An
eDiary of
Some of the
Key
Things in
Don's
Life
I regularly updated my eDiary websites until the creation of FaceBook's
2011
"eHistory" feature, whereupon I stopped…
Sadly, my account then crashed out while I was updating my profile in 2019 & I had to drill some of the "lost years" to get them back!
So, my eDiary is organized into six decade pages, each decade being sorted year-by-year with months from Jan to Dec; click on a section to visit that decade?
Main page |
2010’s (this page) |
2000’s |
80's-90's |
70's |
50's-60's…
You might also consider visiting my
profile
page that shares a little more info about me vs. this eDiary, or see a list of the
Global Places
I’ve visited?
For an "historical" view, you can start at the very
end
of my eDiary & scroll up to read backwards in time?
Also, embedded textual content reflects the time of the events vs. current time—view the pages full-screen?
Have fun, regardless ;)
2010 in Summary…
The biggest family event of 2010 was that my Mum passed away peacefully in April at the Nightingale Nursing Home, 2 Roslin Road in Talbot Woods (which is near our house but sadly now closed) after losing her 4+year fight with liver cancer. My brother Alan helped her to be admitted to the care home and, after frequent visits, planned the funeral… sadly the Iceland volcano prevented me from traveling to England—many other relatives were able to join the farewell, though. Mum was cremated & her remains were scattered by Alan and our Uncle Joe (Mum’s brother) in a place that we knew as the "Bluebell Woods", a country delight near Winchester
Alan & I decided a few weeks after this to not retain our inheritance at 70 Elmes Road—funds from the sale for our savings arrived once everything closed.
After belonging to Dad, Mum & us for more than 55 years, we spent quite a bit to bring parts of the house up to code, etc, & to find a sales agent.
I visited with Alan in November as he worked to prepare the house for sale: an outside view
.jpg "outside view")
and the living room after being stripped
.jpg "living room")
Sort of a sad thing in some ways for me, as my roots there stretched way back to the late ’50s;
memories are not at all good though, hence my "in some ways" thing…
There's always a tendency to look back, I guess, wondering about why this or that happened, if you know what I mean??
Also many good ones, of course!!
The next most significant event was to hear from Sandy's daughter & her beau that we were going to be grandparents!
They visited with us for a week over Christmas; we were also visiting everyone in Atlanta, GA around Thanksgiving to help them move into a new flat that's nearer to her sisters' & also a lot closer to the hospital where our 1st grandchild will be born in just a few months!
We'll eventually also be moving South to be closer, but that's going to be a few more years up here with all the lovely weather!!
For our family in Alexandria VA, my son Stu & his wife moved from their flat to a house (with some help from professional movers) in early December after their rent went up for the 3rd year in a row & sort of shot thru the roof…
They're both still quite close to where they work & are enjoying the fun of unpacking all those boxes!!
Sandy was working particularly hard in 2010 to help GE Healthcare's MR business reach their year-end goals…
business trips to Budapest, Hungary & Warsaw, Poland (where I was lucky enough to tag along!) in May & an overnight trip to Houston, Texas in early December, chasing closure for another of the many customers who showed up at the annual RSNA show, wanting to "buy one" of those million-dollar+MR scanners!!
Good for the business, of course, but a bit of a grind for those doing all the travel, etc…
Work for me continued to be very sporadic after being laid off in 2009 after 25+ years with GE,
with a couple of part-time technical roles,
a money-making
"ride-the-gravy-train"
idea for a
web thing,
several weeks in the summer helping with the 2010 US Census
& several interviews that went well but simply did not blossom…
Finishing the fall semester at
Carroll U
with the final exams for the term being their typical "ouch" when those darned answers just won't come to mind (!), I'm at least continuing with a reasonable GPA, around 3.3…
am also doing OK overall, & if things continue without hiccups will have a pretty good Bachelor's degree (computer science) in hand by year-end 2011—a
very well-established limitation for job interviews!
Hopefully this work cr*p will get a whole lot better in the not-too-distant future;
the US economy had not helped much with my job search, etc—at least remaining
“on the dole”
(the US equivalent to that of the
UK)
until the spring.
It's not quite solid, either, with all the political shenanigans that I'm sure will continue to make the USA into the world's best buffoon!
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Here's 2011, Captured in Detail…
As I have pointed out, FaceBook's “new” eHistory feature allowed this year to be the end of my active updates…
Not much of interest was caught earlier in the year,
but I went off to the UK for a fun week in April with my college Spring Break
(see pix)
& our Grandson Max was born in May, growing like a weed as of this writing ;)
Continued school sessions for me included
wrapping up a basic stats class in June, which was a bit of a headache but I got a passing grade (!),
a far bigger headache with an online class in July that cost us a pretty penny for no gain at all,
my pottery class in August (very, very busy, but fun!)
& completing my CapStone project throughout the summer & submitting to Carroll University for my final graduation;
these, along with the others took a fair amount of R&R time away from me!
July 4th was a party-filled day with visits to Bob Senzig and Ken & Diana… nifty!
We had a neighborhood social party at the house the weekend after that… "upstairs only" ;P
Sandy also changed the color of some of the walls at our house… feels like new!
We had a wonderful weekend in August with close friends at their lovely Lakewood resort, enjoying everything that comes with!
My son Stu & his wife visited us at our house for a couple days earlier in the month, & Sandy's daughter's bridal shower was held here with 2+ dozen friends & family!
We had a short weekend over Labor Day in Rockford, IL to watch STP—really good front-row seats… just awesome!
Sadly, their lead singer
Scott Weiland
passed on a few years later in 2015
Sandy spent most of the month after this traveling thru Europe on business for her MR Oncology role, spending a weekend near London to enjoy her niece & nephew! I have been advised that she became the "most amazing Auntie" after taking perhaps a dozen little apples from the garden & creating a "pie" for the youngsters… yummy-yum-yum, apparently!
I also had a nice weekend away at the end of September with the CampFryer's group near Oshkosh, & then drove home in a meandering way thru the Northwoods to sample the Fall colors, etc… you can see some snaps of each online.
In October, we headed to Atlanta for a week+ to help with the wedding of Sandy's daughter… an absolutely awesome Saturday (Oct 22nd) wedding!
Saturday November 5th was celebrated with friends at a nice Guy Fawke's bonfire & on the next Friday (yes, 11/11/11) Chuck, the Chef-de-la-cuisine created a fresh-caught salmon delight for our friends in the “Gourmet group“—lots of good food, wine and yakkity-yak!
Rich Fillet's (who is sadly RIP today) delicious culinary skills were shared the next day with a couple dozen friends at Brad & Donna Wulf's farm (near East Troy, WI)… took Sunday *off* to recover ;)
December of 2011 was busy for us on multiple fronts, with the holidays (always fun!), helping with the move in Atlanta & my
graduation
from Carroll U (finally!) whilst being actually actively buried in work! I also worked on the new eDiary, loading parts from this site…
A little cash actually flowed in from some of my website work with Creative Logic, & although the owners of this website decided to take their ideas in a different direction,
I continued to build on the concept to try to start up the idea of
Musical Poetry,
a pretty neat concept that was still in its infancy as of this writing (late 2011) and never really completed
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2012 Was a Rather Slim Year…
The year of 2012 is sadly quite sparse, but I can share that my college graduation (at the end of 2011) was celebrated in May of this year at Carroll University
.jpg "Carroll University")
and I got to stop actively searching for work shortly afterwards…
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And a Sparse 2013…
While 2013 is unfortunately too sparse for my aging brains to resurrect in detail, I do recall that I was blessed to join Sandy's European business trip in April, where we were in Prague and in Geneva for a couple weeks…
a nice snap of our dinner in Prague, albeit a little fuzzy with the light!
I also went to Hong Kong and Taiwan (yes, a 14-hour flight!!) in November with Sandy's 2nd business trip… it was amazingly warm ;)
We were sitting at a German restaurant for lunch as part of one of our strolls through Hong Kong… a great snap with a great beer!!
This snap
.jpg "snap")
was taken by the local team in Taiwan!
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A Teensy-Weensy Bit of 2014…
We decided to move south to be near to our family when our 2nd grandchild was due to arrive in November;
details
are in my Bio and in my house history
here
in my eDiary?
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A Smidgen of 2015…
We were blessed to be at our nephew’s wedding (Paul Pagel & Liz Gilliam) in May at the
Kiawah Resort
in South Carolina; Liz’s Mom & Dad have a house near there
A snap of Don & Sandy
& of the Pagel family
(showing l-t-r) Matt VanDenLangenburg, Paul’s cousin,
Art (Matt) Luebbers & Alli (Alison) VanDenLangenburg, Paul’s cousin
… Tommy VanDenLangenburg & Amy Pagel, Paul’s aunt
… Ossian Foley & Paul’s sister, Caryl Pagel,
Liz Gilliam, Paul Pagel’s wife & Paul
… Marg Schalmo (Les Pagel’s wife, RIP), Paul’s Mom
… Mike Pagel, Paul’s brother & his wife, Lauren Kieth,
Kelly Kopp, Paul’s cousin & Quentin Gayles, her husband
… Jeanette Pagel, Paul’s paternal grandmother, and
… Sandy Pagel, Paul’s aunt & me
We decided in June that our Wisconsin house had to be sold
(sad for us both—see some
info
in my Bio?)
as we were getting ready to move into our new family home near our grandkids (below) and had to do this…
Stacking stuff to fill our I-Pod hauler
and having some help
with packing
As an FYI, some of my house history is here in my eDiary!
On Wednesday September 30th, we closed on the purchase of our new house
.jpg "new house")
in Roswell, GA and moved in shortly after that
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Just a Couple of My 2016 Memories…
As it was already warm at our house in late May (Memorial Day actually), our grandkids were cooling off in our outside pool!
.jpg "outside pool")
In early November, we started to prep our yard for installation of our hot-tub
.jpg "hot-tub")
up & running by mid-December—you can see this in the snap of our "Uno" game below!
Earth's annual Winter Solstice started at 5:44am for our house on December 21st bringing winter to us…
We were lucky enough to have grabbed this family snap
.jpg "snap")
a little earlier, bringing the annual Holiday celebrations into focus!
A little later at our Christmas party, we were actively toasting our toes off with the sunshine in the 70's as we played Uno
.jpg "Uno")
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The 2017 Year…
In late February, we took our warm-week-away down at our
timeshare,
the Pueblo Bonito Golf & Spa Resorts, Pueblo Bonito Emerald Bay in Mazatlán, Mexico for a couple weeks…
such a delight to be soaking my toe
.jpg "my toe")
at the Hot Tub & relaxing at the pool!
.jpg "pool")
We visited
Europe
for a couple weeks in Germany and France in June & early July
Traveled up to WI later in July to visit family for a week or so.
We watched the Balloon launch on the river at Green Bay!
.jpg "launch")
August 10th brought a sort-of sad end to my 20+ years with my Chevy Tahoe
.jpg "Tahoe")
as I sold it after almost 20 years…
The small amount of funds from my Tahoe provided us with a 10% offset to our new 2016-year Toyota
Highlander,
a lovely car!
For the Thanksgiving dinner on November 24th we had an extended family visit at our house with grandkids etc… we caught that elusive, epic family selfie!
.jpg "snap")
We had the first snow
.jpg "first snow")
of the season in early December, not stopping until 9 or 10am next day :(
Still nicer than the WI weather that we suffered from for years!
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Here's 2018
In late February, we drove down to Saint Augustine, FL for a weekend away…
here's a snap
.jpg "snap")
of the beach at Anastasia State Park where we walked for an hour or so, sunshine, breeze, Ahhhhh!!!
We had an evening with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers on May 19th—just a great show!
We spent a few days in late July with our friends “the Gourmet group“ in Spring Green, WI where we celebrated my birthday and spent an evening at the American Players Theater
.jpg "APT")
My son Stu & his wife came for a visit in early August; we spent an enjoyable day at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens
.jpg "Atlanta Botanical Gardens")
Early in the morning of September 8th the worst-ever US fire started near Paradise, CA…
see a
description,
view the "why did it start?"
news
article and watch the
Netflix
documentary?
On the 25th of September, Senator John McCain passed away after fighting a
GBM…
a disease that strikingly matches my own
1998
event; see the
news
report for more details?
In late September we all suffered the
disgrace
of hearing about yet another Trump-appointed supreme-court Judge, that stupid college brat, Brett Kavanaugh, who was reported to have sexually assaulted Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford in 1982 and others… He then went on, much to my disgust, to a lifetime appointment!
We visited the neighborhood with our grandkids for Halloween
.jpg "Halloween")
in October!
In November, we visited with our Alabama family & spent a day spelunking
.jpg "spelunking")
in a nearby cave
We visited with a friend in Arizona in December, spending a day at the
Saguaro National Park
and went on to a nice resort; here's the view
.jpg "view")
from our room!
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2019: The Last Year of the 2010’s…
Without much to say about January (other than that it was COLD!), we were happily en rout to our Cabo St. Lucas resort in Mexico to start our warm-weather fortnight on Saturday, Feb 2nd when we ran into an major flight diversion: a 70-year+ old man (sitting just 2 rows ahead of us) had an intense heart-attack…
He was luckily revived by the highly competent cardiologist sitting between us and him, and was kept breathing long enough for us to do an emergency landing in Houston with him on his back in the aisle…
they took him to a hospital, we refueled and flew on
After the "travel day from hell" as we called it, it was *so nice* to awaken to a beautiful sunrise over the Pacific!
For the geography buffs, we were actually facing south at the tip of the Baja, so we could catch a corner of the sunrise
It also became "Tequila Time" later in the morning at
Sunset beach :)
Ahhh… our 3rd day, out by another of the pools
with sunshine in the high 70's, ocean breezes & cold beer, all after an awesome breakfast!
We went across town on the 9th to get to the 2nd week resort
which was just an awesome week!
Our last evening was spent at dinner over in the
Quivira Steakhouse,
a part of the resort. I got to watch (stare!) for the sunset "Green Flash"
and caught it!
On St. Patty's Day (March 17th) we drove north for an hour to visit Gibbs Gardens, which is near Ball Ground in the mountains of N. Georgia!
We were snapped
and enjoyed walking past some of the delightful Tulips
.jpg "Tulips")
.jpg "more tulips")
On our annual tax day, April 15th we sadly watched th Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris
burning
down, live on TV…
A snap of the insides
.jpg "inside")
prior to the fire, which are sadly no longer there :(
On the 24th, we brought some front row tickets to spend a couple hours with Santana
.jpg "Santana")
What a rush!
We had a really nice 3-week visit to
Italy,
in early May… a tad chilly but a great trip!!
In June, we took a great weekend visit to Macon for the
Brit Floyd
show—otherwise quite a quiet month
As part of managing our Southern summer heat, we drove north to Wisconsin for our month-long visit in July, renting a lake house on Kelly Lake for 2 weeks.
We had an interesting couple of days as we moved into the lake house: a huge storm wreaked havoc across the state, shutting down the power to tens-of-thousands of people…
here's a report extract:
We were out for 3 days which was on occasion a little too warm!!
A week later, my birthday gift was the arrival of our grandkids! A great collection of memories for Sandy's family, too :)
In August, I ascertained that my current eMail address was just getting too much spam & junk, so I changed to a new address: Don.J.Shave@gMail.com… please update your address book?
I also found that my 10+ year-old Facebook account had run itself right off the rails with some seriously irritating bloated stuff & possibly hacked cr*p etc!!
I unsuccessfully tried to resolve this with a new account under a slightly different name of 'Jamie'
(my childhood name)
but as this failed, I got to spend a few days (in early September)
rebuilding
the account… sheesh!
Some other web-based activities in September & October were that I relocated & updated my future
thoughts,
I built & published a
snapshot
view of my offline family tree data using the
RootsMagic tool;
view the
Stats & History
of the data also?
I also continued to update my online ancestral
family tree
account, which is a virtual duplicate of my current local tree data and is growing as new branches appear…
note that this link may change!
Should you choose to use (or review) any of the data from these two family tree data sites, please be aware that certain parts are of necessity more informal than those facts which are "officially registered" and keep this under consideration before sharing any issues? Cheers!
As the end of the 2010’s approached, we spent a long weekend in November out in Alabama, delivering our 2008 Avalon
.jpg)
to our daughter and enjoying being w/grandkids & setting up the Christmas visit!
We spent a super day at the Atlanta Zoo for Landon's birthday later in the month with family and then a day at the Children's Museum!!
Max & Nora came to visit with us for the weekend before Christmas, having endless house parties with Landon & Amelia!
Christmas dinner and the gifting was as much fun as ever, with paper being torn off and excitedly scattered across the room—a *great* mess!!!
Some family snaps were
grabbed
(click the arrow by Dave’s left elbow to scroll)
in our yard and we also closed out the 2019 year with some champagne!
Of course, the
BrExit
event sadly blew up in the UK at this time when Boris won the election... transitions continue :(
As a final note, the likely most *hilarious* post I ever made on Facebook in a long, long time is
here…
Enjoy!
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The End of the 2010’s…
Well, that's about it for the 2010’s part of my eDiary; see the different decades here?
You could also go to my
Bio summary page, the
profile page that I created a few years ago, my family tree
profile or visit me on
FaceBook where you can scroll down to view my events year-by-year.
As I expect that parts of my eDiary will improve and/or change as I tag more year-by-year info or clarify some of the threads… watch this space!
Please also visit my
privacy page
to be aware of some legal stuff?
As a final thought, view some snaps of me & my family in my
older album? Enjoy!! ;)