This is my New Year’s present to myself, a humongous pile of paper and 4 brand-new two and a half inch binders. A bystander at the cash register agreed that anything larger will break my wrists. When was the last time I had a Christmas that didn’t involve genealogy? I can’t remember.

The other day I was looking for an old vaccination certificate so I could get the address of where I lived when I was 11 years old to add to some old photos. When I was returning the box (where I did not find what I was looking for) to the shelf, the bottom fell out of it, and a cascade of compressed paper splashed to the floor, leaving me stunned. I’m used to computers where there’s a Back button, an Undo option, a keyboard shortcut for it and of course, our favorite – Delete. I stood there for a full minute trying to decide which of those buttons would solve my sudden dilemma. None of them. Welcome to Earth & Gravity. continued …

I hope everyone survived Christmas in good shape. I usually do because the closest I ever come to eating sugar is steamed carrots. At my age, even a thin slice of fruit-cake could kill me. continued …

Anyone else over the Moon about Photo Mechanic or is it just me? I’ve gotten more photo work done in the past 2 weeks working at it part-time than I have in the entire two years previous staying up all night. It makes me wonder what I was doing all that time. I decided my time is worth more than 2¢ an hour, and it was time to invest $150 and git ‘er done.

If you’re looking to annotate your photos for searching and the edification of future generations, this is it. Photo Mechanic is sublime. Every time I look I find another useful feature. Here’s some of my favorites so far:

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If any of you old regulars still want to get into my Google Wave account, I now have 24 invitations to give away. Just send me an email and tell me who you are and why this would appeal to you. I already know some of you by name through your Comments and the Legacy UsersGroup Mailing List. I’m not asking for 28 pieces of ID like a government official, just a short introduction.

Someone came looking on this site today for “how to see inside my house with Google Earth”. A few things went through my mind at the same time:

1. Google’s not that good. Yet.

2. I wonder if that person is a family historian.

3. This would be funny if it wasn’t so funny. continued …