Google+: Good Idea or Bad Idea?

I use that line with my kids a lot when they’re making questionable decisions.  If one of them is feeding grass clumps to the dog, I’ll ask “Good idea?  Or bad idea?”  Usually that’s enough to make them think before continuing. I got a (not-quite sanctioned) invitation to join Google+, Google’s new social network, last … Read more

Mother’s Day…Geek Style!

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!  Yes a little early, but I have a fun-filled weekend planned so I don’t know when I’ll write again. Dave did really well this Mother’s Day! Okay, so he booked his annual trip to visit his model railroading/railfanning friends in Maryland and Pennsylvania for this weekend.  And that’s where he is … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 16: The Mormon Trail Center

Yeah, it’s been a while…

We’re in the middle of a crazy summer here — with the family currently scattered to the 4 winds! Well, the 3 winds anyway. Jacob’s in NY enjoying a visit with Grammy and Grampy Vollmer, I’m currently on my 2-week AF Reserve tour, and Dave and Timmy are holding down the home front in Nebraska.

On June 13, my sister’s family came for a visit on their way home from a 2-week cross country drive between their house in NC and Las Vegas. They spent a full day with us, and in typical “Major Mom” fashion, I crammed a bunch of activities into that one day.

I presented my sister with a variety of options of what we could visit, and the Mormon Trail Winter Quarters Visitor’s Center caught her fancy. Jacob had been here as part of a Bellevue Schools summer camp program in 2009, but didn’t really seem to have an opinion about it. He didn’t even remember making the trip until we pulled into the parking lot and said “Hey, I’ve been here!”.

I had seen some reviews of this attraction on Trip Advisor, and prepared myself for some, uh…Mormon education? Some of the more brash reviewers spoke pretty rudely of the “preaching” that the center seemed to emphasize. I will say up front that I learned a lot…only a couple times did our guide ask some pointed questions about whether we might think that we’d be interested in the Mormon message.

The kids enjoyed the statue in front:

From 2010 06 14 Baba Visit to Omaha

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Vollmer Vacation Ventures

We are now back in Nebraska. Many of you know this already, if you’ve been following Dave or me on Facebook, Twitter or our family’s homepage. We made a nuisance of ourselves advertising every point of our trip to the world, much to the delight of potential thieves, as someone pointed out to me during … Read more

ROAD TRIP!

Tomorrow morning we leave on vacation. “Whoo hoo! It’s about friggin’ time! You haven’t really had a real vacation in a couple years, have you?” No, I guess not. We had that fabulous trip to Fort Fisher/Kure Beach, NC back in July 2007. That was a really fun time, the most relaxed I’d ever been, … Read more

What Have I Been Up To?

Good question. Right now, I’m enjoying Dancing With the Stars, although my enthusiasm is somewhat limited because I was away for the first 3-4 weeks. I couldn’t believe that Steve-O wasn’t eliminated the first week…I guess he was a better dancer than I gave him credit for… I’m also back to a CD-burning spree. Not … Read more

iPhoto — For a Good Laugh

So I’m having a grand old time working on organizing my photos on my Macbook.  There’s software called “iPhoto” that seems quite intelligent. I’ve already imported all my pictures from our desktop (32,000+ photos, about 30GB). So one of the features I’m having fun with is iPhoto’s Face Recognition program.  Called “Faces”, based on a … Read more