New July friends

We met in a tent of all places.

I was so excited,

So I paid the price and took them home.

Later one evening, we put on a show.

They sang their brief song.

But then they were gone.

Happy Father's Day 2013 - a short and different blog

Happy Father's Day to anyone reading this who is a father...or who has celebrated with his or her father today!

It's become a tradition for me to write a Father's Day blog entry, so I thought I'd do something a bit different this year.  For those who don't know, one of my big passions is genealogy.  For many years I've been fascinated by this treasure hunt, not to mention all the enjoyment I've gotten looking at old letters, old photos, and retelling old family stories.  Now, I've not neglected my maternal line, but here's something for my dad, his dad, and so on.

I've done some research on my paternal line, and one thing I did for interest and amusement was commit these first names to memory.

So, I am,
Robert, son of
Albert, son of
Harry, son of
Jacob, son of
Isaac, son of
John, son of
Isaac, son of
Henry, son of
John, son of
Philip, son of
Thomas, son of
Thomas, son of
John, son of
John.

And that John Wingate is as far back as I've been able to go so far; he was born in Scotland in 1602.  I still think Wingate is basically an English name (there is a town of Wingate in northern England, near Durham), and some branches of the Wingate's moved to Scotland.  Or it's possible my family is more Scottish than I think.

Anyway, my line came through Scotland, back to England briefly (one of the Thomas'es I think, though I'd have to look that up), then across the Atlantic to Maryland, Delaware, then Ohio.  My Dad was raised in Ohio and Michigan, and came to Missouri to work as a pilot for TWA in 1942.

Now what I ought to do is follow this up in a few days with some scanned photos of my Dad.  Maybe I can find one of him in his TWA uniform.

Books of maps

We here at the Porch do like a good map. And so, we are interested in any blog post that lists 7 must-read books on maps.

Like this one.

Proof

Last year when my main computer needed to be replaced, the new box came with Windows 7, which I like.  One problem, the Cannon scanner software doesn't communicate with the new system.  I considered upgrading the scanner software, but have decided to move it to my other computer instead, which is still using Windows XP.

Which means it's about time to pack away the old HP scanner, which is slow, noisy, sometimes balky, and not that user friendly.  I'd have jettisoned it long ago, except that:

A.  It still works, and
B.  It has a transparency adapter so I can scan in 35mm negatives and 2" x 2" slides.

All that preamble to tell you that I've started a massive project to scan all my slides.  I'm not very far into the project; I'm up to about 1956.  I had a rather exciting "Aha moment" when I noticed something in this slide, for the first time yesterday; and I've seen it many times over the years.  This is from my first birthday.

On or near November 12, 1954, and appropriate to this blog, this was in Grandma and Poppy's kitchen.  Left to right, my Uncle Bud, me, and my sister Connie (I'm not sure why she's staring at the wallpaper).  Now Cousin Mike, see if you notice anything...interesting about this picture.  I'll give you a few moments...

Hint:  I've mentioned this here before (paragraphs 17 & 18), it's an old family story.

What we have here is photographic proof of waaaaaay back when I started out as a lefty, before my dad trained me out of that, and made me mixed-handed.  Before yesterday, I didn't realize there was any evidence.  It's neat the things I discover when I look through old stuff.

Oh, and another bit of trivia.  The windowpanes slid into the walls, and you'll notice the one on the right side is open.  I'm sure this wasn't too late in the evening, but it was already dark.  And though this was in southern Missouri, November evenings are usually cool there.  But this was 1954, an unusually hot year, or so they tell me.

While I'm in the mood, here's a few more pictures from that evening.

This one was actually taken just before the one at the top.  I don't know if Connie's trying to get my attention or Bud's.  And I don't know if Bud just sampled some of the cake, or if he was prompting me what to do next.  Well, we can see the story, even if we don't know the dialog.  This next image I cropped...seemed to improve it, I think.

I hope you enjoyed those!



  

Another short post

We plan to get the last of the decorating done this week, hopefully in the next day or three.  So this evening I worked on decorating the mantle.  I cleared off everything but the lamp, put up the long two-by-four with the cup hooks for the stockings, and placed on top of that the big wooden nativity set my stepfather made for us years ago on his scroll saw.  I added the lighted garland, and it all looks festive.  There's really only a few finishing touches to go.

While I was doing this, it occurred to me that I usually put on Christmas music while I decorate indoors.  But this time what I was hearing was a lot of weird sound effects; my youngest daughter was playing a video game.  Otherwise cute cartoon characters were giving off mournful wails and groans as they entered combat and blasted each other to destruction.

I'm not quite sure what it all means, but anyway, Merry Christmas.
  

It's that time of year again

I assume they held the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade again, but I didn't tune in to any of it.  Early in the day, my wife went to her mom's to help prepare the festivities, and I got up sorta kinda early to see if I could finish up my leaf blowing and outdoor Christmas light connecting.  The front part of the house looks good now, and all the lights in front are in place except for a string of 50 LED lights destined for a bush near our door.  Just ran out of time, before it was time to go over to Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a small, simple gathering, six of us, but we all had our favorite Thanksgiving fare.  It was a quiet, restful afternoon and evening.

Not much else to say, but I did want to re-post a link to what I wrote on Thanksgiving 2008.  I'll even ask the question again...what characters would you like to see made into those big Macy's Thanksgiving helium balloons?

Why click?

One of the things on my home page is Space.com, and if you pause your cursor arrow over a line of text, the first few words of the article will appear.

Just a few minutes ago, I saw this: How big is Venus?

I already had a good idea of the answer, but I was curious what they'd say.

When I "moused over", this appeared: Venus is slightly smaller than Earth.

And really, what else would I need to know?  It's not like I'm planning to move there.