Events of the past week

It's been a unexpectedly busy last week.

Wednesday: Had doctor's appointment (everything checks out fine). Colin hears that his uncle had passed away early that morning. We go to Deerfield as planned and see people there. Dinner with an ex-coworker of Colin's (from the first job he had) who has experience contracting; conversation helps Colin understand better what to do and expect while exploring the contracting option himself.

Thursday: At CLC from 10 to 10, worked 7 hours. Colin gets the car battery replaced. Becca arrives! Had to wait for security again to lock up. When guard asked, "Ready to escape, huh?" I merely say, "Yeah," when what I'm thinking is, "Um, I've been here 12 hours, I shouldn't have to wait extra for you, and my best friend who I haven't seen in a year is out in the car waiting, so duh!"

Friday: Lincoln Park Zoo! I woke up with a very stiff/sore back (no idea why) but took drugs and avoided crawling in any anthill modules (Becca graciously did that for me). We had gone there last year, but it's a nice and free one. Plus, a baby monkey had been born just a month previously and I was eager to see it. We also saw the barrel-loving anteater again, but he was sleeping this time. I caught a video of the lion roaring. Becca and I met back up with Colin at the Caribou in Gurnee - after a quick stop at Border's, of course. Dinner of spinach lasagna roll-ups and "Wall-E."

Becca in the anthill:

Video of lion roaring:

The best picture I could get of the baby monkey with the very protective mother (you can see his face right above her left hand):

Saturday: Milwaukee County Zoo! Bigger and more spread out than Lincoln Park Zoo. Parts were disappointing; some were simply closed and it was very hard to see the rhinos and elephants who were inside behind glass that reflected the bright snow. Some kids were right up against the glass screaming and roaring at the lions inches away from them. We got to see many animals being fed. It was very fun to watch 3 year old chimp Mahal play with his surrogate mom. There was also an aardvark who ran incessantly in circles, weaving between and under things in his exhibit. There was a tomato that looked like a frog - I mean, a frog that looked like a tomato. It was creatively named a "tomato frog." After the zoo we wandered Gurnee Mills mall and then made a stop at Joann Fabrics before getting home. Dinner was enchiladas and "Sherlock Holmes" which Becca hadn't seen before.

Mahal and his mom:

Tomato frog:

Kids with the lion ... fails to depict the full absurdity of the event:

Sunday: Becca hits the road, heading home. We clean and pack. Then Colin and I hit the road, heading south to Cinci. We arrive about 9 PM at the hotel.

Monday: Colin's uncle's memorial service. Gave his aunt some colored valentine's day cards (from here). Spent time with his family before heading back home. Fell into bed at midnight.

Today: Woke up. Lazed around. Did some research on great-grandpa who was in WWI. Watched a Covert Affairs episode with lunch. Had headache so took short nap. Still have headache.

There are more zoo pictures here!

Spain and Fox Lake Library

This hasn't been the greatest week but I am looking on the bright side. We got our tickets for Europe! After much consideration and many other ideas (plus some hair pulling behavior from bosses), we have roundtrip tickets going to and leaving from Spain with almost three weeks in between. I'm getting pretty excited about it but I'm glad we have over a month before we go.

I was feeling grumpy and not up for going to the write-in Wednesday night. I almost asked Colin to come home so that I could just be with him. But I also knew I wouldn't regret going once I got to the write-in and I needed the boost to keep writing. I had written a grand total of 200 words earlier that day and it felt like real work. And I didn't regret going - the one other person who had been there the week before was happy to see me, even told me she had double checked to make sure I hadn't sent a message saying I wouldn't be there. And two new people showed up! We got two intense writing hours in and  then we succumbed to temptation and talked for half an hour before everyone left. Now I'm currently at 26513 words and I have what looks to be a promising writing day today.

Colin left his wallet on the train last night which caused some stress but it's been easily resolved. He asked the conductor this morning and he said it was at the station at the end of the line and I could go pick it up before noon. "Perfect!" I thought. "Great excuse to try out that cafe there." Wallet retrieved I ventured over to the cafe and it was closed. So was the bistro next to it. And a place called "Whistle Stop Cafe" nearby didn't really look like a writer's haven but more one of those artery clogging breakfast places required in rural areas. So I went to a Dunkin Donuts and got a coffee there before heading to the library. On the way to the library, I noticed a bakery that looked promising, but I already had the coffee. Which I couldn't bring into the library anyway. It's interesting to note the variety in library policies regarding food and drink. At Deerfield, they even supply free coffee (along with lids) which you can then wander about with. I suspect that the building being brand new here at Fox Lake Library has something to do with it. Most places I've been ask that you have covered drinks only so I use that as a default expectation unless there's a sign saying otherwise.

When I came back into the library (after seeing the sign turning around and putting my coffee in the car), I noticed an area wasn't blocked off anymore but wasn't quite open. I was peering around the corner at it when a woman came up to me and said "That's the new section, it's not open yet." I said I noticed but I was just looking from where I was. Then she got all excited and gave me a personal tour. She showed me a room where there would be food and drink machines and pointed out a counter made from recycled glass. She also unlocked some doors and revealed the large lecture/meeting room and said that the seating is made from recycled seat belts. On the way out, I asked what was going to be put in the now-just-dirt area in the back and she explained that they'd be putting a wetland plants back there. I was excited because I had read about such things and thought they sounded great. Definitely worth checking out Fox Lake Library if you have the opportunity.

And now here I am, sitting in the quiet reading room alone, planning to do some noveling before hunger kicks in. Oh, and just as a reminder, I will be leaving for San Fran on Sunday. Along with sitting in quirky cafes and being all writer-y, I'll definitely get some sight seeing in. Despite some renovating going on, Alcatraz is my number one spot. There's some other ideas but I don't think I'll regret whatever does and does not happen while I'm there. Tomorrow, Colin has a company soccer game downtown and I just might join in. We'll see how that goes. Bad balance, two left feet, don't completely know all the rules to soccer, haven't been getting much exercise ... oh yes - we'll see. But then it's lunch with Tom and Keegan! With possibly sitting in a cafe and writing, maybe even with other nanowrimoers!

One short note before I sign off: I keep thinking it's nano-wree-mo but apparently it's nano-wry-mo. I kind of want to make a fuss and say that if we're trying to follow correct phonetics, we should be saying nah (like in national) noh (like in novel, not no) wry muh (as in month). But that's hard to say. Perhaps it's that darn Spanish/Italian in my brain protesting that it should be a long i. Either way, carry on.

Odd Times

Already this is quite an unusual week. We had a relatively normal Saturday; we tried out a pizza place nearby that has double decker pizzas and we spent sometime enjoying the library. The weather is a bit odd - we had frost one night recently but yesterday I ended up having to take off a lot of layers a couple times and would just sit in my tank top outside for a bit. Then there's the rain. Lots of small thunderstorms, almost nightly it seems. And tomorrow we're supposed to get high winds with gusts up to 60 mph.

Then Sunday rolled around and Colin had to be downtown Chicago by noon for the start of his company's conference. We didn't know how long he would be down there but I decided somewhat last-minute that I wanted to be with him on the 1.5 hour one way train ride. It worked out really well because Tom and Keegan were able to join me for an afternoon and early evening of sitting in cafes. It was fun to talk with Tom about library science since I hadn't seen him for two months or so and he's in his first semester of lib sci school. Made me somewhat nostalgic for grad school but I didn't envy the introductory class assignments he's going through. I read a lot of "Coal: A Human History" which I'm finding quite fascinating.

I ended up getting home earlier than Colin at 10 pm. I had no reason to stay for another two hours until the next train and I knew I'd be worthless for socializing that late. My shoes and bottom half of my jeans were pretty soaked from the rain so I was very thankful to be able to hop right into a hot shower when I got home. Also, I'm glad I had every bit of clothing I did have including wool socks which meant my feet stayed warm even when damp, rain coat, wool scarf, and an umbrella which I loaned to Tom and Keegan when they needed it. Couldn't have really been more well prepared for the wacky weather I'd encountered during the trip, except maybe some waterproof footwear. Even then, I would have needed something that was not too hot and that I could walk a lot in comfortably.

I struggled to stay awake while reading a (exciting) book and ended up taking cat naps, which meant I'd dose off partway while sitting up. Finally Colin got to the station at midnight and I picked him up. It turned out I had to drive him back to catch a train before seven this morning. He was pretty wiped out when I picked him up and he wasn't able to get much sleep :( I went back to bed and crashed until almost 11 though ... I've been building up a sleep deficit for awhile from the virus we had and the lingering side effect of sinus congestion, so I was glad for the extra sleep.

Colin won't be home until who knows when tomorrow night. I'm trying to stay positive and focus on doing things I enjoy, perhaps things I normally wouldn't do with Colin. Perhaps I'll eat a dish with tons of mushrooms tonight ;) Or borrow movies from the library that he wouldn't like at all. I have some things I have to do but the list isn't huge and I need to focus on not getting too sad that he's not here. It was actually hard to see his train leave this morning, knowing it'll be longer than usual before I see him again.

A bit of a general genealogical research guide slash update

This past weekend was a strange mixture of wearing out and recuperating. We went to Navy Pier on Saturday with a bunch of Colin's coworkers who are here on 3 month work visas from India. I thought it might be somewhat fun given that I've never actually gone there before. People gazing and limited boat watching was about all that I found fun. Oh, and sitting inside the convention center on the floor in some little corner or sitting in the greenhouse. The crowds were massive, it was hot, and everything was ridiculously expensive or not something I really wanted to do. End result: crankiness despite valiant efforts. The evening proved more enjoyable, as Shaheli cooked for us at her apartment. Earlier, the apartment had weird power outage issues but they were gone by dinnertime. Some of us had some wine and all of us had laughter. The train north only leaves every two hours on the weekends so we took one that should have gotten us home about midnight but some train problems caused an hour's delay. We spent it sitting on the train where it got increasingly over-air conditioned.

Yesterday it was too hot to do anything but Colin and I had a good day in relaxing. Got some reading and genealogical research done, and Colin did a lot of dreaming up mini-computer projects. Example: being able to access thermostat via internet. Example: being able to print without being physically connected to printer. There's a lot of ideas ... and the technical details are slightly out of my depth. I think it's a great idea but it needs more thinking and planning and a designated workspace. I do feel kind of bad that it seems like a lot of the house is more my space, even though that could be justified by two facts: 1) I am here a lot more. 2) Most of his stuff is storage boxes.

Today I've been playing with our new multi functional printer. I'm very happy with it. Both the scanning and printing abilities work well with my linux machine. It takes a couple extra steps to set them up than most Brother printers; most drivers are available immediately through the CUPS system but not for the DCP-7040 (ours), so they need to be downloaded and installed directly from the Brother website. I haven't printed much but I've been going all out with the scanner, creating pdfs of genealogical research paper stuff. It's soooo much easier to use a automatic feeder than a flatbed!

The past week or so I've been focusing on the family branch we have the least amount of information for: my mother's father's side. Well, it may not be the most paltry branch based on how far it goes back - that would be my father's father's side - but it has had the least amount of research time devoted to and/or successful results for it by me and the relatives I'm aware of. It's kind of deceptive; they all go back to mid-1800s in Michigan and then *poof* a wealth of conflicting leads - New York or Canada? Massachusetts or New York? Scotland or Ireland? Was it the person we know the name of that immigrated, or is it just that supposedly the family at sometime is said to have originated from wherever? It also doesn't help that the surnames are very common British ones.

I've decided to attempt a new way of organizing research findings. I'll obtain primary information, preferably a pdf of the original document. Then, I chose to use the lineage approach, in this case working from the earliest known ancestor of that branch downward - this helps eliminate guesswork where to put whose information while still keeping each group narrow enough for comprehension - also very conducive to extending family trees horizontally. For each lineage that I've been actively working on, I have a text document ordered by dates. For instance, let's say there's a birth registry showing that Ann Thorgun was born in Decatur, Iowa on November 23, 1834 (if there really was, it's pure coincide). I'll obtain the primary information as is in a separate text document (Thorguns in Iowa) or pdf (Ann Thorgun 1834 birth). Next, I'll type into the lineage document:

1834
Ann Thorgun is born 23 November 1834 in Decatur, Iowa.

This allows for extra information to be included (such as how her parents' names are spelled in the registry) and for any researcher notes. If there is any other events that occur for the Thorgun lineage in 1834, it will be found immediately under Ann's birth information. However, I don't follow timeline organization past year - I put information about the most direct relative before, say, their brother's.

I'm not sure if I'll do this for all of my family, but it works well for trying to determine what happened when and where, with  a focus for migrations. I can easily see when a date doesn't make sense, or when one generation moves to another place while the previous one remains behind.

On top of that, I'm finally adding info to geni.com, which is like facebook for genealogy, but much more secure. Hopefully this will allow relatives to enjoy what I've put together and for certain ones to add their own info.  I've already noticed how much it helps to gain a mental grasp on what I've got and what next research step would feel the most fulfilling.

As for what else I'll do today ... probably make myself take a break, water the plants again, and read some more "Pride and Prejudice." But mostly, I see no need to vary from genealogical research, since I have managed two loads of laundry as my housekeeping for the day ;)