No communication yet …. . .

I’m still waiting for some type of response. Thinking about sending a follow-up letter. We’ll see.  ■  Picture of me playing lap steel at open mic in Cary, IL.  I went to visit the store/boss where I used to work and he asked me to join the house band that he uses to back people up at the open mic. I was surprised but very honored to be asked.  Came out of the blue.  Thanks, Buddy. ■  I’ve got an appointment at the post office tomorrow to apply for a passport. My old one expired in 2010.  ■  Time for bed. ‘Night. ■

Nothing yet. Still waiting…..

No response to my letter.  Might never get a response.  ■  Was asked to join a stage/house band by my old boss.  I said yes – and tonight was the first gig. I’m playing lap steel in this band. ■  Holly and I came home the other day and Fern had somehow gotten a hold of Aaron’s stocking cap and gloves.  She chewed a nice hole in his cap and one glove is missing.  We’ve searched everywhere and can’t find it anywhere.  The mystery of the missing glove.  ■  Started giving myself insulin injections.  Not as hard as I thought it might be.  ■ 

Still no response.

↓Still no response from the letter I sent. I was hoping to get something late last week, but no go. We continue to wait.  ■  This January is the warmest one I’ve ever lived through.  As you can see from the weather on the left, we’re still going to be warm. Historically the last 2 weeks in January and the 1st week in February are the coldest weeks of the year.  We’re not getting much below freezing.   ■  I’ve been looking at software/platform to redo the Kalofoundation.org website.  I had handled that job since the foundation was formed in 2006. A  couple of years ago I passed the website upkeep back to the foundation. I let them know in December that I’d start doing it again. ■  I see I forgot to publish this last night. The weather in the first row is for Sunday. Hmmm . . . ■

WordPress?

I’m going back to being the webmaster for the Kalo Foundation. I’ve been away from it for a couple of years. But I have to decide on software to build the system with.  I’ve done some looking over the past couple of days. The simple website builders that a lot of hosting services use are too simple. They’re not made for larger projects and they kind of force you to use their themes so a lot of website look much the same.  That’s not me. I think I’ve narrowed my choices to WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.  All good products – some are easier than others. I need to do a little testing.  ■  Still no response to my letter.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get a response.  ■  Got to get the dogs out one last time and then it’s bedtime for me. ■  ‘night.

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Two posts on the same day!

Yes, a 2nd post. ■  I had a request from the senior housing where my mother used to reside outside of Richmond, VA.  They wanted a pen and ink of their new clubhouse. I asked for pictures, but they emailed me an artist’s rendering of the building as it’s not done.  I had to respectively decline to copy another artist’s work. I imagine it’s part of copyright infringement.  I did do a pencil sketch of it that you can see here.  ■  Tomorrow Holly and I have to apply for passports. Mine has expired and hers is about to.  ■

What a rainy, muddy day in January!

January is supposed to be cold. We’re above freezing, no snow left except the small piles in the shade. It’s raining and everything is turning to mud. It’s a great time to have dogs. ■  Picked up one of the meds that wasn’t covered by insurance last year. At the drug store I usually go to the price was $193 for 30 pills. I used GoodRx and got the meds at Walgreens for $75. Now insurance covers it and it’s $39. Anyone else use GoodRx?  ■  Aaron starts back in school this week. Already had one day off for Martin Luther King Day.  ■  Holly’s cooking up some red beans and rice for dinner.  That always tastes great. ■  Still no response from my letter, although that could take awhile. But I’m anxiously waiting. ■

Letter delivered .. . . . .

The letter was delivered today. Now all I can do is wait…..

Deboning a chicken & genealogy search….

Let’s see --- right now at almost 3:00am I’m updating my Radeon graphics driver. Fun stuff. ■  Tonight I deboned a chicken.  Looked at a couple of youtube videos to see how it was done.  It didn’t look too hard, but that bird and I wrestled  for quite awhile.  In the end I think the bird won. It was a heck of a match, but I did get all of the bones out. What I had left was basically one large connected piece and several/many smaller pieces that had been hacked off in trying to get as much of the meat as I could.  I then seasoned the remains of the bird with some adobo and black pepper, and I cut up some onions to go on top.  It then went into our handy grill basket, put on the grill and baked/smoked it for probably an hour. It tasted good, but I’ve got some ideas for the next one. ■  I continue the search for my birth mother. The clues lead you all over.  One of the problems that continues to drive one nuts is simply finding dates. A lot of the time the year of birth might not be the same in all of the records you’re looking at.  And trying to find dates for marriages is very difficult. ■  A letter, along with some pictures, has been sent this week. I’m now in a waiting state. ■  And it is time to go back to bed.  ‘Night. ■

So, family is getting closer .. . ….

I’ve widened and narrowed the search for my relatives. I have some clues, but can’t exactly figure out where they fit.  I’m missing some branches. It’s a big detective puzzle trying to see how people fit. And I can’t believe that it’s so hard to find marriages. Marriage info would help immensely. ■  Snowed just a tiny bit tonight – about 1/4 inch and Cary’s got their plows out. Someone’s going for overtime.  ■  Saw our old friends Pat and Tim.  Tim was our dentist for years and years, but retired a few years ago.  They intended to retire to Las Vegas as the housing was inexpensive at that time, but went up rapidly just before they were ready to buy. So instead of Las Vegas they moved to a small town south of Guadalajara called San Juan Cosala. Their monthly costs run around $1200 – $1500. That’s food, gas, insurance, housekeeper, lawn care, etc. Sounds very inviting.  We’re planning on taking a trip to see them and check out the area. ■ Well, it’s time for bed. ‘Night!

Early Christmas morning . . . . .

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. . . and I’m up. Didn’t sleep much last night. Maybe I’ll try and crawl back in and get a couple of hours. ■ Yes, I crawled back in bed and slept for another hour. ■  Opened gifts early this afternoon. What a difference from when our children were little.  Then they were coming in and waking us up at 4:00 am.  Too early. Everyone received stuff they liked and needed.  ■  Went to the movies later this afternoon and say Rogue One.  We all liked it, but to me it was a very confusing movie at the first. Just my age, I guess. But, we’re back from the movie and I was going to do chicken breasts on the grill, but it’s raining. So, we’ve opted for red beans and rice.  A good choice, I think.  ■  I’ve been relaxing playing Christmas carols on my lap steel.  Very soothing.  ■  I’ve received 2 texts (I thought they were texts) from unknown numbers.  When I went to reply to them they didn’t show up in my texts????  ■   Watched a bit of the KC/Denver game. Played some more dobro, read a bit, did a little more research on the search for my birth mother and her family.  I need some help with this. My old roommate's wife has done research on her family. Just need an experienced pair of eyes looking at this.  ■  Time for bed. …… .. .. . .

Our 2016 Christmas Card

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Abby (black) and Fern (white/tan) sitting in one their favorites places in the house. From their perch on the stairs they can see what’s going on in front of the house. Their vigilance in detecting people walking their dogs, kids getting off of the school bus and who-knows-what-else sets off their round of barking and whining to be let out of the house. The stairs are definitely one  of their favorite places.  ■  I think all of my Christmas shopping is done. I think. I think, therefore I could be wrong. ■  Holly and Aaron are watching replays of the Cubs’ playoff games – just the ones that the Cubs won.  Apparently they’re replaying those over the next few days.  ■  Tomorrow morning I go up the VA medical facility in McHenry to get blood drawn for testing my A1C level. Fasting tonight for that. ■ 

Today I Learned . . . . .

I spend some of my daily pc time on Reddit.com. It has thousands of what are termed “subreddits”, which are simply separate parts of reddit that are devoted to one thing, or another.  One of my favorite subreddits is TIL – standing for Today I Learned. It’s just odd stuff that someone learned and they post it in the TIL subreddit.  Very interesting stuff. For instance below is one of the posts:

Try it out:  https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned

Reddit is great source for researching things. I mostly use it for technical computer problems. And it’s great for any type of problem.  Don’t know how to clean something? Search Reddit:  “How to clean an oven.” – you don’t have to have the quotes.

I also like their world news. (https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/) you’ll find news articles from around the world. You’d be amazed at how little CNN, or NBC, etc. cover.  It’ll broaden your outlook.

Missing aunt found?

Found the aunt that had me stymied.  She was born in 1940, but apparently not included in the census.  Maybe/probably she was born after the census data had been collected. She should show up in the 1950 census, but that census data won’t be released until 2022.  Apparently our government doesn’t release that data for 72 years. That’s not helping me. ■  It’s cold out – about 20°, but it’s supposed to get down to  -15° on Sunday. That’s coooold! Burrrr.  ■  I’m cold sitting at my desk as the heat is set to 63° at night. About time to crawl into bed with my wife and the dogs. ■  ‘Night.

Family History ……

I’ve been spending a few hours late at night trying to find my mother, father, and Aunts and Uncles, cousins, etc.  My grandfather was born in, I think, the 1860s and his wife, my grandmother, born after the turn of the century. Their children, one of which would be my mother, haven’t been too hard to trace. But one of Aunts has stymied me. She’s listed as a sister of my uncle at his funeral, but I can’t find any birth records for her. ■  Supposed to snow this afternoon and continue into/thru Sunday. Forecasted to get a possible foot of snow.  We’ve received some snow, but only about 4 inches so far. And it’s cold out. 24 ° out at this time – almost 2 in the morning. ■ Did a ham on the grill last night. Delicious. Today Holly made beef soup.  Also delicious, but I know a pea soup is coming up this week.  And I’ve got some sausage for a chicken and sausage soup. ■  Time for bed. ‘Night.

First snow of Winter of 2016

The first snow of this winter.  And it coincided with Cary’s annual Merry Cary Parade. Lots of the parade participants line up in front of our house. The kids were making snowballs and when they ran out of snow on the ground they took it off our bushes. Some kids even made a snowman next door.  I’ll have to get a picture of that tomorrow. All in all it looks like we got a good 4-5 inches. ■  Our dogs were excited – so many kids to play with.  Oooo let us out. Couldn’t do it. Sorry girls.  ■  The last photo below is of our patio with the snow piled up and the lights on the trees on.  It looks very pretty. 

■  I’ve got to make some time for my family search. I started it, but it’s got to be organized better. I’m running into stuff that I hadn’t expected, but should add it in to my data. There are genealogy programs out there and I downloaded one to try it out. It seems to have everything one would need, but I’m not sure it they have reports that would present the information that I’d want. ■

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