Genealogy, Photography

O frabjous day!

I did a little more digging around and figured out how to get individual ID numbers to display on the “Individual’s Information” screen, in Legacy Family Tree. That was bugging the crap out of me. And, in doing so, I also made it turn on the ID numbers that had been assigned by Family Tree Maker. This is HUGE.

When I migrated from Cumberland Family Tree, years ago, Family Tree Maker assigned its own ID numbers.  It was a total pain in the ass to have everyone renumbered, because I rely on those numbers for searching and note-taking.  When you have 10 people with the same name, living in the same place, who are close to the same age, having easy to track unique identifiers is important!  At that point in time, I had only about 1/4 the paper files I do now, and even then it was an overwhelming task to change the ID numbers on each and every piece of paper.

I was afraid I’d have to go through that again, but I won’t.  It’s like every damn holiday rolled up into one, yo!

There are still some things that didn’t transfer properly.  I lost events and most of the media files are gone.  That’s annoying, but I can deal with fixing those problems.  Renumbering every freaking piece of paper?  NOPE.

This:

100_3356

Has grown into this:

Files #genealogy #files

Genealogy

RIP Family Tree Maker

Ancestry.com announced today that they are going to discontinue their stand-alone genealogy program, Family Tree Maker. Their theory is that most people want to use the web-only version. Well I don’t. I hate the web version with the heat of a thousand suns. Plus, I’ve put a huge amount of time and energy into researching this stuff. I want my research to be in my hands and under my control, not floating around up in the cloud.

So, I’ve been playing around with Legacy Family Tree. It’s not the answer to all my prayers. Not even close.

1. It stripped out the individual URLs from all of my source citations. Not cool!

2. It can’t seem to display ID numbers on the individual screen. You can see them on the family group screen, which is okay, but it’s not ideal. (It may actually have this capability, and I’m just not able to find it. It also may have that capability in the pay version. I don’t know if I want to take that chance, though, considering that I’m not in love with the program.)

3. The scroll wheel does not seem to work on the individual page. If you want to look at hidden items in a long list of events, you have to click on the slider bar. Clunky!

4. I can’t find an option to set a home person (usually yourself). I don’t mind if the program opens to the last person viewed, but I’d like a shortcut key to quickly navigate to my chosen home person. (Oh! Wait! It looks like there is an option to set a “startup family.” That might work.)

None of these are deal breakers. I just to find some time to sit down and really explore the program before I decide whether or not it will work for me. You’d think, with all the time off work I’ve taken to sit and stare at the damn dog, I could have been at least a little bit productive, but YOU WOULD BE WRONG. Staring at the dog is hard work, yo’.

Pets, Photography

Six Days Post-op

Six Days Post-op

Her stitches (the lower section) had me worried Sunday night.  They looked red and swollen.  I think I must have been hallucinating, though, because the next morning they looked fine. And today, they look great.

She still has two pockets of fluid, but they’re steadily shrinking. And if you look closely, you can see that the little green tattoo from her spay surgery is still visible between her staples.

The incision from the second surgery has been a lot grosser looking, so I haven’t been posting photos of it. Today, though, it finally looks good enough to share.

Art, Pets

The Shop’s Still Open

Frances had her second surgery to remove the remaining mammary tumors two days ago. As I mentioned, her pre-op exam turned up an unrelated tumor on her vulva. A fine needle aspirate showed mast cells, and the vet removed it during her scheduled surgery, since she was already going to be anesthetized. He also wanted to get it off her ASAP, because mast cell tumors are malignant.

We’ll know more about that and the remaining mammary tumors when the histopathology report comes back next week. In the meantime, this surgery ended up costing about $500 more than anticipated. That’s a huge chunk of money for me, especially given that I’d already used up all my padding with the previous surgery.

But guess what? You can help by buying stuff! Everything shipped to US addresses will be sent Priority Mail with tracking, usually the next day (same day when possible), and if you order soon USPS swears it will be delivered before December 25th.