Category: News

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Recent Changes to This Blog

You may or may not have noticed, but I’ve been making quite a few changes recently here. I changed the layout using a WordPress Theme called Limau Orange. This layout uses space more efficiently than my old theme and has a sidebar on each side of the content, which I really like. I’ve tried to put the more relevant “widgets” near the top where they are more likely to be seen. Recent additions are three randomly selected pictures from our photo gallery and ten recent links that I’ve saved to del.icio.us. You may have also noticed that I’ve added a few “Pages”, which are always available at the top of the left sidebar. “About This Blog” and the three articles beneath it offer a short history of how this blog came to be as well as describing what I write and what’s available in the sidebars. There are a few other useful pages and I expect to be adding more eventually.

What do you think?

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Deep inside we’re all the same

Thomas left for Camp Baldwin on Sunday and will be gone for a week with Troop 820. Tina and Graham just got back last week from three days at Gilbert Ranch with his den in Pack 4. Tina blogged extensively about the latter starting here. While she was there, she twisted her ankle again but I think it’s been healing pretty well since.

I hurt my back while at our neighbor’s BBQ over the weekend and spend all day Sunday laying flat on my back hoping for the best. It no longer hurt to stand up on Monday morning but it still feels a little “tight” at times. I have to be careful not to strain it any further. As I’ve mentioned before I heal much more slowly since I turned forty.

Continue reading “Deep inside we’re all the same”

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Forcin’ a light into all those stony faces left stranded on this warm July

After a busy day cooking and cleaning on Independence Day, we’ve been a lazy bunch around here. We really enjoyed ourselves on the 4th, though, and were happy to have the company of so many people. The fireworks were fun and I think everybody was entertained. Next year I need to buy fewer ground blooms and more mortars.

Last week I started out the week by traveling to Foster City, CA, for some training at EFI headquarters. Because of the Northern California wildfires, my direct flight was cancelled and I was forced to take a flight through Seattle. By the time I arrived in Seattle, the connecting flight had been delayed and I didn’t arrive in San Francisco until 1:30. Unfortunately, my luggage (a change of clothes and my CPAP) was on another flight which did not arrive until quite later in the day. After waiting in line for at least an hour at the United luggage service counter, I left them orders to deliver the bag to my hotel after it arrived. It was eventually delivered to my hotel while I was at dinner that night.

I was glad to join my friend, Rob, for dinner both nights that I was in California. On the second night, we ate at a nice French restaurant before Rob dropped me off at SFO for my late evening flight home. There were no complications this time and the plane was only half full making it almost enjoyable.

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Leaves were falling, just like embers

I’m sitting beneath the picnic shelter at the Wolf Lodge Campground in the beautiful Idaho panhandle near Lake Coeur d’Alene. Today it’s just me and the dog watching over the camp as everyone else in our party cavorts at the Silverwood Theme Park and Boulder Beach Water Park. I didn’t bring a laptop with me but the dog’s owners brought several so I bummed one for the day. The dog is completely deaf and not a good conversationalist so I will amuse myself with some blogging, assuming this HP laptop doesn’t drive me crazy first (windows keep popping up every minute and it chooses to ignore many of the letters I type).

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Road trip 2010


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Last week as I chatted with my newly discovered cousin, Beth, I pulled up Google Maps to get a better idea of where she is geographically. Specifically, I wondered how far she lived from my sister, Mardy. It didn’t take long before I realized that a killer road trip could be devised. My first pass at possible destinations yielded this list (see Glossary if you don’t know any of these names):

  1. Portland: Our home.
  2. San Francisco: Home to Uncle Ralph, Aunt Carol and cousins David and Danielle.
  3. Moreno Valley: Home to Maridee, Steve, Trisha and Michael.
  4. Phoenix: Home to Michelle, Ric, Xander and Wil.
  5. Albuquerque: Home to Jan and Tom.
  6. Austin: One of America’s music capitols. Need to find worthy venues to visit here.
  7. Houston: Home to TQ, Tina’s grandfather.
  8. New Orleans: Another of America’s music capitols. Will probably need a couple of days here. Any suggestions for family friendly spots?
  9. Pensacola: Home to Beth and her family.
  10. Jacksonville: Home to Mike, Micah and his family.
  11. Savannah: Home to Mardy, Steve, Barrett and Kendrick & his family. We should spend at least three days here.
  12. Charleston: My old stomping grounds and historic southern city.
  13. Washington, D.C.: Our nations capitol. We would want to spend more than one day here visiting monuments and historical curiosities.
  14. Philadelphia: A natural follow-up to a visit to D.C.
  15. New York: The boys have a long list of places they want to visit here so this might also take a few days.
  16. Cleveland: Home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  17. Madison: My cousins Dee and Jon live near here.
  18. Riceville: My little hometown where my 25th class reunion will be held in 2010.
  19. Colorado Springs: Tina’s cousins, Natians and Kelly live nearby.
  20. Salt Lake City: Much maligned but beautiful city.
  21. Portland: Our home.

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Just a few more hours

A few years ago I started a little Wiki project with the goal of gathering all the data documenting my father’s family tree. I spent many hours entering, formatting and editing the data. Eventually, other people joined in and we managed to document almost all of the basic facts for everyone in my family from my grandparents to my many cousins. At some point, the project became stagnant because we had reached an end to our participants’ knowledge and there was simply no more information to add. And so the Ring Family Wiki sat idle for a couple of years.

And then yesterday I got an email notice from Wikispaces that somebody wanted to join the wiki. It came with this message:

My name is Elizabeth (Ring) Rowe… I am Elmer Ring’s youngest daughter

Elmer was my dad’s youngest brother and moved to Florida back in the 70s. His family sort of fell out of touch with the rest of our family, especially after Elmer died in 2004. I logged in to the site and found the following email:

Just curious as to how we would be related. I found this site by shear dumb curiosity and recognized the old photo of Grandma Ring and family. I will try to clear up any information that I can help with, unfortunately Dad died in January of 2004, but I still remember some things and what I don’t remember I can find out. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. 🙂 Hope to hear from you soon!!

Cool, eh? I immediately approved the membership request and her 10 edits were immediately applied. I replied back to her and she sent me her Yahoo name and we’ve been chatting since. She forwarded the website URL to her sister Cathy, who has also started updating the Wiki and improved the marketing on the site with companies as The Indexer that helped with this. It’s good news for everyone in the family, I think.

If you want to email Elizabeth, she is on yahoo.com with a user name of mizzb31. I’ll leave it to you to put those together to form an email address. She’s also available on Yahoo chat.

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Happy Birthday, Graham!

Graham turned 9 years old early this morning and is he ever excited! Of course, it could just be the Indiana Jones Cocoa Puffs that have got him all hyper.

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Why Do I Let Myself Worry

It’s been a hard week for Thomas and a hard week for Tina and me. On Monday, I received an email from his Advanced Literacy teacher saying that he had fallen behind in his homework again:

Here is what he is missing:
Greek Gods Packet (in folder)
Greek Gods Note sheet (from book)
Nature Myths Note sheet (from book)
Cupid and Psyche Summary
Cupid and Psyche Analysis
Packet #1 East
Packet #2 East
WORKING ON TO TURN IN TUESDAY
Packet #3 East

To say we were surprised would be a vast understatement. We ask him nearly every day if he has homework and he never gave us the impression that he was behind. This is not the first time this has happened, though, as we have continued to struggle with him to keep up on his homework. This particular class has been the main thorn in his side so I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. After we got the email, we informed Thomas that he would not be able to attend a Scouting function this weekend unless he caught up on his homework. He agreed to this and worked out a plan to do enough homework each night so that he would have it all done by Friday morning.
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Happy Mother’s Day

Graham quietly woke me shortly after 7:00 this morning so I could help him prepare our annual “surprise” Mother’s Day breakfast. We made our plan and I advised him that we should wait until at least 8:00 before starting it. Graham watched TV while I napped on the couch until Tina came out at 7:45 asking where everybody had gone. I emphatically told her that she should go back to bed and she eventually understood. Graham and I then went to work making french toast, warm syrup and with orange slices on the side. We served it to Tina in bed but she decided to bring it out to the kitchen since we don’t have a good tray for eating in bed anymore.

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