Tag: family memories

18.263k days or .5c yrs

MyBabyPhoto64
Me (late 1964)

Good morning!

And Happy Birthday to myself.  I’ve crossed over.  I’ve reached another dreaded milestone.  Today is the first day of my fifth decade.

To make myself feel better about this dubious event, I’ve reverted to two of my favorite past times:  math and astronomy.

I decided to calculate how many days I’ve been breathing air on Earth.  For that I had to find a date calculator.  Plugging in the relevant date (today in 1964 and 2014), the following results popped up:

From and including: Friday, October 2, 1964
To and including: Thursday, October 2, 2014
Result: 18,263 days

It is 18,263 days from the start date to the end date, end date included

Or 50 years, 1 day including the end date

Alternative time units 18,263 days can be converted to one of these units:

1,577,923,200 seconds
26,298,720 minutes
438,312 hours
18,263 days
2609 weeks

In addition, the Earth is travelling through space, via the Milky Way, at the incredible speed of 3,728.23 mps.  Roughly, the Earth has moved 5.88286061194e+12 miles since I was born, give or take a few.  That equates to approximately 63,256.57 astronomical units.  A rolling stone gathers no moss . . .

And the .5c I included in the title of this post?  No, I’m not travelling at half the speed of  light (except in my dreams).  I’m merely reflecting upon reaching my half century mark.

I decided to make a four day weekend out of this auspicious occasion so I’m relaxing at home, reading and doing other none stressful activities.  No parties (that I know of) and no surprises.  Just Terry, me and the dogs hanging out.

Just another day in the neighborhood.  Eighteen thousand two hundred sixty-three and counting.

Update from the Eastern Front

My grandmother, Doris, often wished she could reconnect with her mother’s relatives in Europe in her latter years.  But the ravages of two World Wars followed by the dropping of the Iron Curtain across most of eastern Europe made genealogical research nigh impossible.

I was reminded of this frustration this morning while I listened to The Guns of August on my commute to work. I’m reading this Pulitzer winning non-fiction book as part of the Kansas City Public Library and the National Word War I Museum‘s Great War | Great Read program to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I.

http://www.kclibrary.org/greatwar

I’d reached the fifteenth chapter, which began a shift of focus from the Western Front in August 1914 to the Eastern Front with the appropriate title ‘The Cossacks are Coming!’  About halfway through my commute, I recognized the name of my great-grandmother’s home town, formerly known as Stallupönen, but since reclaimed and renamed multiple times over the last century.
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Article: What happens to your online accounts when you die?

What happens to your online accounts when you die?

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2014/Digital-afterlife:-What-happens-to-your-email,-other-accounts-when-you-die-and-don’t-specify?%2Fid-07bd94e6e92c4333bb8f4dd1bfe7e844

I need to read my Terms of Service more closely.  I had planned on passing on my password archive to my descendants but that may actually be prevented according to the ToS.

Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon

Can’t Phone Home

I dialed a phone number yesterday that I’ve had memorized all my life … literally.  It’s the phone number I grew up with.  It was the first phone number I learned.  I dialed it from my work phone, and it rang and rang and never got answered by the answering machine.  Odd, I though to myself.  Next, I tried my cell phone.  Almost immediately I got the “You have reached a phone number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service” message.  That got my attention.

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Puzzled

Last year, my daughter gave me a puzzle for my birthday.  Last week, in a fit of household reorganizing (aka decluttering), I decided it was high time I cracked open this box to see if I could still climb the puzzle mountain.

Being only 550 pieces, I did not feel daunted at the prospect.  My grandmother and I used to put together three or five thousand piece puzzles during the summer months when I was in grade school.

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An Angel Appeared

Yes, an angel appeared in our front yard.

angel

Thanks to a great sale at our local K-Mart, we snagged the angel at half-price, along with some LED net lighting which we will install later this week over our bushes.

Sadly, it got up to nearly 60 degrees here in Kansas today, so the snow we had this past weekend melted completely.  At least I managed to burn most of the wood that had been languishing in our wood pile during our extreme cold spell last week.

second snowNo snow forecast for the next ten days, outside of some freezing rain/drizzle this weekend.  Our Christmas forecast does not look like a white one.

Treats for Rotts

Late Sunday morning, taking advantage of the unseasonal warm fall weather, I cleaned the Bonneville inside and out.  I did this in anticipation of treating my hubby and my dad to a birthday dinner later that afternoon.

By Monday morning, though, I had to re-install the seat protector in the back because we had a nine o’clock appointment at the vets for both Apollo and Lexy.  They both behaved very well in the lobby, even though another young male Rottweiler was being picked up by its owner.  He was quite rambunctious and excited to see his owner.

treats for Apollo and Lexy

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Birthday Bonanza

I scramble every year during this second week of November.  When I was a kid, I only had to remember that my dad’s birthday was the 18th.  Then, as I got older, approaching my adolescence, I added my uncle (my father’s younger brother) on the 17th.  Yes, that’s right, one day before my dad.  They are separated by four years minus one day.  Also, their youngest sibling, my aunt, falls in November, but thankfully it’s after Thanksgiving.

I left home and went off to college in Wichita, where I met my future husband (thirty years ago this past September).  I won’t share that story in this post, as it’s a poorly kept secret among close relatives and friends.  I shouldn’t have been surprised though to discover that his birthday falls on November 14th, four days before my dad.

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A Bunch of Little Bits Make a Big Whole

Today’s gratitude journal post may be a bit rambly.  I don’t have a cute photo to share.  I’m not feeling extraordinarily witty either (not that I’m ever anything but marginally witty).  Nothing momentous has occurred in the last twenty-four hours in my small sphere of space.  But often it’s the little things that add up to the best moments.

I came home last night to some of the best grilled chicken courtesy of my hubby’s wonderful rub and grilling skills.  Hands down it was hundreds of orders of magnitude better than the barbecued chicken I tried at the baseball game.

After dinner, we hung clingy clear plastic drop cloths in the main bathroom to prep for painting the ceiling.  We managed to complete that task without too many harsh words or bodily harm.

We took the dogs, Lexy and Apollo, on a short walk after sundown.  I could see the almost quarter moon easily, as well as Venus and Saturn (near the moon).  Terry and Lexy headed home early and Apollo and I walked for another twenty minutes.  I didn’t see many children out playing (a couple of teenagers) because school starts this week.  Summer break is over for them.

Terry is taking both dogs to the vet today.  We’re not sure what’s going on with Lexy.  She’s got a spot up near her left shoulder-blade that she keeps trying to scratch.  We’ve treated her for fleas and ticks and inspected her skin.  We gave her a bath.  She’s still scratching that spot.  Terry’s worried she may have been bitten by something.  Lexy will get a pedicure from the vet as well.

We’re also worried about Apollo.  He’s been lethargic lately.  And he has a growth on his back that we’ve had the vet look at before.  Terry wants a needle biopsy done, so poor Apollo will get poked this afternoon.  I can’t remember if he’s getting a pedicure or not like Lexy is.

All of them will get some sort of treat on the trip back home from the vet, probably mini-cheeseburgers.

So, today, and every other day, I’m grateful for my husband.  He’s great at so many things:

  • grilling
  • home improvement
  • pet care
  • being awesome

My life would be empty without him.