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 (this page) |
2010’s |
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 ;)
Some of My Current & Future Thoughts…
- First & foremost, our accelerating Global climate change is continuing to
worsen
each and every day,
bringing a frightening
future
that is *literally* already right upon us…
Hurricane Helene was coming directly towards us (Sandy & family near us) on Thursday, September 27th from the Gulf at 150 mph—we were simply lucky as it swerved East and 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. The global climate change is also increasing both the frequency and the intensity of each years hurricanes, sadly making our future more difficult…
Today’s US leadership under our 46th President, Joe Biden has invested in attacking the issue as well as Joe’s other recent activities; 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 (and 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 current report shares many reports & references that are worth taking some time to read!
I added some possible actions for you to consider? - 2nd,
the continuing attack on
Ukraine
by the Russians 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?
- 3rd,
the ongoing fiasco with our prior
president (yes, that one is a little stale but sure is funny!!)
has had his $83.3 million defamation charge pushed out to after the election on Thursday by a judge; this was ordered to pay
Ms. Carroll—based on his attacks after she accused him of sexual assault—the
case
made the payment due on March 9, 30 days after the decision but it was legally delayed…
His May-2024 finding at the court
case
being tossed out by the early July, 2024 Supreme Court decision:
[6 of the 9 judges] “concluded that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere
of constitutional authority [as] not all of the President's official acts fall within his ’conclusive and preclusive’ authority”
eliminating any actual chance that he might actually be jail-bound ;(
At the July 18th closure of the GOP 2024 Convention in Milwaukee, after his 90+ minutes of meanderingly sharing his endless lies (where he did reinforce several threads)… they then dropped 100,000 balloons—it’s really nice to note that President Joe Biden’s thoughts on this remain private; I would personally bet that they’re mostly chuckles :)
Joe also announced on the 21st of July that he had decided to resign for a couple of reasons, allowing his VP, Kamala Harris to become the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate…
Not a shock, but Trump and his idiotic VP are apparently feeling screwed!! - 4th,
some of my “future thoughts” about certain upcoming events are
here
- Finally, do go view some fresh global news?
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2024: This Year…
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 and active with new batteries (!), etc…
We 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” 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 3rd 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 2nd week—the family left after the 1st week after having fun++
Sandy’s birthday arrived while we were in Mexico; here are a couple of our many snaps:
.jpg) 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 20th
which has been running since 2001, generating income for the group—they made $20k this year, quite an improvement!!
Sandy was also
interviewed
by our local TV station (published on April 23rd) along with some of the hundreds of guests; click the “play” button to watch?
Not much more to share for May or June, other than Sandy’s ongoing support for family (her Mom & her daughter Kaci’s move) and 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 and control it…
will keep you posted as (well, **if**!) it gets better!!
Sadly on August 17th, 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 27th we (Sandy, her sister Amy+Tommy and our neighbor, 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 and warming our toes with wine, cheese and beer at their fireplaces and enjoying the local food!
Have also spent some time to date this year, updating/refreshing many of my Websites, including this one!
> My dynamic tree page, which today holds 18,149
people—see
the development/stats info
here?
> 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!
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2020, the 1st year of the decade—The current year is shared above
We 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 2nd week with our friends in the “Gourmet group”…
We had been thinking for a while about a fuel-efficient car that was worth the investment & decided to get this low-mileage 2018 Leaf in early February
.jpg)
As March began & the virus became a danger to all, I decided that I needed 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 2nd hip-replacement & my moment when a scan of my kidneys (new Doc) highlighted an apparent swelling in my bladder… turned out (checked/uncomfortably!) to be “normal” with just my prostate being enlarged!
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July started out pretty quietly, with some web-site work for my 1985
Europe trip
and my transition to into Medicare… we 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!
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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 1st base!!
We each voted early for the Nov 3rd 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 and sustainability.
Through the contributions (so fare) of over 650,000 individuals and 460 organizations, the World Community Grid has supported 31 research projects to date, including searches for more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS and neglected tropical diseases.
Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems and 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!
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The 2021 Year…
Not much to report for the 1st few months of 2021… we did each get the COVID-19 shots in Jan/Feb—neither were particularly nasty, and 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 and 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 included:
-
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 still not! I also revised my page to summarize & eliminate the auto-generation glitches! -
Added the “Continent” (Europe, Asia, etc) to each of the 6,500+ places in my tree; to view some place information for this, click
here,
scroll down to “(Father-Created) of Godolfr”
and click that link to view the places? -
Updated the Help page to improve & clarify the guidance ;)
-
Ensured that each of the living people ( ~1,800 folk ) have *only a minimal* representation, showing just their reference ID & a snapshot
As an example of how this now works, will share the status of my Mum’s brother, Uncle Joe (who died in April, 2020) where his marriage to my Auntie June and their children
(who are all living as of this update) are not shown
Open the tree search page, enter my Auntie’s name, “June Rawlings” and click to see her tree page… this will share a photo of her (snapped with their son, Colin)
Click her “Family Explorer” link to view my Uncle Joe, her parents & grandparents (none of whom are living) yet *not* her children, who are living
Clicking on Joe, his page will show all the data I have about him, although their marriage & their children are not shown here as all are living;
examining Colin’s explorer link shows only his Dad vs. both parents -
Finally, I spent some time writing some code to add "Cause of death is not known / NFIA" & enhancements to the ~13,500 unknown deaths—see the prior
view
vs. the
current?
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) and December (Kelly) with a great
.jpg "2021 Christmas")
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 and people; see the dynamic tree
here?
I also finalized some clarifications to the
Help
page for the tree structure to expand and 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!!
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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…
We 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 to enjoy!
 Sandy upon our arrival! |
 close-up |
 Don too ;) |
 at Dinner |
 at Lunch |
|
 Snaps |
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|||
 Views |
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 Beach |
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 Flower |
|
 From our window |
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 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; we visited him in Florida the year before and there was a celebration in Milwaukee about a year after
The 25th anniversary of our wedding was in late March, and 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!!
We also happily paid our taxes (on time!) with a small bill, spent a weekend down in Savannah in May and had our wills & trusts finally finalized!
Flew up to WI for a week mid-May to celebrate a 90th birthday for Sandy’s Mom, who’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!
We drove up, stopping overnight in Effingham & then staying near Lake Pewaukee for a week with Kaci, Dave & grandkids, riding on the lake and visiting SummerFest
We had an afternoon on Saturday, July 2nd at Ali’s house (the lower 1/2) .jpg)
then up to Green Bay to stay with Tom & Amy to see the fireworks (upper 1/2)
We then all visited Kelly Lake to let the kids see their GGM and the family headed off home; we when on to spend some time visiting with
Karon & Dan (1st snap).jpg)
and then out on the big lake (2nd) with a GREAT pilot!! We caught a snap of Erica's kids (3rd) and visited with an old friend (4th)
The last few months of the year were generally fairly quiet, with some family activites (grandkids/Blue Ridge Scenic Railway, Halloween, all 4 kids at the house for a week (!), etc)
We voted (early) which was a zoo as the line took a couple hours!
Spent a week in Florida (Nov 5)
Landon’s birthday (Nov 25), blowing out the candles!
And my ongoing tree updates, specifically adjusting burial data for many people; here’s my
Grandad’s
page, who passed on in August of 1971 and is buried in the cemetery at St. Nicholas Parish Church in
Winterbourne Clenston…
view the 2 snaps at his burial for visuals?
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2023
In early January we 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 |
We traveled up to Wisconsin in February for the one-year memorial on Saturday, Feb 11th of
Srini Sheshadri,
our very close friend who passed away a year ago… we sadly couldn’t attend his 2022 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!!
We 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, and we enjoyed dinner there!!
After enjoying our summer, we 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!
We had a quiet Christmas day with our family either at home or traveling & an enjoyable week ending the year!
The End of My 2020’s Page…
Well, that's about it for this decade’s section of my eDiary; see the past 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!! ;)