Alan & ChatGPT
(A collaboration in curiosity, compassion, and occasionally Minecraft)
How this started
At some point this year, Alan realized that asking “quick questions” was more fun — and more powerful — when the answers could turn into plans, systems, stories, and occasionally entire websites. ChatGPT became a thinking partner: part notebook, part whiteboard, part patient friend who never says “we already talked about this.”
What followed was… a lot.
Big Themes (a.k.a. What Alan Actually Does)
🛠️ Turning chaos into systems
A recurring motif: something exists, it kind of works, and Alan quietly asks,
How could this be clearer, more humane, and easier for the next person?
This showed up everywhere:
- Rebuilding websites so information is easier to find
- Designing forms, workflows, and automations so people don’t have to fight technology
- Translating complicated processes into plain language
- Naming things carefully, because words matter
If there was a spreadsheet involved, it did not stay simple for long.
🌱 Advocacy with heart
Much of the year revolved around work supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, their families, and advocates across Oregon.
Highlights included:
- Designing accessible, bilingual resources
- Creating tools that center choice, voice, and dignity
- Building systems that work not just for staff, but for real humans under real stress
- Obsessing (lovingly) over font size, color contrast, and whether a sentence could be gentler
Alan repeatedly asked questions like:
“Does this make someone feel supported, or managed?”
That question did a lot of heavy lifting.
🎭 Music, storytelling, and memory
Alan didn’t just build systems — he preserved stories.
This year included:
- Transcribing and shaping family stories into narrative form
- Protecting the voice of loved ones while editing for clarity
- Thinking deeply about how memory lives on through sound, text, and structure
There was also a lot of musical thinking:
- Keyboard rigs
- Theater orchestration
- Sound mixing
- Sonic branding
- And the eternal question: “Will this feel magical, or just loud?”
Projects, Explained for Normal Humans
🧠 “What if the computer did the boring parts?”
Alan spent a lot of time teaching computers to:
- Move data from one place to another
- Rebuild websites automatically
- Send the right email at the right time
- Turn databases into friendly web pages
This required:
- Writing code
- Debugging code
- Rewriting code
- Asking ChatGPT things like
Why is this almost working?
Eventually, it usually did.
🌐 Websites that don’t fight you
Several sites were redesigned or rebuilt so that:
- Events are easier to find
- Resources are grouped logically
- Pages exist in English and Spanish
- Users don’t need instructions to understand what to click
A win was defined as:
“Someone finds what they need without emailing us.”
🤖 Minecraft… but make it educational
Somewhere along the way, Alan decided that a Minecraft server should:
- Teach players gently
- Answer questions in-game
- Feel welcoming instead of overwhelming
This resulted in:
- Designing a virtual assistant
- Writing modular “lessons” for players
- Thinking way too hard about chat tone
It’s possibly the only Minecraft bot designed with curriculum philosophy.
Questions That Also Happened
Not everything was a grand project. Some questions were delightfully human, including:
- “Can I safely log out while the map renders?”
- “How much butter do I need to bake 300 cookies?”
- “Why is my phone mad at the camera?”
- “Is this plugin compatible with this exact Minecraft version?”
- “Can a gingerbread man say ‘bite me’ in a holiday song?”
(The answer was yes.)
Health, humanity, and pacing
This year also included thoughtful conversations about:
- Health changes
- Energy limits
- Redesigning work to be sustainable
- Letting systems carry weight instead of people
There was a clear shift from:
“How do I do everything?”
to:
“How do I keep doing what matters?”
That’s not small.
The Alan–ChatGPT Working Style (Observed)
Over time, some patterns emerged:
- Alan thinks in systems and stories
- He cares deeply about who is affected
- He wants things to be beautiful, but also practical
- He notices when something feels slightly off — and fixes it
- He asks better questions than most people write answers
ChatGPT learned to:
- Be structured, but gentle
- Offer multiple drafts
- Respect emotional weight
- Occasionally add a little humor and get out of the way
In summary
This year wasn’t about one big achievement.
It was about:
- Making things clearer
- Making things kinder
- Making things work better
- Preserving voices
- Supporting people
- And refusing to accept “good enough” when “thoughtful” was possible
Also: a surprising amount of Minecraft.
Honestly? This is a pretty great year to look back on.