Ohio Covered Bridge Number Two

We are all surprised at how much our pickleball game has slipped since we left Chesapeake. So we are working at getting back into the game and playing with Rene and Mira. The internet is really strange here. It is a very strong signal at times and then we will completely lose the signal. We have never quite had this situation before so we aren't sure what that is about. The weather is just fabulous here and this park is beautiful. I can feel myself relaxing and breathing easier already. Here are some shots of another covered bridge.

Pirate Hideout and Ocean Waves

Ahoy! This is where the pirates be hiding!

And this is the beautiful ocean, full of big waves today!

Day One on the Monarch of the Seas

Happy Birthday to me (and Aric!). Today was my second favorite birthday gift ever. Aric being the first and ultimate best of course! He was 21 today, and it was odd to celebrate without us being together. I still think of Aric being like this:



Wait a minute, I still think of *me* being like this until the mirror sets me straight. Not sure how he became an adult so quickly though, but he is! We will celebrate with him after the cruise.



We work up early today and headed over to the place where we parked the car. They drove us to the port and that was the last we did any work for the next four days. We were there early enough that we boarded the ship very quickly and easily. We headed up to the buffet first thing so we could eat before it got super crowded. Then we walked around the ship to explore and take pictures while it was still fairly empty.



There is a lot to see on a ship this size. Each deck has different things and each one looked like lots of fun would be happening there.



We then headed to our room. We laughed as soon as we saw it because online people commented on how tiny the rooms are on this particular ship. We thought it was huge! I mean you can actually walk alongside the bed completely on the one side. There is room for a desk and there is a big closet. And we did not have to duck down while getting out of bed. I guess this is one time our low maintenance living gives us an advantage in living in other spaces. On the other hand, we get weirded out a bit when trying to stay in regular size houses so there is that trade off.



We went to the pool deck, sat in lounge chairs and read and watched the boat leave from there. We stayed there until dinner. Dinner was a wonderful experience. Our waiters were Putu and Dwight and they were the best.



When we were back from dinner, we met our room attendant. His name is Arson and he was fabulous too. We took it was a very good sign that the staff we encountered so far were great and we hoped that it would be the case across the board. I'm happy to say that it was.



Our nighttime fun for the first night was Karaoke and listening to the cover band Eclipse. We were very impressed with them! At the end of day one, we decided if this is what cruising is like, count us in. We decided we may still want to do cruises even after we get back to our vacation free life. It is a great experience even if not being used as a "vacation". We said we'll see what we think at the end of the cruise. We headed to bed somewhat early because I wanted to be on the first tender that headed out in the morning. It was a wonderful first day.

Antoine !

He's funny. I think. I'm nevercompletely sure.

He carries monumental loads of gear up to the crag, a huge BD pig full of bolting gear, music, stove, hammock, ropes and croissants.

He elegant, he's strong, he's ever so stylish.Don't hate him cause he's beautiful.
Antoine clips the first of a dense cluster of quickdraws.

That is a whole lotta muscle coming up that cliff underneath me. Twin chalk bags, big guns, odd shoes.

We talk and talk, then Antoine will say "enough philosophy, let's climb"


Belayers beware. The Big Frenchman likes skinny ropes and roller biners. When he comes off it's like a bison comingatcha.
What are the odds hey.jjobrienclimbing had the lens open at the exact moment Antoine released his energy burst.Lucky I was at a safe distance.





Antoine wears: soft shell by Mountain HardwearAgriculturalists cap by John Deer

The annual Coolum "Sendfest" is the biggest event on The Cave calender and isthe brainchild of Antoine Moussette. Antoine keeps the score.

Points are assigned to the each climber on the basis of.... or maybe get added to the crag score or....... or something about acumulative something...

I really don't get it, but jeez it's fun. We climb, and Antoine and I drink a lot of chai and coffee.

He claims to be from Quebec. But he sounds French to me.

Laurel Falls in Great Smoky Mountains NP

Today we headed to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We hiked the Laurel Falls Trail.

Laurel Falls is one of the most popular destinations in the park.

Laurel Branch and the 80-foot high Laurel Falls are named for mountain laurel, an evergreen shrub which blooms along the trail and near the falls in May

It appeared to me that the falls were not as abundant as they are sometimes, so I'm guessing the water levels must be low.

They were really beautiful! This is the upper falls.

Here you can see the upper falls and lower falls. The upper falls are in the far left corner.

The lower falls from below:

I didn't go down to the lower falls. Nathan and Aric did. They ended up having lots of excitement down there. I'll let Aric share it with you, which you can read on his blog here: Aric's Blog



If you go back and look at the first picture, it will give you a hint of what they got pretty close to down there.



Living the life in Tennessee.

In Copenhagen: a Dane asked me what is ‘happiness’?

Trivia: Did you know that the Danes are the happiest people in the world? Use google please for more info =)

It was a sunny day in Copenhagen with sporadic passing clouds. I wanted to enjoy my afternoon in the city with a glass of wine while people watching, something that is always in my agenda when I am travelling. Luckily, I found an available table at the outdoor terrace of the strategically located ‘Café du Norden’ on Stroget and Kongens Nytorv (the Kings New Square). Here, I met Bj.

That is Bj at my back before we actually met and had a chat.

I always carry my little black notebook with me and my Montblanc pen.

Bj is in his 50’s, lives in Copenhagen and works in the finance industry. He is married and has a daughter. He’s basically spending his afternoon chilling out with a beer in the city while his wife and daughter went to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, a unique open-air museum located by Oresund, about 42 kilometres north from the capital city. It is the same museum that I wanted to visit that same day, however, I wasn’t feeling very well so I decided to stay in Copenhagen instead.

We didn’t really talk about the Danish being the happiest people in the world or Denmark being the happiest country. We talked about Copenhagen and what brought me to the city. Then we further talked about travel. We talked about our jobs. We even talked about Christiania. Our discussion went deeper and we talked about life. About happiness.

Different people have different thoughts about what happiness is and what it means to them.

He asked me, ‘So, what is happiness to you?’

To me, happiness is relative. It is something of personal nature. The character, the personality, the person’s personal circumstances and the stage in life this person is in, will determine how that person will view and understand happiness.

Happiness to a 16 year old is different to someone who just recently graduated from university. Moreover, someone who is between 25 and 30 years old, who thinks he or she can conquer the world, will have a different view of happiness compared to a person in his or her mid to late 30’s who have other factors in life to consider, i.e. children, a more stable job, etcetera. When we reach our 40’s, our take on happiness will be different as well—I know this personally because I am at this stage currently. I am sure that reaching our 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, another state of happiness will enter into the picture.

With that, I believe that happiness is a state of achieving contentment, which is a continuous and evolving process throughout the stages of our lives.

If I look back at what made me happy before, it humbles me big time. I have gone so far in life. So I try to hold on to these snippets of my bygone days to keep my feet firmly on the ground. I try to be grateful each day and to always go back to the basics.

I can honestly say that I have gone past the material happiness stuff. I do not anymore feel the nagging need to constantly prove myself, to be accepted by others, to be number 1 at work and to be the best at whatever situations and circumstances I find myself in. Importantly, I have learned that happiness is something that we ultimately can control and can decide.

Right now, what makes me happy are my travels-discovering the world and being with the Dutchman.

Another picture of me and Bj before we actually had the chat.

View on Kongens Nytorv, the Kings New Square.

The afternoon went fast and before we knew it Bj and I have to part ways. His family will be home anytime soon and they are expecting him for dinner while I am faced at the challenge of finding a restaurant.

I thanked Bj for his time and for the thought-provoking discussion we shared.

Now it’s my turn to ask you—What is happiness to you? What will honestly, at this very moment, make you happy? Will you go for it?

There simply aren't enough hours in the day

For some time, I've been contemplating creating a Public Member Tree on ancestry.com. Yesterday I uploaded a small gedcom file to use as a little test. It was created from Legacy using the default options, which essentially means everything would be included, except what was marked as private. Basically, I was trying to determine, and understand, how the data gets parsed and how it displays on a person's profile page.



The file consisted of just a few generations of Mom's ancestors and contained 58 people. Within seconds of uploading the gedcom there appeared 57 ancestry hints! A few minutes later 21 of those people had a total of 194 hints. What is that figure going to be if I upload a database of 5000 dead people? More than a little overwhelming, I think.








I perused about half of those hints and didn't discover any new information. In fact, the stories and photos that I viewed were from my blog or stuff I've shared over the years with other people. The record hints were mostly census records.




As far as how the data displayed - at first it didn't make a lot of sense. I may not like it, but I think I now understand why it is done the way it is.




I was somewhat concerned about the General Notes and Research Notes that I've got in my Legacy file. There's stuff in those Notes that I don't particularly want to share just yet. In the past that was where I put "temporary" information. When I had access to the internet for research and I'd find something it would go there until I got around to reviewing it and entering it into the events or facts for the individual. I've just never gotten back to it. Notes are also where I put the stuff that has not been "proven" to my satisfaction along with thoughts and analysis. Rather like a "holding bin" of sorts. Where other people might have piles of paper on their desk, I've got bunches of notes. The result is the same, it all just sits there waiting for that wonderful time called "round-toit" to show up.




Thankfully, the General Notes and Research Notes in Legacy went into a "Notes" area on the ancestry online tree that appears to be hidden. There is a notation on that screen that "Notes can only be viewed by the owner and by those invited to the tree as an "Editor."




Handling of events was a little strange, I thought.




Events were added to the online tree using the Event Name, Description, Date, and Place as they were in Legacy, which is good. But the "Notes" that I've added for each Legacy event went into an area that is available only by clicking on the "Unsourced Citations" link.






After clicking on the name of the Source Citation another screen displays and you have to click on "(view source details)" to see the entire citation.






This is where the detail information for the source is displayed. If any "Comments" have been added in Legacy regarding the source, they are included in the "Notes" area of the "Source Information" screen.








This is the screen that displays when you click on the "Unsourced Citations" link of an event. The text in the "Other Information" area is the notes that were entered in Legacy for that particular event.




That's a lot of clicking... will anyone click through all those screens to see the details or additional information? Doubtful.




After 2 hours of viewing various people and screens, the test tree was deleted. It had been a long time since I had created a gedcom from Legacy so I spent a little time looking at the options. In the test gedcom, I left the options at the default, which basically means everything would be included, except that marked as private. But there is a little button in the lower right corner that says "customize." Clicking on that button brings up a screen that looks rather intimidating at first.




What's cool is that it allows you to exclude "groups" of items such as Events, Medical Notes, Regular Notes, Research Notes, To-Do Items, and (gasp) even Sources.








The "Customize" screen for exporting a gedcom from Legacy.


I have so many events for some individuals that their profile screen in the online tree was extremely cluttered. I also have a lot of "special" or custom events created for my own use. In addition, I already have a lot of "Census" events so if I were to add the hints for census records as an event in the online tree, there would be a lot of duplication.



What I am now considering is uploading a rather "bare bones" file without events and notes but including sources. Such as they are. Then, I will selectively add "stories" from blog posts (as suggested by Apple) as well as adding "stories" as explanations for some of my conclusions regarding certain relationships.



My database is not perfect. It's not done. It never will be. There are some relationships entered that are purely speculation on my part, and some that are probably outright wrong. But if I wait until everything is "right" it won't ever get put online. On the one hand, I may be adding more misinformation to the multitude of misinformation already out there. Will that come back to haunt me some day? On the other hand, I know I have information that could resolve some of the misinformation on certain families.



So I'm still in a state of flux in deciding whether to put my database online, and if so, how much of it to share. Do I include events and sources? I don't particularly like how the events get imported but I also don't want to spend a lot of time adding things to the online tree. Do I put up a tree with just the ancestors? Or do I include all 5000 deceased persons in the database? Decisions. Decisions.