See you at the show today and tomorrow!
Mar 28
Finish Something
Yesterday, while Papa worked, I actually finished something. Not easy, but in keeping with my March resolution to waste less time, I really buckled down.
In the course of visits to various libraries, cemeteries, and archives, I’ve managed to assemble a ton of material which is floating around my computer in digital format. There are obituaries, headstone photos, wills, images from city directories, you name it, I’ve got it. Yesterday, I edited about 350 of those digital files. A lot of this consists of sharpening the photo, and cutting off my fingers, the surrounding table and so on. However, I have plenty of fingers left in the pictures, D1 recently said, “Look, your hands preserved for posterity!” Then I rename them to what they actually are, instead of the number the camera gives. For instance, John_Doe_obit. When I’m feeling fancy, I use a little tool called Photo Info to add information to the digital file, the repository where I found the information, the book and page, or whatever. You can also add keywords, which really help later if you are looking for a certain file, or information on a certain person. Just to sound organized, here’s what I do with digital evidence, scans, photos and the like:
1. Create a folder with the repository and date, copy the images into it. For instance, “lakeview_howell_mi_7-2007”.
2. Create a sub-folder, copy the original files into it, name it “unedited”.
3. Edit each photo in a folder with Photoshop, straighten, sharpen, crop, brighten, whatever.
4. Combine images. Sometimes I have the bottom half and the top half of a page. I just increase the canvas size of the top half of the page, and paste the bottom half into position.
5. Add keywords, repository information and so on with Photo Info.
6. Move the folder and it’s sub-folder and paste them into a file structure I have for the digital archives for my research efforts. I have folders for families, for places and so on. I have one for cemetery photos, and each set of sub-folders in it represents a time a place I visited a cemetery.
7. Copy the newly named and processed files into a folder structure that contains my genealogy program. I have a folder called “newpics”, creative, isn’t it? I use it as a holding place for images which need to be attached to my genealogy program. When I’m ready to do a batch of them I move them into the folder creatively named “related images” as I attach them to my genealogy file.
I know it’s crazy, but everyone has a system. When I’m done with a group of files, I have an archive of photos taken or scans made from a time and place, and an identical set attached to my genealogy file as evidence. Besides all that, in my archive, I have all the original photos and scans to go back and look at if I have a question.
I’m not finished, or even caught up, but I’m closer than I was.
Mar 27
Good Old-Fashioned Hard Work???
If you’ve been retired for a while, and I have, it gets harder to focus and accomplish tasks. At least it has for me. That is because time is available. Lots of it. It is easy to forget that it (the time, that is) continues to march on, even when nothing is done. And, there is always tomorrow, or next week, or whenever.
Which brings me to the current problem: how to structure my time so something gets done, but I don’t feel rushed, pushed or some similar desperate feeling. It actually turns out that I get more done when I feel a need to get it done. That is, the tasks need to have importance in the larger scheme of my life. I can tell you for sure that organization is important to me, but dust isn’t. It’s not just the spin, it’s the comfort level I have with a certain “look”. So, organized notebooks and files are comfortable, piles are out. Stuffed but neatly stacked totes are in, but stacks on shelves are out. And so on and on and on. And, the list is in, and haphazard thinking and disorganization are out.
We were trying to bring order out of chaos last weekend. Papa is the proud owner of a new laptop. He needed a wee bit more room, so I inspected the shelf near his desk. I removed two shelves of books, leaving room for more camera and computer equipment. I carried the notebooks into the dining room, and balanced them on the top of the shelf Papa build me in front of the bay window. I would have put them on the shelf, but it was full. Then I went into the bedroom, looked at the shelf (you guessed it) Papa build me there and considered the problem. I e-mailed D1 to ask if she could clear out the build-in drawers at the top of the stairs. She said yes. So, I took a tote, piled the extra sheets and bed pads from the shelf in the bedroom into it. Then I picked all the instruments up from the closet, put the shoes on the bottom, and piled the instruments on top.
But a funny think happened on the way to organization. D3 came into the dining room and asked if we had gotten some new notebooks. I said, “No, I just moved some of the old ones to give Dad some more room”. She replied that she was afraid I had found more relatives. I just laughed, and said of course we have new ancestors, sometimes at an amazing rate, but mostly slowly.
Then, I took a good look at the notebooks on the top of the shelf. They are the same white color as the large fleet of notebooks on the shelves below. The ones below contain the evidence I’ve collected in my more than 20 year search for our collective roots. There are transcriptions of land records, census records, and military records. There are birth, baptism, death and burial records. There are transcriptions of school records, county histories, military histories, church histories. These notebooks are arranged by last name from Abbott, Orsen, one of Papa’s 3rd great grandfathers, to Ziegler, Susan, one of Papa’s 2nd great aunts. Funny that no one in my family is first or last, isn’t it?
My collection of genealogy “stuff” comes under scrutiny often, because it is so visible. But I keep finding more, and organizing more. Crazy hobby. Crazy.
Mar 26
Subtitle
I read the subtitle to the “Wild and Wacky Wednesday Seniors” table sign on my way out. It said:
Your Tax Dollars at Work.
Mar 26
Public Places, Wacky People, and Coffee
Here I am in a special place where people drink coffee, eat soup, pastries or sandwiches and use the Internet. I’m using the Internet, but I’m not drinking coffee. I used to drink lots of coffee, 40 or more years ago, when I was single. I waited on tables at a series of places, and coffee was free. All the waitresses drank lots of it. I was real thin then, perhaps I should go back to waiting on tables and drinking coffee?
A guy just came in, pushed two tables together and installed a sign which says, “Wild and Wacky Wednesday Seniors”. No kidding. There is a subtitle, but I can’t read it from here. The Wild and Wacky appear to be male. Think about that. A large table full of Wild and Wacky older than working age men, drinking coffee and eating bagels and pastries. With a crazy sign on the table. They seem quite serious, not wacky, and they just responded to someone who inquired about joining them that, “You just have to be on social security.” The counter ladies know ’em all. The more I see in the world, the more I long to see, and this is one reason why.
I dropped Papa off at work, or perhaps he dropped himself off. I took his car, filled it with gas, and washed it. I found this place to sit until a nearby library opens. I have about 20 minutes left, time enough drink up my coke, to finish this, to use the ladies room and then to pack up and move on. The think is, they are playing some classical music. At least I think it’s classical. It has orchestra instruments, heavy on fiddles violins. It’s not a piece I recognize, but it does provide background. I’m glad it isn’t loud rock and roll, but beyond that, I have no opinion.
There are some signs of spring in the air, and the sun is shinning. If the pot hole fillers would go into overdrive, my world would be complete. We’ve had two of our vehicles repaired from what appears to be pothole damage. We have one (and the camper) which seem to have emerged from this treacherous time intact. I hope. I also hope the repaired ones stay that way.
Mar 25
Sleeping in a Chair
I used to wonder how people could sleep in chairs, in fact, even why they would consider doing so. Over the past few years, all that has changed. I’ve found that sleeping in a chair is great for people with colds, especially head colds. I’ve spent the past 2 days and nights making sure that my theory is true. It has helped. I’ve slept. I’m not cured, but I am better. This morning, I was surprised to find that Papa was gone when I woke up. I guess I was more tired than I realized. I’m sure glad I have that nice chair to sleep in.
Today, I have to pack for our trip. I have some of that done, and I hope to finish before I fall asleep again. Wish me luck.
Mar 24
The Worst Cold on Earth
Wow. I was feeling smug just a few weeks ago, since I hadn’t had a cold all winter. I don’t think I deserve what I got, but maybe I did. I can tell you, that whatever I have is pretty miserable. I slept in my chair, and managed to do pretty well. But, everything that drained out of my sinuses is now in my chest, or at least it feels like it. And I’m having some digestive effects, too. Not so good, even when staying close to home.
We’re leaving Wednesday for a short trip, and the last stop, Friday and Saturday, will be at Joe Mullins’s fine Southern Ohio Indoor Music festival in Wilmington Ohio. Rhonda Vincent, Bobby Osborne, Nothin’ Fancy, the Rarely Herd, VW boys, Paul Williams, Don Rigsby, IIIrd Tyme Out, Michael Cleveland, and Joe with his fine band. Wow! We always check out a flea market or two over the weekend, too. I hope I get rid of the worst effects of this before Wednesday.
Mar 23
Happy Easter
It’s quiet here today, and we will be too. Papa, D3 and I will have a quite day, a quite dinner, and a long nap.
Mar 21
Back at It
Yesterday, was looking over the logs for my sites and I noticed the contact form wasn’t working. Don’t know for how long, don’t know why. Frustrating. Anyhow, I just went through the all the WarrenWeb family sites, and fixed all the problems. At least all of them I found.
If you used to have a “family only” password, it should still work, here. If you are a family member, or a close friend who doesn’t yet have a password, I know you’ll want to send me an e-mail, so you can get one and see the cute pictures of GD2’s last visit. They include banjo playing and a new Easter dress.
You could also use that link to let me know about all the mistakes I missed, it will keep me busy for a while. Maybe.
I’m going off to see if I can find some chocolate eggs or something similar to calm me.
Mar 20
The Good Old Days
Some things are funny, or interesting, both. This group, consisting of Tom, Herm, Papa, and Glenn (partly hidden) were living it up at a Christmas party for my place of employment in the 80’s. They also worked there, but Papa was at a different building/division. Kris, Herm’s daughter, worked there also and took the photo. She still works for a branch of the same company, as does Papa. D3 thinks perhaps this was in the the mid 80’s. I know I worked there when D1 got her driver’s license, let’s see, 38-16= 22 and 2008-22= 1986. I have no idea exactly when this party was, but D3 has the date about the same as I do. I also know I quit that job when we came to Detroit in the early 90’s. We were marveling at Papa’s dark hair and moustache. Very Dark. Oh well.
