Geneology and Family Tree

At the end of 2007, a friend turned Monica and I on to Geni, where you can create a family tree and make all of your relatives members and then can add to the tree and add their relatives and so on and so on. Essentially it's viral* family tree.

Monica and I each had family trees that were put together from our father's sides and were able to add a lot of relative beyond what we might know off the top of our heads. Then my parents both got involved and talked to my grandmother and filled out as much of their families as they knew. And slowly we're adding some (geographically) distant cousins who are adding their families. And we're searching on the internet to see if we can find people.

One of the neatest parts of searching for information was having my mom go through her old records and searching the Ellis Island records and finding the official records where my grandmother (mom's mother) and her brother and parents came to the United States. It's also somewhat surprising to find information that conflicts.

I hope as time goes by other members add to the tree. Anyone who is married into the family has a whole tree to add. And I'm going to start searching Facebook to find many of my third cousins who I don't know at all.

If you're in my family, let me know and I can give you access to the tree. Or think about starting your own family tree.

Happy New Year

Best wishes for a terrific 2008. Maybe this will be the year Monica blogs.

I sent our New Year's letter out this AM so you know what we've been up to. If you didn't get it let me know.

I'm already off to a good start, completing a couple of small projects around the house and having a winning day in poker.

My latest project is working on our family tree on Geni. More on that later.

Event Planning and Scheduling

The lack of foresight by generally intelligent people never ceases to surprise me. Monica and I spent a couple of years working on a large dinner and fundraising auction and likely will again for a different organization. So I always pay attention to how other people plan their events and take mental notes on things they do and don't think about.

And one thing people don't think about is scheduling. Monica found a charity auction for a Jewish organization she wanted to attend. But when she told me the date, I realized it was Super Bowl Sunday. I realize not everyone cares about the Super Bowl at the level I do, but on average 1/3 of the country was watching and nearly 50% of all people in the United States watched part of the game. Why schedule any event opposite that, unless it's a direct appeal to the non-football crowd?

A couple of days ago we got a "Save the Date" for Village Theatre's auction; that's the event where Monica won her walk on role in Hello Dolly and we were looking forward to going this year. They've moved the event from a March weeknight to a May weekend, where it conflicts with a couple things for us. (And they doubled the price to $200 and changed the venue from Issaquah to Seattle. Three strikes you're out.) The conflicts are somewhat specific to us, but when you pick the 3rd Saturday in May a number of people who are used to going to VT are going to have a conflicting event and you'll lose them. Not to say you can't do this, but I doubt there was much thought put into this.

And the kicker! This week I was emailed about two fun events. One is about Jews and chocolate with lots of chocolate samples (yum) and the other is a presentation at EMP about the music behind the Disney theme parks. I'd like to go to both and Monica would like the chocolate one. However both are the evening of February 14th. As my financial planner said "Remember, February 14...and don't think you can get away with doing something early and skipping the special notes, cards and flowers on the 14th." Personally Valentine's Day is my least favorite holiday, but even I recognize that most people are going to have plans that night.

With only 365 days and thousands of events, obviously there are going to be conflicts. But you think you'd think reasonable people would try to avoid major conflicts, whether "major" is the significance of the event or the sheer number of people impacted by it.

Welcome to our Blog

After years of resisting I got inspired to create a blog. In theory this is a blog for both Monica and me (and Hunny Bear and Jasmine too, though lacking an opposable thumb I don't think either will be blogging much), though I expect I'll create at least 95% of the content.

My goal is to create semi-regular posts to share with friends and family what's happening in our lives or just what we're thinking about. As well, finding the photos from Monica's stage debut for our holiday letter made it clear that I really need a good place to upload an occassional photo or two.

I expect I'll talk mainly about sports, poker, vacations, and dogs (really, just wait) but it could be anything that's topical, like the weather (!).