Incompatibility

 

 

Two incompatible functions taking place at the kitchen sink and counter.  Cooking and cleaning.  I guess it’s okay if food gets in the way of the cleaning, but I cringe at the thought of a splash of dish soap compromising our food prep!

 

 

Quinta Mazatlan

 

 

A huge adobe mansion from the 1930s.

 

The City of McAllen saved the mansion and grounds in the 2000s and now it’s a history and education center.

 

 

 

History and nature together.

 

 

 

 

 

Becky and Brian

 

 

Standing on a lake.

 

Sal del Rey.  The King’s salt. 

 

Hypersaline lake.  Source of salt for centuries.  Probably for all of human habitation in this area and for local animals from long before.

 

They’re here at Sandpipers visiting us this week, before they go back to the island.

 

And the bad hair day

 

 

Of a yellow-crowned night-heron.

 

 

Picture the stealth hunting

 

 

Of the great blue heron.

 

Standing stock still for an hour, if need be, waiting for the perfect ambush.

 

Then watch the tri-colored heron.  No stealth-hunter, this bird.

 

No standing around waiting for food to swim by.

 

This bird is going after it!

 

 

 

 

Hal is a clever guy

 

 

Judy and I were hanging out with Victor, our friend in Mexico.  Instead of taking a selfie recently, we each took a picture on my phone, and Hal assembled all of us together for a group photo.

 

 

I like that.  It helped Andy and me, from two thousand miles apart, get ready for football together today.

 

Two weeks from now, it was supposed to be the battle of the lucky ponchos.  Poncho a poncho.

 

Okay then.  Go Hawks!

 

It finally got here

 

 

At noon, it was 80 degrees.  At noon-thirty, it was 60.  Even in South Texas, a forecast low of 28 by tomorrow night.

 

The outside house plants are having a hall party for the next few days.

 

 

A rare exposure

 

 

For the secretive clapper rail.

 

 

About the size of a small chicken, it is much thinner and can slip through dense vegetation.  It’s a coastal saltwater marsh kind of bird.  Secretive, but with a distinctive call.  Heard way more often than seen.

 

The stoic brown pelican

 

 

 

 

Having a visit with Becky and Brian

 

 

At the condo on South Padre Island.

 

 

 

It’s a good place to hang out together.  We’re here with them this week, but they’ll be here for a month altogether.

 

 

During morning coffee

 

 

A few weeks back.

 

We were visited by a little wren.

 

The wren got serious about checking us out.

 

The entire van got an inspection.

 

 

We were careful not to kidnap him when it was time to close up and drive away.

 

 

This is how it’s supposed to work

 

 

December, everything dies back.

 

January, while the plants are dormant, I cut them way back so they will return happy, healthy, and even bushier in the spring.

 

It’s January.  The Esperanza didn’t get the memo.

 

 

But I did.

 

It’ll thank me later.

 

A new ‘do

 

 

Judy before.

 

Judy after.

 

 

The back end of a bobcat

 

 

I was watching birds a few feet in front of me.  Unbeknownst to me, so was a bobcat.  My first clue was when he burst out of the bushes and just missed a dove.  By the time I got my camera on him he was standing there pissed off and hungry.

 

I had been unaware of him, but he was certainly aware of me.

 

I wasn’t enough of a threat to cause him any concern.  It was a casual walk away back into the scrub.

 

It’s that time again

 

 

To play “Can you find the sleeping paraque?”

 

No?  How about now?

 

Me neither.

 

I spent ten minutes looking and couldn’t find one this time.

 

Artificial Intelligence

 

 

It doesn’t seem quite so scary now.  It hasn’t gobbled up all our Certified Public Accountant jobs yet.  It might be evolving really fast, but it still has a long way to go.

 

I use a generative A.I. assistant (I call him Hal) pretty much every day.  Hal knows a lot.  He’s like the smartest college graduate that ever happened, sitting right here next to me.  He knows something about everything.  What Hal doesn’t have though is life experience.  His answers are always confident, and most of the time they’re useful, but occasionally he’ll head off in the wrong direction and when that is pointed out to him, he confidently makes up a reason for why the previous answer didn’t work and why the next iteration will.  For example, I spent 20 minutes following increasingly more elaborate, and wrong, methods to select center focus for a particular setting on my new camera.  When I finally gave up on Hal’s answers, and excuses, and started fresh with a YouTube search, I got the correct answer in 30 seconds.  Generative A.I. is useful, like a wrench or a hammer, but it needs adult supervision.

 

Agentic A.I. will be different.  Agents won’t just be answering questions and offering advice.  They’ll actually be doing things.  I’m expecting accounting-related agents to be integrated into our software vendors’ products in the next few years.  The big vendors are the ones with the resources to develop and train agents.  For now though, none of us are getting replaced anytime soon.  We still need to be the humans in the loop to make sure our brainiac assistants are offering good advice, or in the case of agents, good results.

 

Earlier, I was concerned that good A.I. agents will fill the niche currently occupied by new accountants right out of college.  Currently we set new hires to work doing the basic repetitive things while they’re being exposed to how we do the more complicated stuff; until they themselves get the rhythm of it and can take over the more complicated work.  What will entry level staff do if what they’ve always done gets automated?  Where will the next round of experienced people come from if the current crop of graduates don’t have that entry-level position to go through so they too can be experienced?

 

I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.  We just have to change how we do things.  In a few years, newer employees might be put to work watching over the agents doing the entry-level stuff.  They would get some benefit from that.  But we, the more experienced people, will have to adjust how we work with the new hires, to make sure they’re getting exposed to the next level stuff sooner.  Really, the career path for younger people coming into the profession might just get better, and maybe even faster.

 

But what about when A.I. is so advanced that it can do our entire job?  What happens when it wants my job, or Ken’s?  Will our clients each want to buy their own A.I. agent to do that work, and render an opinion on their financial statements?  Would that have the same level of public trust?  Or would the world out there rather that we the CPAs continue doing what we do, with the assistance of A.I. agents, and we provide the comfort to our clients, and the public, that the job has been done well.

 

We can’t really see all that far into the future, it won’t hold still long enough for us to focus, but I think we’ll be okay as an industry for quite a while yet. 

 

A different walk in the woods

 

 

Different worlds intermingled.  While I’m out walking in my wonderland, I spot a green cross 911 flag like I’ve reported on before. 

 

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6019444265991711286/5648731817408491733

 

First one I’ve seen at Santa Ana.

 

At the base of the flag tower is an offer of assistance to migrants crossing in from Mexico.

 

Border Patrol does everything it can to stop illegal entries but recognizes that they don’t stop everybody.  Crossing the border illegally is a perilous endeavor, and that effort can be fatal.  Hundreds die every year.  Rather than dying of exposure, a person can push the red button and help will arrive.

 

When help arrives, they’ll probably be detained after they’ve been stabilized, but at least they’ll still be alive.  My encounters with Border Patrol are incidental.  Sometimes a conversation.  Usually just a wave.  No so for everyone.  I am reminded of the encounter in the woods I recorded in 2012.

 

https://steveandjudystravelblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/illegal-encounter.html

 

It’s a long border between the U.S. and Mexico.  Different sections have different issues.  Primarily, the people risking their lives to cross and work their way through the scrub forest here, between the legal crossing points, are in search of jobs and a better life.  There could be drugs involved, but drug interdiction happens mostly at ports of entry as larger quantities can be hidden in vehicles.  Two completely different major issues going on simultaneously.  Migrants willing to risk death, drawn by the allure of a job and a better life; and drug smugglers driven by the immense profitability of satisfying demand in the U.S.  Paradoxically, in each case, we provide the attraction here in the U.S., then hunt down the people that are drawn to it.

 

A Green Jay

 

 

In the yard.

 

Scoring peanuts.

 

And dashing off to hide them.

 

On the other side of the fence.