Tuesday, September 7, 2010

RTT - ancestry, animals and analysts

It's Tuesday! Join the fun at Keely's. Grab a button. You know the score.


Ancestry first. I have an on again/off again subscription with Ancestry.com. Is cool. Very cool. My parent's both came from large families (7 siblings on my Dad's side and 6 on my Mom's) Their families came from large families. Of course, you have to understand, my parents were born in the 1920s. My grandparents, all four of them, were born before the turn of the twentieth century. People had large families back then because well, children are fragile things. And make great farm hands. This go round on Ancestry has taught me a few things - 1) with the exception of my maternal grandmother's grandparents, I am a southern girl. The furthest north I can find anyone being born is Virginia. Mostly, they're from Texas, Arkansas or Alabama. 2) That exception? I found my maternal great-great grandfather's naturalization record. He became an American citizen in New Orleans on February 17, 1864 after immigrating from Baden, Germany in 1853.


His wife, Julia, hailed from Ireland. I have no last name for her so, that branch of the tree stops there. (I have what I know about her from US census records). Finding anything at all was a minor miracle considering the last name - Weickershimmer. The immigration record has it spelled Wickershimer. Hurrah for soundex searches. 

The recent generations invaded this weekend. Eldest, her roommate and three of their friends. Since Youngest moved out this summer, the only bed we have left in the house that isn't mine (and I already share it with 3 dogs and husband so there is definitely no room at that inn) is Eldest childhood bunk bed. It's a brick. So, she slept on it, her roommate brought his inflatable mattress and two of the three girls slept on it, and he and the other one slept on the floor in with Eldest. They were cozy.

Despite being warned that we have three large and enthusiastic dogs, they were not dissuaded from coming. In fact, they all pretty much loved the dogs. Spoiled them, in fact. Those three got more hugs and back scratches and games of fetch this weekend than they generally get in a month. And Myrddin escaped. Again. Bastard.

Work is more work than usual. I am trying to develop our new Word and Excel templates for our reports while simultaneously developing templates and testing a new desktop publishing software. It's been loads of fun. We're launching a new logo late this week or early next, along with our updated website.  The new logo is a bit of a departure and has required we change our color scheme. Plus, the design team used new non-standard fonts so, if we follow what they've come up with, everyone will need new fonts installed along with the new desktop publishing software. It's getting close. We're pretty much sold on the new font and now just have to hash out the colors. In fact, I should be working on that instead of writing this. Oops. I've found that working with these analysts to be frustrating. They are not the most visually creative people on the planet and left those of use who actually create and police the templates that we use to generate our reports out of the loop during the design phase. We got presented with the finished product and were told to make it work. Um, guys? Next time, talk to the people that make these things in house on what is feasible BEFORE you commit to designs from a outside firm that doesn't have any experience in what we use. Just saying.

OH!! And speaking of logos, I have Youngest's graphic artist friend working on making me my very own logo. It will be a black sheep, chewing on a bluebonnet stem, wearing cowboy boots and flashing the hook'em horns sign. Hopefully. This is what I have requested. What I get may be something else entirely. 

Later. Must to work.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Family trees are over rated...i kid i kid...my mom has us traced back to the stone ages...stopin by from RTT

LeftLeaningLady said...

My family has researched and written and researched some more. It's not my bag, but I think it's a good hobby to have if you care.

Glad you are staying busy and not too stressed out over the political... stuff. :-)