Spring

It is a great thing when two souls are united to support each other in their work, in their successes and misfortunes, until the last silent minutes of the last good-bey. (George Eliot in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy, 11 March)

People do not change just because I want them to change. (Iyanla Vanzant, Until Today! 26 February)

Be calm, be true, be quiet. (Alan L. Roeck, Look To This Day, 30 March)

Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected, that I don't know what to do with my heart. (Emily Dickinson in One More Day by Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, 1 April)

• Yesterday I had an appointment for a medical test. When I arrived at the hospital they gave me a paging device and told me to sit down. Twenty-five minutes after my scheduled appointment the pager still hadn't sounded. Intuition kicked in. I returned to the reception area. One employee passed me off to another. That one made a copy of my referral paperwork and handed my sheet back to me. In typical Washington, DC and Maryland fashion she mumbled something about what happened. I'm too old to put up with that anymore. I spoke again clearly stating what I wanted to know. Finally the person attending me admitted that she had written down the wrong pager number on the scheduling sheet. If I hadn't gotten up to make my inquiry I'd probably still be sitting in the waiting area reading my book. So much for using technology to improve what already worked well enough, calling out a person's name.

Mr. Dickie

Sad News

The essence of all growth is a willingness to make a change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails. (As Bill Sees It, p. 115, in Daily Reflections, 4 March)

I must prepare myself by doing each day what I can to develop physically, mentally, and spiritually. (Alan L. Roeck, Look To This Day, 7 March)

If you want other people to speak well of you, do not speak well of yourself. (Blaise Pascal in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy, 5 March)

• The weekend was full of sad news. In the Sunday paper I noticed the death notice for Donald Fusaro a former co-worker at The Library of Congress. He died on 9 March 2009. When I signed on to the Internet I learned from an Email that Steve Dodd, the husband of Family Tree House genealogy chatroom buddy, Cindy, had lost his long battle with cancer. Then my long tiime genealogy friend and Henthorn relative, Eileen Williams, of St. Helen's, England sent me an Instant Message to tell me that her oldest son, Andrew, passed away suddenly at their home about 8:00 p.m. on 4 Apr 2009 at the age of 49 years and 4 days. May God be with the families and friends of the departed in this time of grief.

Mr. Dickie

A Man With a Plan

A man without a plan for the day is lost before he starts. (Lewis K. Bendele in One More Day by Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, 15 March)

When the beauty of a person's character is impressed upon us, it leaves an image that in turn reflects through our own actions. (Alan L. Roeck, Look To This Day, 11 March)

...if a spouse, a parent, or a child is treating us badly, manipulating us, we may want to avoid facing the facts. (Vanceburg and Silverman, Family Feelings, 21 April)

• I've been posting some new URLs to my AOL Favorites. There was a good end-of-the-week piece in The Washington Post, a Kids's Museum Guide. I thought it would be nice to have all of those websites easily accessible in case someone needs help when they come to visit Washington, DC. I added URLs for transportation on the DC Connector, the Tourmobile and the Metro system. I created categories for DC, Baltimore, Virginia, and Maryland. Next I plan to post all of the URLs to Delicious. That will make it easy to share them with others.
• I also took a look at the Smart Computing magazine website. I have a subscription to this magazine. Some parts of their website are open to everyone and some are reserved for subscribers. The parent firm publishes five magazines and the websites of all are available to subscribers. I haven't been making use of this valuable resource.

Mr. Dickie

It Is a Gift to Be Alive

...we don't know for certain that there is life after death, nor do we know if we will return to earth in a new life. What's important is that no matter what exists in the beyond, we are here now, and it is a gift to be alive. Therefore, let us live fully in the present. Find your reasons for living. Live them. Love them. Appreciate them. The world needs each person to play his or her part, to make a contribution. (Alexandra Stoddard, The Art of the Possible, p. 147)

Marcus Speaks

There is a certain limit to the appropriate length of any time in this world. Just as the fruits and vegetables are limited by the seasons of the year, everything should have its beginning, its life, and its ending, after which it should pass away. Wise people willingly submit to this order. (Marcus Tullious Cicero, in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy, 3 April)

When you carry your burden, you should know that it is good for you to have it. Make the best of this burden and take from it everything which is necessary for your intellectual life, as your stomach takes from food everything necessary for your flesh, or as fire burns brighter after you put some wood on it. (Marcus Aurelious, in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy, 2 April)

Mind Your Own Business

If something is awaiting my action today may I have the courage to move forward with it. Even small movement is progress. (Touchstones, 4 March)

...focus on something good or useful to [y]our life and let the rest of the world go about its business. (after How Can I Help My Children in Courage to Change, 29 March)

Money issues are not a good place to act, "as if." (Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, 31 March)

• I'm working on several projects. Two of my cousins responded to questions I asked about their families. I'm posting that information to my RootsMagic genealogy file. I've sent other questions to the family of another cousin. I'd like to bring everything up to date because RootsMagic makes it very easy to prepare and share all of the information in a PDF file.
• I'm also working on a project with the Wichita, Kansas Class of '57 group on Facebook. We'd like to post two lists. One is a list of classmates we are trying to find and the other is a list of deceased classmates. Both lists are maintained with Excel. I have copies in the PDF format which should be perfect for sharing.
• This afternoon I'm looking forward to attending the Senior Computer Club meeting. The speaker is going to talk about flash drives (thumb drives) and how you can use them to take certain programs with you when you move from computer to computer. I'm very interested in that topic.

Mr. Dickie

What Can We Do?

We have to learn to live with our decisions, at least until we make a decision to change. I will attempt to take my time when making decisions. (Sefra Kobrin Pitzele, One More Day, 16 March)

If you see that some aspect of your society is bad, and your want to improve it, there is only one way to do so: you have to improve people. And in order to improve people, you begin with only one thing: you can become better yourself. (Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom, 17 March)

The tragedy of life so often is not that we have no high impulses, but that we so often let them remain impulses and never turn them into actions. (William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, p. 256)