Play Ball! In Town, All Around . . .

It has rained part of everyday this week here -- and for that we are thankful! But, this morning it is bright and sunny and it is supposed to stay that way all day. It is amazing how the sunshine impacts mood -- even Dino seemed to have a better outlook.

So we went out in the backyard this morning and after playing "catch" I took some snaps of the sun-filled yard:

The blossoms are out on the Dogwood and even a geranium bloom was out. Dino rested poolside after chasing some of his toys -- of the five different toys (he has his favorites) some he will retrieve.

The air is crisp and clear and soon it will be time to empty the pool-house of the winter storage items and get ready for visitors . . .

Important Dates from Folks in the Tree

There are numerous birthdays for our folks this week and all month. Even the wedding anniversaries have increased this week (7):

I only recognize a few, you may know more . . .


Big Week -- For Big Leagues and Little Leagues 

We haven't been fans of watching early baseball games on TV in the past few years, but for some reason we had a few openings in our viewing schedule this season so we taped some of the early games, mostly of the San Francisco Giants.

We made it part way through the first couple of games and either it was the fact that the announcers almost put us to sleep or there wasn't much going on, on the field -- until yesterday's Giants/Dodgers game.

The Dodgers scheduled their home opener versus the Giants on a sun-filled afternoon at Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles. Sadly for the Dodgers, the Giants got six runs in the first inning and then two more in the second. It was enough to keep our interest for the entire game.

We recorded the game so with four clicks at a third out, we started the next at-bats right away. I have seen games that start out lop-sided and then end up with the "other" team catching up. Fortunately for the Giants they kept their lead to the end even though LA got partway close . . .

Now, Little League action is on both diamonds behind our house and we can hear the cheering and peer over the fence a bit to see some of the action. The festivities included large inflatable climbing toys for the "kids" not playing ball.

I have to say that "opening game" festivities back East probably did not take place as scheduled due to some areas getting snowed once more this year. The scary part for us is the drought situation -- even with rain these past few days, we are not looking forward to long periods of no-rain.

This Week's Doings

Genealogically speaking, I was involved all week working on pictures. I have hundreds, if not more, pictures that have not been edited, meaning taking some of the scratches out, enhancing some colors and things like that.

Again, the real sad thing for me is to have in my possession so many pictures of a known relative standing with others who are probably relatives -- but are not identified. Most of us are guilty of not identifying certain pictures for a variety of reasons.

The above thumbnails represent just a few of the folks that I worked with this week. Picture management is a major time consumer for me -- I might work on cleaning up one photo for even an hour or more before being satisfied that it is better than before and a "keeper".

I am also concerned about the format in which to store the photos -- I have been trying to convert all photos to a ".png" format as opposed to a ".jpg" format due to the fact that with ".jpg " there is the possibility of losing quality each time you open the picture.

I am also taking the time to name each photo and to add the identification of individuals and other information that I know about . . .

Down the road -- way down the road -- the question comes up as to who will be able to view the photos if they are only stored and not physically printed. Will DVDs or other media be accessible or usable.

Webinars Coming Up

Last Wednesday I attended the really well-done webinar presented by Legacy Family Tree Webinars with Thomas MacEntee on "7 Habits of Highly Frugal Genealogists". In the webinar Thomas actually presented about 15 habits which made economic sense while working in the world of genealogy and elsewhere.

Above (click to enlarge) you can see the upcoming webinars from Legacy --  and as a matter of fact in just a little while a special Saturday webinar is scheduled on "Googling Around with Google and other Technology" presented by Geoff Rasmussen -- so I'm planning on attending that this afternoon.

Then you can see the two webinars scheduled for next week which I plan on attending as well.


That was a bit of our week -- and this being Saturday, tonight it is . . . burgers (and watching another ballgame, maybe)