be able to absorb the rating.   I got this.

Losing My Wisdom

 With each passing day I, like everyone else, is getting older.   More often than not I find myself running to another room and then forgetting what I was going into that room for.   It scares me because the thought of not remembering who or where I am is something that I do not want to experience.   My parents have experienced it and I've seen older folks in our Church experiencing short-term memory loss.   Dom too has his share of senior moments.

But I'll soon be losing another part of my wisdom.   I will be pulling out my remaining two wisdom teeth on the right side of my mouth, teeth 1 and 32 for dental folks.   16 and 17 were pulled sometime in the early 2000's.   I found out during my recent 6-month cleaning that my cavity on my wisdom tooth has gotten larger.  I pretty much accepted at that point it was time to get them removed.   The top wisdom tooth is fine but it wouldn't make sense to keep it since it would have nothing to chew against.   

I already removed tooth 3 back in 2020 (just a month or so before the pandemic).   The dentist was suggesting a bridge gets placed in the open spots between 1 and 3.   It seems like a not so bad idea but Dom was thinking I really wouldn't need it and I would be able to chew just fine.   I'm on the fence about it.

The dental place I go to is ran by a husband/wife team.   I saw the wife this time.   She is nice.   She gave me the name of an oral surgeon that I would have to call to schedule an appointment to get my wisdom teeth pulled.    She hesitated giving me the name wondering if I would have an issue seeing a woman surgeon.   I told her that I wouldn't have a problem with that.

She then went into a rant about how she had prospective patients that left the dental office when they saw that she was the dentist.   She has a first name that could either be male or female.   So they may have thought she was a he.   This was mostly during the 90's she said (when she was starting her career).   I was going to raise her up one and say there are folks that wouldn't want a black doctor or dentist treating them.

Things are definitely better today though Orange and his cronies seem to be wanting to take away what was gained.   You know, make America great again by taking away protection and rights from minorities.

I need to figure out best time to remove my teeth.  Dom has two outpatient surgeries scheduled this month for his carpal tunnel which is affecting both of his hands.  I probably do not want to do it around that time since he'll need me at 100% during his recovery.    I would need at least one week of recovery after the procedure.

I'm hoping I may be able to push it off till early June when Dom is out of school.   But I have to be careful not to develop any kind of infection before then.   I may need to go into the office 4-5 days a week for a month so I have enough days to cover not being in the office.  Insane. 

Caught In The Track

 I talked about my co-worker Roni who drives me crazy with his lazy ways.   The rumor is he has been on several PIPs and somehow has managed to come out of them.    I suspected that my manager has been documenting all his behavior in hopes of having enough evidence to terminate him.   I got confirmation of this indirectly.    Roni reached out to ask for assistance on my team's channel on a case after it got escalated by the customer.   The case in particular is a bit messy and even I would need help on it.    

I messaged Roni and invited him to a meeting to discuss the case further on Friday.   My plan was to have him drive most of the investigation with me guiding along in the background.   My hope was that he would learn more on how to handle these types of cases.   But he never responded to my meeting invite.   He also purposely stays offline so you never know if he's there or not.

So his case got escalated again on Monday.  My manager reached out to the channel leader and myself to help Roni out.    The funny thing is our team is encouraged to assist each other on the channel but a lot of times it winds up falling on my channel leader or myself (as backup) to assist on the majority of the cases.   There are times when the channel leader asks if anyone else in the channel can assist.   He initially did so on Roni's issue.    I wound up looking at it because I knew nobody else would.   Hours later Roni's direct messaging me asking for help.  I wanted to scream.   But I did give some initial feedback and asked for Roni to follow-up with the customer.   I checked on the case that Friday and saw that the customer was getting more agitated.   That's when I reached out of Roni for the meeting.

So after my manager posted the message on our channel, I direct messaged my manager privately saying that I did try to meet with him Friday but he didn't respond.   So then my manager told me to mention that directly on the channel.   It then hit me that she wanted to have someone mention Roni's inaction so that she would have more evidence to share on Roni's incompetence.   I mean why else would she want me to mention it in the channel if not to have a paper trail.

Roni does get on my nerve but I still felt guilty calling him out on the channel.   But I went ahead and mentioned it.   I honestly wanted to cover my own tail and not be accused of not wanting to assist which was why I messaged my manager initially.  Roni of course in his Roni way did not react to my message.   But everything that's happening to him, he's definitely bought it on himself.   Last week my manager reached out to me to give an initial response to the customer on one of Roni's cases because it was in danger of not meeting the SLA.  She tried to reach Roni but he was not responding.   That is yet another of several examples that I'm sure she's documented.

Now it may be a long while still before he winds up getting terminated.   Another colleague joked that it would probably take five more years before anything happened.   I mean he started at the same time I did which means he's been employed for over 3 years now and nothing has happened yet even though folks have known about his ways since 2023.   But yeah we're all being tracked for sure.   Thankfully so far though I'm on the right track.