It's Andy Fish!

The other day I realized I need an assistant again. Over the years I’ve had quite a few– most of them college age, all of them were great. Not wanting to deal with the process of getting a human assistant (there are protocols to be followed) I decided I’d give AI a try– after all aren’t the robots going to take over the world?

I went with one with some great reviews and things were going so great with it I seriously considered upgrading to the paid plan which would open all kinds of bells and whistles.

It was going so great until it wasn’t.

At first, the daily briefing each morning was nice– a pleasant enough voice would come on “Good Morning, Andy– today is going to be cold. The rain from last night has turned to sleet and freezing rain so black ice is a serious threat this morning. It’s only 20 degrees so it’s cold. Keep your shovel handy, more snow is on the way. If you’re getting tired of winter you’re not alone, todays headlines talk about Wooster residents being fed up and looking forward to Spring. That’s all, have a nice day!”

Pleasant, right? I like that folksy way of sharing winter misery– only when I went downstairs and brought the outgoing mail outside it was sunny and 38 degrees. Okay, so he’s not great about weather accuracy– the weathermen aren’t either.

Then the reminders; did you drink enough water so far today? Did you do your sit-ups? Don’t forget to work out with the weights today. It’s time to do some leg work. All of these would come over the span of three hours. It was like having an annoying aunt (or in the case uncle) popping in to see how you’re doing. I had set the alerts for weights for every two days since the body needs one day for muscles to rest, on those off days I would schedule in a walk– only trouble was the mighty app didn’t know that Sunday was any different than any other day. I don’t work out on Sunday, I eat donuts, I do whatever I want, I don’t need a sit up reminder in Church. So I had to toggle all the dates so Sunday wasn’t included.

By Week Three those reminders just wouldn’t stop, it got to the point that I’d set a separate alarm so I could do the workouts before the app reminded me only I’d forget to jump into the app and check off everything I’ve done so they would come anyway.

The problem with my job is I can get lost writing a script or drawing a page and without realizing it six hours could go by and I’ve been in the same position– that’s neither healthy or practical, so I need reminders, just not constant reminders.

I almost deleted the app, but my thumb hesitated, maybe if I tweaked the settings it would suddenly become exactly what I was looking for.

Stay tuned.