mormonism 2 Comments

Great-great-great Grandpa Cook

I finally found some microfilm I want to request from my local Family History Center.

I’ve had a really hard time locating the parents of my Grandpa Cook’s grandfather, William Henry Cook. I almost thought I had them several years back — Thomas and Rachel — but when I got William Henry’s birth record in the mail, there was this woman named Nancy listed where I expected Rachel to be.

All other evidence points toward Rachel being William’s mother: census records, for one, and other genealogists’ (undocumented) findings referenced online. Now, I’ve discovered that Thomas and Rachel were married on 3 March 1852 in Clermont County, Ohio, where all this research insanity is going on. I’ve also discovered that the Mormons have the microfilm. Clermont County Marriage Records, 1801-1910.

I’m hoping that getting some hard documentation of *something* that corroborates what I think I know will help me solve this puzzle. I’m still not sure who this Nancy person is, though. Hopefully, I’ll find out soon.

On a related topic, the Genealogy Guys mentioned that anyone can go to a Family History Center, but non-Mormons will have to sign in as a guest. That made me wonder: how will I deal with that? Technically, I’m still a Mormon, although I’m what they once called “inactive.” (Right before I myself went inactive, the more politically-correct term of “less active” was being popularized. Apparently, the less active members were being offended when someone would refer to them as flat-out inactive. Go figure.)

But do I really want to open up that can of worms? Explaining that I’ve been inactive for… *counts on fingers* …ten years could bring the Mormons back to our door in droves. Moving to Toledo finally managed to shake them, and I’m not in a hurry to evade them again.

Still, though… it’s like knowing the secret handshake. (Which apparently Mormons really do have. I kid you not. You learn it in the temple. I wasn’t old enough to learn it yet when I went inactive, though.) It’s hard to decide whether to disclose that I’m an inactive member, or just pretend that I went to the trouble of being excommunicated, and sign in as a guest.

I guess I’ll decide once I finally get my ass down to the Perrysburg FHC.

memories

R.I.P. Panasonic Microwave (1990-2006)

My mom bought this microwave when she and I moved out of Tom’s house after their separation. As I recall, it was the first thing “we” bought — even before we bought our refrigerator from those Jehovahs who kept leaving The Watchtower in our screen door for years afterward… but I digress.

When I went off to college, Mom kept the microwave, obviously; I certainly couldn’t bring it into the dorm with me. Then she hooked up with Gary, who had his own microwave. The Panasonic got relegated to a back closet floor in their apartment.

Once I finally left the dorms and got my own place in 2001, I re-appropriated the microwave from its storage spot at Mom and Gary’s place. When Aaron and I moved in together, I believe he ended up performing a “social experiment” with his microwave (i.e. putting it on the dumpster and seeing how long it took someone to pick it up), and we used my microwave instead.

Finally, after 16 years in service, the old Panasonic started making a louder-than-usual hum. And just like that, it was dead. Sunday evening’s sauerkraut had to be warmed on the stove, and I cooked a week’s worth of morning oatmeal in old-school fashion.

Aaron went out and bought a new microwave on Monday afternoon. He bought another Panasonic, figuring that they must be pretty good if the old one lasted for 16 years. As he stood at the Best Buy checkout, the cashier asked if he’d like the five-year warranty, which he declined. Of course, she pressed him, reminding him that the manufacturer’s warranty only lasts for one year — and he informed her that our last microwave lasted 16 years before it finally died.

That shut her up.

ruminations 3 Comments

The United Schnuthie College Fund

One of my co-workers is pregnant with twins — girls, most likely. I overheard her saying that she and her husband had actually started their children’s college fund with last year’s tax return, before they even started trying for a baby (and before they got two for the price of one).

That made me think: should we be thinking about our future child’s education?

I mean, both Aaron and I had to take out loans to pay for our own college, and we’ll probably be paying on them until we retire. Literally. How would it be different if I didn’t have that expense now, and if I had known back then that I wouldn’t have that expense in the future? Would that have changed my young-adult relationship with my mother? Would I have worked harder, by virtue of someone else paying my way? Or would I just not have this $45 grand to pay off now?

Now that I think about it, we *would* like to enroll our child or children in private school at some point, and St. John’s costs just about as much as a community college. Should we be saving for that, too, or just hoping that our kid will test high enough to get a scholarship, or that we’ll be considered poor enough for him to get financial aid?

It’s weird stuff to think about. Especially when we haven’t even started trying to make this hypothetical future college student yet. I’d imagine that, once that other human being is actually in the picture, staring at me, I’ll probably feel different about providing for it. Right now, though, it just feels like, “I had to pay for my own college, kiddo, and so will you. Deal.”

geekspeak 4 Comments

Unexpected Stress

I had been planning to work on the LSM site tonight.

I hadn’t been planning to get an e-mail from Russ saying, “I tried a couple of times to add to the news section of the website and nothing posted.”

*!?broken?!*
*OMG Stress*

I knew that something had happened on the server side, since I hadn’t touched the code in… well, weeks or months. It took me a while to figure out why everything on the site was broken, but I finally discovered that it was due to someone at the nice webhosting company switching register_globals to off, effectively breaking all of my neato “Wow! All I have to do is stick the newsID onto the end of the URL, and it just goes!” code.

I freaked for a while, but after chilling out with a bowl of (low-carb) ice cream, I finally deciphered what php.net was trying to tell me. One line of code and a Dreamweaver search-and-replace later, everything is fixed.

Until some evil, malicious hacker blows on my house of cards, that is.