Monday Genea-pourri, Week of July 23-29, 2018

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme.

Genealogy

Presented at the Sacramento German Genealogical Society on the topic of Focused Research: Using Research Plans. I was a little nervous at first but then got right into it. The recording is available at their website for thirty days. Presenters also come in early for their study group and a couple of people sat at my table. When we have big name speakers, the table is usually over-flowing.

Participated in the Certification Peer Group on our way down to L.A. using my phone. I like meeting better on the computer. We continued talking about case studies, using the tips from the BCG Action Group mailing list.

Participated in the DearMyrtle study group, AmericanGen on Wednesday. These are now twice a month and we finished up chapter 7. I also went on the Mondays With Myrt program to ask a question about the FamilySearch catalog. No one had the answer and we tried to post the question on an online forum. I haven’t heard the answer yet.

Blog Writing: Blog post I wrote this week:

My 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks was about color and I chose two color photographs I had of a yellow jeep my grandfather owned after World War II.

Other

I had the second laser surgery on my right eye this time to correct an issue with narrow angle, in the hopes to prevent a type of glaucoma. The day of the treatment is shot for me, as my vision was fuzzy and the eye very sore. Luckily Norman was free to drive me around.

We also took a trip down to Santa Clarita for the yearly Nilsen Family Reunion. We drove in the electric car and had to make many stops to charge it. The first one in Atwater, where we wondered around in Target for an hour. The second stop was in Madera, where we ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Then we drove to the Walmart south of Bakersfield. That charging session was very challenging because the battery was very hot and so the charging was much slower. Took us two hours to get enough to make the climb up the grade. Once at the top, we gain power on the way down. We arrived at the Marriott after 1 am.

The reunion was at Castaic Lagoon and it was about 100 degrees all day. The kids went into the water but I sat visiting, drinking two cans of water and one bottle of soda. It was a small crowd but gave us a chance to visit with everyone. We ate dinner with Norman’s brother, Brian and then went to Eric & Melissa’s home to visit some more.

The ride back on Sunday started at noon. Our first stop to charge was at Visalia. We ate lunch at a sports bar and watched the Giant’s game. We continued up Highway 99 to Atwater. Another hour there, and I found some items to purchase at Target with gift cards I had. Our last charging occurred in Tracy at the mall. There were others there and we had to wait. We barely had enough to get home as we arrived with less than 5% left! Although our new car can go 160 miles on a charge, we learned that the hot weather and driving brings the battery temperature up. We hadn’t considered that. Coming home, once close to the bay area, the weather began to cool down into the low 80s and high 70s. Much better. 

Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Suzanne Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.