- Perhaps
the most important thing that happened this year is that we
bought a house. This is the same house we were renting last
year so we didn't have to move again! I had some pictures,
but they seem to have gotten lost when we bought our new computer.
I'll keep looking for them but in the meantime, here's a picture
of our back yard.
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- We've
gradually been updating our new house. We painted the entire
first floor are now remodeling the family room in the basement.
The biggest change was the addition of built-in bookshelves
and computer center. Here's
a picture. As you can see, I still need to build the drawers
and two more doors. The wood floor in the family room and
ceramic tile in the hallway are also new.
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- As
you can see, I've been intending to redesign the the monkfamily.org
web site but I can't seem to find the time. I did succeed,
however, in adding a new feature: school pictures of the kids
throughout their lives. You
can see it here.
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- We bought
an industrial embroidery machine. The idea is to build this
up as a home business. We've already done quite a few monograms
on towels, blankets, robes- even a purse. When things are
going well locally, we're planning to build a web site for
increased business, so keep watching.
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-
In
June, I attended the SPNHC meeting in London, England.
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In
September, I attended
the TDWG meeting in St.
Petersburg, Russia.
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In
October, I attended the KE-EMu North American Users' Group
meeting in Chicago.
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- Ann's
father came to visit for the summer. Here's
a picture of him and the family in New York. While he
was here, we took a short family vacation to Niagara
Falls.
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- Here's an idea that Ann came
up with: it's something you might want to consider. She was
thinking about the people who were displaced by the hurricanes
this year and how much trouble some of them were having because
they didn't have their important personal documents (social
security cards, insurance policies, deeds, passports, birth
certificates, etc.) not to mention that many of them probably
didn't have time to save family photographs and the like.
Ann's idea was to scan those important documents (and as many
photographs as is feasible) and save the files to a flash
drive or memory stick. This can then be placed into the family's
72-hour kit. A copy could be burned to CD, but the advantage
of the memory stick is that is it easily updated and takes
up so little space. We think this is a good idea and have
already scanned our documents. (We're hoping that Santa brings
us a memory stick for Christmas so we can finish the project.)
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