Mil Gracias Rio !

And we mean it! The games of the 31st Olympiad have meant a lot to us. One thing it has meant is that we have something to watch instead of the status of the political campaigning. Just kidding, but not entirely.

When we started watching we were wondering how the games would proceed given the numerous negative reports -- but except for the one incident (our own doing) the games have been fun to watch.

From the Opening Ceremony up to the Closing Ceremonies (in a few hours) all has gone well. And from the medal count shown above especially for the USA.

We watched so many of the events that it will be fun to see some of the participants in the closing. We really enjoyed a variety of sports especially the volleyball, swimming, some of the biking, running and other track & field events and some of the other water events.

We will have to wait four years to see the summer games again, in Tokyo. Many of the current players have to decide whether to devote another four years of training to compete then, we'll see who that is then.

But as you can see in the above graph, we only have to wait two years for the next Olympics, the Winter Games held in South Korea in 2018 -- those are always fun too.

And then four years after those winter games will be the Winter Games in China in 2022.

And besides the Olympics what took up a lot of my time this week -- organizing and filing my digital files . . .



Those of you who know me, know how much I insist  on a neat and tidy desk -- not. Well the same is true for the thousands, maybe more than that of digital files that find themselves parked somewhere in my digital filing cabinet.

The above two programs I have had installed for some time, but have not really used them to their potential -- until recently after reading a book on Evernote (by Kerry Scott) and listening to a podcast by Drew Smith and to articles in Dick Eastman's blog (EOGN).

I finally took up the challenge and am using those two programs to organize genealogical files as well as my personal files too. It is addictive. Thank you to the above mentioned folks for helping me to begin.

Besides the above activities we are starting another new book.

It must be the spirit of the Presidential election or something but we are listening to "Killing Reagan" by Bill O'Reilly and now starting to read "Five Presidents" by Clint Hill.

The "Five Presidents" is by Clint Hill who was one of the secret service agents who worked for all five presidents in the seventeen years of his service.

So far very fascinating and coupled with the account of the secret service agent who protected Reagan, most illuminating.

So political related books (we are also reading and watching "Legends & Lies, the Patriots")  and the actual current campaign gives us truly an abundance to ponder.

And lastly, in this abbreviated post, I got to thinking
that I do spend a lot of time working on searching the family tree.

And I do spend "some money" on the search as well.

Then I saw the quote by Twain and got to thinking, maybe it would be a good idea to  . . . NO WAY.

Politics is not for me -- I'll be an observer and a voter but not a person who throws their "hat into the ring".




Speaking of money -- we got to wondering how much an Olympic Gold Medal might be worth.

Apparently the Gold Medal, is worth pretty close to $600 currently. It weighs close to a pound and is made up of mostly silver covered in pure gold. But besides monetarily an Olympic Gold Medal is worth SO much more.

That was a bit of our week. See you all "in a few"!