An eDiary of Some Key Things in Don's Life
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I regularly updated my eDiary until the creation of FaceBook's 2011 "eHistory" feature, whereupon I stopped… my account then sadly crashed out while I was updating my profile [ :( ] in 2019 & I had to drill some of the "lost years" to get them back! You might consider visiting my profile page that shares a little more info about me vs. this eDiary?

So… my eDiary is organized into decade pages, each being year-by-year with months from Jan to Dec; click on a different section to visit that decade? Main page | 2010’s (this page) | 2000’s | 80's-90's | 70's | 50's-60's… for an "historical" view, do start at the very end of my eDiary & scroll up to read backwards in time? Also, view the page full-screen? Have fun, regardless ;)

2019: The Last Year of the 2010’s…

Without much to say about January (other than 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 . [ click this and the other small images for a larger view ? ]
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 .   .

On our annual tax day, April 15th we watched Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burning live on TV… A snap of the insides . 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 . 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 my wife'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…

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 . 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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Here's 2018

In late February, we drove down to Saint Augustine, FL for a weekend away…
here's a 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 .
My son & his wife came for a visit in early August; we spent an enjoyable day at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens .

Early in the morning of September 8th the worst-ever 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 . in October!

In November, we visited family in Alabama & spent a day 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 . from our room!
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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 . at the Hot Tub & relaxing at the pool! .

We visited Europe for a couple weeks in June & early July and traveled to WI later in July to visit family for a week or so. We watched the Balloon launch on the river at Green Bay!
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August 10th brought a sort-of sad end to my 20+ years with my Chevy Tahoe . as I sold it after almost 20 years…

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! .
We had the 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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Just a Couple of 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! . In early November, we started to prep our yard for installation of our hot-tub . We got this up & running by mid-December — you can see this in the "Uno" game snap below!
Earth's Winter Solstice started at 5:44am for our house on December 21st & we were lucky enough to have grabbed this family 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 .
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A Smidgen of 2015…

We had decided in June that our Wisconsin house had to be sold (a tad sad for both of us; see some info in my Bio?); we were getting ready to move into a new family home near to our grandkids (below) and had to do this… 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 . in Roswell, GA and moved in shortly after that.

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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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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 my wife'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 my wife'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 . was taken by the local team in Taiwan!

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Another Slim Year, 2012…

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 . and I got to stop actively searching for work shortly afterwards…

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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 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) & my wife's daughter had a son in May, who is growing like a weed ;)

Summer 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; this, 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 My spouse 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 & his wife visited us at our house for a couple days earlier in the month, & my wife'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 Scott Weiland, their lead singer passed on a few years later in 2015.

My spouse 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 my wife'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 website owners decided to take their ideas in a different direction, I continued to build on the concept to try to start up something like the idea of Musical Poetry, a pretty neat concept that was still in its infancy as of this writing (late 2011)

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Next is 2010 in Summary…

The biggest family event of 2010 was that my Mum passed on peacefully in April, after losing her fight with liver cancer. After Alan planned the funeral, etc, the Iceland volcano prevented us from traveling from the US to England at all – many other relatives were able to join the farewell, though. Mum was cremated & her remains were scattered by Alan nearby 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 any inheritance at 70 Elmes Road as we'll still each end up with a little inheritance for our savings once everything's 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 . and the living room after being stripped .

Sort of a sad thing in some ways for me, as something like my roots from more than 40 years ago are now leaving. Memories are not all good, though, hence the "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 for us was to hear from my wife'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 & 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!!

My spouse was working particularly hard in 2010 to help GE Healthcare's MR business reach their year-end goals… Off on another 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 had continued to be very sporadic, 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 to help with the 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 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 gets a whole lot better here in the not-too-distant future – guess we'll see. The US economy had not helped with my job search, etc… at least being "on the dole" lasted 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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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.

I do expect certain parts of this website to 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!! ;)

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