• Check this out from Peter Gabriel – http://t.opsp.in/ETy9 #
• Check out the "slime" episode of SETI's "Are we Alone?" http://tinyurl.com/yf9fate See how the hagfish can gross you out with slime… #
• Man! What a nice day this is. Take your kids out to a park. #

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• Just took the plunge and signed up for a Meetup.com account to host the Hall County Drum Circles: http://tinyurl.com/yg5uhoo #
• Turns out the baby girl is allergic to the penicillin family. It's a doozey! #
• My 6-year-old got a lot out of this TED-talk about nutrition and education. http://on.ted.com/89uG #
• Happy Birthday to me! Horchata, carne asada burrito, frijoles charros, and a taco for dinner. Yum! #
• Just bought Connected (Unabridged) by Nicholas A. Christakis on Audible.com. http://soc.li/MEFV7ab #
• 5 passes through the Chow Baby buffet in Atlanta. Happy birthday to me! #
• Also Dialogue in the Dark. What a great experience. #

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• When do you post to Twitter over Buzz? Is there a user guide available? #DualPost #
• Rick Roll Oxford College? Man! That'd be funny. #
• If I can turn one person on to Tribal Seeds' "Dawn of Time," my job is done. #
• Ugh. "10 on 10" by Pyaar Impossible sounds like something from the Disney Channel. Requests… #
• Oxford cafeteria workers *love* some Unk and Cupid #
• Alright – "Chicken Noodle Soup," "She Freaky," and I' m out! Thanks Oxford College. Happy Fat Tuesday. #
• My shin is actually cramping while trying to drive! This is awful. #
• Man versus 6-year-old, game of Checkers. Man wins! Get this cry baby out of here. #
• RT @riverace My truck she was driving had the whole rear axle twisted off that was the kind of impact it was, waiting here at the hospital.. in reply to riverace #
• Balthazar just got his green/brown belt! #
• I favorited a YouTube video — Kakilambé, achtergrond info http://youtu.be/7A-qy0Udw40?a #

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• Had my first-ever professional massage today. Quite the experience! #
• I'm listening to "Blue Lips" by Regina Spektor (http://bit.ly/a675eo) #pandora #
• I wish I was at TED…@TEDNews #
• Just squirted menthol and eucalyptus up my nose (Afrin)…aaaaaaahhh! #
• A great powdered sugar sifting from sky; making gingerbread houses of even the D.O.T. #
• the roads are mostly okay in 30501. #
• Mariachi band at La Parilla is rockin out Sweet Child of Mine! #
• Nearly done with my Fat Tuesday playlist for Emory at Oxford coming up soon! #

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• I have a gig Thursday playing doumbek for belly dancers at an area high school. I wish I hadn't hibernated the drumming all winter! #
• Just bought Equal Rites: Discworld #3 (Unabridged) by Terry Pratchett on Audible.com. http://soc.li/A2Rw18e #
• Balthazar drew a stick-figure cartoon today. One figure had a speech bubble coming out of his butt that said "fart." The End #
• Shit! I choked pretty bad on my doumbek solo… #
• I'm listening to olaf.gradin's QuickMix (http://bit.ly/bBbnXn) #pandora #

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As one looks deeply into their ancestral past, it is the future that you begin to see.

I’ve recently been somewhat engaged in the genealogical study of my mother’s father’s name, Gradin. I have discovered, for one, that genealogy is not for the timid nor uncommitted. It is some hard work to pull together records of naturalization with little reward. I have the benefit of an elder generation that did much of this work for me and wrote about it some decades ago. I am very happy that she put the time into this recollection, because this historical view into family would otherwise have been lost with her death in 1997.

What’s so important about our family trees? It’s a good question. Perhaps nothing, really. But for the soul, knowing your roots can be a heart-warming foray through an imagination of kinship and bonding. You’re connected to a bigger picture. And as I look at this bigger picture and explore the possible stories of people before me, I begin to wonder how my familial connections today will shape the young genealogical researcher of tomorrow. Just as I’m looking back at 1896 in Hemsö socken, Västernorrland at the marriage of my great-grandfather Olof Gradin to Clara Norberg, so too will some future generation look back at 1996 when Olaf Gradin married Amy Wilson. They’re going to try and imagine what primitive lives we lived and think of what it would have been like to know us. Were we loving, compassionate people? Hard workers? Were we full of life, family, and friends?

I hope that my history and my family’s history will be well-maintained for future generations to know where they came from. To understand what decisions in our lives led to the inevitable, and miraculous, creation of them.

I was named for my great-grandfather. I married my wife 100 years after him. Is it coincidence? Probably. But there is no end to my fascination that he would make the decision to emigrate to the United States and bring his family with him; where through a chain of random events, I stand here today living and breathing, and remembering him with honor and respect for my very existence in this world.

• Skinniest House is 9.5' wide, 42' long ( http://tinyurl.com/ydexnsz ). Kate Moss says, "It's roomy – too roomy. It makes me look fat!" #
• It took me this long to finally realize how nasty Krystal's is! Have I no friends? #
• RT @DinoRubble: Buy Stargate SG-1/Atlantis props and costumes! (Even I'm tempted!) http://bit.ly/8qJ2tQ #
• Just finished up at the MI Fair for Enota Elementary. Yay for the drummers! #

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