Category Archives: Home Improvement

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!

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.

SSDD

Categories: Accountability, Home Improvement
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 1 second

Got some yard work done. I trimmed back the rose bushes in the front of the yard. I took out the large, dead branches. The one on the left looked so small and thin afterwards. The other two had a lot more to them. In fact, I should probably trim back more from the middle one still. I also had to cut down a large trunk of the thundercloud because it had snapped off already.

I started to reassemble my fence also. Just put the poles back together since the landscapers took the bolts with them. I should’ve put the poles back a long time ago; it would have kept everyone from walking through the flower garden.

And that was about all I did as far as productivity for the day. I still haven’t run a schedule to do things and probably should. I will definitely put yard work into the mix if I ever get to that; there’s so much left to do. All the weeds are growing back and they need to be killed and buried under gravel.

Too Much Procrastinating

Categories: Accountability, Home Improvement
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 13 seconds

I need to get started on doing some yard work. I’m not going to expect to find a landscaper and I may just bill Craig for his web site for the past two years. I also have two newsletters to put together. I started my family newsletter and need to get back to it and finish and send it out this month. I hate to get it out this late but I really hate getting it out later. And I need to read more, but that’s always true.

I slept about four hours last night. I’m tired earlier today; doesn’t look like I’m staying up until the sun comes up today. I need to get my schedule shoved around before the end of the month.

Always so much to do and I get so little done. I was going to use a schedule today to accomplish things and I forgot until just now. OK, maybe tomorrow. Well, maybe not. I want to go to the JCC and take flyers to the FHL and Kol Ami for our meeting which is now less than two weeks away.

Do I seriously expect to lose 10 pounds in less than two weeks? I was well under 1000 calories a day and gained weight. Somehow I don’t see it happening anymore. My genetics suck.

Hello World.

Categories: David Tennant, Doctor Who, Genealogy, Home Improvement, Hugh Laurie, IAJGS, UJGS
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 51 seconds
1 Comment

Welcome to my blog. I am Banai. That’s pronounced like B’nai Brith, or B’nai Israel, or B’nai Torah, or if you haven’t heard of any of those or don’t know of any synagogues with those names, it rhymes with Renee.

I have been a genealogist since birth, but I got serious in 1998, moved to Salt Lake City in 2003, and soon became a professional.

I had been debating starting a blog for years. What would I write? Would anyone read it? Would I make the time to keep it up? What would I call it?

Well, the last question was answered first. I came up with the title somewhere in the middle of watching British TV shows last year. Even more recently (like, while editing this post) I added on the third word of my title, from the Ginger Jew to the Ginger Jewish Genealogist. I thought that might be going a bit too far, but I’ve decided to go with it for now. Any comments about that?

I finally decided to just go ahead and try it. So on New Years Eve, between the ball drop and midnight (’cause the ball drops in NYC two hours before midnight in SLC), I installed the blog, adjusted the design, and figured out how to use it. I have blogged every day this year so far. No, you can’t read what I wrote because I marked all the entries private. I was kind of testing the waters.

But now I’ve decided to go public with my blog. So here it is!

Just like my Twitter account, this will likely end up to be about more than just genealogy, but since that’s my profession and my hobby, I expect it to show up a lot. Other topics that will appear often will include UJGS, the Utah Jewish Genealogical Society (I am the president, newsletter editor, and webmaster); IAJGS and each annual conference; David Tennant, Doctor Who, and anyone else associated with the show; Hugh Laurie, House, and any other corresponding shows or people; any other TV show or celebrity that suits my fancy over time (those are just the current ones); and any home improvement projects that may be happening.

Let the fun begin.