Holiday

Building My Own Custom GPTs

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With some downtime on the bank holiday Monday, I finally tackled something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: creating several custom LLMs. I’ve been tinkering with agents for work and figured it was time to apply similar customizations for personal use.

Lately I’ve been bouncing between ChatGPT, Perplexity, Venice.ai, and even the new Proton AI for privacy. ChatGPT now lets you build custom GPTs, so I gave it a try. While we were on holiday, I had jotted down some customization requirements for a handful of GPTs I wanted, and this felt like the right time to build them.

For the past six to eight months, I’ve been planning holidays with different LLMs. The main frustration has been having to restate all my preferences every time I opened a new chat. Starting with a custom GPT just made sense—especially since I’ve got several term breaks to plan for over the next school year. Programming the GPT was straightforward. I haven’t used it to plan a full trip yet, but I’ve got the base built and I’ve started tinkering. High hopes for this one.

I also put together, though haven’t tested, a CISSP study guide helper. I want to sit for the test but don’t have a study buddy, so I figured why not make one?

Then there’s a slightly different use case: a custom GPT for days out with the kids. Same idea as the travel planner, but without flights and hotels—it’s more about what’s going on in London. I’m actively planning a week with the girls now and most of it is set, but I’ll see if this new GPT adds anything useful. The hardest part here was integrating the data I’ve been tracking on a Trello board with all the activities we’ve done or still want to do. I wanted the GPT to be able to use that context, but I’m cautious about sharing too much personal information with ChatGPT. That’s why I also use Venice.ai, which is a privacy-protecting, open-source based AI. Still, I experimented with exporting the Trello data to JSON and importing it into ChatGPT, and after some trial and error I finally got it working. In this case I had to use ChatGPT since I ran into file size limits with Venice.ai.

I’ve got a few more ideas I want to play with, but for now the three or four GPTs I’ve already built will keep me busy. I need to actually use them and see how they perform before I go any further. Early impressions are promising. Even so, as I remind colleagues and my kids, quoting the Doctor from Doctor Who: the AI lies. Don’t ever trust it completely. If you keep questioning it, though, the results can be pretty good.

Closing The Stock Market For a Holiday Party

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I took the girls to the LSEG Holiday Party for the first time this year. I am pretty sure it is the only holiday party were you get to perform the closing ceremony for the stock market at the end of the party (simulated, I am pretty sure the market continued at 2:30 on a Monday). We had tickets two years ago and I forget why we couldn’t make it. Last year I don’t think I was able to get tickets. I didn’t realise how in demand this party was. It was pretty awesome.

The girls got to build their own stuffed animals. There was a mini petting zoo. I found that one ironic since it was in a large conference room I goto often. There was also a mini carousel, game room, candy floss / candy and gingerbread decorating. The girls had a really good time.

There was of course Santa reading us the night before Christmas. I am pretty impressed with the party and now know why many at work talk about wanting to go.

Christmas Crackers

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All set for Christmas. Ordered these bad boys in October. I learned my lesson two years ago when I ordered them early and didn’t realise I ordered miniature ones. Why do those ezist at all I will not know. By the time we got them it was so close to Christmas we couldn’t find them anywhere!

Holiday Plan B

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This was not the post I was expecting to be writing 48 hours ago. To tell this story I have to go back to August. M has to work so I decided to take off term break and take the girls somewhere. My master plan was to take the girls on a cruise out of Southampton for a few days. I was worried about things to do however the ship seemed like there was a ton of options and the girls are generally fine in a pool.

48 hours ago we got an email from our cruise line saying that due to a covid exposure the kids club and a host of activities were going to be closed our sailing. Around the same time others in a group I am in for the ship were sailing on were saying they only let 11 kids in the indoor pool at a time and then they get 10 minutes and they have to get out. Having to queue for 20-30 minutes for one of the few activities they can do was troubling however doable. When Royal Caribbean emailed they gave us 3 options. 1, get some money back and we cruise, 2, a lot of credit for another cruise or 3, all our money back no questions.

Lots of people in the group I was in for the cruise said they were going to bring games and make the best of it. I thought about that. Doing that was doable. My issue was more the fact if we took the credit the amount we would’ve spent on the cruise was way more than I thought we would be getting out of it. With all the restrictions. That I was by myself and not having any kids club to get a break from the girls was a big deal. The fact that Covid was on the boat was is another concern. Talking with M we both agreed that just getting our money back was probably the safest bet.

The girls and I were disappointed. I would rather be disappointed and plan another cruise then go on this and have the girls have a negative feeling towards cruising. The last cruise we did with their grandparents they thought was out of this world fantastic. I thought it was pretty epic also.

I went into back planning mode. The girls love a pool. I figured if I could find a nice hotel with a pool they would be very happy. After looking at several options I settled on one with an indoor pool that did not require any sort of pre-booking the pool. Several I investigated did have that restriction.

So instead of cruising today girls and I start our few days holiday in London. It’s a little odd being able to go home in 40 minutes if we forgot anything however we are settling into hotel life nicely. Our view is pretty awesome also.

As plan B’s go this feels like a winner.

On Holiday

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It is half term break. The girls are off school. I took off the week and my mom and youngest niece are visiting.

Hopefully this week’s visit will inspire me to have a story or two. It just wont be posted this week.

I will resume posting stuff I have in my backlog next week. My goal is to have one to two posts each week.  Until then…

4th of July BBQ London Style

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M originally had plans for last night. She changed them / they got moved. That gave her an opportunity to BBQ. This was a first for her. We do not have a fancy BBQ grill however that didn’t stop my superstar M. For under £3 she picked up a one time use BBQ thing and grilled up hot dogs and hamburgers.

The girls had a play date and hung by the pool in the garden and then had BBQ. For desert M even had a red, white, & blue (strawberry, whipped cream, & blueberry) desert with ice cream. With the perfect weather this was an unexpected fantastic evening with the family. And if you look close enough you can see the Batman plate I used (thanks to A for liking DC comics)

I am glad that even with 30 minute delay on the Tube i was able to home just in time for the start of the grilling.

The W Sisters and the Short Story Of Their Favorite Holidays

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At dinner Tonight T announced her favorite holidays were Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, and Halloween in that order. She declares that she loved them all since for all of them they got treats or presence. This just proves that the Jews are doing a terrible job of promoting Purim.

After T’s declaration Am confirmed she agreed with that top 4 list.