The Wiggles, Dad and the Titanic

Well, this is a HUGE day in this here household. Both girls have something they have eagerly awaited.

In about three hours, I'll head to the Temple Early Learning Center to take Rachel out of school early. The three of us have a 3 p.m. matinee date to see The Wiggles. Yes, the Australian children's tv show phenoms will perform ten minutes from our house, minus Greg, who is suffering from mysterious fainting spells.

As long as Jeff is there, Rachel will be ecstastic. Jeff is always falling asleep and to Rachel, he is so "funnnnnyyyy." Rebecca can ogle Anthony. I'm just hoping the Captain's shipmate Caterina is there. Never mind that I'm old enough to be her dad!

Anyway, I have a feeling a good blog will come out of this one.

My other assignment is to get Rachel in bed by 9. Tonight is the two-hour return of Medium. Rebecca will be in front of the tube and I'll join her.

I had to take a sick day today. I'm taking amoxycillin and prednisone after suffering an inflamed uvula Tuesday. I have no idea what happened, but the thing that hangs down in the back of my throat was twice normal size when I woke up from a nap yesterday. It felt like my throat was gonna close off. It's back to normal now and I have a great heavy metal band name, should I ever start one..."Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome, Inflamed Uvula!"

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Cool news on the genealogy front. I recently received an e-mail from Ancestry.com that a slew of new immigrant boat passenger lists recently became available. So I typed in my dad's name to see if I could find when he came over during WWII. Nothing. Sigh.

Then I thought, what if I type in Ernst instead of Ernest? There he was! February 5, 1940 on the Veendam. Not only that, but I found the actual passenger manifest with his name on it and three pictures of the ship. The Nazis bombed it and took it over three months after dad made it to Ellis Island. The Allies got it back after WWII and it was scrapped in Baltimore Harbor in 1953. I also printed out dad's Army Enlistment Records. Very, very cool.

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And speaking of ships, an exhibit of salvaged items from the Titanic went on display here this past weekend. Rebecca and I plan to see it.

Anyway, I said, "What the heck" and asked whether we could get anyone from the exhibit to appear on my early morning newscast. It turns out we got the exhibit designer and he brought five items not part of the artifacts on display.

So Saturday, we had a tool, promissory note, leather wallet, officer's button and a porthole from third class in studio. It was awesome!