It ended up going well, despite the cruel November heat (this is Houston, after all). It was rather an idyllic setting; though I’ve increased my public speaking a good deal lately, I’ve never done so surrounded by monarch butterflies and dragonflies. I found myself wondering (through my incipient sun stroke) if they were going to start arranging my hair like I was a Disney princess. I did appreciate as an amateur apiarist that they had made this garden to attract pollinators. Save the pollinators, save the world.

Matt told me that he wanted me to post my speech here, so here I am breaking my <checks logs> 13-year hiatus to do so. It is short, but I was only given two minutes to speak. Merry Christmas, BB .

I’m sorry it took me a minute to get up here [to the podium], I thought I was going to stick to my chair. [General laughter. A Southwest Airlines plane flew noisily overhead just as I started speaking, so I waited for it to pass] Thanks Southwest.

As a genealogist, I examine how people are influenced by their communities and environments across generations.  For our family, Houston has been a place of refuge, peace, and community.

The first Louis Charles Mullenweg – our father was the fourth – arrived here with his mother in early 1854 after a bakery fire in Navasota killed his father.  Ten years later, the family bought two square blocks of the W. R. Baker addition to Houston, near Washington Avenue.  The family and their descendants lived in the area for one hundred years, working for the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.  Over a dozen of these Mullenweg family members rest in peace at the Washington Cemetery, far from the wars and depredations that drove them to Texas.

Our mother’s family, the Hageneys, fled Ireland’s Great Famine and immigrated to the shores of Lake Erie.  Her great-grandfather soon found work as an engineer for the railroads, designing many devices that are still in use today.  Her grandfather worked for the Office of the Postmaster General and was transferred to Houston in the late 1920s.  From the number of family members that followed them south, I believe that Houston was where they found refuge from the bone-cold and sideways snow that bombarded their first home.

Although this chapel didn’t exist when either side of our family arrived, it was certainly in place when I attended the University of St. Thomas.  I spent many an afternoon in the sun-dappled peace of these grounds, studying, learning lines or music, and reading without the constant interruptions of a certain eight-year-old brother at home.  I wish I could say that the peace and inspiration gained here catapulted me to a college degree, but alas, I was not yet ready to take my education seriously.

What this sacred place taught me was the value of shared spaces and art, and the precious importance of finding a center – an eye in the storm of daily life – just as both sides of our family did by moving to Houston. It is an honor to dedicate this garden to my parents as a symbol of their love for each other, the arts, and this city. I sincerely hope that these beautiful gardens and groves will continue to inspire all Houstonians to find peace, refuge, and a sense of community here in our beloved city. Thank you.

If you want to read my brother’s remarks, you can do so on his blog here.

Side note: this is my first time using blocks on my own site. This is kind of cool!

A Mental Roller Coaster Ride… or Toilet Paper, Toilet Paper, My Kingdom for Some Toilet Paper.

On the upside, we had the most wonderful thanksgiving – it was very restful and fun.  Most of the usual suspects were there, saving one who was happily traveling, and very much in touch (though much missed!!).  I didn’t get to spend as much time with my darling brother as I wanted to, but I’m greedy like that, and the time that I did get to spend with him was full of laughter and fun and lots of turkey sandwiches (my own secret combination of ingredients; if you sweet talk me, I might share).

Plus, we got the tree up on time, thanks to strongmen Matt and Daddy! I wasn’t tall enough to push, so I stood on the other side and pulled.  It looks so pretty and tall and finally in its proper place! We forgot to put the star on top before putting it up again, so someone’s going to have to get to the top of a ladder and leeeeeeeaaaaaannnnnn…

OK, I’ve got to get back to schoolwork.  Many hugs, everyone!

Update: Most of the Cairo flights offered me layovers in Houston or Chicago/east coast spots and London or Amman.  Some offered me a layovers in Rome or Athens.  My favorite for exciting layovers on the way to Cairo: Moscow.

So, I’ve been idly looking at online storage, and I’m not delighted by this.  My problem is that it is usually cheap or free for 2 gig, but anything past that starts to get pricey.  Is this really realistic?  I have an 80 gig iPod full of music, and that, with only a few more gig of other stuff,  would cost me, on average $20/month. I have hundreds of thousands of photos (both of my own work, and then historical photos); for that price, I could burn them to disk and stick them in the fireproof safe, or even a safe deposit box for a fraction of the cost. Heck, I could save them on secure digital cards in the fireproof safe, and still save money.

If I traveled constantly, I could see utilizing a service like Dropbox to backup my files in case – this is their example – I drive my car into a lake with hippos and ruin my laptop.  But anything past that seems prohibitively priced.

I think I’m just going to have to rent server space somewhere or just backup my everything to one of my network drives. Either way, I obviously need to budget for a non-cloud related storage solution. I have been enormously lucky that I’ve been able to maintain this much data for this long, but I feel like I’m pushing my luck. As it was, I had a lot a help with the Seagate recovery, and the process took months.

Do any of you, dear readers (all three of you ) have any suggestions?

I was thinking of my Gram a lot today, then a cousin sent this over. The picture is missing her infectious smile, but I love it all the same. I’d never seen it before, and am glad to have this opportunity.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have.

This was written in the margin of the 1803 Census for Oglethorpe County Georgia, Capt Parmenas English District.

“Fishing Creek Academites part morallised the rest get drunk run in debt can’t pay go to jail breakout and run away.”
Thanks to Terry Robertson

obviously, this census taker felt the need to engage in some social commentary, sans punctuation.