Flashing Light

We are small and insignificant, but our society tells us we are mighty and important. As we learn more about the intricacies of God's creation may we respond honorably and respectively. (Pamela J. Crosby, in The Upper Room Disciplines - 2006, 17 October)

Any departure from accepted traditions and customs requires a large and serious effort, but true understanding of new things always requires such an effort. (Anonymous in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy, 12 October)

I do not need to have and do what everyone else has and does, but I can recognize my desires and preferences and satisfy them when doing so does not injure [myself] or anyone else. (Food For Thought, 11 October)

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We went grocery shopping yesterday. We used two carts. I took the list and went ahead while Melva shopped in the produce and deli areas. I'm able to finish all of the other shopping in the time it takes her to select the items she wants from those two areas. At the end I noticed that the amount of items we put in the car is less and less while the amount we spend continues to go increase. It's hard to imagine that the country has fallen on hard times when prices continue to rise and bonuses continue to be paid.

We also went to the thrift store yesterday. I had an incident while we were there. I selected several CDs that I was interested in purchasing. I've learned to always take them out of the case to examine the playing side. Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all. When I turn the disc upside down I usually moved it back and forth to catch the light while I look for scratches. As usual, I did what I always do. Afterwards I went to the back of the store to look at the books. When I got there I noticed that I was having vision problems. From past experience I knew I was going to get a migraine headache. I'd selected one book to purchase when this happened. Before we left the store I realized what I'd done. When I caught the light with the CD I flashed it directly into my eyes. That's what set off the migraine. Oh, by the way, when we got home I somehow didn't have the book I thought I was going to buy.

My friend, Betty Cronin, shared two letters written in November 1980 and February 1981 by Dorothy (Rankin) Gay of Norman, OK. Mrs. Gay got into the DAR based on her Yoho ancestry. I looked in my old Yoho file on the desktop computer and found where her family belonged. She wasn't in the file. Then I looked on the Internet and found some information about her family, including a brief biography of her husband. I combined these two pieces of information with what I found in the letter and produced a descendant chart that I posted to my genealogy "News" blog. I hadn't done any genealogy work like this in a long time.

One of the CDs I bought for $1.06 at the thrift contains 3,500, not very good, JPEG photos. There are no use restictions and I didn't have to install any programs to read the photo files themselves. I'm going to experiment with some of the shots to see if I can increase the exposure to improve the image quality.

Mr. Dickie