All posts by Banai Lynn Feldstein

JGSLA 2010 – 0.3 – Registration

Categories: IAJGS, JGSLA 2010
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 50 seconds

I am now registered for the IAJGS conference.

Getting here wasn’t as smooth as that registration. I didn’t get much sleep so I was tired during the drive.

Registration for the hotel could have gone smoother. I saw a few familiar faces in the lobby while dealing with the front desk. I found my way up to the room with my roommate. The rooms here are quite spacious and I like the decor. It’s kind of retro and I really like the look. Usually I think hotel decor is tacky. Our room looks out over the Staples Center.

Roommate Judi Missel went to the pre-conference banquet and I went out to dinner with Mark Heckman and Kathy, Ron Arons, and Jonina Duker. Returning to the hotel and jumping in line for registration, I talked to far too many people to list here.

The day ended on a high note and now it’s late am I’m heading to sleep. I think I’ll try to blog more this week before midnight.

JGSLA 2010 – 0.2 – Preparations And Glitches

Categories: IAJGS, JGSLA 2010
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 46 seconds

I finished up all my client work and even did some of my own genealogy organizing. I got my family newsletter sent out, finally, and updated the book just a smidge. I am teaching a computer lab on using Microsoft Publisher and that book is my example, so I thought I’d get reacquainted with it again before the conference.

This Friday morning, I woke up early and packed and cleaned a bit around my house. The garbage had a very late pick-up which I had to wait for, but I wasn’t quite ready to leave yet. And then finally, off I went.

An hour later, when I got to the Springville exit, my car died. This car is 19 years old and she’s never had something break that actually stopped her from working before. Looks like it was the transmission. But Murphy and his laws didn’t get me completely. If I’d gone past two more exits, I would have been in the middle of nowhere and completely stranded. This way, at least I was in Spanish Fork. So I left my car at a repair shop without even asking him to fix her and Enterprise came and picked me up.

And so I was finally on my way again. I must say, cruise control is a wonderful thing and I don’t know how I survived so many drives across the country or across multiple states before without it.

And now I’m in Mesquite. I was hoping to make it to Las Vegas for the night. I even got half an invitation from a friend, and I called her, but I didn’t really feel like driving anymore and it was already dark. She went online for me and found an obscure little motel with free Internet included and here I am writing this blog entry. In the morning, I’ll stop in Las Vegas for breakfast with her and then I’ll be in Los Angeles in the afternoon for the IAJGS Conference.

JGSLA 2010 – 0.1 – Before I Leave

Categories: Home Improvement, JGSLA 2010
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 7 seconds

I had a bit of a blogging black hole in there where I made no entries. I’ll try to be better. In the meantime, it’s time to prepare for the IAJGS conference. Actually, it’s probably past time to prepare, but I’m just getting started.

I plan to drive down to Los Angeles in advance of the conference, but the time to get there in advance is shrinking. I want to meet some more of my relatives; I have a few in the area that I’ve never met.

I’m teaching a computer lab and still need to make preparations for it. I gave the same lab last year, but wanted to improve on what I did and part of that improvement will take me some time working at home.

I will be helping in the Resource Room and introducing a couple of other computer labs that I volunteered for. This will be my first time as introducer. I was just curious about a couple labs and there I went volunteering again.

In the meantime, I’ve been flattening the weeds in my yard and it’s just slightly possible that someone will give them a serious death spray while I’m gone. I also fixed an old leak in my swamp cooler, so I shouldn’t have to worry about turning off the water to that while I’m gone.

War

Categories: Accountability, Home Improvement
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 28 seconds

The war in Evony got interesting today. Someone near me truced so I couldn’t attack. Instead I went for his colonies and took out 90k archers from one city and 45k archers from another. I was really proud of that. Later, I was slowly going through his cities, two at a time and then one at a time after his truce ended. On my second run, Chappo came in and took two of the cities. He’s lucky that he hit a different city than the one I was headed for because he hit only five minutes before me. But he got the main city where I had eliminated 90k archers. On the other hand, I pointed out someone else to him and he shared with me. He hit the main and another while I hit the other three.

OK, so I’m still spending way too much of my time in Evony, but it’s so much fun.

I reinstalled the baseboards in the bedroom and put some of my clothes and a few boxes in. I have a lot more to do. I need to remember to buy felt for the bottoms of all my furniture. I knew there was something I needed over there the last time I went to Walmart but it slipped my mind. I also want to put the four foot high bookcase on wheels so that I can put it right in front of the other and still have access to it.

Wow, I just got interrupted typing this entry by a knock at the door. It was a Jehovah’s Witness. That’s my first!

I Know, I Know

Categories: Accountability, IAJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 20 seconds

Got a few emails responded to yesterday after I blogged. Still haven’t gotten back to them. The FHL catalog was offline. Didn’t check back again today. What did I do? I think I’ve been tired most the day too. Insomnia on top of my other sleep disorders makes for being tired all the time from not being able to sleep enough.

I’m tired now.

Oh, and my old computer monitor is dying. I looked it up. The part to solder in I can get for $10. The whole monitor, which will be easier, is $120. I should be able to hook it up to the external monitor and it will be fine on just that monitor but I don’t plan, nor do I have the room, to get another one to put on the desk. But I might have to. Then again, if I’m going to spend $100, I might as well just get the monitor for the laptop. That one has the fingerprint reader which is better security anyways. When this one hibernates, it doesn’t ask my password. Or does it? Actually I did finally turn that on. But I think the old one is just a little smaller. Nah, this one is the current one with email and files, so it’s the one that will go.

The IAJGS conference is in a month and I haven’t prepared at all yet. If I could just sleep better, that might help. Going to try now.

No Sleep and No Alarm

Categories: Accountability, Home Improvement, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 42 seconds

The floor guys came back at 9 am this morning with a loud banging on my door. I couldn’t get to sleep for hours and my alarm never went off. I eventually searched my PDA, the only thing that can wake me up anymore, to discover it was in silent mode. I guess that explains the missed alarm from a few days prior. I had him trap me in the bedroom where I got a little more sleep and had my computer for when I was awake. He said it was OK to walk on after six hours. After seven and a half hours, I walked through the hallway and it still felt tacky. I left footprints that I can see by the kitchen. The light in the hallway wasn’t right to see footprints. Now I get to find out if he’ll come back and do another layer at least on the hallway. I followed his instructions, it’s not my fault that he underestimates the drying time instead of overestimating. But I definitely don’t plan to be in the house again while the floors are drying. The fumes really got to me and I was tearing up for quite a while like I do when I work at the computer for too long sometimes.

Finally sent out the UJGS minutes from the last meeting and called the next one. I didn’t quite make the two week mark before the next meeting. I don’t really have plans for the meeting either. This will be the first unplanned meeting that I’ve held. I hope I can get the use of the equipment I need at the JCC (projector, white board, wi-fi) so I have options to show web sites or an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?. I doubt my members have seen the British episodes. Maybe I’ll show them Stephen Fry’s episode. That was a good one.

Almost Done

Categories: Accountability, Home Improvement
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 39 seconds

I knew I had beautiful floors under all that paint. The guys are coming back at 9am to put down the second coat, though I thought he said he was doing a base and second coat and tomorrow would be the third coat. The floor feels tacky to my socks and not smooth to the touch, so the second coat should finish that off.

In other news, nothing else really accomplished. What else is new? I have to get some sleep.

Where Is Sleep?

Categories: Accountability, Family History Library, Genealogy, Genealogy on TV, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 59 seconds

I have been awake for 27 hours now and I’m not sure why. I didn’t desperately try to stay up. I just did. And I’m still up but I get the feeling I’m going to eventually crash. Well, I sure hope I do. I need sleep.

The good thing was that after 24 hours, I turned on Out of the Blue by Debbie Gibson and finally got some work done. I did my bookkeeping for all the research I’ve done and the NGS conference going back a month. I answered a few emails and finished off a few by entering the info into QuickBooks. And all that while Evony was still running.

I started another city. It’s a fun game. Learning a lot from more advanced players. Learning a lot just by doing things myself.

Must go to the FHL tomorrow. Got that order from Genlighten and another odd request from The Generations Project on BYUTV. I hope I can do something for that. We’ve got some records. I might not get to what they want, but I might find something more than they know now and then they can move forward with that. Just been answering that email the whole time I’ve been drafting this blog entry.

I also have to do the nitpicker’s versions of the last two episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? still and index the Bessarabia records, send out the minutes for the last UJGS meeting, figure out what will happen at the next meeting, and do the two newsletters. Yep, all that still needs to get done. Maybe some of it tomorrow? Maybe some of it tonight. I’m still awake.

Almost forgot. Someone I know only on Facebook and Twitter asked about journals and twittering them. I pointed out a line-a-day diary that was being tweeted and suggested blogging something longer. And I realized I should do that with Rachel’s trip diaries. I only read one of them, but a bit part in the middle was historic. I think she only wrote these when they went on trips to somewhere, but you never know what I might find while typing them. I found Israel going to war in the middle of the first one I read.

Crap

Categories: Accountability
Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 58 seconds

Didn’t leave the house. Didn’t get anything accomplished. I’ll have to leave Dad’s card out for the mail all morning to make sure it gets picked up. Doesn’t look like it’s supposed to rain any more. It will be delivered late, but at least it will be in the mail before his birthday.

At least I had the excuse of still not feeling great. A month or two ago, I realized I wasn’t getting cramps and the reason was probably all the milk I was drinking. I remembered seeing that in a show once. So I brought home more milk and that part was good, but I was still pretty drained of energy for the past two days. Tomorrow should be better, which is good because I need to get back to work on my yard. And everything else. I have two newsletters to do and some indexing. Then I have my own research which has been piling up for years that I’d like to start catching up on.

A Little Better

Categories: Accountability, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 3 seconds

Still slacking off most the day with Evony but at least I ended today productively. I finally read through and edited the UJGS minutes from the April meeting. I altered the text for the UJGS flyer (which I’ll get printed someday) and the JCC ad. I cleared off some of my desk. I watched two movies, though that doesn’t count as productivity. And I prepped a bit for the next UJGS meeting. I have no plans for that meeting. I guess I’m going to just talk about the NGS and IAJGS conferences. But I have a couple more weeks to not think about it. Maybe I’ll put together a newsletter. Actually, I should put together my family newsletter before another month gets away from me.

What I need to do is set up things on Evony to run for several hours, close the window, and open up Pandora for music. That seems to be the key. As long as the music is playing, I can be productive. If I only stop it when I have to read, write, or edit, I’m pretty good for a while.