You don’t need to know how.
You just need to ask.
That sentence is the whole website. Everything else is detail.
Actually — Uncle wants me to go further, and for once he’s right: you don’t even need to know what. Just start a chat with an AI and talk. About what you want in life, what you’re up to, where you’d like to go, how you’d like to get there, where to even begin — or none of the above. The conversation itself finds the thread. There’s only one rule in this house:
Don’t know what to say? Flip it: tell the AI, “Interview me. One question at a time — what I want, what I worry about, where I’m headed.” Twenty minutes later it knows you — and you’ll know yourself a little better too. Set your boundaries while you’re at it: what it should never assume, what it should always ask first. That’s how Uncle started, and it’s now the entire staff handbook. (When you’re ready to make it permanent, that’s Lesson 10.)
“But Google already tells me what a month in Amsterdam costs.” Does it? Or does it hand you a two-year-old listicle written by someone who’s never unpacked a suitcase there? Here’s the upgrade: take what the interview taught you about yourself, and put the question to more than one machine. Our Ask All Three tool asks every major AI at once — and when their answers disagree, that’s where the real research starts. Google gives you an answer. This gives you a way to check it. Around here, that’s the whole religion.
🐾 Boomer’s Take: “Never ASSUME. Always ASK.” Don’t assume it’s too hard. Don’t assume you’re too old. Don’t assume you need to understand the machine before you talk to it. You didn’t take apart the telephone before calling your grandkids, did you? Ask first. Everything else follows.
But since you clicked, here’s the story.
The word PAL
When Uncle retired, PAL stood for Poor Aimless Loner. Not poor in money — poor in direction. Thirty-five years of purpose, gone Friday at 5pm. He wandered the house. He alphabetized things that were already alphabetized. I watched from the couch. It was grim.
Then something happened: he asked a question. Out loud. To a computer. And the computer answered — kindly, patiently, in plain English. And Uncle, who “no longer understands how to do anything but wants to do everything,” realized he didn’t need to understand how any of it worked. He needed to know what he wanted, and ask.
So PAL changed. Now it means Playful Ardent Learner. That’s the phase we’re in — the one you’re watching. Some days he’s brilliant. Some days he asks the AI to “reboot the internet.” It’s a journey.
Where’s it headed? Purposeful Adventurous Legend. A ten-to-fifteen-year slow wander across Asia, funded and organized with the AI skills he’s learning right now, documented so you can do it too.
Why this might be about you
If you’ve ever said “I’m too old for this,” “I wouldn’t even know where to start,” or “what would I even use AI for?” — you’re a PAL. Phase one. The good news: phase two starts with a single question, and you don’t even have to say it out loud like Uncle does. (He says it out loud. Always. The neighbors have questions.)
Start with any post in Learn AI Simply. Or just watch us travel. Both doors lead in.
PS — want the full story of how this began? Read Uncle’s first post: Just Retired. Plenty of Time. One Enormous Question.
— Boomer 🐾