An eDiary of Some of the Key Things in Don's Life

As some of my memories are starting to slip away in my 70's, I've set up these eDiary pages for some key threads that meant more to me than any others…
they may well get "tweaked" as I recall others and/or get replaced! I started these eDiaries in the mid-80's, organizing into decade-based pages… each are sorted by year and months, showing from Jan to Dec;
click on any of these sections to visit that decade?
    Main page ( this page ) | 2010's | 2000's | 90's | 80's | 70's | 50's-60's

You should also consider visiting my family tree profile page that shares info about me, or see the list of my Global Places I've visited? For a more "historical" perspective, you could start your visit at the very end of my eDiaries & then scroll up to read them backwards in time? Also, the embedded content of the textualized events reflects the time of the events vs. current time—view the pages full-screen?

I updated my eDiaries regularly until the creation of FaceBook's 2011 "eHistory" feature, whereupon I stopped… sadly, my account then crashed out in 2019 ( while I was updating my profile ) and I had to redrill some of the "lost years" to get them back!

Have fun, regardless ;)

Some of My Current & Future Thoughts…

• First & foremost, our accelerating Global climate change is continuing to worsen each & every day which helps to bring a frightening future that is *literally* already right upon us… a recent report shares a view
  
  On Thursday, September 27^th in 2024, Hurricane Helene was coming directly north towards us ( Sandy, me & our nearby family ) from the Gulf of Mexico at 150 mph—we were simply lucky as it swerved to the east & went right around us… a view of the 800-mile wide storm! Dozens were sadly killed by the storm, too with millions losing power to their homes for many weeks. The global climate change is also increasing both the frequency & the intensity of each years hurricanes, sadly making our future more difficult…
  
  US leadership under President Joe Biden had invested in attacking the issue; sadly, global actions continue to be *so* sadly annoying: leadership ( recently at the COP28 meeting; WiKi view ) keeps on shouting "Something ***Must*** Be Done!!!" yet they take no real action… Let's all hope ( & wish! ) that they all stop ignoring the upcoming disaster?
  
  As an FYI on this, knowledge of today's "greenhouse effect" was ascertained over 120 years ago by Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist who correctly predicted that increased carbon dioxide levels would substantially alter surface temperatures; NASA's recent report shares many references that are worth taking some time to read!
  
  I added some possible actions for you to consider?
  
  
• 2^nd the attack on Ukraine by the Russians in its 5^th year has many of us on edge… they are trying to push the Russian Army out with the US & others repeatedly trying to poke Vlad in the eye; all are sadly apparently unable to prevent the Russian occupation… donate?
  
  
• 3^rd as another thought on the climate disaster, President Donald J. Trump ( who remains a simply-stupid childish moron in so many ways ) on his opening day signed an executive order to pull the US out of the world's biggest coordinated effort to tackle rising temperatures. He also announced a "national energy emergency" to pare back many Biden-era environmental regulations & vowed to ramp up fossil fuel production with his "Drill, Drill, Drill…" statement; view a news report here
  
  He also dismissed a study of his own administration from 13 federal agencies & more than 300 leading climate scientists, warning of the potentially catastrophic impact of climate change stating "I don't believe it"… view a news report here
  
  See my updated Trump page?
  
  
• 4^th some of my "future thoughts" about certain upcoming events are here
  
  
• Finally, do go view some fresh global news?

Your comments are welcome on any of these thoughts!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

2026: This Year…

January brought Sandy & I (me) some pretty chilly weather, icing most of the country… we're lucky to have not lost power! Our annual resort trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico had to be canceled due to a family issue—next year is on the schedule!

We celebrated Sandy's 71^st birthday in mid-February & had a family wedding in late March!

Our taxes were due in April & are now all done with nothing too special; next year we'll have to manage her Mom's post-death distribution…

I spent a couple weeks in March/April, buffing each of my online eDiaries & expanding certain parts of them, such as expanding the 1960s in my 50's & 60's diaries, splitting out & expanding my 90's diary and expanding the info surrounding the 1963 death of my sister Dawn…

In late May I attempted to drop out of Windows 11 on my PC, which had reached a ridiculous state of sneaky crap, etc…
    I decided to try switching to Linux Mint, which was theoretically deployed to match the Windows world—turned out to be a bad idea!

One of the many tweaks that I attempted over several days turned into a major oopsie: as I was reinstalling Linux Mint again ( from the USB stick I had created ) I tried a different load approach which did work, yet completely destroyed the Windows installation on the C: drive of my PC… As there seemed to be no way to recover things ( I sure tried! ), I parked ( & have donated ) the now-dead 2+year-old PC & purchased a new one to solve the problem. Microsoft also did a corrective release in June, further improving my daily computing life!

Sandy spent an enjoyable 2-weeks up in Wisconsin, visiting friends & family in early July & my 71^st birthday is right around the corner!

I spent a long weekend from Friday 17^th of July through Sunday, chasing & testing some Python-based code… I had decided to try fiddling w/my Gemini AI online page to get it to write some dynamic code with my investments… it did so and ( after some tweaks ) is fully up & running, reporting any key stock-price changes!

The code is now established on my PC as an executable Windows Task, set to run on a 10-minute interval from 10am to 4pm EST, Monday-to-Friday, the time that the US stock markets are open… the NYSE, the Nasdaq, the DJ Industrial Average & the S&P 500

I asked the AI app to do this…
  "create a python-based app for my windows-based PC
    that starts each Monday at 10am US EDT & repeats every 10 minutes until 4pm, running again on each weekday to Friday
    to assess the current value of each of the stocks that are listed in my local CSV file;
    if the value of any listed stock in the prior 24 hours has grown or shrunk by 10% or more,
    send a text report of this event to me via eMail to dj.shave@gmail.com
    and update the file data"

It replied as follows: "To build a stock monitoring app on your Windows PC that checks stocks every 10 minutes during market hours & logs significant price changes, you can use Python with the yfinance & pandas libraries" which is the basis of the code that is running

Sandy & I are taking a cruise in early August, flying up to Anchorage in Alaska & then riding south on coaches & a train to Whittier ( visiting the Mount Denali area en rout ), a cruise on a 6,000-passenger ship, the MS Westerdam to Vancouver, spending a couple days there before heading home… Here's the plan—snap & details will be applied as they occur!

Date	Events	Arrival	Departure
Thu, Aug 6th	We fly north to Anchorage, Alaska, US Flight departs at 7:40am EST (leaving home at 5:30am), arriving via a stop to ATZ… a long day!! Transfer to the Hilton Hotel The town of Anchorage, beautifully situated on the Cook Inlet & surrounded by the Chugach Mountains is a hub of activity with everything from fine restaurants & frontier saloons to museums & art galleries	~1:17pm
Fri, Aug 7th	Talkeetna, Alaska Stay at the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge
Sat, Aug 8th	Talkeetna, Alaska Coach: Talkeetna/Denali Denali Natural History Tour on a bus Stay at the Holland America Denali Lodge
Sun, Aug 9th	Denali National Park, Alaska McKinley Explorer: On a train from Denali To Whittier We get on the ship & sail overnight from Whittier		8:00pm
Mon, Aug 10th	Cruising the Hubbard Glacier As we travel, we will come face to face with a gigantic wall of ice that fills your view & extends for miles in either direction. It's a titan on the move, advancing faster than almost any other glacier on the continent. When it reaches saltwater at Disenchantment Bay, the imposing architecture of this behemoth measures five miles in width & 40 stories in height, dwarfing even the largest ships. As you glide along this sparkling blue marvel, watch for seals basking on ice floes, listen for the loud, deep rumble & wait for the mighty crack & thunderous crash. At any moment, you could be witness to an eternal drama as nature's hand sculpts icebergs before your wondering eyes     Each event advisory is provided with our booking	In Port: 3pm	6pm
Tue, Aug 11th	Glacier Bay Route & time are subject to weather and ice As a Biosphere Reserve & UNESCO World Heritage Site, Glacier Bay National Park protects a unique ecosystem of plants & animals living in concert with an ever-changing glacial landscape. How does it feel when a monumental chunk of ice splits off a glacier & crashes into the sea? The sound is like thunder. The impact shoots water hundreds of feet into the air. You hold your breath as you catch the moment on film. Then you wait for it all to happen again. And it does. Glacier Bay has more actively calving tidewater glaciers than anyplace else in the world	In Port: 8:30am	6:30pm
Wed, Aug 12th	Skagway, Alaska, US The sidewalks are all but rolled up in Skagway come winter, so you can only imagine the frightful conditions endured by the gold prospectors who passed through en route to the Yukon, with a mandatory ton of supplies to be hauled with them over the steep & treacherous Trail of '98. Today, summertime visits to Skagway require nothing of the sort, but you can still ride the antique White Pass & Yukon narrow-gauge railway up through silvery-purple rock faces, past Deadhorse Gulch, to see what it was like back then. Take your time & poke into every little store from the Trail Bench to Lynch & Kennedy's Dry Goods. The Red Onion Saloon, with its honky-tonk piano & costumed barmaids, is a treasure trove of memorabilia featuring pictures of Klondike Kate, Peahull Annie & other vintage characters. To complete the picture of those rip-roaring days, visit the nostalgic Trail of '98 Museum. The Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park boasts restored buildings & wooden boardwalks that invite you to take a stroll into the past	In Port: 7:00am	9:00pm
Thu, Aug 13th	Juneau, Alaska, US Located at the foot of grand mountain peaks on the Gastineau Channel, the town of Juneau has the massive Mendenhall Glacier & the immense Juneau Icefields at its back door. Juneau is the place to let your imagination run wild. Explore the lush Tongass National Forest. Visit the rustic shops in town. Or get out & kayak, dogsled, raft, hike, whale watch, flightsee or fish. There's no end to the adventure because of the long daylight hours. Climb aboard the Mt. Roberts Tramway for a great spot to hike & shoot a souvenir photo	In Port: 8:00am	6:00pm
Fri, Aug 14th	Ketchikan, Alaska, US Built out over the water & climbing weathered stairways, Ketchikan clings to the shores of Tongass Narrows & drapes the mountains with a cheerful air. Besides the main attractions - Creek Street, the Tongass Historical Museum, Totem Bight State Park & Saxman Village, try a wilderness cruise to breathtaking Misty Fjords National Monument--a transformational adventure not to be missed. These deep water fjords left by retreating glaciers left granite cliffs towering thousands of feet above the sea & countless waterfalls cascading into placid waters. The souvenir photos you'll take from the pontoons of the plane are worth the trip alone	In Port: 11:00am	7:00pm
Sat, Aug 15th At Sea	Scenic Cruising Along The Inside Passage
Sun, Aug 16th	The last day on the boat… Vancouver, B.C., CA Galleries, boutiques, colorful public markets, restaurants of every ethnicity: this vital port city has them all. Visit vibrant Chinatown & Stanley Park, with its 1,000 acres of forests, gardens, lakes & lawns in the heart of the city. Possible shore excursions: Highlights of Vancouver & Granville Island; Stanley Park & Scenic Grouse Mountain We debark from the ship by around 7:00am Transfer: we go from the ship to a hotel in town	by 7:00am
Mon 17th & Tues 18th	We visit Vancouver… Day trip around Vancouver
Wed 19th Our last day of the trip	Sandy & I check out & fly home from Vancouver to ATL Depart at 6:50am, arrive at 5:05pm; Cab home, arrive by 9pm-ish Sleep!!

          The table may move to a separate page later

The rest of the year after Alaska will be shared later!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

The year of 2020 is the 1^st of this decade—the current year is above

Sandy & I (me) spent a couple weeks away in January of 2020, first visiting Nuevo Vallarta ( just north of Pueblo Vallarta ) at the Villa Del Palmar Flamingo's Beach Resort & Spa, an all-inclusive week with a view of the ocean, & then a 2^nd week with our friends in the "Gourmet group"…

In early February we decided to switch to a zero-gas car, a 2018 Leaf ( an equivalent view )

As March began & that stinking COVID virus became a danger to all, & I decided to spend a little time updating my "15-minutes of fame" history page, "Just In Case" the virus decides that my time is up… The rest of the month was quite quiet with as much stay-at-home time as we could muster, fending off any arrival of the virus. We had our nearby grandkids 2-3 times a week as their schools had closed & our daughter's patient-load went from busy to pretty rare…

April, May & June didn't bring much news other than a little excitement with Sandy's 2^nd hip-replacement & my moment when a scan of my kidneys ( by a new Doc ) highlighted an apparent swelling in my bladder… turned out ( checked/uncomfortably! ) to be "normal" with just my prostate being enlarged!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

July started out pretty quietly, with some web-site work for my 1985 Europe trip and my transition to into Medicare… Sandy & I visited our Alabama grandkids for the weekend mid-month!

August was pretty quiet… we did spend a weekend in a cabin at the Guntersville State Park with family, a nice visit at the end of August!

September's excitement was that my desktop computer decided to get old & die… a replacement was easy to setup & the transition went well / am working on this as I do this update!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

October brought us a need to refresh our "capabilities" test at AARP which saved us 20% on our auto insurance ( yes, more than a few schekles!! ) and the fun of weekly watching our 5-year old grandson hit the ball, running like a rabbit to 1^st base!!

Sandy & I each voted early for the Nov 3^rd national election, hoping like crazy at that time that a change in our US leadership will start to restore sanity… can happily say ( noted after the election ) that Vice-president Joe Biden beat the Trump campaign by 7 million votes!

I restored my World Community Grid account on my new PC around Thanksgiving in 2020, which allows anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet to donate their unused computing power to advance cutting-edge scientific research on topics related to health, poverty & sustainability. Through the contributions ( so far ) of over 650,000 individuals & 460 organizations, the World Community Grid has supported 31 research projects to date, including searches for more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS & neglected tropical diseases. Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems & new materials for capturing solar energy efficiently

         

December of 2020 came & went quite quietly here… lots of at-home time managing the COVID avoidance. Hoping it'll be better in a couple months!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

The Year of 2021…

Not much to report for the 1^st few months of 2021… Sandy & I (me) did each get the COVID-19 shots in Jan/Feb—neither were particularly nasty, & we've been staying well!!

We spent a week+ in May at a beachfront resort in the panhandle of Florida… a great ocean view from our room!

We spent an enjoyable month in July visiting friends & family in WI—great to catch up! There are many Facebook posts that were shared

On my dynamic family tree, I spent several weeks through August & September doing some major updates to improve the site… still not quite perfect, but quite a bit better!
Some changes/updates include:

• Both the text style & approach in my data were tweaked to improve the representation of the 90,000+ facts that the auto-creation tool uses to create the report;
  some are now better, others are still not! I also revised my personal page to summarize & eliminate the auto-generation glitches!
  
  
• I then added a "Continent" ( Europe, Asia, etc ) to the 6,500+ places in my tree
      To view some information for each of these, click here, scroll down to the "(Imagined-Mother)" & click her, and then click on her son, "Eratosthenes' Cousin, The
      (father-created) of Godolfr" to view them?
  
  
• I updated the Help page to improve & clarify the guidance ;)
  
  
• I then ensured that the living people ( 1,888 folk as of this update ) have *a minimal representation,* showing their reference ID, DOB, family data & a snapshot when available
  
  
• Finally, I spent some time writing some code to add the concept, "Cause of death is not known/NFIA" with enhancements to the many thousands of death details—as an example, see an older view of Ms. Amy Seely vs. the current report?
      90% of everyone in my tree did cease to live at some past point!!
  
      Should you observe ( if you're taking a look! ) someone whose death seems wrong, please feel free to share? Cheers!!

Bringing the year to an end, family birthdays were a blessing: October (Amelia), November (Landon) & December (Kelly) with a great Christmas celebration at our house!!
The snap shows (l-t-r)   [front] Landon & Max   [middle] Nora on Grampy Don's lap & Sandy with Amelia on her lap   [back] Quentin, Kelly, Kaci & Dave

My Family tree updates continued, with many new places & people; see the dynamic tree here? I also finalized some clarifications to the Help page for the tree structure to expand & improve the guidance! Again, should you observe ( if you're taking a look! ) things that seem wrong or wonky, please feel free to share? Cheers!!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

2022

I spent some time in early January for my 20-year remembrance of the death of my son, Alex… such a sad time considering the whys & whats for his decision to depart from us at such a young age

R.I.P. to my dearest Alex…

Sandy & I (me) flew down in late January to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico's Baja California peninsula to stay for 2 weeks… the first week was in Sunset Beach, followed by Blanco where we were joined by some of our family. Several snaps follow, click any to enjoy!

Sandy upon our arrival!	close-up	Don too ;)	at Dinner	at Lunch
Snaps	.	.
Views	.	.	.	.	.
Beach	.	.	.	Flower
From our window	.	.	Steps up to room!

A view from our room…

. . .

and of the back

A snap of Landon & Amelia with Kelly in the pool  ( click to view ); the 2 videos & with Sandy are partly why we came!!

Our very dear friend Srini Seshadri sadly passed away in February, 2022 after fighting cancer; Sandy & I (me) had visited him in Florida the year before & there was a celebration in Milwaukee about a year after (below)

The 25^th anniversary of our wedding was in late March, & we went out to Alpharetta's Lapeer Steak & Seafood restaurant for a great evening, celebrating with wine & all those memorial thoughts!!

April let us be blessed to have our Alabama grandkids stay with us for a week; both Max & Nora had fun with their cousins Landon & Amelia!!

Sandy & I also happily paid our taxes ( on time! ) with a small bill, spent a weekend down in Savannah in May & had our wills & trusts finally finalized! Flew up to WI for a week (mid-May) to celebrate Sandy's Mom's 90^th birthday—she's doing remarkably well!

After returning home, we had planned to have Max & Nora again for a couple weeks, but this sadly crashed out when Sandy's brother Danny died unexpectedly; we flew back up to WI again for a few days to attend his funeral

Sandy has been very busy all year, being the co-leader for the North Fulton Master Gardeners group where they're working to make life better for many! They're also on Facebook; view some of their recordings here… enjoy a couple!!

Our planned 3+week July visit to WI went very well! Sandy & I drove up, stopping overnight in Effingham & then staying near Lake Pewaukee for a week with Kaci, Dave & grandkids, riding on the lake & visiting SummerFest

We had an afternoon on Saturday, July 2^nd at Ali's house ( the lower ½ ) then up to Green Bay to stay with Tom & Amy to see the fireworks ( upper ½ )

We then all visited Kelly Lake to let the kids see their GGM & the family headed off home; we when on to spend some time visiting with
Karon & Dan ( 1^st snap ) & then out on the big lake ( 2^nd ) with a GREAT pilot!! We caught a snap of Erica's kids ( 3^rd ) & visited with an old friend ( 4^th )

The last few months of the year were generally fairly quiet, with some family activities ( grandkids, the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway, Halloween, all 4 kids at the house for a week !, etc )

Sandy & I voted (early) which was a zoo—the line took a couple hours!

Also spent a week in Florida ( Nov 5^th )
Landon's birthday ( Nov 25^th ), blowing out the candles!  
And my ongoing tree updates, specifically adjusting burial data for many people; here's my GrandDad's page, who passed on in August of 1971 & is buried in the cemetery at St. Nicholas Parish Church in Winterbourne Clenston… view the 2 snaps at his burial for visuals?

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

2023

In early January Sandy & I (me) flew down to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico's Baja California peninsula to stay at our timeshare for 3 weeks… Sunset Beach; couple snaps—click to enjoy!

The resort

View from our room

Sandy at dinner!

View from our door

Another view

Sandy & I traveled up to Wisconsin in February for a memorial after 1 year of his death on Saturday, Feb 11^th of Srini Seshadri, our very close friend who passed away in 2022… we sadly couldn't attend his funeral due to COVID

We also were blessed to stay ( for a short weekend ) with our Gourmet group friends at Chuck & Linda's—we had dinner with the group; we got to visit our family up nort' / sure snowed like crazy as we landed in Milwaukee!! Fortunately the sun shone brilliantly after that but the temps were quite brisk with the howling wind at 10℉… guess who forgot his coat as we went north!!

We then spent several days in February replacing our downstairs flooring—this really improved the general appearance!!

Sandy's Mom has been living since April ( as of this writing ) under care in a hospice near her home, with her every-day difficulties as she ages…

Sandy also spent a lot of time & work organizing the North Fulton Master Gardeners' annual flower sale, which made a great profit!!

Sandy & I enjoyed our grandkids thru the summer, who got to visit with us a few times! Max & Nora had a 2-week acting class near our house in June which they thoroughly enjoyed!

Our Gourmet group traveled south to us from several places to spend a weekend in April at the Brasstown Resort just 2 hours north of our home… Sandy orchestrated this, too, & we enjoyed dinner there!!

After enjoying our summer, Sandy & I spent 2 weeks in late September for a social gathering at a close friend's historic castle in Scotland… we also visited with my brother Alan & his family for a few days! The trip is captured here… enjoy the visit!

Sandy & I had a quiet Christmas day with our family ( either at home or traveling ) & an enjoyable week ending the year!

2024

January was generally a quiet month, with some of our normal annual tasks like thinking about/planning the year's calendar, making sure our household smoke & CO² detectors were up-to-date & active with new batteries (!), etc…

Sandy & I (me) also learned from an eye-surgeon visit in late-January that a not-so-good residual affect of one of the treatments for my '98 brain tumor ( specifically the "60 Grays in 60 Days" of radiation therapy ) had shown up. Our visit was to assess & possibly deploy a surgical solution for my "wandering eye" that had started showing up before our UK trip last September…

The eye-surgeon's assessment was that there was no surgery that he could perform, as the cause was most likely from a damaged nerve to my left eye. The arrival of this ( which is also causing some annoyingly tricky balance issues ) was **not** great news as it added to my existing list of difficulties like being unable to read a book due to the loss of my short-term memory & being unable to recall what I did yesterday etc…

<eSigh> but on the good side? Am not yet dead!!

Our February vacation with some of our family started on Saturday, February 3^rd where we flew south to Cabo San Lucas ( in Mexico's Baja California peninsula ), staying for a week at the Rose resort & then on to the Sunset Beach resort for our 2^nd week—the family left after the 1^st week after having fun++

Sandy's birthday arrived while we were in Mexico; here are a couple of our many snaps:

View from our Sunset Beach room

Snap of Sandy at dinner (in Rose)

Sandy's birthday dinner at Sunset Beach

Also a short video of Sandy's birthday dinner ( may download vs. playing / click the download? )

After our Mexico trip, Sandy had a really busy couple of months organizing & finally running the NFMG annual flower sale day on Saturday, April 20^th which has been running since 2001, generating income for the group—they made $20k in that year, quite an improvement!!

Sandy was also interviewed by our local TV station ( published on April 23^rd ) along with some of the hundreds of guests

Not much more to share for May or June, other than Sandy's ongoing support for family ( her Mom & her daughter Kaci's move ) & that the weather's been pretty nice!!

I am continually working on the annoying wandering eyeball ( see January, above? ); my doc started me up on a new med, Pyridostigmine to try & control it…
will keep you posted as ( well, **if**! ) it gets better!!

Sadly on August 17^th, Sandy's brother Randy unexpectedly died from a sudden heart attack at age 64 after being unwell for several months; an obituary was held a few days later

On Sunday, October 27^th we ( me, Sandy, her sister Amy+Tommy and our neighbors, Patti+Richard ) drove up to the town of Highlands in the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains to spend a long weekend in a lovely resort, visiting many of the nearby waterfalls, lighting & warming our toes at their fireplaces with wine, cheese & beer & enjoying the local food!

Sandy took a week+ trip up to Wisconsin in late November to visit her Mom & friends… Sandy & I also visited Jackie Stetina for her husband, Steve Kerr who had sadly passed away on November 30^th after fighting cancer for 2-3 months; we also visited his Remembrance on the 1^st weekend in January, 2025

We traveled out to Kaci & her kids for Christmas, a lovely time!

Have also spent a fair amount of time throughout that year, updating/refreshing many of my Websites, including this one!
    > My dynamic tree page, which today holds more than 18,000 people—see the development/stats info page here ( or the older one )?
    > I added some new threads to the Help page for my dynamic tree
    > I refreshed my Bio page
    > I added the "We Were Once Worms" idea & several others to my story…
Such updates will continue for my Website Matrix page, my 50's-60's / 2000's eDiary pages, my Definitions page & others… Enjoy!

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

2025: Last Year…

Sandy & I (me) visited Cabo San Lucas ( Mexico's Baja California peninsula ) for 3 weeks in January at the Sunset Beach resort view from our room… more may come!

February brought a busy month with Sandy's hand surgery ( from which she is quickly recovering as of this writing! )

I got my new iWatch ( which is pretty cool! ) that started flagging Atrial fibrillation for me in the 1^st week… am now setting up with a Cardiology doc after a quick check at my primary doc!

I also visited a new ENT doc for my ear ringing/deafness who advised that the issue is from my '98 brain surgery and that not much can be done other than a hearing aid; also advised that dropping a little mineral oil into each ear weekly could help. My visits to Reid ( the Physical Therapy & Spine clinic ) for balance improvements from my wandering eye aren't doing very much…

Sandy & I were also blessed to have daffodils pop up in our garden… Spring has Sprung!!

As Saturday, April 19^th rolled past in that year, I found myself thinking about my now 50-years-ago marriage to Jane… some interesting history!!

A few weeks later in May Jeanette Smith ( Sandy's Mom ) passed away around 8:30pm on Friday, May 9^th after fighting cancer—just a few days before her 93^rd birthday; she had stayed in a hospice, "The Cottages at Meadowlands" in Oconto Falls, WI for 2 years. Her funeral was held on Saturday, May 17^th in her church, the St. Michael's Catholic Church in Suring ( I flew up with Kelly for the weekend ) and Jeanette was then buried along with some of her family, her husband Leslie Sr, daughter Kathryn, and 2 of her sons, Dan & Randy at the Pine Hill Cemetery in the nearby Town of Spruce.

Sandy was finally able to return home after a month+ living there & working to help a few days later

Sandy & I (me) celebrated our joint 70^th birthdays on a Saturday in June at a really nice park in Sussex, Wisconsin!
We drove up from home to our resort on Lake Okauchee, WI over the previous weekend with Max & Nora ( 2 of our 4 grandkids ), arriving on Monday, June 23^rd;
Kelly & Quentin Gayles, Landon & Amelia ( our other 2 ) flew up too—my son Stuart was trying to fly up on Friday June 27^th but had bad weather & sadly couldn't fly…
We did several things there during the week before our birthday party: a Brewers ball-game with friends & a pre-game party:
Out on Jackie's boat ( I was not out with them! ) floating around Lake Okauchee

We visited Summerfest for a day, with a few snaps… riding the skyline
girls getting Henna tattoos
and riding home from Summerfest with Max & Landon out like a light!!
One of many eating out moments: Sandy snapped the family in Oconomowoc as they got ice-cream!
The kids were caught in a race, with my grandson Landon winning by a mile!!
etc, etc ………………

As Saturday, June 28^th arrived, Sandy & I drove to the park & did quite a lot of prep in the morning, setting up the coolers for beer, wine, waters & soda's, a dozen tables & chairs for the 80-ish people ( both friends & family, with 20+ youngsters ) who had accepted the invite.
Sandy & I then spoke briefly as lunch was starting, sharing our many thanks to all who came;
We continued after lunch to meet & be social around the room, table by table… Andy Rubin & Razia
Frank and Suzi Childress & Bob Senzig
Rick & Susan Ellner-Krumrei
Gail Vande Castle, Gary & Nancy Jeffers, Phyllis Kirschner, Regina & Rigo Estrada
Kristin Pagel, her son Clayton & her daughter Isabelle, Amy & Tommy VanDenLangenburg and their daughter, Ali
Laura Rowel, Kelly Gayles, Ali Leubbers
Will, Ben, Laura & Andy Rowell with Quentin Gayles
Marg & 5 grandkids ( some are Amy's ) with Lauren & Mike & Pagel and Caryl Pagel
Dave Worzalla & Maureen Coffee and Henry, Alli & Noah Pagel ( Jared Pagel's family; he is off to the right )
The Treptow family: Rob ( son of Darlene ), Bob Stutleen ( wife of Darlene ), Wayne Anderson & Cherie ( daughter of Darlene ) and Darlene
We then assembled outside as the family of Sandy: 17 grandkids & 11 couples
Many more snaps…Amy, Ali, Kelly & Sandy
David & Anna. Mike, & Lauren, Ali & Matt
Kelly & Quentin
Marg, Amy & Sandy
Sandy & Darlene
Gail, Phyllis, Jackie, Sandy & Susan
Tony deShazer ( who was with his wife, Marie-Laure ), Kris & Chris Bauer, Paul Hartke ( who was with his wife, Kathy ) & Dave Mliner

We then shut everything down after a delightful gathering around 3pm & headed out… such a great celebration!!

Checking out of the resort early-ish on Monday, June 30^th, Sandy & I drove 12+ hours to Max & Nora's home in Hartselle, Alabama—quite a long day, but far better than staying overnight! We got home around lunchtime on Tuesday, unpacked & relaxed!

July & August were spent mostly at home, with some website work by me & some less-than perfect family-related work out at Hartselle—otherwise, quite quiet!

Sandy & I then took a 10+day trip in September to Portugal, Europe for a Viking River Trip; details and many snaps are caught here!

October had Sandy's brief WI trip for Marg's birthday along with some annoying family distractions for her, and my creation of the concepts of Time… a nice page!

We sadly learned on Monday, November 4^th that Sandy's brother Brian had unexpectedly passed away at the age of 60 in his sleep on Saturday night—his partner Dan had called to advise us. View Brian's obituary from Fairland, Oklahoma ( which is where he had died ) here or his WI obituary for his family and friends… A Celebration of His Life was then held at the Blue Spruce in downtown Spruce, WI in late November

Other activities for me ( in November/December of that year ) were some updates to my Facebook tree page and building a report of my familial relationship to the biblical entity of Yahweh…
I then went on to create a particularly interesting and extensive 267-page joint family tree report, using RootsMagic's built-in Ahnentafel feature by adding ( temporarily for the report ) an imagined child to Sandy and me… This allowed for the creation of a display of my ancestral data with many thousands of people in hundreds of places across the world!

The people that are listed in the joint family tree report ( only 62 generations are shown of the 90+ that are in my tree, a limitation of RootsMagic ) do reach back into history, with our joint ancestor Fjolnir Yngvi-FreyrsSon in the report at page 166 ( scroll down? ), who was born around 256AD in Uppsala, Uppsala Län, Sweden, Europe as my 58^th GGF ( Sandy's 61^st ) but with limited overall information… Fjolnir is also shown as the 13^th person in the Yahweh report—this tree branch person continues back for a dozen generations to Yahweh ( who is also shown here at Ancestry ). Another joint ancestral person on that page is Jokull FrostasSon my 58^th GGF ( Sandy's 61^st ), who was born around 240AD in Finland, Europe

A table ( using 3 columns, ordered by surname ) is in the joint family tree report sharing each name and starting on page 167 ( with 4+ "(mother of …)" pages! ), followed by ( ~50 pages later, page 216 ) an alphabetical index of all the places that are used; clicking any of the page numbers shown in either of these tables will take you to the entry

In early December, our 2 grandkids ( Landon & Amelia ) had their Christmas snaps taken and we all then went to a nearby restaurant for dinner; my order arrived and as I started to eat the food, I discovered a sliver of glass in my spinach with the tip of my tongue… Ouch! ( click and zoom in to view… ) Not a disaster, but it sure was sore ;(

Another activity for me that month was to create a "future predictions" website, sharing the status of a dozen events that may occur in the next 1, 3 and 10 years… Also view a PDF of the matrix

Return to the top or visit my Home Page

---

The End of the Current Decade of the 2020's…

Well, that's pretty much the end of my current decade… visit the more recent decades here? You could also go to my Bio summary page, the personal profile that I created a few years ago, a page that shares my many years of work, my family tree page or visit my 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 some 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!! ;)