Philip Weiss

Lillies Of The Valley and Pina

The largest amount of time I spend listening to music these days is on KCRW‘s web site. I don’t know why exactly, but I really dig their music taste lately. Last week though, they had a pledge drive. So I turned to their all-music channel Eclectic24 for the duration. And that’s where I caught the piece above. It’s called Lillies Of The Valley according to the KCRW web site. I had to buy it.

Looking for it, it is on the soundtrack to the documentary Pina by Wim Wenders. But it isn’t available for purchase without buying the whole album. Seriously? Okay. Searching around today though it appears another version of the song, Alviverde, is available. It has lyrics though.

I did pull up Pina on Netflix though. It’s about Pina Bausch, who was a dancer and choreographer, who died just as filming on the documentary started. Now, to say I am unfamiliar with modern dance would be understating things. At the handful of modern dance performances I have attended I generally give the okay face. I just don’t get most of it.

But the pieces that were featured in the documentary? Whoa. I still don’t know what I watched, but that was way interesting. If Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ever tours around here, I want to know about it so I can attend. If you have Netflix, go watch at least a part of that. Totally mesmerizing.

Johan Erik Eriksson

I’ve been re-researching my primary ancestry for a few months. I hadn’t realized that Ancestry.com had the Swedish church books until this fall. The husförhör, or household examination, books are amazing treasure troves of information. Every year the clergy would record the residents of every household in their parish, their birthdates, their marriages, their deaths, and their catechism. It’s better than a census, because people were recorded every year.

I’ve known my Swedish family tree since I started. My starting documents were pages of pedigree charts documenting the family back to the 1400s and even the 1300s in some cases. But these aren’t primary documents, obviously, but they do provide a good outline that makes it easy to find people in the church books, which are primary documents. I’ve also had the use of an index to the church documents that was made by the Piteå genealogical society. It only covers the Piteå river valley, but it’s not like my forebears were moving a lot like their American descendants.

Today I was looking at my third great grandfather, Peter Anton Nordvall. He was born 5 Aug 1841 in Håkansön to Jonas Persson Nordvall and Christina Isaksdotter. I easily found him in the birth register, the death register, and the marriage register. And I’d previously found his brother Per Magnus Nordvall, born 7 years before him. Per only lived about 8 months.

But the husförhör showed something I didn’t know. Peter had an older half-brother named Johan Erik. He never showed up in my searches of the index because he didn’t have the Nordvall last name. I’d searched for children of Jonas Nordvall and Christina Isaksdotter using various spellings of their names. But since his father wasn’t Jonas, I never found him under any combination.

The husförhör has a Johan Erik in the household, and it gives his date of birth. From that, it was easy to find his birth record. He was born in 1830 to Christina Isacsdotter, three years before Christina married Jonas. He went by the name Johan Erik Eriksson in later records, which probably means his father was named Erik. The birth record doesn’t name the father though, which means I am going to have a much harder time figuring out who he is.

And now I have a whole new branch to research.

Gimme some bread!

Bread Slices — Photo by Slice of Chic (CC By-Nc-Nd)

Why did I hate the crust on bread when I was a kid? The crust on bread hasn’t bothered me in years (that I remember anyway).

I remembered why last week. When shopping, I thought I would save a buck or so by buying a cheaper bread than I normally do. Mind you, I don’t normally buy artisan bread or anything particularly fancy. So this one time, I bought a cheaper kind, which I can’t tell you what it is now because it comes in a pack of two loaves and I threw away the outer bag which had all the brand information on it.

I made a sandwich outta this bread. Bleah. The middle of the bread wasn’t awful, but just a bite or two from the crust and I didn’t want to finish the sandwich. I will throw away the bread once I get over the idea of throwing away food that hasn’t “gone bad”. (It was bad to start!)

Mom always bought the cheapest bread possible because we didn’t have much money and there were 5 kids. She was also part of some cheese coop where a bunch of mothers bought cheese in bulk to save money. I have no taste problems with cheap cheese though. I buy that all the time.

Why brick and mortar stores are dying: a tale

One of the things I want to do is start writing letters to people. Actual handwritten letters.

I do not have stationery. So I took the bus downtown after work to look for letter sized lightly lined stationery. I stopped at Office Depot (all sorts of paper!), Papyrus (a paper store) and Hallmark. None of them had stationery for writing letters. Cards, yep! Invitation kits, yep! Stationery for laser printers, yep!

90 minutes wasted. There’s another “fine paper” store downtown called de Medici, but they close at 5:30.

Guess I’m going to look on online. I know I can find it, and I don’t have to subject myself to a 71 bus full of U.W. students, cold weather, and sore feet.

Fleur de Lis Paper Lined Stationery from Maggie’s Stationery

Maybe my 2013 resolutions

I had one resolution for 2012. I was going to enjoy my two month road trip around the country. Mission accomplished!

What are my resolutions for 2013? I’m not completely certain. Here’s some ideas.

I’d like to successfully finish the coding project I just took on.
Other than the week I was on the cruise, my reading in 2012 continued the slump that began in 2011. I’d like to get back to reading more. I’m not sure what to do about that though.
- Join or start a book club?
- More social reading events?
- Block out time for reading?
- Re-read something I really enjoy?
Kinda tied in with this is that I do not want Read Irresponsibly to remain fallow.
2012 was a lonely year. The woman I was seeing casually at the end of 2011, things did not work out with her after I returned from my trip. I’m not sure what kind of relationship I want though. And I’m really having a hard time following through with my attempts to do anything so far. I re-activated my account on OkCupid, but I haven’t even looked at it in 3 weeks. The thought of selling my good qualities through correspondence there just fills me with dread. There is one person I met in person (not through OkCupid) a week or so ago that I will ask out, and getting a yes/no answer on whether to go on a first date sounds so much more appealing than what seems to happen on OkCupid. OkCupid, must be doing it wrong.
There’s a genealogy certificate program at the UW. I’m interested in pursuing that, but I don’t know if that’s doable.

What other possibilities? I don’t know.

Genealogy Research Plans

As I’ve been progressing with my genealogy work, I’ve been trying to improve my skills.

The Board for Certification of Genealogists pushes the Genealogical Proof Standard. As a hobbyist, I’m not beholden to this standard, thank god. I don’t particularly care if the distant parts of my tree are rigorously proved or not. At least not at this time. However, I would like to have pretty solid evidence, particularly for the activities of my direct ancestors.

One of the things a genealogist is supposed to do is write a research plan for investigating each claim. I’m experimenting with writing them for the less easy to document claims. I don’t think I’ll bother when researching items like my dad’s death. I have his obituary and his death certificate. But for something like my grandfather’s birth, I decided to write one. He was born on 5 February 1904 in Merrill, Wisconsin. But all the evidence I have for that is secondary and non-contemporaneous. What I do have is all consistent, so I would be highly surprised if original, primary, direct evidence contradicts the indirect and secondary evidence. I am unlikely to find original sources at this point, but there may be suitable derivative.

You can read my plan for investigating George Archibald Weiss’s birth.

The basic idea is to list the relevant known information, decide on a hypothesis, list possible sources of additional information, and create a strategy for investigating those sources. I don’t think there are birth certificates for 1904 from Lincoln County, but there are for sure better pieces of evidence than I’ve already collected. For instance, the counties returned lists of births to the state. That list is what’s indexed in the Wisconsin Genealogy Index mentioned in the plan. Print-outs of the microfilm from that return can be purchased. And I can look to see if the local papers mentioned a new Weiss kid in February or March of 1904. Read the plan to see.

I don’t know how well the plans I have written fit with what professionals do. The stuff I have seen on blogs here and there is pretty rudimentary. The one professional plan I’ve seen is an example by Elizabeth Shown Mills, who is the pedantic genealogist’s goddess. It’s involved, but was created for publication as well. She may not be quite as detailed and verbose for simpler research. Anyway, if I have really tricky items, or I want to publish, then perhaps I will make these more involved.

For now, the few claims I’ve tried for this (I’ve got a total of 6) have resulted in me at least thinking of additional places to research, and in building a better task list than I previously had.

Oh yeah, I’m experimenting with a new way of managing tasks too. I couldn’t find any decent tools for managing my genealogy tasks, so I’m doing a bit to roll my own. If anyone has an old copy of Microsoft Project or similar project management tool they’d be willing to sell me, I may use that for this tool. I tried OpenProj and ProjectLibre, which are clones of MS Project, and they are not up to the task. A future post will detail what I’m doing with regard to this.

Covers for Aicardi

Fantasy author Jim C. Hines did a thing a while ago where he tried to duplicate the contorted poses of female characters on various book covers. It was a hit. People offered money if he’d do it again. Now he’s doing it for charity, the Aicardi Syndrome Foundation specifically. Donate money and as overall donation levels are reached, he picks a a donor at random and attempts to duplicate the cover of the donor’s choice. So far, over $4,500 has been donated to help people suffering from a pretty shitty illness.

I kicked in $100. And my choice was selected. I asked for the cover of Jeaniene Frost’s At Grave’s End. This is the pose:

I attempted this pose before submitting it, to see if it was indeed possible. It is, but it isn’t easy. It’s also useless as hell. When done like the cover, I was unable to move quickly at all. There’s no balance, and my center of gravity is not over my legs. I just couldn’t spring up to take on bad guys from that position. I suspect the look they were attempting was hot and fancy babe ready to spring into action to kill you but decided to sexy it up well past realistic. As cover artistry does. And it’s just not that hot in my view.

Jim Hines posted the first two poses this morning, including A Groin Cramping Pose:

For the record, the hottest cover pose for me is this:

It’s objectifying as hell (legs and butt only please), but the pose is doable. Anyone wanna guess why I like it? Stompy fucking boots for the win.

Looking at a new kitchen

Now that I have unused capacity for stress in my life, I’m finally moving forward on remodeling my apartment. The big thing is to rip out the kitchen and put in an entirely new one. I’ve long griped about the limited cupboard and counter space in the kitchen. So that will be no more. In the mock-ups below, the kitchen extends out into the area where my kitchen table currently sits.

Mock up #2 is of the other side, where my refrigerator and range are currently. Part of the wall there will be removed to let in more light, and there will be counter space to either side of the range.

I am also planning on replace all the carpeting with laminate flooring and getting the popcorn ceiling material remove. I get that styles change and all, but whoever invented popcorn ceiling material and all the people who installed it need to have their heads checked. The shit is ugly, and it can’t be cleaned. It’s not like I walk on the ceiling and track mud all over it, but in an old building like this, all it takes is one water leak and the popcorn material has a permanent mark.

I’m excited about this.

The downside is this is going to cost me a lot of money. I had budgeted a lot for it, but the first estimate I received is about $1,000 over my budget and it doesn’t include replacing any of my appliances or furniture or the cost of storing my stuff for a month. One of my tasks this week is to find another contractor to give me a second bid. Thing is, the first bidder has done a lot of work for my family and it was really good work. I’d like to use them if I can, but it means I will need to find some extra money.

The Freedom to Marry passes in Maryland and Maine, and leads in Washington

I’ve put in a lot of hours over the last four months making phone calls for Referendum 74. I know people who put in far more hours than I did. Tonight, it appears as if our work paid off. Referendum 74 is getting approved at just under 52% of the vote. There are about 600,000 votes left to count in the state, and one quarter of them are in King County, which has Referendum 74 passing by 65%. I ran the numbers and put them in a Google Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvAkwpHQfSD4dGQ2OFFuMmo3T0x2Yno1MnhSRENRaFE

Signs point to approve with the assumption that late breaking ballots do no worse than votes counted earlier. I think that’s a reasonable assumption, given the great last minute Get Out The Vote effort from Washington United For Marriage. What I don’t know how to project is how many more ballots will arrive for each county, as I have no idea what kind of turnout is reasonable to presume.

Meanwhile Maryland and Maine passed marriage equality. The tide has turned.

And on the fourth year…

Four years ago right about now mom died.

This year, I haven’t broken down at random times. So that’s a plus.

It doesn’t seem like that long though. I still remember the 48 hours leading up to her death very vividly.

But in other ways, it’s been forever. I finally got everything for her estate done, signed the final paperwork and sent it to the lawyer on Thursday. I hate to think how long this would have taken if the family had fought over anything. Being the executor has felt like it would go on forever. Now I wait for final notification and hope I didn’t screw anything up.

Tomorrow, I will drive to Lynden and leave flowers on her grave. I’d do it today, but I am leading a phone bank for Approve Referendum 74 tonight, and that is too important to skip. For the rest of the local family, I leave an evergreen branch on their graves around Christmas, to continue my grandfather’s tradition. However, mom’s buried too far away to do that if there’s snow. The flowers I leave aren’t elaborate. I’ll probably just buy a small marigold. Mom doesn’t care. She’s dead. This is for me to keep memories alive.