January 2003

"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not;

a sense of humor to console him for what he is."

Wednesday  January 1 , 2003

I asked Christy to cook a turkey dinner, with yams, mashed potatoes, green beans, pumpkin pie etc... and she did.

People are still shooting guns over 500 reports in LA, I went outside at midnight and didn't hear one single shot. I remember my first year up here, I was surprised not to hear gun-shots. When I lived in the Valley it was downright scary. Up here apparently folks know about guns and know what they can do.

I was talking to my sister Sue and mentioned that I had sent my (Grand) Aunt Loraine and Cousin Christine some genealogy and she said she she needed the address's... then she asked what their names were and where they lived... I said Christine's name was short and it began with an 'M', she lives in a town in Central California that began with an 'F' she was the daughter of Nora who died recently....  I did well, the short name beginning with M is DeMott, the town beginning with F is Turlock and Christine is Phyllis’s daughter not Nora And Nora is not Nora but Norma and it’s Phyllis who died (2001) not Norma, Norma did have a daughter, her name is Janet… other than that I had it down perfectly. I don't know why I even try...

I feel like I ought to have something more insightful to put here, this being the first day of the New Year and all... A premonition, a resolution, an observation... nothing comes to me... I wish I felt optimistic about something... anything. As things stand GW still hasn't convinced me that he is rattling his saber at the right people, the Economy doesn't show any signs of recovery, my kids are still too young to support me.

Thursday  January 2 , 2003

Olympics judges: So they gave the gold medal to the wrong pair. It's just figure skating. It's not like it was a presidential election or something.

One of the questions asked on our company's employee application form is: "Did you receive any training in the U.S. Armed Forces that is relevant to the position applied for?" An applicant answered, "To wake up early and go to work."

When I  interviewed at Pacific Bell they asked me the same question, my answer was: "Yes, I spent four years learning how to do as I was told."

I am sitting here munching on a handful of Deviled Eggs, contemplating my trip to Kaiser at 1515 today to see Dr. Teggat, my Cardiologist , ...  Talk about clueless. If this Journal should suddenly cease being updated and you should hear that I have dropped dead, don't feel too bad. Since my Heart Attack in 1994 I have done virtually nothing to prevent the next... so:

With this writing I do hereby resolve to get a minimum of 20 minutes of exercise a day, I will endeavor to eat like an adult instead of one of my children. 

Dr. Teggat ordered a treadmill and prescribed some new medication... I need more blood work but other than that he says I'm fine.

I ordered a book on the 28th of December, "Native American Humor" it came today, it was published in 1946 and contains humorous articles from the 17 and 1800's. here are the first two entries.

How to Receive a Challenge

HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE .

Major Valentine Jacko,

U. S. Army.

 Sir-

 I have two objections to this duel matter.  

The one is, lest I should hurt you; and the other is, lest you should hurt me. 

I do not see any good it would do me to put a bullet through any part of your body. I could make no use of you when dead for any culinary purpose as I would a rabbit or a turkey. I am no cannibal to feed on the flesh of men. Why, then, shoot down a human creature of which I could make no use? A buffalo would be better meat. For though your flesh may be delicate and tender, yet It wants that firmness and consistency which takes and retains salt. At any rate, it would not be fit for long sea voyages. You might make a good barbecue, it is true, being of the nature of a racoon or an opossum, but people are not in the habit of bar-becuing anything human now. As to your hide, it is not worth taking off, being little better than that of a year-old colt.  

It would seem to me a strange thing to shoot at a man that would stand still to be shot at, inasmuch as I have heretofore been used to shoot at, things flying or running or jumping. Were you on a tree now like a squirrel, endeavoring to hide yourself in the branches, or like a racoon that after much eyeing and spying, I observe at length in the crotch of a tall oak with boughs and leaves intervening, so that I could just get a sight of his hinderparts, I should think it pleasurable enough to take a shot at you. But, as it is, there is no skill or judgment requisite to discover or take you down.  

As to myself, I do not much like to stand in the way of anything harmful. I am under apprehension that you might hit me. That being the case, I think it most advisable to stay at a distance. If you want to try your pistols, take some object, a tree or a barn door, about my dimensions. If you hit that, send me word and I shall acknowledge that if I had been in the same place, you might also have hit me.  

John Farrago

Late Captain, Pennsylvania Militia

1796

Definition

PATRICK HENRY

Governor Giles, of Virginia, once addressed a note to Patrick Henry, demanding satisfaction:

"Sir: I understand that you have called me a 'bob-tail' politician. I wish to know if it be true; and if true, your meaning.

" Wm B. Giles"

 

To which Patrick Henry replied:

"Sir: I do not recollect having called you a 'bob-tail' politician at any time, but think it probable I have. Not recollecting the time or occasion, I can't say what I did mean, but if you will tell me what you think I meant, I will say whether you are correct or not.

"Very respectfully,

"Patrick Henry."

1780

Friday  January 3 , 2003

Christy spent most of the day shopping for one thing and another...

I let Mike go downtown to Acton with Mark... they both came back acting funny... sort of spaced, not sure if I am imagining things or what but the credibility gap is really making me distrustful, I could be adding 2 X 2 and getting 7... I don't have many options

I spent most of the day at the computer doing genealogy, I am getting lots of e-mail from folks giving information and asking for help... lots of fun

I watched the Florida - Ohio game... wonderful game, the Immovable Object beat the Irresistible Force in the 2nd overtime. I like the way they do it, like soccer, much more fair than the way they do it in the pro's, "Sudden Death" is meaningless, proves nothing, if they are going to do Sudden Death they may as well end it with the coin toss because the winner of the coin toss usually wins the game.

Saturday  January 4 , 2003

Two of the worst football games I have ever seen!!! The Colts were no shows and so were the Packers ... I turned off the first game and walked away from the second...

I went to Carrie's Retirement Party down at the 94^th Aero Squadron, it's a pretentious little restaurant in Van Nuys about 20 feet off the runway at the Van Nuys Airport, it used to be a fun place to go to but it's gotten kind of full of itself... 15 years ago it was a great place to have a party, it was set up like an English/French/American Fighter Squadren during The Great War, you entered the bar through a sand-bagged stairway there were lots of artifacts and there was even an old ambulance in the front and a couple of freshly painted bi-planes out back... the bar was moved upstairs and one of the planes is gone, the people working there don't smile and they treat you as though your sole purpose for stopping by was to spoil their day... very tiresome. A couple hundred people showed up for the party, no place to sit, loud music ... Had fun anyway, lots of people from the 'old days'. Carrie took a lot of pictures, so did I.

Sunday  January 5 , 2003

More football today, I hope the games are better than yesterdays'. I just can't figure out what went wrong with the Packers... Injuries accounted for some of it, momentum and desire on the part of the Falcons took care of the rest I guess. The games today are over, all of the teams I was rooting for lost but the games were pretty good...

People drop by my site every once and a while, mostly because they find something on one of my Genealogy Pages and want to contact me for one reason or another. It's fun when that happens, met two fella's this weekend, one from Oklahoma who knew one of my Daggett's in Kansas and one from New Jersey who is related through the Dunn's both of them are adoptive parents. Met another guy last week who is a Martin, he is tied to the Daggett's from way back in the 1600's through John Martyn (en / in) on Martha's Vineyard...

I have been using a program called Family Tree Maker by Broderbund since about 1989, once a year I spend $19 to upgrade to the new - improved - cant-live-without-it version... the program has remained virtually unchanged since it was first brought out and I finally got tired of playing the game...I have tried about 5 other programs and about two weeks ago I decided to move everything over to a program called "Legacy" at www.legacyfamilytree.com it's a pretty amazing program, it'll do everything I wanted FTM do and it will do stuff I even couldn't imagine, for instance every program will compute one persons relationship to another, but Legacy will even print out a chart showing every person in each line. If anything Legacy has too much, it's kind of boggling. At least it doesn't require you to make a decision on everything, the defaults are generally fine... Legacy is allowing me to clean up a lot of errors, the Spell Check can be used globally or on specific text, I am cleaning up erroneous entries at the moment. Very tedious but necessary, this particular action would be impossible in FTM.