A cool new LJ tool I'd like to see

By the way, I was thinking it would be cool to be able to see a mood calendar. Use their css, just like the calendar that shows a clickable number of posts in the day, except populate it with the mood icon (in the person's own set) for the post that day. If there are several, you can either show several little ones or show only the one that is used the most and then put a + by it.

Out of town again

I'll be gone through Sunday, most likely. My godparents want to go to Sea World before my parents' passes expire, so I'm going to play tour guide. =)

More people would switch to Linux if...

Based in part on a conversation with my husband a few days ago, I've decided to compile a list of things that I think would help the Linux community gain dominance over alternative operating systems.

I shall begin with things that Charles and I have discussed recently or that I have thought about recently. Please note that I have used Debian and Ubuntu, but by far more Ubuntu, so my observations are with that bias.

1. Pre-install a package manager by default. I know "apt-get synaptic" isn't hard for most of you, but how are us noobs supposed to know it's there? The package system in general is great, esspecially coming from a Windows background, but it needs to be more visible.
2. Get behind communities building "killer apps." For me, GRAMPS, the open source genealogy program was my killer app in that it got me to switch to primarily using Linux (in the days when I was dual-booting). Things like that are great for niche markets like genealogists, graphic artists (Gimp- do you know how expensive Photoshop is?), etc, and enough to push some people over that line. However, there also have to be replacements for mainstream software. See below.
3. Get behind communities building software replacements. Sure, once in a while we need to have new bright ideas. However, most of the time we don't need to re-invent the wheel. Everyone wants an office suite, done. Everyone wants internet communication, done. Everyone wants internet browsers and rss readers, done. Everyone wants pop mail clients, done. What's not done?
1. I used to love Access for work stuff, and I worked at a swimming pool. I can only imagine people with real jobs, with more real shoes and less water. (But again, don't re-invent the wheel. What we need to do is optimize Open Office and enhance support for Access there.)
2. I know for a fact that I'm not the only person who strugged with an M$ Money replacement. No one's quite there yet in what I've seen, but if I was to make a wager on it, my money (no pun intended) would be squarely on kMyMoney. They're not quite there yet with reports, but boy are they close. The workflow is similar, the features are almost there...
   
4. Get these software replacements into the hands of Windows users. Imagine the day when instead of paying for Office and Photoshop, everyone downloaded Open Office and Gimp. Then instead of downloading YIM, AIM, and MSN Messenger, they downloaded Gaim. Now, imagine when all of those users, those OOo/Gimp/Gaim-using users, switch to Linux. Suddenly things don't look so foreign, and they realize that there's even more free software out there. The shock is reduced, kind of like tranquilizing an animal when putting it into a new environment! (I know some people are resistant to the idea of creating Windows binaries for Linux software, but this is the upside.)
   
5. Do things right. One of my major annoyances has been sound lately, but I'm sure that there are other things out there. I have a sound icon on my toolbar that has ultimately become useless. I can slide the master sound over, but programs such as Gaim and Flash (on MySpace profiles) override the master sound on the computer. Useless! I have the computer muted and things are dinging at me and throwing music at me, it's not the OS's fault, but it certainly ruins the experience. (Another example is accessibility being turned on causing my genealogy program to crash. What's with that???)

I'll come back to this when I have more, hopefully I'll keep the numbering right. =P

Selective Service

In poking around the school's website, I was reading some stuff about the Selective Service (links to there in relation to financial aide and such). Did you know that illegal immigrants are required to register for the draft? However, they're told that "Selective Service does not collect any information which would indicate whether or not you are undocumented. You want to protect yourself for future U.S. citizenship and other government benefits and programs by registering with Selective Service. Do it today!" I just found that noteworthy. I'm tempted to say I have a bridge to sell you, but then I decided that it's actually more thought-provoking that it's quite possible they really do want to draft the illegal immigrants. They're keeping their information filed away with promises of future benefits, and choosing not to pursue immigration-related charges against them. Not sure what to think about that...

Going back to school. Again. Slowly...

I went to Cal State at Los Angeles from 1996-1997 (at the age of 13). I then went back to high school, graduating in 2001. I bummed around, worked, traveled, then went back to school again, attending the University of Phoenix in Diamond Bar in 2004-2005. I stopped going to school before the summer, my first summer as a manager at an aquatic center (having been an assistant manager the previous summer, I knew I wouldn't be able to do both school and work for those three months). At about that time, my FAFSA got "randomly" selected to be audited, and I figured that rather than prove my parents couldn't afford to educate me I should wait until October when I got married and my parents wouldn't have to be on my financial records. Shortly before we got married, my soon-to-be husband lost his job. Then after getting married, I moved, I got a new job (was working two jobs for a while), he got a new job, I quit my old job (the commute was 77 miles each way for $12.75/hr, not worth it once hubby was working), he lost his new job (so I was working as much as I could), then he got another new job, I quit my new job, and we moved to be closer to his job. I think we've finally slowed down now. *fingers crossed* So I went and applied online for the local community college. I honestly don't plan to work anymore, but perhaps I'll learn something for my own enjoyment or that will help my husband in his open source and consulting stuff, or that will be of help to us when/if we have kids. I'm probably going to continue toward Business Management because that's what I was studying before and it interests me, but I may change that. Funny thing is, when I tried my ssn/dob combination after it sent me an acceptance email (it's not hard to get into community college!), it came up with my maiden name. Strange, I thought, but then I figured it was probably because I had put that name down under "Other names I've attended school as" or some such field. But then, it showed my old address. Bewildered at this point, I poked around and found some health fee hold from Fall of 2005. I think I got enrolled in the Los Angeles Community College District when I took a steward class at the union hall. I never would have thought about that! Anyhow, there's a session of classes starting next week, but that's far too soon, and it's a condensed session. Too fast for me to get stuff together! I told it I'd like to start in "Spring." Off to look at class lists! I'll head down to the college in the next week or two to talk about graduation requirements and other such formalities. Really, I just wanna learn stuff, but I figure it's best to do it right and maybe even graduate some day! =P

Christmas 2

Last night we had Christmas at my husband's family's house. As I predicted after Thanksgiving, there were people, and food! Two of Charles's little brothers kept me entertained/busy pretty much from when we got there until food was served, so I don't know what Charles even did most of the time! It's always nice when everyone comes over, there are enough adults around after kids start going to bed for several conversations to carry on at once. I think it was about 11pm when we got home, we always lose track of time when we're there. =) We went right to bed when we got home, but Charles got into his bag of Christmas stuff this morning and wore all new clothes to work. I'll be getting into the plates of leftovers very soon! (The reason why I don't have pictures here is because Charles's parents, one of his sisters, and a family friend all had cameras out and took plenty of pictures. In my family, I'm the only one that really takes many pictures, so I always bring my camera to their house for such occasions.)

Couches! Yay! (Oh, and Christmas 1)

So, among other Christmas goodies from my family this year, we got couches! You see, my sister Martha got some other couches (I'm unsure where, if she bought them or what) and gave her couches to my other sister Irma. Irma then gave her couches to her husband Paco to use in his garage. Well, he had them for a month or so before he said that they were in his way and too big for the garage, so he gave them to us. In return, we gave him a little blue sofa-chair that we got from a neighbor. We went to my parents' house yesterday and traded our Focus for their Tahoe. Then we went to my sister's house, loaded up the two main portions of the couch set, brought them home and unloaded them. Then we loaded the blue chair for Paco and drove back to mom's in time for our Christmas meal. I don't know if you'd call it a late lunch or early dinner, it was about 3:30pm. We had dinner, did gifts, and were done by like 7:30pm. We were going to go to Irma's to drop off the blue chair after gift-giving but my mom said she'd drop it off for them today, we'll pick up the corner piece in the Explorer some other time. Irma and Paco ran off, so there isn't a picture of the whole family together this year like there normally is... Oh well, just means I have to post more pictures to show everyone! Tonight is Christmas with my husband's family. =) Pictures from last night below! My Aunt Tere and Uncle Mario (also my godparents) My parents and godparents. My sister's kids, Carynna, Michael, and Cyndi (left to right). My sister Martha and her kids. Irma and Paco Me and Charles My cross stitching project went over well. Turns out Cyndi had picked up the same one but had trouble making it because she had forgotten how to do stuff, being so long since she stitched. She said she couldn't believe I finished it. =) Couches!

2006 Christmas Letter

We made a brief Christmas letter this year. It wasn't in time to mail out, but I've posted it here for anyone interested. It actually seems more fitting for a letter from us to be in electronic format than in your physical mailbox, doesn't it? It's got some pictures from throughout the year too. =)

Merry Christmas!

HPIM0633.JPG
Originally uploaded by Sarolite.

Going to my parents' house soon. We're taking our gift exchange gifts and something for the baby, and hoping someone there will have gifts for us even though Christmas is still somewhat iffy. There will be food, however, or so we've been told.

By the way, in case you've never seen a skateboarding snail, I thought I'd pass this on to brighten everyone's Christmas! =)

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

The draft analysis, obtained by [newspaper], shows that the [train system]'s four tunnels are structurally fragile enough that the damage from a bomb small enough to be carried onto a train could allow 1.2 million gallons of water per minute to gush into a tunnel and flood the system. About 230,000 people use the [train system] each weekday. This is the article I referenced in my earlier post. I've actually decided not to post the entire text or the link, because I feel that it should not have been posted in the first place. Can't you see it now? News source: News at 11, this city's train system is vulnerable! Terrorist: Really? Which trains? News source: The four tunnels of this particular line... Terrorist: They must be reinforced if they go under water, you can't drive a truck into there... News source: You'd only need a bomb small enough to be carried onto a train in a medium-sized backpack... Terrorist: Oh. News source: Miiiillions of gallons of water... Terrorist: Oh! News source: Drowning or stranding 230,000 on a weekday... Terrorist: Oh!! Can't be good, right?

Flock isn't working right...

I wanted to share with you a news story I found interesting, but the "Blog This" feature that normally works with highlighted text or links isn't working. Using File then "New Blog Post" isn't working either, just makes my processor use spike to 100% for a few seconds. Flock automagically installed an update a few days ago, I wonder if that broke it... I'll post the story later.

Back to square one

So, my sister has a follow up visit tomorrow morning in San Diego. There was no way the doctor could see us in the afternoon (my guess is he's got surgeries scheduled for the afternoon) so Irma and I decided to go down tonight. When we made the drive in rush hour last month, it took almost 4 hours. When we made the same drive with no traffic, but having to stop to walk every half hour (a post-op requirement) it took us about 3-4 hours (we stopped for gas and lunch as well as walking though). So we figured that to get to San Diego for a 10am appointment, we'd pretty much have to leave El Monte at about 5, and we couldn't go far in the carpool lane because we'd have to keep getting out. So we decided to stay the night tonight. We were going to leave when it wasn't too busy on the freeways, and hang out at the hotel. Then Dad said he'd like to go, so we decided to leave a little bit earlier today, go to the mall for a movie, then hang out at the hotel. Then Mom and my Godparents decided to go, and that we should go to Sea World today. Mom says if we go to Sea World, we need to be there when it opens (nevermind that it's buy one day, get the rest of 2006 free) so we'd have to leave El Monte at about 5. Wait a minute, I said, that means I have to leave North Hollywood at about 4. Realizing that my Godfather is well versed in driving the Tahoe long distances (he drove it up from Mexico last year), I said they could leave at 5am, I'd leave my house about 9am, and I'd meet them there. Well, if we're going to have to take two cars, then nevermind, they said. They don't want to go to Sea World if it's half day today, stay in the hotel tonight, then half day tomorrow before coming home. That just won't work, and neither will me meeting them there because it's silly for us to take two cars. So no one's going. I asked if Dad is still going, but we skipped that step in the progression backwards, because he'd feel bad that he's going on a trip and no one else is. So instead I'm going to go pick up Irma now, and we're going to hang out at the hotel, go to the doctor in the morning, then come home. My family's complicated...

It's so cold... that I wore a jacket

I would just like to point out that on Saturday I wore a jacket to go to the grocery store because it was a tad windy. That's what I like to call "winter" here in Southern California. Today, I even had a blanket over my legs while at my desk. Granted the windows were open because my husband likes the "fresh" air...

A funny thing happened this year on the way to Christmas...

Christmas has been officially cancelled at my parents' house... or at Disneyland, rather. There is much drama and negativity surrounding our family right now, and this is probably for the best. My parents weren't particularly interested in going in the first place, it seems, but just agreed for the warm fuzzies of the family outing. Drama = no warm fuzzies. My oldest sister wasn't interested in going due to drama and her surgery. I was a bit concerned about being the only person driving- Dad doesn't drive since his stroke, Mom doesn't drive on the freeway, my husband wasn't sure if he was going because he's going to be on call at work, Irma can't due to surgery, and Martha's not allowed to because she's not the best driver, and I suppose my aunt and uncle (also my godparents) could drive but they're visiting from Mexico and would have to follow me. Firstly we wouldn't all fit even if we did take two cars (I count 7-8 adults, 3 teenagers, and 1 baby in a carseat) unless we toss the shortest 2-3 people in the third row of the Tahoe which isn't too comfortable if you're not short enough. Secondly, if things blew up and someone wanted to run away they couldn't, we'd be stuck with each other for the drive home. My other sister is already out-voted, so it really doesn't matter what she thinks. =P  She and the kids have been chummy lately, the four of them and the baby can go. Whether or not there will be food and gift time is unknown at this time.

Insurance woes

The website says this doctor takes our particular insurance plan, the phone customer service people set me up with him (I was unable to sign up for an account, as I mentioned earlier. So I pick this doctor as my primary care physician, and call for an appointment. The girl tells me that he starts working at 10, and I said 10 sounds just fine. I arrive at 10, and the front desk girl tells me "I don't know why they gave you a 10:00 appointment, the doctor won't even be here until 11:00." That's fine, I said, I can start doing paperwork. Her first question is am I on Medicare. No, I reply, here's my insurance card. She takes it, calls the insurance company to verify, then comes back and says that our plan (called "Point of Service" by the insurance company) is an HMO plan and that the doctor is not an HMO provider, so he won't take it. Grrr to them, I say! It says right there on my insurance company website that they participate in the Point of Service plan. So now I have to change again and make another appointment. Did I also mention, by the way, that our dental insurance cards say to go to their website for participating dentists but it's a financial services company and there'es nothing dental anywhere on their website? On the bright side, eye doctor went well. He said that my left eye is pretty good and my right eye is very bad, which I must say I knew already. My depth perception is bad for that reason, but my eyes are otherwise healthy. I was going to do transition lenses, but now that I'm not lifeguarding most of my sunlight time is while driving, and the girl who helped me with lens/frame selections explained that they're activated by UV, so when in your car with a UV-blocking windshield they won't go dark. So I'm getting one pair of normal glasses and one pair of sunglasses (polarized). I asked for blue tint, but they couldn't do the blue tint on polarized lenses, only grey or brown. I like my blue sunglasses, because the sky looks pretty even on a cloudy day. In the end I figured that it would be better to not see reflective back windshields on the freeway than to have a perpetually blue sky. Prioritizing, you see? The bad news: glasses are expensive. Oh well, we won't have as much into savings and/or Christmas as we had planned, but I'll be able to see. That's a good thing! There's a distinct possibility that Christmas will be canceled this year at my parents' house after all. Due to the drama I mentioned in my previous post, as well as some new stuff, it could turn out badly if we did have Christmas, so it may just be better if we don't... I already bought something for my gift exchange person, and stitched something for the baby, and I know what we're getting for Charles's gift exchange person but we haven't gotten it yet. All going somewhere in one or two cars (and thus not being able to run away) seems a tad scary at this point though.

Statistics

Latest statistics from my genealogy program. Note many more incompletely named people. That's from my sister's input, there were many families she knew the number and gender of each sibling, but not names. I'm hoping that knowing exactly what I'm missing will help me when I talk to my mom, she should be able to fill in most of those incomplete people.


Individuals
----------------------------
Number of individuals: 285
Males: 141
Females: 144
Individuals with incomplete names: 36
Individuals missing birth dates: 224
Disconnected individuals: 4
Family Information
----------------------------
Number of families: 86
Unique surnames: 57
Media Objects
----------------------------
Individuals with media objects: 73
Total number of media object references: 112
Number of unique media objects: 111

New leads to research

My oldest sister helped me add some (mostly living) relatives to my database over the weekend. She was a lot of help, mom will be even more help once I get her onboard with the idea.

I've been searching FamilySearch for some names that either I didn't have before or that I hadn't searched before. I've been making a habit of looking for other things with the same source information, which is generally just two clicks away. I get a lot of siblings and other relatives by doing this, although it's a little tedious. I basically open up everyone with the same surname from the same source and look for ways they link to what I already have. (Another person with the same surname baptised at the same church two years later with the same grand-parents? Yeah, that goes in my database.)

In doing this after finding a marriage date for my great-grandparents, I found a few more suspect people.

My great-grandparents, Guilebaldo Echeverria and Refugio Morfin were married at the Nuestra Senora De Guadalupe church, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico on July 2nd, 1879.

Federico Echeverria and Julia Bonilla were married at the same church on July 5th, 1979. (Just 3 days later!)

Aurelio Figueroa and Trinidad Morfin were married at the same church on January 20th, 1880. (5 months later.)

Oronato Milanes and Jesus Echeverria were married at the same church on November 4th, 1883. (4 years later.)


These are in fact the only records matching the two surnames I'm tracking that were extracted from the church's records. In my mind, I find it very likely that these were two sibling groups. Unfortunately, although marriage records or birth records would give me these people's parents' names, the marriage documents from the church do not. The three couples I'm unsure of are going in my research database for now.

I'm back

My sister Irma's surgery went well. Almost as soon as she got settled in her own room, she had some moderate bleeding from one of the incisions (there are 5 I believe) which caused them to not give her any more blood thinners. The blood thinners were supposed to be a twice-a-day injection to ward off blood clots, so that increased the need to walk around and keep on her foot pumps (a clever device that simulates walking by compressing the bottoms of your feet alternately every few seconds). She also had to stay one more day than expected because of nausea. The doctors and nurses were great. In particular, I really liked the surgeon, Dr. Tanaka. I was in the surgery waiting room, and the staff were calling the room on the phone. A waiting family member would pick up and ask around for who's waiting for such-and-such person... Dr. Tanaka was only one of two doctors in the 3-4 hours that I was in the waiting room who actually came to the waiting room to look for the respective families and talk face-to-face, that actually made a big impression on me. They had us a little bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to spend the night (we hadn't budgeted for a hotel), but someone else who knew better cleared it up for us. In fact, they said that once in a while they don't have enough room but not as many people have this kind of surgery during the holiday season. So I got my own little (tiny, moderately comfortable) cot. It was a room for two patients, and they were kind enough to "reserve" the other half of the room so no patients were put in it unless they got inundated. Since it was half of a patient room, I had my own TV and lights and such, which was cool. They gave me a badge that would validate my parking for the whole time we were there, but I actually never left the hospital. I ate at the cafeteria, it was closer and healthier (not necessarily cheaper though) and I wanted to get back as soon as I could. It always seemed like every time I went to go eat, there was a nurse or therapist or someone in the room when I got back. =P Friday night, I couldn't sleep. It was about 7pm before Irma was moved from recovery to her own room. I went to dinner about that time, and I was having trouble sleeping, partly because at about 10pm we noticed she was bleeding when blood soaked through her hospital gown. We didn't attempt to sleep until about 1:30am. Many phone calls to be made that night as well. Saturday night, I knocked out  pretty quick (after midnight vitals) but woke up every time a nurse came into the room. Saturday night, I was vaguely aware that the nurse was changing the dressing from where it was bleeding. I remember Irma telling me "it's bleeding again" and I nodded and went back to sleep.  I don't know what time it was, but I was too tired to even respond. Sunday night, I woke up hearing "what's your sister's name?" from the nurse. It was 4am, and she wanted me to go for a few laps around the floor with Irma while she changed the sheets (more bleeding). We walked, then I went back to sleep until like 10am. On Monday, the bleeding issue was finally resolved, and I think I actually slept though the night. When I woke up, Irma was already sitting up drinking some water and I think she'd even had her vitals taken before I woke up. I've been getting progressively more tired through the stay, and I think I'm going to sleep off a good part of tomorrow... I must say that I think it's a great idea on the hospital's part to allow one person to stay, I'm not sure if that's an arrangement through the bariatric practice that they're working with or what, because not everyone on our pre-dominantly post-surgery floor got to have overnight visitors (the two Department of Corrections officers guarding a patient down the hall don't count as overnight "visitors"). It certainly frees up a lot of the nurses' time to have a family member to do menial tasks like helping with shoes, food, clothes, walking, and so on. Also, when the patient is on narcotic medication such as morphine, it's good to have someone there to make sure that medical instructions are retained and followed. On the way back home today, we went to the store (well, she waited in the car) and got chicken broth, which will be her main non-water sustenance until she's able to eat solid foods. Water for hydration, vitamins and protein drinks (a powder mixed in water) for nutrition, and chicken broth for variety and flavor. I think that she was well prepared for what to expect her lifestyle to be after surgery, but it was still a bit of a shock to actually change to it. Not in the sense of difference from her old lifestyle, so much as difference from being in the hospital. We were counting on our fingers how many hours since her last IV-injections of certain medications to determine whether she needed to take the full day's dose after she was released or not, for example. Tomorrow should be easier, I'm going to have to keep on top of her about it. Particularly about water, she needs to drink more water than she really ever has. She needs to go back for a follow up on Wednesday of next week, which I plan to drive her to. (She actually can't drive for "a couple of weeks" which may put a damper on Christmas plans. At the follow up, she should know more about when each limitation will be lifted.) She hasn't made the appointment yet, but we're hoping to do 1:30/2:00pm or so, so that we can leave after the people with the real jobs have arrived at work and thus have left the freeways. We made about 2.5 hours on Thursday leaving at 9:30am. It was more like 4 hours driving back today though, first we stopped for gas at Sea World Drive, then to walk at the rest stop in the area of Camp Pendleton, then for me to have lunch (my only meal so far today, which reminds me that I'm hungry now) and her to walk again in Buena Park, then to the store once we were in El Monte... My other sister, Martha, called on Thursday (the night before her surgery) to talk about some family drama that's going on... It's kind of a long story, which I suppose I may write about later if anything actually becomes of it. Sufficed to say for the moment, however, that it's a matter of prolonged hardship for Irma and her husband if Martha gets her way. She's attempting to spin it in such a way that it looks like an attractive option for everyone involved, and of course she uses the children as an excuse. Even if it was a good idea, it really wasn't appropriate to talk about it the night before a major surgery. Irma was stressed about the conversation even until today, but we hadn't heard from Martha since Friday I think (I talked to her, Irma was asleep at the time). We theorized that Mom may have told Martha to knock it off after Irma told Mom about the phone call. However, when Mom and Dad came to see Irma today at her house, they said they actually haven't seen or heard from Martha in two days. Yet, that's not unusual for her. That's probably a bad thing, if something were to happen to her we wouldn't recognize it or differentiate it from her normal behavior. (And that's probably why she doesn't have her kids with her anymore.) Anyhow, I'm really glad that I was able to be there for my sister when she needed someone. I know I wouldn't want to go through an experience like that alone. Many thanks to my husband for making it possible for me to not have to work, and for making his own meals for almost a week while I was gone. He even did some laundry and house cleaning, I'm quite impressed!

Move from research database

I moved some "very likely" people from my research database to my live database. The names and locations matched up, but I wasn't 100% sure because it would have my great-grandfather born when his father was in his late 50s. In the end, I decided that it was entirely possible.

Of course, with these names and dates I've added, that gives me enough information to request vital records to "prove" the relationships. Currently, in my database:

Individuals
----------------------------
Number of individuals: 218
Males: 110
Females: 108
Individuals with incomplete names: 19
Individuals missing birth dates: 157
Disconnected individuals: 7

Family Information
----------------------------
Number of families: 69
Unique surnames: 54

Media Objects
----------------------------
Individuals with media objects: 73
Total number of media object references: 112
Number of unique media objects: 111

(Last time I finished a genealogy work session, total people was 203, making 15 people added. Most of them come from familysearch.org.)

Out of town, sister's surgery

My oldest sister Irma is having an elective (yet life-saving) surgery on Friday. I'm going to be leaving later today (hopefully not too much later) to mom's house, where I will trade cars with her. Tomorrow morning we leave about 9 or 10am to San Diego, where she has a 1:30pm appointment. We'll be staying in a hotel Thursday night and she'll be in surgery first thing Friday morning. We should be back by Tuesday at the latest. Prayers would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Oh no...

Santa has a blog. The concept is amusing, but a tad disturbing. =P

From the news today: Don't parent and drive

Crying doll gives teen parenting, driving lesson

Read full story for latest details.

I find this pretty funny, actually. Now the schools are going to have to start teaching when it's appropriate or not appropriate to let your baby cry. Like, for example, when doing 65mph on the freeway, it can probably wait.

That's what happens when they get you all built up about failing the class if the baby cries to long, though. The girl's probably a D- student that couldn't afford to fail that class or she wouldn't graduate, and if it wasn't in the news her teacher wouldn't have believed "I had to let the baby cry for 3 minutes un-attended so that I could pull over safely."

You know, the latest ones I've seen of these dolls have a key that you have to use, and the zip-tie the key to your wrist so that you can't have someone else care for the baby. Made me feel sorry for the kids that are in band/cheer/sports, I thought it would be more responsible to get a baby sitter than to take your baby to a football game...

Blogged with Flock

I must have been confused

I always thought that your company website was the best way to resolve after-hours issues... It seems that the company website for our new medical insurance company doesn't even let people register their accounts outside of business hours. I got this response:

Member Registration Not Available

Thank you for your interest in registering for myCIGNA.com. Unfortunately, registration services are currently unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. The registration process is available: Monday to Friday from 7 am to Midnight (EST) Sat. from 8 am to 8 pm (EST) Sun. from 2–7 pm (EST)

It then proceeds to tell me that operators are standing by 24/7 in case I'm having trouble doing it during those hours. Does a real person have to look at each of them or what? And if so, why aren't those 24/7 operators doing it?

Finally got our insurance cards

Our medical insurance cards, which state that our coverage is effective November 2nd, 2006, just arrived in the mail today. Took a couple of phone calls too, I'm annoyed that it took them a month to get them to us. I tell Charles I think they should give us an extra month of coverage when/if he leaves the company. Anyhow, going to their website now to pick out primary care physician and such, hopefully get in there for a checkup as soon as possible. My sister is having surgery on the 8th of December, so there's only a slight chance of seeing the doctor before I go down to San Diego with her, but if I can I'll do so.

Things on my medical to do list: (maybe a repost)

• General check up.
• Chronic back pain and crackling of spine.
• Check for proper dosage of my thyroid medication. My old doctor had wanted to check on this before we lost our old insurance because I gained some weight between visits when I'd been swimming regularly and just started my thyroid medication.
  
• Talk about my feet and possibly about seeing a podiatrist: I've had freezing cold feet for over a week, my cracked heels, and I think my arches may have flattened or something due to my 7-ish years of my sandals-only job. It was actually painful to wear tennis shoes, although it's been subsiding a little bit.
• Talk about an exercize plan. I want to stick with low impact stuff (water aerobics, belly dancing) until I get my back issues resolved, but even belly dancing makes my bad knee sore and crackly.

Things on my dental to do list:

• General check up & cleaning.
  
• Talk about orthodontics. I don't feel like my teeth line up properly when I bite down, I chew only in the corners of my mouth and it's uncomfortable when I sleep and stuff.
• Talk about whitening. For a non-smoker who doesn't like coffee, that area needs improvement too.

Bad dreams...

I had two really bad dreams last night.

In the first one, I was driving the Explorer on the freeway. I was in the #1 lane (far left) of about 3 or 4 lanes. To my left were railroad tracks. They were normal railroad tracks, but embedded into the ground like they are in light rail or at the stations. There was a Metrolink train coming toward us on the tracks, a normal occurrence for people who drive the 10 freeway (except in real life, there's a concrete barrier and several yards in between them and the cars). I remember thinking that we were approaching the Cal State area, and in my dream I was thinking about how the train stops there. In real life, the freeway pulls away, and the carpool lane goes up a ramp to the bus stop above the train station. In my dream, I remember thinking that the train would cut across and traffic would stop as passengers got off the train and walked across the blocked freeway.

The train was probably almost 100 yards away from my car when it derailed, flopping onto its left in a sea of sparks. Remember, I'm going full freeway speeds in the left lane, and the train's traveling a good speed too... I look to my right but it's packed with cars and there's no way I can get into that lane in time, so I swerve left over the tracks, across what would have been the path of the oncoming train if it was not in my lane now instead. I can feel the bumping of my tires going over the tracks and I stabilize myself paralleling the tracks and the freeway so that I'm not riding on the rails. The train whooshes by my right windows, and I'm looking for the best way to get back to my lane when I'm past it, when another train coming the same direction (on the same track, or did I skip one track onto another?) hits me head on and I wake up.

I wake up with a warm sensation all over my body. It's not adrenaline, I don't think, because my heart isn't racing. I've compared it in the past to a burning sensation, when I've been awaken by dreams of death in fire.

After a while, I go back to sleep and have this second dream. In the second dream, I'm at a waterpark. The first thing I remember is I'm next in line for this attraction. It's actually a rather clever idea I think. You're laying back in a chair and there's a gun that you operate, blasting flying objects that come at you (flying gorillas or something weird like that) in an arcade-style screen at the top of the slide. The screen shows an image of you riding down the slide. There's a non-flying threat somewhere by the flume toward the bottom, that only an expert marksman could have shot in time. It points a funny looking weapon at you. It looks like a water hose about 3 inches in diameter, with a big box a few inches from the end housing the firing and aiming mechanisms. It turns out to be some kind of air cannon, long continuous blasts of air hit my face. I cover my face and turn away, then it stops and hits my side. Next thing I know, I'm released into the flume and am riding the real slide.

It's kind of a cool idea, huh?

Anyhow, after I get to the bottom, I see my mom and her cousin. My mom's cousin needs a little help walking because the ground is wet from the attraction's runoff, so I suggest that I help her walk up the exit area (I would have thought the exit area is the bottom of the slide, but maybe that's only for people who lose the game!). I'm helping her walk up, the floor is squishy and moist, it's weird. Then there's an area where you can step over into the proper entrance line, and she goes over and joins my mom in the entrance line, apparently we've gotten past the worst of the bad footing area and she can take it from there.

So I turn back and expect to see the walkway behind me, but instead it's a slide flume. Alright, I think, I'll slide down. But as I sit down I realize that it's very narrow, and it's blocked by quarters (I guess you have to put in quarters to play the game). I poke at the blockage with my toes, jarring the quarters loose presumably to slide down the flume. I think to myself that in the future I should clear quarter blockages by picking up the quarters and not kicking them away. It still looks too narrow, but I push off from a handhold I find (I have a lot of experience in how to go faster on waterslides, remember, since I was a manager at two pools that had slides) trying to build up speed to get through. I'm not able to get through, though, it would in fact be a tight squeeze for even a young child. So I decide to go through the gap my mom's cousin went through and go down the ride again instead, but when I look upward, that path has also closed itself off. I realize that I'm in a coccoon type structure and there's no way to get out. I'm about to scream for help when I wake up, again with a mild warm sensation, not as strong as before.

In the past, I've had several of these dreams that I remember vividly. I don't seem to remember much about my dreams on a regular basis, these are an exception to that rule...

In about 1999/2000 I was visiting my sister in Las Vegas with the rest of the family. Two parents, two sisters, two brothers-in-law, two nieces, one nephew, and myself makes 10 in a two-bedroom apartment, so several of us were sleeping in the living room. I had a dream that I was in El Monte, at my other sister's house and we were waiting for someone to get ready to go somewhere. The car is across the street, and I'm walking out the side path toward the street when I see airplanes flying overhead. In the background, I see the red and white water tower, a feature that El Monte does have, but not in that location. I sit down on the curb to wait for whomever it is we're waiting for, watching the planes, because they're interesting and I have nothing else to do, then I realize that they're dropping something... The water tower explodes. I'm shocked, confused, then I follow the trail of another bomb with my eyes only to find it's coming toward us. I have a pillow in my arms for some reason, and I grab it in a hug and try to bury both my face and my knees into it, crouching into a ball. I wake up feeling like I'm on fire, a feeling that subsides only after several minutes. It was about 3am, and I couldn't get back to sleep all night. Luckily I had a friend in the UK I was able to call during his lunch break who calmed me down.

Probably in 2001/2002 or so, I had a dream that I was a passenger in a car driven by someone who closely resembled a girl I knew my sophomore year in high school. It was night time, there weren't many cars on the road. We're on an interchange, and although the street curves left, the driver continues to drive straight. We go off the interchange and fly through the air. I try to think of how best to brace myself for the impending impact, and I see the ground rushing toward us in the headlights just before I wake up, again feeling like I've been burned. I haven't liked that kind of intersection ever since. (Like the 118 west to the 23 south, big shadow = big fall.) I also prefer to drive myself when I know the road ahead is possibly scary, rather than be a passenger. The lack of control over the situation was the scariest part of the dream.

In 2005, I had a dream that I was sitting in a car waiting for someone or something, and out of nowhere some people (probably all male) come and try to get into the car. I tried to hit the door locks, but someone had already gotten in, I think through the back driver's side door. They were trying to pull me out of the car, and I was putting up as much of a fight as I could. I remember that some of them had baseball bats... I don't remember much about this dream now, but Charles and I were somewhere in my mom's Camry and someone got into the car mistakenly thinking it was his friend's car, and it made me very nervous... Charles took to tapping on the window before opening the car door if I didn't see him coming.

Then in the past year or so, I had a dream that I was driving alone and somehow got distracted by something and went through a barrier on an overpass. In a seemingly endless flight, I had enough time to try to look for my phone. Instead of calling 911, I had (in the dream) resigned myself to my fate, and wanted to call my husband and say goodbye. I hit water before I found it.

So, that makes six dreams so far that have lead to this rush of something... I should try to figure out what it is...

Young America, Minnesota

Somewhere in Minnesota (in fact, quite likely here) there is a place called Young America. While it is only about yae big, it spans zip codes from xxx50 to xxx60 inclusive. Much like phones in movieland, zip codes in Young-America-land start in 5s... This wouldn't be so sinister, you know, a town of 3,108 people taking up 11 zip codes, including 55555, if it weren't for the fact that all the world's rebate forms go there. (In contrast, my former hometown of El Monte is the 191st largest city in the USA with a population of 115,965 and has only has 2 zip codes.) Well, maybe 95%. All five of the five that I sent out after my post-Thanksgiving shopping went there. I've sent so many UPC codes there that I remembered that I had sent many UPC codes there, so therefore I must have sent many of them!

Yes, sounds sneaky doesn't it? I bet many of those 3,108 people spend all day long opening envelopes and scanning barcodes (how else would you know I sent you the UPC from my new purchase and not from a box of cereal... unless of course I had a rebate for a box of cereal...). Yes, until I meet someone from there, that is what I shall choose to believe. Who's with me?

Received Cutting Edge Documentation packet

I got this in the mail yesterday. It's actually pretty good and I plan to go over it in more detail later and see about integrating it into my normal documentation habits. More on that later if I do. =)

Still eagerly awaiting death certificate and social security application I sent off for almost a month ago.

Sea World, again

Charles and I went to Sea World again yesterday. We finished seeing almost everything now, except we didn't go on the 2 rides because we didn't want to get wet and we didn't see one of the aquariums. Figured we should go now, since our passes are good until the end of the year. It'll most likely be our last theme park trip or vacation until after SCALE in February. Well, except for Christmas at Disneyland. =) It's cool living in southern California!

A funny thing happened this year on the way to Thanksgiving...

You know how little kids sometimes think that their parents can do things that they can't, like they have magic powers? Well, I think some of them do. For example, my mom has the ability to cancel national holidays. As of Tuesday, Thanksgiving was canceled due to impending drama. (Either my mom was sick, or she was worried over who was going to show up and who wasn't, or she didn't want to make ham just to "appease" certain people... I heard several reasons. I think that second option was most likely, the last one seems unlikely because when have we ever had anything other than ham? I doubt she wanted to make tamales while sick.) She also put a tentative cancellation order on Christmas, saying "we'll see" if we get together.

My sister passed along our un-invitation to lunch on Tuesday. (We do lunch partially as a concession so that Charles and I can attend Thanksgiving with both of our families. We've always ended up eating early even if we were supposed to have "dinner," so pushing it an hour or two earlier wasn't a problem. My sister's kids also do dinner with their dad's family.) Slightly troubled, but mostly un-phased by the cancellation, my sister decided to cut up the ham she had and make it into sandwich meat, since it was no longer needed for our Thanksgiving meal.

My dad, on the other hand, told me on Wednesday that my mom is just being silly and don't pay any attention to her, come eat on Thursday. As a matter of fact, come on Wednesday, he said- we could help assemble a new shed they bought, and not drive on the holiday when people were likely drinking. I convinced him that people shouldn't be drinking before lunch, and told him I'd call back and talk to mom. Mood: confused, doubtful.

I tried to call my sister to see if the un-invitation was officially revoked by "the momma" but got no answer. She was out purchasing a storage shed with my mom. They apparently did not get the memo that shopping is to take place the day after Thanksgiving, not the day before. (What can I say, it seems we do a lot of holiday stuff funny...)

On Thursday morning, after sleeping in far longer than I should have, I called my parents' house figuring that my sister would be there. My dad answered and said that in fact, my sisters said they were making the Thanksgiving meal and bringing it to parents' house, but they weren't there yet. Okay, I said, let's go have Thanksgiving...

On a side note, I would like to add that at this point, it was confirmed that my dad has the super power of "detect BS" which in most cases nullifies the effects the "cancel national holidays" power. It's a delicate balance of power in our family.

We leave at about 12 or 12:30, show up and the only thing fully edible is the green salad. Since Thanksgiving had been canceled, they shopped for sheds instead of groceries. There was no butter for the baked potatoes, no mayonnaise for the potato salad, and the turkey (this is a new experiment they were trying, since the ham had been sliced up... we have never had turkey) had just recently been put in the oven.

Icing on the proverbial cake: shortly after arriving, I get a call from my sister who says that she forgot to stuff the turkey, can I make the stuffing and try to stuff it in the mostly-cooked turkey before they arrived? I did, of course, it was that or face being drafted into the shed-assembly corps. (Not surprisingly, I had already been tapped to make their downstairs TV work again. It was just unplugged- it needed a power strip because they use their stereo all the time, and without their plug-in rabbit ears, plugging the TV in would be useless. Shortly afterward, Charles was tapped to make the reception better by playing with the antenna while I made stuffing.)

So, at about 2pm my sisters arrive with 2/3 children, 0/1 grandchildren, 0/1 husbands, mayo, butter, and KFC- in case the turkey wasn't any good, they said. Remember, we have never had turkey. As such, no one knows quite how to slice it up. My husband Charles, whose family eats turkey regularly on holidays, didn't offer any wisdom other than we had the wrong fork. I suggested an emergency call to his parents, but by that time my sister had managed to get enough meat to serve. We figured out what we were doing wrong only after we were all stuffed.

I brought up the subject of Christmas while we ate our last-minute Thanksgiving lunch. After much discussion, the plan is this:

December 24th- We've always celebrated on the 24th, the idea being that you have dinner, stay up, spend time together, and open your presents at midnight. But first I was young, then sister's kids were young, and now parents are old, and no one wants to wait until midnight, so gift opening normally starts at about 9pm. Our plan this year: We leave ultra-early from parents house, go to Disneyland for the day, stay until closing (9pm), drive home to parents' house.

December 25th- We normally don't do anything on the 25th, except go to church. It's kind of anti-climactic, the whole holiday season and gift buying and such, only to not have any plans on Christmas. Luckily, this frees me up to eat dinner with my husband's family without skipping mine, so I don't complain. This year, however, we will do presents (a $20 gift exchange) in the morning like "normal" people. Except without a tree.

We have done a gift exchange at Christmas several times, depending on the general financial situation. I remember when I first became old enough to be part of the gift exchange... True, my mom financed the purchase of the gift for the person whose name I drew, but the new thing was that I only got one present. I was the baby of the family, 15 years younger than my sisters, so this was a new thing to me. My sister's 3 kids, however, still received something from everyone even on gift exchange years.  This year, they became old enough (14, 15, 16) to do the gift exchange, and only the baby is getting multiple presents. Michael was quiet as always, but Carynna was resistant to change. Don't blame her. ;)

As a sort of compromise with Carynna and the other traditional-Christmas sympathizers, we will put a ham in the oven while we open presents in the morning and eat it for lunch.

We left Thanksgiving lunch at about 4pm and went to Thanksgiving dinner at Charles's parents' house. In contrast, they had two turkeys and meatloaf (also something my family has never done, the first time I ate meatloaf I was a junior in high school). There were a lot more "fixings" and such, things that normally come when you know in advance that you're having a big holiday. Much different! Also, no one at my in-laws' house has to "plan" Christmas. Christmas just is, and people will come, and there will be food. None of those are a given at my parents' house. Very strange contrast...

Yay for wirelessness!

Charles made my onboard wireless card work tonight. Yay! Now we're sitting on the bed next to each other IMing each other on our laptops, I had a feeling this would happen one day long before we got married. =P

Uploaded new pictures

I have some new pictures on my Yahoo pictures, particularly in the folder "2006 Sea World 2."

Here, for example, is Charles touching a dolphin.

I'm actually going to be deleting some pictures to thin it out in the next couple of minutes, but you didn't hear me say that. ;)

Paying my parents back- $500 down, unknown amount to go

I got a $500 money order for my parents today, which I’ll give to them at Thanksgiving. I need to figure out exactly how much I owe my parents. The number can be one of many, since there isn’t a clear distinction how much of my school-related stuff I’m expected to pay them back for.

Paid: Dryer
Gift: Washer and Fridge
Unpaid: $600 loan for car repair (Mom said she’d rather loan us the money than sell us her Camry, because it uses less gas than the Tahoe, but she still doesn’t drive it)
Unpaid: School expenses ($5,000 or so roughly, but Mom’s mumbled noises that she was “helping” me get through school and wasn’t expecting repayment)
Unpaid: $400 or $500 (having trouble remembering now) for a flat-screen television at a day-after-Thanksgiving sale two years ago
Paid: Miscellaneous loans, such as meals or bills that arrived to her house that she paid for me. I’ve done a good job of keeping up on those

So that makes $1,000-$6,000, a big range but I think it’s on the lower end.

I <3 George Foreman Grill

I purchased a George Foreman Grill the other day- it was an impulse buy, it was located in the area where I was in line to pick up my laptop that had gotten cleaned out (on warranty) because the fan wasn't working. I like it. I've mostly made grilled cheese sandwiches with it, but I will be branching out to other grill recipies in time. Probably starting with hot dogs. Yummm, hot dogs without frying in grease. Go George Foreman!

Ice cream scooping devices

I would just like to point out that although they're the same price on the website, when I went to the store I found that

this black ice cream scooping device is $5 more than

this red one, which is $5 more than

this stainless steel one.

Note that only the cheapest one has an intergrated ice-cream un-scooping device. Kind of makes you wonder, you know. The store price is labeled with a hand-fired label gun with no bar code...

Using my PDA more

When I first bought my PDA, it was a gift to myself to celebrate my promotion to assistant manager at my work. Being that I worked at a swimming pool and 3/4 of the people who worked under me were dripping wet 3/4 of their workday, I also purchased a BodyGlove wetsuit case to go with it. It was great, because it was not only water resistant but shock absorbing. However, it muffled the sound of a speaker in the PDA in the zipped-up case in my purse under my desk. (Except for when I pulled it out to use it, of course.) So I only saw it when I had business with it, and alarms were pretty useless to me.

Now that I’m not working, and not in a wet environment 40 hours each week, I’ve had my eye on a PDA case that would make it more accessible. I bought this style this week at CompUSA. I’m loving it- it’s smaller than my old case and replaces both the old case and my wallet. And, I have to look at my PDA every time I make a purchase. So, I’ve deleted several applications I don’t need, cleaned up the categories so they’re more intuitive, and even downloaded some free eBooks to read.

At first, I thought that reading books on your PDA would be silly, but it’s actually quite good, because a good book never fits in your purse, and you never know when you’ll have a spare 10 minutes in your life when you’re waiting for something… I’m half way through reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz already!

Now I’ll actually start using the tasks, address book, calendar, memos, and other nifty PDA features that I used to use only for work-related purposes before. This is a big step for me!


Yay for wallet cases!

See more progress on: Get organized

So, about my ice cream...

The top corner of the freezer isn't sealing properly, or at all really. That's why the ice cream has melted. I've resolved that we shall eat as much of the freezer food as possible in the next few days, and I shall call someone to come fix it. Or, alternately, I can get one of those latch things, like a lock or a child lock, and that would make it seal. Hmmm.

Hey, on the bright side of spending too much yesterday...

I found a coupon for 20% off at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I suppose that'll pay for the gas back there again and some of my time. =P Luckily I have another errand to run in that area as well.

My ice cream's melted

...it makes me sad. =( I turned up the dial, the fridge and freezer are controlled by the same dial. I think that it's because there are a lot of water bottles and stuff in the fridge. Maybe it'll be edible in a few hours, or for tomorrow I suppose, but it'll probably taste funny. I bet it'll be all separated and the heavier parts will settle and stuff...

I spend too much money, it's official

So, today I went to pick up the car, which has been in the shop since September 2nd. For those of you who keep track of such things, that's 74 days. In addition to the repairs, the insurance company also paid $30 for each of those days that were "storage." (Presumably, before they approved the cost and not during the actual repair period, although I wouldn't be surprised nowadays.) That was a whole ordeal unto itself... After renting a car to get there during their business hours, I get there and the receptionist tells me that it's not ready. I inform her that she's mistaken, because my husband and I both spoke to the guy in charge of our car yesterday. She tells me that all of them are in a meeting, have a seat and she'll let me know when they're back. Of course, Charles calls them and asks for the repair guy, and he's sitting near his phone. He says go out to the body shop. So I go to the service area where you check cars in and out, they direct me how to get there, and the lady that's there tells me that it's still up on the rack but okay, they can get it. It hasn't been washed yet, I tell her I can wait. So she pulls the file on it, and it says to collect about $400 more than what I'm prepared to give her. Apparently, they had additional damage approved by an adjuster who went out to re-examine the car, but I haven't received that check yet. Want to know why? Becuse it hasn't been sent. Anyway, that was an interesting adventure. In the end, I got the car back because our insurance company faxed over a copy of the check and talked to someone who knows stuff at Ford. I start it up, and the low fuel light comes on. I actually haven't asked my husband yet, but being that his accident was when he was about to get onto the freeway, I have to assume that there was gas in the car when he took it to the shop... Anyhow, luckily there was a gas station across the street. Anyhow, car's back. After picking up the car, I went to Enterprise Rent-A-Car next door to return the car that I had rented to go to the place that had our car. Well, he tells me that in NoHo they put a $300 hold on my bank card, rather than the traditional $300 charge and then a refund for the un-used portion. That would actually have worked better. However, since they had put a hold on it and I had paid for gas and the car repair on my bank card, when the guy tried to charge me the $118 that the rental ended up costing, it was declined. I didn't think much of it, actually I thought that it was probably deemed out of my norm to pay the same car rental place twice on the same day for different amounts, and one of them in a city I've never spent money in (except for at the dealership). So I asked him to try my Capital One card, which I made a payment toward this morning but if that payment hadn't gone through I would not have had enough available credit for that transaction. Well, it went through. I then drove home, went to have lunch, and then went to the Burbank mall, where I planned to make a $64 purchase at Bed Bath and Beyond. My bank card got accepted at the restaurant, but declined at BB&B. Strange, I thought, I just used it... So I said oh well, put it on my other card. That also got declined. (So either they let me over-draw it at the car rental place, or they didn't let me use available credit at the store, depending on what time they processed my payment.) So I call the bank, figuring the Capital One card a lost cause since either of the two options I mentioned wouldn't be a plus for me making my purchase. The first phone banker person says maybe my magstrip isn't working right, there's no reason why it wouldn't have gone through. She transfers me to the ATM department people, and that phone banker says that Enterprise put a 2k+ hold on my account, and that's why it won't work. That puts me over my limit for the day. However, this banker claims that there's a $500 ATM/debit limit and a $3,000 credit limit, and that I'm over one but not the other. He says run it as credit, it should work. Upon thinking about it further now, I realize that the exact amount he told me Enterprise put on hold is the amount that I spent at the Ford dealership. Unless there's a really improbable coincidence here, whereby Enterprise decided they needed a security hold 8 times more than they normally charged and it was the same amount it took to fix the car, he must have skipped a line when reading it. If Enterprise did in fact put a hold of $300 as they verbally told me (or $250 as it says on my slip) and Ford charged me the $2k+, then I'm still under the $3k daily limit he quoted me. So I go back in the store, go back to the same line I was in, but another register opens up and they move me there. So I explain to the new cashier what happened and that I just spoke to the bank and she said to run it as credit (it automatically runs as debit unless they tell it otherwise). It declines again. So I call the bank again. This new person tells me that I've exceeded my limit for the day, period. I ask if there's anything I can do to make this purchase and he says I can write a check. (Lot of good that does me, if I don't carry cash because I've gone to plastic-money-mode, you think I carry checks?) I go the restroom at the mall, then on the way back toward the exit, I ask someone if there's an ATM. I'd call the bank and ask them if it should work, except I don't have reception inside. So I'm directed to the one ATM in the mall, inside the arcade. I get there, and it's dead. I've convinced myself it wouldn't have worked anyway, sour grapes ya'know? Good thing I wasn't at a fancy restaurant after I ate, or stranded on the highway trying to get roadside assistance. (Maybe this is why women typically go shopping in packs? I'd bring my husband along the next time I want to spend more than $3,000 in one day, but someone has to make the money so I can spend it!) We had in the bank (after two tanks of gas, lunch, the car rental, and the car repair) twice as much as what we pay for rent, and there was no way to access it until 12:01am. I was pretty determined at that point to get the items I was trying to buy, but I think they would have kicked me out of the store before then. So there you have it, my grand waste of several hours of my day, all because I spend too much money... And I still haven't figured out how they claim I spent $3k... *starts counting on fingers*

Sea World, again

My husband and I went to Sea World this weekend. We were actually going to go to Magic Mountain (a decision we made at about noon on Saturday) but the hotel we normally stay at was booked up for the night, so we set our sights further south. For a couple of dollars extra, you can get a "fun card" instead of a regular ticket, and you can come back again until the end of 2006 (same as Magic Mountain). I already had a fun card from when I went with parents and sister last Tuesday. So, we went on Saturday, got there at about 4 or so I think, after picking up one of my parents' cars since our Focus is still in the shop and our Explorer has no stereo (and it's a more bumpy ride than in mom's Camry). We saw a lot of stuff, then went to a hotel and came back the next morning. We left kind of early, about 3:15pm. It was probably better though, since we did run into quite a bit of traffic. There were three accidents we drove past (one on the opposite side and two on our side) that all looked pretty nasty. I'd post pictures, but my computer is being repaired (the fan went dead) and my husband's computer doesn't auto-magically recognize the camera with a USB cable. I think our card reader is in his backpack, which he took to work, so I can't use that. I'll have to wait until he comes home. Never would have guessed I'd be going to Sea World 3 times in one week! I love living in Southern California. =)

Sea World Pictures

I wanted to share some pictures from Sea World while I'm checking my email. (I've been resting most of the day, very tired from the trip.) I made this mosaic using Flickr. I like Flickr for the most part, although its interface is clunky and the upload limit is a pain- I can upload all the pictures I like at too low a resolution to do anything with them, or upload only 11 today and have to wait until December 1st to upload any more. Yahoo pictures, on the other hand, is a nicer interface and no upload or storage limits, but you can't link there because the filenames change. Pffft. So, I made the mosaic but I can't upload it to Flickr, I've put it on my website space instead. The rest of the pictures can be viewed at my Yahoo pictures site, as usual.

Quick update

I wanted to post a quick update before I leave to El Monte this evening. My sister and I and our parents will be going to Sea World tomorrow, staying in a hotel in San Diego, and then going to my sister's doctor's appointment (which is conveniently close to Sea World) first thing Wednesday morning. Fun stuff, huh? I'm going along because everyone else doesn't like to drive on the freeway. =) I've done some more work on my genealogy, getting some documentiation going, in fact I started a new blog dedicated just to genealogy stuff mostly for my own benefit (although you're welcome to read it if you're so inclined). It's more my style than a pen-and-paper research log. You can find it at my Yahoo 360 page. I've gotten some really promising leads from the FamilySearch website lately. Some are still in my research database because there's nothing linking them to my live database other than name and location. However, some have moved to my live database. For example, there is someone in their database with my paternal grandmother's name (Maria Luisa Echeverria, not a too-common name) born in Guadalajara 2 years after my grandfather was born and deceased 3 years before his second marriage. It wouldn't be good enough if I was trying to write a book, but name, location, and two dates related to other dates is enough to be reasonably sure in my mind that this is the person I'm looking for. Putting her into my live database gives me her birth and death dates and her mother's name. People still in my research database include four possible great-great-grandparents and four possible great-great-great grandparents (all four of my maternal grandmother's grandparents and her paternal great-grandparents). I'm not quite ready to make those connections yet, though. On my genealogical to-do list is to figure out how to request vital documents from several states in Mexico, because I'm running out of deceased American residents pretty quickly! Latest stats: Individuals ---------------------------- Number of individuals: 203 Males: 102 Females: 101 Individuals with incomplete names: 19 Individuals missing birth dates: 142 Disconnected individuals: 6 Family Information ---------------------------- Number of families: 62 Unique surnames: 48 Media Objects ---------------------------- Individuals with media objects: 73 Total number of media object references: 112 Number of unique media objects: 111

Parents' Paperwork

I stayed at my parents house last night after the get-together I had with some good friends. I was able to get from them their birth certificates and marriage certificate. I photographed them with my HP Photosmart R707 camera, and I must say that the images came out great in document mode. Much better than carrying a scanner around for my laptop! (Especially great because my laptop has a built-in SD card reader, so I can skip the cables too.)

Some things I got from this documentation:

1. My mom has two birth certificates which state they were filed the same day, but have different call numbers. She had copies of both, which she had requested at seperate times within the past 5 years.
2. First confirmation of grandparents names in writing (in addition to, of course, personal knowledge from my parents).
3. My mom's two birth certificates contradict each other in two things. Firstly, whether or not her maternal grandmother (my great-grandmother) is alive at the time of her birth. One lists both as "finado" and one lists only the maternal grandfather as such (I suppose that I should confirm my primitive translation of this to mean deceased).
4. The second thing that contradicts is my grandfather's age at the time of my mom's birth. I don't have a written record with a birth year for him, and his age at either 24 or 25 still gives me two very good alternatives, both of them in writing. Blasted secondary sources! I'll keep working on this.
5. My dad was not born in Mexico City as they wrote in my baby book, but actually in Guadalajara. I hadn't thought to ask him, my bad! (Secondary sources, again! Unless his birth certificate is wrong as at least one of my mom's is...)
6. The great thing about being Hispanic is that people use their mother's maiden names. My paternal grandmother is listed with both parents' last names names on my dad's birth certificate. The surname of her mother's family is a new find.
7. My paternal grandfather is listed with the same last name twice (as opposed to a father's last name then mother's maiden name). Need to follow up on this, may be a sign that either his father was not "in the picture" or there was inter-marriage of relatives.

By the way, I wouldn't trust a Mexican birth certificate older than, say, the mid 1980's. They were not created at birth, but rather "registered" after the fact. This can make it easy for people to register other people's children or alter other facts. (Both of my mom's birth certificates, by the way, state her birth date and registration date of her birth to be December 20th, when in fact she was born on the 18th and registered on the 20th.)

Happy Birthday Billy (well, not today, but...)

I spent a good portion of yesterday with my friends I've known since high school. It was a lot of fun, good times. Now I must hunt down the person with the camera so I can show you! I slept at mom's house because it was quite late when we were done (honestly, I would have done it even if it were still early, cuz I had business with mom). I did some genealogy research at her house, finding documentation to things I "mostly" knew already. (Meaning I knew most of it, and mostly knew all of it, but it's not official unless it's in writing anyway!) I burned CDs with pictures for her and each of my sisters, so they can make prints at WalMart/Target/etc. We watched a slideshow on my laptop, they loved it. Dad even asked how much the laptop cost, I think he may have been thinking of entering the computer age, but he probably won't. That's okay. =) Future project: We have dvd burning capabilities, my parents have no computer capabilities. 2+2="I need to learn how to make dvd slideshows." (Sisters have computers. However, one sister's computer is a Win98 machine whose hardware has past its prime, and the other's is a computer that once surpassed the machine that's now our server but is now laden with spyware and useless programs.) Dad was getting bored of other people's children on the computer slideshow, so our photo dvds have to have menus so he can navigate to what he wants to see or he needs to be able to click through them quickly. "Chapters" of related pictures on a timed cycle could work well.

Cemetery trip

Information came to me in passing (when we buried a family member) that my grandfather was buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier California. Of course, in the few times I've gone with family no one wanted to spend more time there than they "had to" (like hanging out at the cemetery is weird or something!), and the times I've gone alone have been in brief snippets of time I've found when I'm in the area.



Well, now that I'm living in Los Angeles county again, almost 10 months after I first heard about it, I finally went to visit my grandfather and his second wife (who had the courage to marry a widower with 8 children). They are buried next to each other in the Garden of Affection area.



I've identified the image on her grave marker as being the LDS Temple in Salt Lake City.

Click for images: (Detail on the marker, 1999) (Likely original image from a post card)



There is similarly an image on his, which I believe to be the LDS Temple in Los Angeles. However there appear to be one or more auxiliary structures not in the modern photograph, to the right of the temple and to the left of the entrance archway. I will be looking online at images of other temples that he may have been familiar with to rule out similar architecture.

Click for image: (Detail on the marker, 1980) (Not an exact match, but a very good one)



More on my adventures soon.

Current stats on genealogy program

So, this is my genealogy database as of today. I've been doing a lot of media work, as you can see. 68 people have 103 references to 98 pictures. =) Individuals ---------------------------- Number of individuals: 193 Males: 98 Females: 95 Individuals with incomplete names: 16 Individuals missing birth dates: 131 Disconnected individuals: 4 Family Information ---------------------------- Number of families: 57 Unique surnames: 47 Media Objects ---------------------------- Individuals with media objects: 68 Total number of media object references: 103 Number of unique media objects: 98

Requested Cutting Edge Documentation

I emailed a request for this today.

New version of GRAMPS

A new version of the genealogy program that I use came out this week, and I installed it this morning. I love it so far, and the use of pictures in the pedigree view has caused me to actually go through some of the pictures I've scanned from mom's photo albums and crop people's faces for their profile pages. It's about time I did that. :) So there are a couple of quirks that come along with major new releases, a few things that have changed for the better but require a little bit of effort on my part to fit my data into the new standard. It's okay though, I think that'll be a one-time thing. Well worth it in my opinion. Hats off to you, open source community!

Postponing visit with sister, new version of GRAMPS

I had planned to go to El Monte today and visit with my sister before a get together with some friends of mine. However, said get-together got re-scheduled for Thursday. So I'm going down Thursday morning to see sister instead.

This morning, I upgraded to the latest version of my genealogy software, GRAMPS. I like it so far, some data will have to be manipulated a bit. For example, my birth used to be a date in my profile, now it's an event that myself and my parents attended. It has to be named "birth of ..." so that it's human readable. Otherwise in the list of events, it just shows as being a birth on said date. It's not diminishing the integrity of the work any, but it's good to annotate such things for ease of use. Some may consider this tedious, but it's a major change in the branch of software, and I'm willing to do a little bit of work to keep up. It should be a one-time thing, and the program is definitely better for it.

I consider this good timing, I'll have today and tomorrow to play with the program a bit, so that on Thursday when I go see my sister I can show her how it works and she can help me with stuff.

Since she's 16 years older than me, she's closer to my dad's side of the family (he was second-youngest, so my cousins are about my sisters' age). I'm closer to my mom's side (she was second-oldest, so most of those cousins are about my age). Not that I'm closer to my mom's side than my sister is, she actually lived in Mexico with my grandparents for a while and got to know them.

Maybe she'll have some grandpa stories for me one day, but not this week. She'd probably get emotional about it, and it's not a good time for that.

Salvador Aceves requests out

This blog is going to serve as a to-do list for me, and a research log. For example, when I mail things or receive things in the mail related to my genealogy I'll post here to keep track of dates.

Today, I filled out applications for my grandfather's social security application ($27) and death certificate ($12). They're in tomorrow's mail, one to Baltimore and one to Sacramento.

By the way, I could never keep track of the postal service rates. I guess I don't send out enough letters for it to normally matter, I pay our bills online or over the phone. Anyhow, it's now 39 cents instead of 37. It was still 37 when we sent out our wedding announcements, from which we have many many 37 cent stamps left over. I know this is wasteful, but I put two stamps on each envelope rather than wait for the next opportunity to go to the post office to buy 2 cent stamps. Hopefully they won't think I'm a terrorist for over-paying!

The next things I send out should be the same two items for my grandfather's second wife Soledad.

Also, I hope to have a chat about living relatives (children of cousins and so on) with my sister tomorrow, and possibly go through some more stuff at mom's house some time soon.

Found the check

This entry has been deleted because I'm having a bad day.

Is it over?

After a month and 7 days, I am declaring our un-packing complete!

Just went through a couple of boxes and there’s still a few random things in the living room to be put away, but they’re out of the boxes and sorted. I’ve donated about 5 trash bags of clothes, thrown away more stuff than I thought I would, and set up the office pretty well. I’m going to sort some craft stuff and pictures next, but otherwise I’d say we’re pretty organized now!

I’ll check this goal off when I’ve organized the craft stuff and the files on my computer. =)

See more progress on: Get organized

Journalism these days

A message left after hours at Richard Wolfe's office was not immediately returned. A telephone message left at a listing with a similar name to Lil' Joe Wein Music was also not immediately returned.

Judge: 50 Cent no two-bit song stealer - Yahoo! News

Reading up on my internet news and ran across the above quote. I love how they make it sound like they've done some due diligence in this matter.

"We called him after hours and he didn't immediately call back, so we ran the story anyway. Oh, and we're not sure if the message we left for the other guy was actually his machine... or his listing... or his phone number... since it's not under his name, but it's close!"

technorati tags:quote

Blogged with Flock

Working on mom's pictures

I have 587 files in the directory I’m scanning them to. I did all of the albums that had pocket style pages. The ones in the sticky pages are on my bookcase now (she hasn’t asked for them back, she knew I was going to scan “some” of her stuff while she was in Mexico) and I’ve been debating over how to tackle them.

My sister insists that mom will freak out if I take them out, so I have two options.

1. I photograph them through their plastic.
Pros: Less work, fewer fingerprints, no risk of damage from the removal itself.
Cons: Photos are still un-safe over time, possibly reduced quality or increased glare.

2. I take them out, scan then, then put them into something else. Probably a scrapbook for each one, or for each kind (my mom has an album for the wedding of each of her sisters, among other albums). I’ve long wanted to do a scrapbook where I’d have two copies of some pictures. I’d apply a coloring book filter and write in the names of people on their outline, and mom and dad could identify the people I can’t name.
Pros: Photos are safe, people can be identified for us and future generations, scrapbooks are cooler than photo albums.
Cons: Lots of work for something that might just make mom angry instead of happy. Very time consuming, I’m sure she’d wonder where her albums are by then, I might have to do one small one to sell her on the idea then go back and do the rest.

See more progress on: Scan the old family photos

Adult ADD (this is SO me!)

From my inbox today. Except I'm not getting old, I've always been like this. Or maybe I am getting old? =/ RECENTLY, I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH A. A . A . D . D . - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests itself: I decided to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I looked over at my car and decided my car needs washing. As I started toward the garage, I noticed that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left! My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find a can of Coke that I had been drinking. I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye-- they need to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. Then I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers. I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spilled on the floor. So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill, then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do. At the end of the day: ----the car isn't washed, ----the bills aren't paid, ----there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter, ----the flowers don't have enough water, ----there is still only 1 check in my checkbook, ----I can't find the remote, ----I can't find my glasses, ----and I don't remember what in the world I did with the car keys!! Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled, because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail. Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent. Don't laugh-- if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!!! Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. Laughing at yourself is therapeutic. ( I do a lot of laughing ) P.S. I just walked outside and SOMEONE LEFT THE WATER RUNNING IN THE DRIVEWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Waiting for husband

Okay, my desk is fully put together now. I put my laptop on it (not a huge step, I know) and that’s where I am now. However, it’s kind of in the middle of the office for now because I need to wait for my husband to get home to move the network gear and server so that we can move the little desk out of the way and push my desk to the wall. He said not to touch the stuff till he got home, so I’m not. Instead, I’m messing around online for a while. But it’s okay, I’m rewarding myself for a job well done!

See more progress on: Get organized

Racial observation

You know, I remembered something that I've been meaning to blog about for the past couple of days. I was born in California to Mexican-born parents. My mom was born in the state of Michoacan Mexico and her family moved to Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco. My dad was born in Mexico City (I'm pretty sure, I'll have to confirm that with him) and also moved to Guadalajara. From there, my dad moved to California with his family (yes, legally). He returned to Mexico to marry my mom, then they both moved back up to California. Anyhow, what I'm getting at is that my parents are Mexican by birth and upbringing (but now US citizens), my grandparents are Mexican through and through. I'm an American citizen, and I consider myself Mexican-American culturally (having a Spanish-speaking family, I learned English and Spanish concurrently as a child). However, the standardized forms have squeezed me out more and more over time. I remember there being a Hispanic bubble back in the day. Then, I had to say yes or no to Hispanic origin, then pick a "race." I always picked other and then wrote/typed in "Hispanic." I took a survey a few days ago from a reputable company that I have taken surveys for many times in the past 5 years or so, and that option was no longer there. They didn't ask me if I was Hispanic or not, and there was no place for me to type in what my "other" signified. So basically, I had to choose between being Caucasian for the purposes of their survey, or an unspecified other, a statistic that can be overlooked, a person without an origin or classification. Honestly, I'm not comfortable re-assigning my heritage every time the powers that be re-design the forms. I'm not comfortable saying that I'm Caucasian, or black, or native American. To be quite honest, I could possibly be descended from "Caucasian" Spaniards, or indigenous Mexican people, I don't know. There's no "Native Mexican" bubble (or radio button) on those forms, there's no "I don't know, but they all meshed together hundreds of years ago and here I am," and there's no Hispanic. It's like we don't exist any longer. With the ongoing talk about the Hispanic vote, marketing to Hispanics (as opposed to translating your English ads, they've realized that Hispanics have different cultural references and purchasing trends), Hispanic-owned businesses, Hispanic scholarship funds, and even a Hispanic Heritage Month, I think we deserve a bubble, I think we deserve a radio button, I think we deserve a choice. I mean, look how many of us there are in the United States! By the way, feel free to substitute Latino or Chicano, personally I do not take offense to being Hispanic. I'm just not ready to be a Caucasian of Hispanic origin, or much less to deny my heritage completely.

Putting my desk together

I’m almost done putting my desk together. I went to Ikea and sat at many desks for a long time with a tape measure and stuff. I visualized where everything would go. I basically was choosing between the same desk my husband has and the same style in a “corner” desk, with a matching standalone drawer set. I picked the normal desk one, because I’m going to be adopting the network gear, the server, the flatscreen tv (that’s also a monitor for the server), and telephone. The desk one has more storage space and more counter space once you take that into consideration. If I made my husband adopt the network stuff, I would have taken the corner desk for the smaller footprint. It’s adequate space if I actually had all of it.

So, tomorrow I’ll be stashing away various craft stuff and office stuff. I bought magazine box things from Ikea for 25 cents each, that’ll help a lot too. They’re just plan brown cardboard, but I can get like a kajillion of them for the cost of a moderate number of the ones with the metallic frame and fittings. =)

See more progress on: Get organized

Recent purchases (AKA I love Ikea)

I plan to spend less money next year than we're spending this year. That's because we're actually furnishing this apartment like a real house. =P

We purchased:

• A desk for Charles (my desk will be an art desk)
  
• Lamps for the living room, bed room, and office
  
• A laptop stand for me
  
• Folding tables for the living room (between each of the chairs)
  
• A stepping stool (so I can clean the lizard tank, I can't unplug it to bring it down anymore now that it's on the tv cabinet)
  

Go us!

Still to buy: my desk, and maybe one day a couch. :)

I have a built-in tutor...

My husband and his family sign. Some of his siblings are speech-delayed, and everyone there signs, including the baby. (Which I have determined all babies should do!)

I’ve told him several times that I want to learn more, I took an intro class but forgot most of it, my friend used to work at a school for the deaf and we signed Christmas carols together a few years ago, but I don’t have a good memory for that sort of thing apparently, because I keep forgetting the signs that I used to know. I need to get my husband to sign with me so that I can retain what I learn.

See more progress on: learn sign language

Class at the Y

My husband and I joined the YMCA, and I’ve now gone to two of their weekly belly dancing classes. There’s a family class (which on average is 2-3 girls between 8 and 12 and the rest adults) and then it’s immediately followed by one for adults only. I’ve been doing both, which is good for beginners I think. So, two hours once a week, I love it so far.

See more progress on: learn to belly dance

We have returned! +Aquatics rant

So, after two visits from the phone company (the first time, they couldn't get into the telcom room because the key wasn't in the lock box and the manager wasn't home), two tech support calls (the installation CD is Windows/Mac, so we didn't have a user name), and two weeks at our new apartment, our DSL is up and running!

So, here's the latest goings on:

• We bought a TV cabinet at Best Buy. It took forever to put together (with just one person anyway) but it matches the wood floors and holds all of our DVDs and VHS tapes with room to spare. We put our lizards on top of it so we can watch them while we watch tv. The only other place for them for now was the kitchen table, because the fireplace mantle was only wide enough for the smaller tank.
• We're waiting to hear back about our application for an Ikea credit card. We've got a shopping list that'll go by quicker if we get that. :)
• I've been sorting clothes, trying to donate about half of my pants and maybe as many of my shirts and sweatshirts and such. It was about time I did that, I have too much clothes.
• The cable that the last resident forgot to turn off was finally shut off yesterday. Now we have to give some consideration about whether we want to pay for cable or not. If not, we need to get an antenna for the TV, beause we're currently not getting any channels at all.

On a side note, I've always heard bad things about YMCA aquatics... don't ask me why, but everyone I know who's worked for a Y never liked it, and I always hear stories about their lifeguards doing homework on duty and generally not doing their jobs. This spans four counties, and more than that many Y locations. Well, yesterday I was in the water for an hour and a half... when the lifeguard on duty started teaching aerobics, another lifeguard arrived, sat down on a plastic chair to put his shoes on, did a head count, and then went in the office never to be seen again. An hour later, he re-appears, puts in the lane lines, then goes away through the locker room. The next lifeguard arrives, now the only guard on duty, does a chem check, and sits at the table. A few minutes later, a lady with a YMCA employee badge, real clothes (not a uniform), and flip flops on comes to stand next to him. He shows her the chem check and they proceed to talk for a good ten minutes before they both go into the office. It appeared that the visitor was a supervisory aquatics employee.

For the last 250 yards or so that I swam, there was absolutely no employee on the pool deck and about 12 people in the water, 3 of whom were non-swimmers with aqua jogger belts. I did not feel safe in that situation... I left a comment in their comment box at the main counter saying "Please have the lifeguards watch the water."
 

What is it with YMCAs and bad lifeguarding? Someone out there have a YMCA lifeguarding text book? Are they telling them something different than we Red Cross people would come to expect?

Blogged with Flock