Author Archive: George Kasdorf

I’m home and it’s DRY outside.

Posted on by

Thought I should add a few notes here since I haven’t in quite some time. I am sure all the Kazology fans are hungering for some more fantastic, enlightening words of wisdom leading to health and wealth. Sorry to disappoint. 

But those things will not be found here. 

Let us see, I went to Singapore for work this month. See pictures posted on opening page of Kazology. It is a long trip… about 30 hours start to finish. Not all flying time, but enough of it to produce a very tired seat. Trivia: you don’t have to reset your watch, it is exactly a 12 hour difference in time zones. So the only thing is that the date window (if your watch displays the current date) switches at noon instead of midnight, the noon before the day (they are ahead in time.) 

I was very surprised and in a positive way that upon my return I did not really have serious jet lag. Sometimes I have really felt beat up on returning, but not on this trip. I was in Singapore for a day going and a day coming back, the rest of the time I was on the island of Batam. Batam is across the bay, about a 45 minute ride by “High Speed Ferry”…. I was wondering if it was going to be one of those you hear about once a year or so… 600 people on a ferry designed for 200, capsizing and all that nonsense. Click on the image to see full size.
It was not.
It was quite nice I think I saw a sign that it held about 200, and both ways it was probably only about 60-75% full. I actually got quite a few of my photos from it. I sat on the upper “smokers” deck which was open air so I could walk around and not have to try and get photos through the somewhat smudged windows. It was the longest time I was outside in the “natural” air the entire time. The rest of the week was going from one air conditions hotel room, to the car/taxi/bus, to the office, and reverse. With a temperature in the upper 80’s and humidity over 90% the air conditioning is very much appreciated.

The trip went well, I did what I needed to do, the people were very nice, and took good care of me. I was told Batam is about 20 years behind Singapore in terms of development. It was impossible not to see the difference. Singapore is a beautiful city, modern buildings and not a pot hole was ever felt riding in the car. Because of the limited space they tear things down after 20 years or so, and put up new, taller, more efficient buildings. Batam on the other hand reminds me of some of the places I have been in Mexico. Not a lot of industry (yet) to support people, only a small amount of tourism, and so the people are happy to work cheaply there, which is why manufacturing sites are building on the island.

Even in town the prices are reasonable for some things. 

Well, enough drivel for now. Enjoy the pictures. Until global warming floods the islands, 

George

New information for Genealogy Researchers – or those just interested in Family History

Posted on by

Well, EXtreme Kazology is still pending, but I did get a lot of documents posted over the last couple of days. If you take a peek in the Kasdorf Genealogy when it opens, about half way down is Kazology Digital Records which will take you to a new page with links to all types of documentation. There are a couple photo albums and are really interesting if you are into pictures of tombstones and grave plots! A related family the Pickerings is represented as well as the Misselhorns. Duane Pickering was sending a lot of photos and other family information, but then the correspondence between he and I sort of dwindled. (Hey Duane, I am still waiting for the pictures from Canada!) He scanned hundreds of photos, created an index of whom is in each photo, when he could identify them, and then put everything on a CD which he sent me. He even provided a couple of updates to the CD later on. His pictures are here, but it may not be all of them, as I said he had hundreds and I do not think I got them all into an album for the web.  Then I added the Misselhorn family records. Marge (Ziebell) Misselhorn spent years researching the family and put things into a series of binders which she gave to her children. She was never interested in putting together a “traditional” genealogy with everyone arranged in families, by linage and all that, she just liked to make it more personable with notes, pictures and stories.

The other really neat thing I added was Doug Holt’s “The Kasdorf Kin” newspaper. Doug is one of the three people who really got me started on researching the Kasdorf family way back in 1995 I believe. George Musch and Marge Misselhorn would be the others that assisted and prodded me on sometimes.

Just as a comment, although I believe I have mentioned it before, these are large documents.  Each of the Kasdorf Kin PDF’s is about 3 megabytes. If you have broadband that is not a big deal at all, but if you are on dial up (I’m sorry to hear that.) it will take awhile to download the entire PDF, or photo album. Be patient, but if you are sure a link is broken or otherwise not doing what it is supposed to, please let me know so I can fix it up. However on the Digital Kasdorf page there are some links that for sure do not work yet. You should get a “404” error in just a short time if you use those links. I guess I could add “NW” by the ones that do not… maybe next month.

Until Adobe Reader is no longer the defacto standard,

George

Notes from the road

Posted on by

A new year has begun, travel for work begins anew. This week Manchester New Hampshire. Over the weekend I installed the WordPress 2.0 upgrade, seems as though things went well, at least it appears I have not lost all the old posts, not that it would have made a huge difference. Now some time learning what new and wonderful things it can do.

Hopefully in between travel, eating and sleeping occasionally I will get around to posting the EXtreme Kasdorf action photos on the site. I am afraid it may not be all that EXtreme when I get it done, but then I get to define EXtreme so about anything I put in the album will constitue EXtreme. Ah well, it’s just another album of photos found in the old boxes of photos.

Now home again, and I am beginning to dislike air travel. Seems lately every time I get off a plane a cold goes with me. Left Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday evening throat was already scratchy, now it is progressing very nicely into a full blown case of the sniffles/aches/pains and general discomfort. Bah. Maybe it is bad the rhinos are going extinct, but I wouldn’t mind it a bit if the rhinovirus’s disappeared.

Let me go blow my own horn,

George

Oh Boy! It’s Movie Time

Posted on by

I tried adding all (one) of my movies to a web site before, but it did not work out so well. I did not take the time to edit it to remove some less than interesting parts. (Two portions inexplicably upside down, and one that was apparently taken during the solar eclipse, which I did not even realize was going on at the time!  So now I took the time to fix up a really old 8mm movie filmed at our wedding. A couple of years ago I had it converted to DVD since there are not a lot of ways to view 8mm anymore, and I assume there will be even fewer in the future. I took the DVD and ripped it to an mpeg file then did a few simple edits such as transitions between scenes an intro and then some credits. In the end I came up with something even a really bad producer would be embarrassed by. Guess it was a little easier since there is no sound. I do have another version I made with some interesting sound effects added, but getting it “web ready” will have to come a little later on. In the meantime you can see a few of the festivities starting with leaving the ceremony, getting home, packing the car and taking off for an extended honeymoon (in the Fort Wayne Holiday Inn…. five miles away…. for one night…) Try the dial up version first to see how long it will take to load, then try the next one if you want. Only use the final version if you have a good broadband connection and some time. Until the silver halides in the celluloid turn to black,
George

Home Again, Home Again… Lickety Split

Posted on by

The secret can be told now that we are home again. We decided to take a short vacation and get some education in the process. So, off to Washington DC we went. The weather, while nippy, was great every day. Warm enough with no snow, better than home, but neither was it a tropical island. We had been to DC and especially the Smithsonian before when we took the brothers and sisters when they were younger, but it has been quite awhile since then. We also visited places this time we did not then since not everyone is excited about seeing the original Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. We managed to find a few places to get a little nourishment along the way too. One just for fun spot included the International Spy Museum. The White House had put up the Christmas Tree in Presidents Park. It was nice, and included trees from all fifty states. After visiting the Capital area and museums we also visited the newly renovated Union Station. Lots of nice shops, restaurants and big cookies.

Finally we headed out and stopped by the National Cathedral which is awe inspiring in it’s size and grandeur. Here, like so many other places in DC the amount of stone carving defies the imagination. How many people and hours did it take to create all these stone reliefs, columns and gargoyles.

After climbing and walking about the cathedral a last meal was needed. So we swung by Georgetown and went though a couple of blocks worth of boutiques, clothing stores and restaurants before we found a place to eat. Walking off the meal we visited the “Old Stone House” the oldest building in the area, supposedly built in 1765 and predating the creation of Washington DC.

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar”.

George

A sampling of the pictures taken during the trip has been posted on Kazology.

Google Personalized Homepage

Posted on by

If you are using Google Personalize Homepages you can use the add content feature to drop a link directly to both the Kazology web site, and to the Kazology Blog. Just use the edit function, then put in https://www.kasdorf.name/wordpress it should create a new section for you automatically. If you are not using the Google Personalize Homepage you might want to take a look at it. I think it is pretty cool. I have had Google as the default home page for years, and this adds functionality to it that I like. I have the local weather and movies. There is a clock, and then you can create “favorites” to link to your favorite favorites, ones you use all the time… like the Kazology web site. I have a short list of Kazology, The Pink Robot, and Snopes the urban legend debunker … I use it for all the “Can you believe….. they are banning chuches in the state of New Mexico…. or boycott Jane Fonda for the Woman of the year” (which was for something like 1999, so people give it up already!) eMail that I seem to attract. (Please make it one of your favorites also. Please!) Anyway it’s pretty slick. So give it a try. (No commisions for pushing this… really) … I just like it, so want to let you know about it. We want Kazology Readers to be on the leading edge of new technology. Why, next week I am getting a new “80286” CPU Whoo Hoo!!

OH… by the way I think you need a google account to do this. If anyone wants a GMail account and they are not giving them away now, I have a bunch of “invitations” which I would be happy to send you one of. (Originally GMail was by invitation only.) Just send me an email and I will send you an invite.