It was nice to get out for a bit

Me trying to get out and do something fun this summer, at least to this point, has not been working out very well. Last week the stars decided to align though, on my birthday no less, and I was able to spend the better part of the morning/early afternoon in Knoxville; and more specifically, at McKay's.

It's been many months since I was last there, and given some of my newer interests (thanks to all of the genealogical research that I've been doing), I had a lot more than normal that I wanted to look for. 

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot for me on this particular day, but I did find a few things (which is always better than none), and since I haven't done one of these kinds of posts in a while, I'm gonna pad it out with some older purchases at the end.

Since they add continually add it to it throughout the day, I always check the free bins before I go in, and then again when I'm leaving. The store hasn't sold VHS tapes since I've been going there, but people must still bring them in from time to time (and then don't want them back after being told that videos aren't accepted), because I have seen a few in the free bins, but I had never seen a group like this in there before. And considering that the store had been open for over an hour before I got there, I'm amazed that these, and the Power Rangers video that I didn't grab, were still there.

The Adventures of Batman & Robin wasn't as good as Batman: The Animated Series, but it was similar enough to still be pretty good. I already tried the Riddler tape, it was in very sad shape, and has since been tossed. Remembering these episodes, that would've been the better of the two.

Despite their ultra modern looking covers, both of these feature a compilation of episodes from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which I can't believe still hasn't been released on DVD or Blu-Ray. As an extra added bonus, both tapes include an episode from the original cartoon, which I haven't seen too many episodes from over the years.

Back to the 90's animated series, this one being in a period box though. I really liked this series during it's original run, but hadn't seen any full episodes since it ended. What a treat it was to watch a few again (both of these tapes worked great); now I want more! As an aside this box had an old McKay's sticker on the front, which is kind of neat, and will be left on.

On to the purchases...

One of my favorite sections is the 'Misc. World History', and both of my books this time came from it. This is a fairly chunky book, and was priced very right (for me) at $2. I started reading this the other day and am enjoying it quite a bit; though it is a bit dense.

At well over 800 pages, this one's pretty chunk too. I really like these kind of speculations, and probably would've bought this one online much sooner had I known that it existed. I don't think that I could've gotten online for $1.50 though, so I guess it's a good thing that I hadn't been aware of it. I don't know if anyone else cares about such things, but just in case, here's a bonus sample of some of the essays:

That was it for books, everything else was DVD's...

For 95¢ I was able to upgrade the video I've had of this for decades to DVD. The only one left to upgrade now is #3. How does everyone feel about the Die Hard franchise? Personally, I enjoy 1-4 quite a bit (#5 doesn't exist in my world). My favorites in order would probably shock some (and possibly break the Twitter), and even though no one asked, they'd go 4, 3, 1, 2. I always enjoyed #3 the most (this despite my not being a fan of Sam Jackson), that is until #4 came out.

I've watched V once a year for decades now, and even though my copy was recorded from the Sci-Fi channel back in the 90's, the many viewings have not degraded the tape in the least. That being said, I have wanted to upgrade it for a while now, and for $2.95 I was finally able to do so.

My final purchase of the day was a mini-splurge on my part. It's hard to tell from the photos, but this set was still sealed. It was also cheaper than the going rate on eBay. Of the great detective series', Poirot is the one that I own the least from. I'm trying to change that though.

Like I said at the beginning, I didn't get much, but it was still really nice to get out and do something that wasn't work related. It was even nicer to be able to go out and do something mildly fun on my birthday, as I can't even recall the last time that I did; I know that I at least hadn't done so in the previous seven birthdays that I've had since moving to Tennessee.

Seeing as how that was kind of a short post, and knowing that I've had some other purchases to show from an afternoon spent hitting up a bunch of places in Crossville a couple of months ago, I figured I might as well finally get to those as well. I thought that this afternoon out might've been from April or May, but the photo folder on my computer says that it was created on 2-21-23. Geez, this year is going quick!

Despite my not realizing just how long ago all of this stuff is from, I do remember the day fairly well -- or at least I remember getting the stuff fairly well. These first couple of books were from the Book Cellar. Every time I think that there can't possibly be any more Alfred Hitchcock collections out there that I don't already own, I find another! This one was really good.

I just finished reading this one a couple of weeks ago, it too was really good. It ended up going in a completely different direction than I had thought it would. And I was talking about V a bit ago, I now know what inspired that series. This was written in 1953 (if I remember correctly), and it's first two chapters are basically how V starts out. They couldn't be more different from each other after that though.

This book ended up being a terrible disappointment. I had really high hopes for it, but struggled mightily to even get past like the 40th page. The copy I bought did have this wonderful inscription though:

I hope that Brandon is dead, otherwise he's a colossal heel for getting rid of this (and the book sucking would not be a good enough reason for parting with it).

They opened a Goodwill in Crossville last September or October, despite there already being four other thrift stores within a mile radius of it. I've been there a few times since, and haven't really been all that impressed thus far. I'm pretty sure that most of the inventory is being brought in from elsewhere (people in that area are very loyal to the pre-existing non-corporate thrift stores), and it's gotta be one of the smallest Goodwill's out there (it's in an old Rite-Aid). I haven't bought much from it yet, but on this day back in February I did find two DVD's (and a puzzle that'll be shown when it gets finished). In all of my years of looking through video's and DVD's at places, I had never once come across High Noon in any format. I had seen it a bunch of times on TCM back when I had cable/satellite, but it was cool to finally be able to get a physical copy of it.

There are a lot of John Wayne collections out there on DVD, but this was one of the nicer ones that I had come across. All of the pictures were cleaned up, and the sound has been brought up as well.

Up until the corona got going, the Dollar Tree that's closest to me had been a good source for cheap books, but has now kind of been the shits for the last few years. The store in Crossville is fairly large as far as DT's go, but for reasons that I can't put my finger on, I really don't like it, and therefor almost never go in. The only reason I went in on this particular day was because my mom had asked me to look for something (which I don't recall finding). I don't know about you, but when I think of Dollar Tree, I don't think of "Hamlet", and yet, they had a big 'ol pile of Hamlet's that day. In fact, this was the only thing I bought there. It felt kind of weird going through the checkout out Dollar Tree with just a copy of "Hamlet" in hand. I had never read the book before, but ended up enjoying it quite a bit more than I thought I would. I really like the way this edition was laid out too.

I don't think that they've officially come out and said it or anything, but judging by the ever dwindling selection, I'm pretty sure that the Hilltoppers thrift store is trying to cut out VHS from their inventory; which is one of the reasons why I rarely ever go in there anymore. To my surprise though, I actually found two pretty solid tapes while there that day.

I never watched Sesame Street when I was a kid, but did like all things Muppets. I've also heard/seen a bunch of Jim Henson interviews over the years, and am generally a fan of him as a person too. This video was a good overview of his career, but like most things of this nature, it could've been longer.

I hadn't seen this picture since probably '95 or '96, so I was a tad bit excited to find a copy of it; which by the way is yet another one that I don't think that I've come across, on any format, in the wild before. I'd be lying if I said that it was one of my favorite films, but it has held up better than I had expected.

Well, I guess I'm now all caught up on my physical media purchases since February(!). I don't know when I'll get back to McKay's again, but it's looking like I'll have a morning to spend in Crossville later this week, and am planning on hitting up at least a few of the places mentioned in this post. I suppose if I hit the motherlode, they'll be another recap in the very near future. If only a couple of items are found though, I'll probably just photograph them and save 'em for another time when I find myself needing some filler again.

Yeah, I lied... sorry!

I know, I said last month that I'd try to go a bit before subjecting you to yet another genealogy related post, but here I am already doing another one. Though, for those getting tired of them, I can say that this one will be slightly different, as it does sort of have ties to collecting, so maybe it'll be worth your click. 

Before getting into the meat of the post though, I did want to mention that I thought it was kind of, I don't know, fortuitous, I guess, that after lamenting about the subscription prices for some of the genealogy sites in a post last month, I ended up receiving two heavily discounted offers for separate sites within days if said post going live. First, Ancestry, who had been sending quite a few not-so-enticing offers, sent a rather amazing one, where I could get a three-month subscription for just $1 a month. Yeah, one dollar! I don't always check my email at night, but I did on this particular night, and I'm glad that I did, because the offer was sent at like 7pm, and was only good 'til midnight. After reading all of the fine print, you know, to make sure that there was no monkey business involved, I couldn't click that subscribe button quick enough.

And if Ancestry's offer wasn't good enough, just a few days later I got one from Ancestry Bank too. I can't remember now the exact price of this one, but basically broke down to 13 months (12 paid + 1 free) for $3.75 a month. I've already mentioned how much I like this site, not only for the genealogical aspect, but also because you can alter your search and use the site just like another Newspapers site. And they have a lot of papers that are exclusive to them, so there's no shortage of papers to look through. I may not be rolling in dough, but I could do $3.75 a month. My Black Friday discounted subscription to Newspapers.com recently ran out, and they don't seem to be in any hurry to get me back with another discounted offer, so this Genealogy Bank offer couldn't have come at a better time (though the selection of papers is quite different). Ideally, it would be great to have access to both sites at the same time, as that would pretty much cover every single paper available, but one is still better than none. 

The only down side to these new subscriptions is that I've been spending a lot more time on the computer again. I had been doing so well at limiting my time spent in front of a screen over the last few years too, but now I find myself back in front of one for more time per day than I'd like to admit. I would have to think that there's only so much information that'll I'll be able to find, so this is probably just a temporary problem, but even so, I've been doing an awful lot of computering as of late.

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was an idea that I had last week, which saw me wondering about the feasibility of trying to put together a (physical) collection based on my family tree. I say collection too, but I really just mean trying to get a physical item that represents each person on the tree. 

I'm one of those people who, right or wrong, doesn't believe that just because something is currently available to view (or read) on the internet, that that means that it'll be available to view (or read) until the end of time. Admittedly, I don't know how the "cloud" works, nor do I know much about data storage, so it's possible that the information will exist forever, but that doesn't mean that we'll always have access to said information. And even if I didn't believe the things that I believe, I'd still want to print everything out, if only so that I could look at all of my family stuff without having to be on a computer to do so. The problem with this is though, at least for me, is that the way the information is presented, is, how do I say this, kind of boring; and isn't conducive to me wanting to look at it.

I've never had scrapbook before, but I've been wondering if that would be the way to spice things up a bit. I've seen some videos recently on the YouTube of people who keep mixed media journals, and I really like the presentation of those. I'd just be focusing on direct relatives at first, giving each person their own page (I don't know if it would be humanly possible to do this for aunts, cousins, etc.).  I have no idea how it would be laid out, but I think it might be fun to try to do some sort of mixed media genealogical scrapbook type of thing. And as much as I try not to be sometimes, I am an accumulator of things (aka a collector), so once the idea of mixed media entered the equation, I couldn't help but think of trying to add some sort of collectible that represents the person to their page as well.

Since the item, in theory, would have to be something that could fit onto a page (without taking up the whole page), I'd be somewhat limited to what I could get to represent that person. Most likely this would be things like coins, stamps, postcards; that sort of stuff. Whatever it is, it would hopefully correlate with where they were born, lived, did for a living, etc. Ideally, said item would also be from their time, but obviously that gets a bit more challenging (and expensive) the further back I go. For anyone who goes back a couple of hundred years, I'd unfortunately have to probably get something more contemporary for them. 

Like I said, I don't really know how, or if, this is gonna work yet, and am sort of only mentioning it now for any possible feedback; or ideas that anyone might want to contribute. I'd try to Google around for anything like this, but didn't come up with any results. I know that I can't be the first person to have thought of this, I just don't think the right results are coming up from my various search words.

I suspect that this is gonna be one of those trial by error sort of things, but I'm all in on this idea, and therefor welcome all of the challenges that it is gonna present.

And while I'm here talking about genealogical things again, I thought I'd mention another recent idea, that being to take a genealogy road trip. I've been fairly surprised to learn that a few branches of my family have been here in the United States for so long; some even before the colonies were officially united. I had previously been aware of some of the other countries that folks had come from along the way, but finding out that I've got some old colony blood in me is quite something. Knowing this now, I thought it might be fun to visit some of the places that my relatives came from/lived in. I figured that a lot of people have done this before, and this time Google actually came through with a bunch pertinent links. I never had much interest in visiting places like Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, but with what I've learned, I do now kind of want to. I've never been much of a big city person, but most of the places I've come across so far (though there is a couple of notable exceptions) appear to be still somewhat rural, so that would work out pretty well for me. Obviously the places will probably have changed in the last couple of hundred years, but at least I can possibly tread on some of the same soil, and maybe stop in and say hello at some of their final resting places.

I don't have enough information yet to make such a trip this year, but I could definitely see myself trying to do one next year. The really "fun" part will be trying to figure out the logistics. I also wonder if I should try to get everything into one trip, or just do one part next year, and another the following? I know that there's only like five people reading the posts on this blog, but I would be curious to know if anyone else has made such a trip.

On a completely unrelated note, my mom found out the other day that one of my grandpa's (her dad, who passed about 10 years ago) best friends passed away at the age of 94. I didn't remember his name, but am pretty sure that I spent some time around him way back when. I think that we even stopped in at he and his wife's house at the beach a couple of times. Apparently he was still very sharp, and active, right until the end, which is pretty cool. And at 94, he obviously had a good run; so there's nothing to be sad about. The most amazing thing to me though was, finding out that he and his wife (who is still alive), had been married for 71 years. That's just awesome! In this day and age, where people get divorced over the most trivial of things, it's just neat to hear about two people being together that long. I hope that anyone whose reading this, that's married, will get a chance to do the same.

I'd like to say that I'll spare you from anymore posts like these, at least for the next few weeks, but I can see that I'm not gonna be able to do so. This has been my primary interest for these last few months, and I have no doubt that I will be continuing to talk about it; though I will keep trying to mix some other non-genealogy posts as well.

Who needs a garden gnome...

... when you can have a garden turtle!

I came across this cutie while pulling out some sticker bushes about a week and half a go. And while it's far from uncommon to cross paths with an Eastern box turtle, after all, I've done so multiple times each year that I've lived here; but it is a little more uncommon for them to stick around one location for so long; as it's now been a week and some change, the turtle is still here.

I had made a couple of small piles of sticker bushes on the day I found it, and for reasons I now can't remember, ended up leaving said piles on the ground overnight. The next day I found that the turtle had moved into one of the piles, and there it stayed for the next 4-5 days. I forgot to get a picture of it tucked in there, but I did get this one of it looking the entrance.

The pile of sticker bushes must not have been in the right location, because it has since moved back to the are where I first found it. Seems to be a better spot for sun, and food, so I'm thinking that's what was behind the move.

Normally when I find them out and about, I do tend to pick them up to see whether they're a male or female (flat shell on bottom = female, concave = male), but I don't want to do anything that might make this one leave (i.e. insult it), so I've resisted the urge to check. It would be nice to know how to properly address it, but I'm okay just continuing to call them "sweetie" (fun fact: I call almost everything I encounter outside, "sweetie"). I do know though that it is full grown, so it's at least 6 years old.

I've also been trying to bribe them into staying by providing some food scraps, well, a couple of apple slices, and few bites of banana. Both of which seem to have gone over like gangbusters. I really hope that it does stick around for awhile, as it's been nice to have someone to talk to, but I'm prepared for whenever it needs to move on.

Kind of a short post today, so here's one more recent non-turtle picture that I took...

I was so focused on getting home this particular day that I didn't even notice this modern General Lee sitting next to me until after I had loaded some groceries and was just about to pull out of my parking space. Had I not been so focused on going home, I probably would've drove around the other side to get a shot that didn't have the cart return in the way. I prefer the original, but still found this persons "General Webb" to be mildly interesting.

I don't always buy first day covers, but when I do...

Two changes were made to the Women's Air Derby in 1937, neither of which would be used again in 1938.

The Women's Air Derby was an event created for the annual National Air Races in 1929 . It was a cross-country race from California (usually Santa Monica) to Cleveland, OH; where the National Races took place. 

For reasons that I've yet to see explained, the 1937 event was changed to a 25-mile dash. The kind where certain marks need to be hit, and if they weren't, points were reduced (or time was added). From what I can gather, this was the only year that they did that for the Women's Derby.

The other temporary change, and one that certainly made more sense at the time, was that the race was renamed to the Amelia Earhart Memorial Race. Amelia Earhart (and Fred Noonan) had disappeared just two months earlier on July 2nd, so she was still very much on everyone's mind. One could argue that even though the primary search had been called off six weeks earlier, that there was a slim chance that she could've still been alive, and therefor the name change might've been a bit premature. They went ahead and changed it though, and much like the new race, the name only lasted for one year.

The Charlotte Observer 9/12/37

Gladys O' Donnell had been participating in air races for eight years by 1937, in fact her first race was in the 1929 Women's Air Derby, where she took second place; one spot ahead of Amelia Earhart (who only finished third because the gal ahead of her crashed). For those interested in early aviation, I would encourage you to read one of the multiple books that have been put out about that 1929 race. It's story has everything, a great cast of characters, suspected sabotage, tragedy (Marvel Crosson died during the race), and heck, there's even a case of Typhoid Fever mixed in just for good measure. 

Gladys O'Donnell after winning the Amelia Earhart Memorial Race. Image swiped from the Getty site.

Like a lot of early aviators, Gladys was a pretty interesting person. She wasn't even interested in flying (despite her husband running a flight school) until getting caught up in all of Charles Lindbergh's various triumphs. She finally took up flying in 1929 (as a 25 year-old mother of two), and had only logged 40 hours of solo time before she entered that first Women's Air Derby (despite entrants allegedly needing 100 hours of solo time to participate); which makes that second place finish just that much more impressive. She won her first competition the following year, and would pick up quite a few more wins throughout the 30's.

When it comes to stamps and other postal ephemera, I generally prefer things that were originally intended for actual use by the public. Things that have a story. Because of this preference, first day covers, which were created solely for the collector market, have never been of much interest to me. Prior to this purchase, my only FDC's were of the airship/dirigible variety. I made an exception for this particular cover because it's at least contemporary to what it's commemorating, as opposed to paying homage to something that happened 40 years earlier. In addition to that, I rarely get to add anything to my small collection of Amelia Earhart items (which is beginning to morph into a more of just a collection of items celebrating early aviation), so for just a couple of bucks (less than $3 with shipping), I couldn't resist!

Genealogical musings

I mentioned in the previous post that after many years (decades) of wanting to do so, I finally started dipping my toes into the world of genealogy. And despite my terrible habit of developing an interest in something, then going all-balls at whatever it is, only to lose complete interest some months later and never return to the subject; it's now been a few months, and I'm still very much engaged. I'd say I was currently up to my knees in it.

Seeing as how many people spend a lifetime researching, I am a mere babe when it comes to all things genealogy, and probably will continue to be for many years to come. I'm still in the "completely amazed by everything" stage, and knowing me, I might never get out of it. What can I say, I'm a simple person, who's amazed by simple things.

I'm sure that I'm not the first person that this happened to, but looking into my own family's history has really opened up my eyes and made me start thinking of the bigger picture as far we as individuals, and a society, go. Two examples that come immediately to mind are:

1). Most people think of themselves as just having one last name, if your name is John Smith, then your a Smith, but in actuality, you're probably made up of dozens of last names. This probably isn't that interesting to anyone reading this, but I think it is. Someday, I'd like to compile a list, and see just how many confirmable last names that I'm made up from.

2). People are connected. And not just in a "we're all humans, therefor we're all in this together" sort of way, no, a lot of people are connected familial; and probably don't even realize it. For most people, all you'd have to do is go back three or four generations, and you'll start finding great (x3 or 4) grandparents that had ten or more children. And even though a couple of those children probably died during infancy, there's usually at least half that lived long enough to have children of their own. And if those children then had 7 or 8 kids of their own, then those kids grew up and... well, you get the point. It doesn't take long before your extended family becomes, uh, extended. Very extended! Some of these folks may be a cousin thirty times removed, but they're still family. 

This got me to wondering too about crime. Not in a general sense, but just wondering how often people commit crimes against an unknown relative? This seems like it's got to happen more often than one might think, especially in instances where the families of all parties involved have lived in specific area/region for any length of time. Someone could be robbing a 4th or 5th cousin, and not even know it. Of course too, it then begs the question, if they did know it, would they even care? I mean, people kill their parents, and siblings, all of the time, and obviously they know that there related, so those sorts probably wouldn't think twice about harming a less connected relative, but I do think that some people might think twice about committing an act of crime on another person if they knew that they were related. And I know that some folks say that everyone on Earth is related, but I'm talking about in a way that's actually traceable.

It also now makes me wonder if I've ever interacted with anyone through the blogs that I'm related to? The odds seem like they'd be fairly high, but trying to figure out who, and how, would probably take some doing.

Two additional things that came to mind after getting to this point in the post...

3). I've also been surprised to learn that many families have genealogical books that have been published for their last name. One family that I'm directly connected to, the Sprague's, even have multiple books on their doings (they've been here awhile). I can't remember who it is as I'm typing this, but there's at least one other family on my tree that has a book out too. I'd like to get all of these books at some point, but they seem to be rather cost prohibitive. I haven't found any online yet that were less than $30. That's a bit much for me.

4). I am not pro-communism, nor am I socialist, so please forgive my sounding like either when I say that people should not have to pay to access information about their families. This is not something that I had ever thought of before, but am now convinced that I'm right, and it would take a lot of doing to change my mind. I've done a couple of free trials on the various pay sites over the last month or so, and now that I've seen what they've got to offer, I can honestly say that aside for one of them (more on that in a minute), the people who run these sites should be embarrassed to charge as much as they do; for how little they actually do. Nearest I can tell, most of the pay sites only host the information, all of which is added by users who are paying to do so. Then that information is for all intensive purposes, held hostage. Most of them do offer services of some kind or another, but all of those services are being completed by a third party. And I'm sure that I'm naive when it comes to how much it costs to run a giant website, but even so, I don't think that it takes two million users paying $30 a month to just to store a bunch of information.

My most recent free-trial was for Genealogy Bank, and that's one site that I might consider signing up for (they have a discounted rate offer that's like $7 a month). Despite the name, it's quite a bit more than just genealogy, it's actually more like Newspapers.com, than say an Ancestry. In fact, by modifying your searches, you can actually use it as just a newspaper site, and what's more, they have a shit-ton of different papers than Newspapers.com. Aside from being able to easily find obituaries and census information, the biggest draw of that site for me was that they're the only site that has an agreement with The Oregonian, which was/has been a boon for researching posts for my Portland Beavers blog.

I guess while I'm talking about sites too, I might as well mention Find a Grave. I really like that site. Their biggest draw is that you're able to see where relatives are buried (and not just in the U.S.), which is really neat for those of us that don't travel much. I also like that some users add personal information to their relatives pages, even more so when it's information that was obtained via one of the pay sites. For those unfamiliar with the site, they even have a section where people can request a photo of a loved one's gravesite [that isn't already on the site]. After seeing how many requests were open for cemeteries near me, I decided that I wanted to try and help out, and have volunteered to start fulfilling some of those requests. I haven't done any yet, but I'm hoping to start next week.

One other site that I want to put out there is WikiTree. I just found it a couple of days ago, and have only been able to play around on it for a couple of minutes thus far, but I am really impressed by what I've seen so far. It's a free site, and even though it looks like the site isn't as big as some of the others, they apparently make up for it by double and triple checking the veracity of all information that is uploaded to the site. I've yet to see anyone else do that. They also appear to specialize in more obscure information when possible, so it's hard to imagine anyone complaining about that.

I think that's everything that I left out of the previous post. And now that I got to it, I'll do you all a favor and not mention anything else about genealogy for at least four posts, um, maybe three. 😉

And finally, on a completely unrelated note, a bear got into the garbage can the other night. I didn't see it happen, but a bear is the only thing strong enough to have pulled the lid off the can. That is, unless there's a bear-sized raccoon running around. Thankfully there was only two small bags of garbage in the can at the time, so the aftermath didn't require much effort to pick up. I still haven't seen one, but every Summer I come across at least two piles of bear poo (it's very distinctive) around the house (last year there was even one in the driveway). 

This is supposed to be the year that I finally buy a couple of trail cams, but so far, I'm procrastinating, as always. I have tried to do a little research on them, but not being technologically minded, I get bored awfully quick when I start seeing stuff about gigabytes and megawatts. And there's the pixels and bandwidth. I just can't stay focused on that kind of stuff for more than a couple of a minutes at a time. Which is why I don't have any trail cams yet, which in turn is why I missed the bear treating my garbage can like an oversized pic-a-nic basket.

To quote a bad song, it's been awhile

I hadn't intended to go so long between posts on here, but as the old saying goes, 💩 happens.

My blogging seems to be getting more manic with each passing year. I'm at a point now where there's a week or two where the desire to "write" is very high, during which time I'll usually be able to start, and finish, a post or two for each of my three blogs; then I hit a wall. Then it's basically just wait a month, then rinse and repeat. I'm not too keen on this schedule, but for the moment I don't see any way around it.

I don't know when it'll go live, but I'm starting this on April 15th. This morning feels like it's gonna be the start of my short blogging window, so I've got to hurry up and crank out a couple of posts if I want to make the most of it. Having not posted on here in what appears to be almost two months, I thought I'd do a "quick" (spoiler alert: I think I'll have to come back at the end and add another set of quotes to that quick) recap of what I've been up to during that time.

March was one of those months where it felt like it alternately flew by/took an eternity to end. The first half wasn't too bad, but man, the second half sure was the shits.

I'm pretty sure that I've never mentioned it on any of my blogs, but for what seems like decades now I've wanted to learn more about my family's origins. I mean I knew some stuff already, but I want to know everything, or at least everything that can be known. The problem is/has been, that genealogy isn't really something that you can just dip your toes into (at least in the beginning), it's one of those all-or-nothing kind of things, and I a). Didn't know where to start, and b). Didn't know where I'd find the time for it even if I did ever find out where to start. Thanks to a fellow blogger, I was able to find a starting point, and thanks to me being willing to sacrifice all other interests (blogs included) for a few weeks, I found my time.

It all started quite by happenstance when Mark Aubrey, who some of my card friends should already know, if not, he had Mark's Ephemera and Old Knoxville Base Ball, but now only runs the latter, mentioned FamilySearch.Org in his last post back in February. Admittedly, I hadn't looked into anything genealogy related for a few years now, so I was completely unaware that such a site existed. I knew of some of the pay sites, but didn't know that so many free ones had popped up. Of course, Mark is an elite level researcher, so if anyone is gonna know about such sites, it'd be him.

Anyway, this seems to have been the spark that was needed to light my proverbial fire. I spent at least an hour a day for the next few weeks trying to get as much (verifiable information) from that site as I could, which surprisingly, was actually quite a bit. Since I knew more about it, I started with my mom's side first. I knew next to nothing about my dad's side (more on that another time) and had some difficulty in even finding a thread to start with. Thankfully, my mom had some saved papers with just enough information to find said thread.

After a few weeks of Family Search, I decided that despite having read more than a few negative things about it over the years, that I'd do the two-week free trial on Ancestry.com. One of it's biggest knocks that I've read about in the past, and have since read more about, is all of the misinformation on their site. And even after just two weeks on there, I can confirm some of those reports. Apparently, fantasy trees are quite plentiful, and the way the site works, they seem to almost encourage people's laziness/delusions (even more so if you're a paying member). Mixed trees, half well-researched, by other people of course, and half bull-jive seem to be quite numerous as well. I even found one of those that had been created by one of my uncle's kids (she's got to be around 30 by now, but I haven't seen here since she was a baby). She clearly hasn't done any of her own research and is relying on some done by others, with the rest of tree being sourced by early dementia, drugs, or some combination of the two. It's pretty bad. But again, that's supposedly quite common on there. 

I've found a few more sites to try out since my free trial ended, and after taking a break for a couple of weeks (I was starting to get burned out), I'm about to do another free-trial on a different site. After that ends, I'll start playing around with a few more of the free ones. 

I knew where a few of the paths on my mom's side would lead, but have been surprised by a few others. Same for my dad's. I've been focusing mostly on direct ancestors, but have diverged a few times, which has led me to two great (with varying degrees of great's) uncles that have been somewhat prominent. I don't how many of the five people reading this care about such things, but I will be talking about those uncles at some later date, as well some of the other people that I've found, and the places that they came from. I have a few more early thoughts on genealogy in general, but this post is getting kind of long and I've got other topics to get to, so I think I'm gonna save those general thoughts for a follow-up post sometime next week.

Topic #2: It's now storm season here in the South, so we've been getting some days of booming thunderstorms, heavy rain, big winds, and just general chaos in surrounding areas/regions. Back around the middle of March we got three straight days of near torrential downpour, which was then followed by a day of sustained high wind, whose gusts were on par with those of a tropical storm. As is often the case high winds follow a couple of soggy days, some trees came down. Four trees to be exact. All stupid large, and all in the back yard. These have been occupying a lot of my free outside time since.

Topic #2 1/2: A few weeks ago, I guess just a little over three to be exact, I sustained my first semi-big injury of the year when I smashed my index finger while dicking around with those downed trees. Seeing as how a Rube Goldberg chain of events proceeded the smashing, I don't think that I could properly explain how it happened exactly, but the end result was a log dropping cut-edge first about halfway across my fingernail and forcing the underside of my finger into the cut edge of another piece. 

I knew it was bad the second after the wave of pain shot to my brain. I was wearing leather gloves, but that didn't lessen the force any. I had my glove off in seconds, and by then blood was already running out from around my nail. I didn't know what to do first, puke or pass out. Thankfully neither came to fruition, but I did come awfully close to passing out. I've developed a weird fear of seeing blood, more specifically my blood, as I've gotten older, and subsequently tend to overreact if any of my blood is shed. Although, in this instance it was a lot of blood, so I feel like I was somewhat justified in feeling faint and pukey. 

I'm very grateful that my mom was around to help dress the wound (stuff like this doesn't bother her), and she was the one who, two days later when it was still bleeding (not as bad, but still leaking more than it should've been every time the bandage was changed), decided to have me dip my finger tip in a cup of witch hazel, which was ultimately what finally got it to stop. I was, and still am fairly certain, that I've got a small fracture near the end of the bone. But, aside from not smashing it again, there's nothing I can really do about that. It still looks pretty gross after three weeks, but at least some of the swelling has started to go down, and it's finally becoming functional again. And the best part, it doesn't look like my nail will be coming off. No lie, I was more worried about that than the possibility of having broke my finger. I don't know how the nail didn't crack where the log edge hit, but it not cracking is probably what saved my nail.

I broke a few fingers during my younger years, but as far as smashing them goes, I thought the worst time had been last summer when I hit my thumb with the back of a hatchet, but this was considerably worse. I hope for my sake that I don't ever have to top it.

Topic #3: I mentioned my depression in the previous post, and you'd think with all of these other distractions going on, that maybe it would have lessened some; but it hasn't. I am in a colossal funk. I think I do know now part of what's brought this on, but have yet to figure out how to use this knowledge in a beneficial sort of way.

Topic #4: Most people would probably agree that it wouldn't be a good idea to start a fourth blog when you can't even keep up with the three that you already have, and yet, I had an idea for one, and am now thinking about doing so. On the flip side though, I've also been thinking about taking an extended (or permanent) break from blogging. Will either extreme come to pass? Who knows. The new blog will not likely be of any interest to the few folks who are reading this, so I probably wouldn't even bother mentioning it's creation were it to happen. I would, however, let people know if I decided to leave. I don't want to be one of those people who just disappears. That's not cool.

Topic #5: I have never had a real vacation before and had been planning on rectifying that by going to Florida sometime this year, but am now starting to rethink that plan. Thanks to all of the selling that I've done on eBay over the last year or so, I do have the money for it, I'm just not sure if this is the wisest way to spend it anymore. With the economy being what it is, and with it not showing any signs of improving, I just don't know if this the best time to be spending that kind of money. The thought of saving it doesn't sound like a lot of fun, but does seem more prudent; just in case. 

I also realize that this could potentially be the only vacation that I ever have, so if I am gonna do it maybe I should try and go somewhere more exotic, so to speak. The problem with that is though, there's only three places that I'd like to go (that wouldn't be ruined by being around other tourists), but all three would require me getting onto a plane, which I'm not too keen on, and flying across the Atlantic, which I'm even less keen on. 

On the other hand, just once in my life I'd like to visit a warm beach, with warm water. Such places don't exist back in Oregon. Beaches there are cold and damp for most of the year, and the water is never warm. And you know who has warm beaches, with warm water? Florida!

I don't know though, seems like the older I get, the harder it is for me make decisions. I always thought that it would be the other way around, so maybe this is just a me thing. Either way, it really sucks. I miss the days when I didn't have to bother even entertaining such thoughts.

Joy of a Completed Puzzle: Neuschwanstein Castle

The subject of this puzzle, Neuschwanstein Castle, is one that makes me wish that I could've been a collector of experiences/memories, as opposed to one who collects material items, because this is the sort of place that I would love to see in person. Unfortunately for me, not only was I not made for travel, but with all of the trivial things that I'm constantly being compelled to buy, even if I were the sort who could travel, I'd never be able to save up enough money for a such a trip.

This puzzle seemed like it was gonna be a bit more difficult than usual, and honestly, was, at least until the sky got finished. After that, it was pretty smooth sailing castling. Also, given where I bought this, I really didn't think that it was going to be complete, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that it was.

And apologies for doing two puzzle posts in a row on here. I don't want this to turn into a puzzle blog, but a bout of depression showed up a few weeks ago, and I'm having trouble shaking it. This of course, has made blogging (posting and reading) more difficult, thus resulting in less posts across my three blogs this month (and part of last). I have been working slowly on one of the music countdowns that I teased a couple of months ago, and think that I'll be able to start that within the next few weeks.

Anyway, as per usual, I'll leave you with a better picture of the puzzle, courtesy of the box...

Puzzle Details:

Maker: Milton Bradley 

Title: Neuschwanstein Castle

Size: 1000 pieces

Price Paid: $1.99