Visit An Old Friend!

I did something new and exciting the other day. Well, maybe not so new, but certainly exciting. It involved a book. Remember those things? I love books. I always get my conference syllabus in book form. I just like the way they look on the shelf. To me it is so much easier to flip through the pages of a book in my hands than it is to click through a bunch of pages on a computer screen. Books will always deserve a place in my house

What led to this? Well, I couldn't spell a word and no matter how much I teased automatic spell check, it would not cooperate. So I turned to this other word source. It came up with words I didn't even know existed. Of course, that is not a bad thing. I hesitated for a minute and skimmed the words on the page.  Automatic spell check does not afford you that courtesy. It gives you the word you are looking for and then moves on to someone who has forgotten how to spell to, two, and too and really screws up the meaning of yet another sentence.

I would "put money on it" that automatic spell correction on cell phones and computers has started a lot of fights just by inserting the wrong word in a text message. And then I remembered my husband and my cousin, Jerry, who both had hearing problems. Too much loud music in their early years maybe? They had their own form of automatic spell check. It was what they thought they had heard. Their conversations were classics. They could talk about two completely different subjects at the same time. Ok, you baby boomers out there know what I am talking about. At our age we tend to hear things wrong. Sort of like senior automatic spell check. We hear the wrong word and the conversation takes a wrong turn. 

So maybe instead of relying on automatic spell check on the phone or computer, you should pull that book off of the shelf in your office. You know the one that is all dusty and lonely. The one that never gets any attention any more, but still sits there waiting patiently for you to come back and enjoy its pages. 

Visit your local dictionary and thesaurus. They miss you!! 

Kalahari is huge and I am exhausted. I was all packed and ready to check out this morning. Then  I got my bill and, you guessed it . . . the other Sandy! Check out time was 11am and I was planning on squeezing one more session in before I had to leave. Instead I spent that time in the lobby straightening out my bill. By the way if you stayed at the resort, you should check your bill to make sure they waved the resort fee. They will remove the fee if you were charged.

The conference runs til 4pm today. With check out time at 11am, I wonder how many people are going to leave early. Yesterday afternoon the halls were filled with families checking in for the weekend. This morning buses were arriving packed with teenagers headed for the prom. The peace and quiet of the last few days was gone and the genealogists retreated to the safety of the conference center.  I had to make one more sweep of the exhibit hall and distribute the last of my raffle tickets. Then  I said "goodbye to Kalahari" and vowed to return again someday.

This is my only conference for this year. I envy those of you who are getting ready to attend the NGS Conference in Richmond, Virginia. I have ancestors who lived in that area back in the 1700's and it would have been wonderful to walk the land they walked on. 

While I was in the exhibit hall yesterday I picked up a book, An In-Depth Guide to Richmond, Virginia by Shannon Combs-Bennett. It is a great book for anyone going to the NGS Conference or planning on doing research in the Richmond area at a later date. It contains information about downtown, safety, transportation, shopping, and nearby attractions. For more information: 

http://theindepthgenealogist.com/product/an-in-depth-guide-to-richmond-virginia-pdf/

So what did I learn at the OGS 2014 Conference? 
*I definitely need to start using Evernote. Also learned that Thomas MacEntee is extremely funny.
*Playing live Clue with a bunch of genealogists can be fun and confusing. Sort of like family research.
*The ague of the early days of the Great Black Swamp was actually malaria.
*It is easy to hit over 6,000 steps on your fitbit in one day at a genealogy conference. Also learned it is not easy to get out of bed the next day!
*But most important, genealogists are some of the friendliest people in the world. We relate!

 

WSDYTYA

For those of you who are waiting for the next episode of Which Sandy Do You Think You Are, you won't be disappointed. Tonight was the Serengeti Social. We played a live game of Clue which was quite funny. Then we headed back to the room with wild animals and ice cream.

The first thing I saw was an albino snake. I could not resist petting him and we instantly bonded. So I spent some time with him. 

After we created our own ice cream sundaes at the ice cream bar it was time to announce the door prize winners.The second name announced brought 2 people to the stage. Since we both have the same name, we both got to pick out a door prize. We also got to compare notes on our "same name" experiences at the conference so far. And, there are still 2 days left!

And, there are a lot of door prizes yet to be awarded. Just saying . . . . . .