Thank you for taking the time to visit; enjoy the posts...

LTC - Day 2

 
 
 
 
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SCREEN SHOTS? How do you take 'em?

HOW do you take those screen shots? Well, first of all think about the image on your screen that you would like to save for whatever reason.
THEN on your computer keyboard look for the "Prt Scr/SysRq" KEY (Print Screen) KEY
 
AFTER hitting the "PrtScr" Print Screen KEY go to the bottom left of your Windows screen and click on the Windows LOGO start button and open up the drop up box. Search through the programs of your computer and Click on the one called "Paint"
 
PASTE your selected image that you got from hitting the Print Screen KEY.

YOUR image with appear. You may now move it about on the palate as you wish. CLICK the drop down box "Save as".... and entitle it as you wish in your desired file folder!!! THAT EASY!!!

 
 
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tree


Ember's Owl

My daughter Elizabeth is about to have her third child: (a little girl) Ember Marie Garza.  Elizabeth has asked everyone in the family to draw a picture to hang up in her nursery. Here is mine.




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WORK

WORK



PORTAL

Music Monday - LORDE

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SNOW Family reseach links

 
 According to historical records he was shot by the "Home Guard". Most of the Home Guard were "draft dodgers", "bush whackers" and thieves. They killed many people who had nothing to do with the war including women. He was the son of a Cherokee indian woman and his father was a pioneer of the Georgia Land Lottery. I believe that if you do your research including the history of Blanco County you will find that he was one of many they shot - and not because they were deserters!

THREAD links!!! ....

John DAVID Snow
(THIS is who I was named after!)

JUMP links.....

MY DAD!!!

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/k/l/e/David-F-Klein/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0664.html


http://www.mocavo.com/visit?q=Moses+Moran+Snow&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.findagrave.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Ffg.cgi%3Fpage%3Dgr%26GRid%3D21505348&m=ada650fa884090f63f211ec196d80990&i=11590128186772316245&title=Moses+Moran+Snow+%281879+-+1927%29+-+Find+A+Grave+Memorial

http://www.mocavo.com/visit?q=Moses+Moran+Snow&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffamilytreemaker.genealogy.com%2Fusers%2Fp%2Fr%2Fu%2FJulie-K-Pruett%2FODT9-0010.html&m=cd6ede3922020177af971f5a0b12fa6a&i=00847374205610637263&title=Family+Tree+Maker%27s+Genealogy+Site%3A+Outline+Descendant+Tree%3A+Descendants+of+Thomas+Pruett

http://www.historicalnames.com/

http://www.mocavo.com/The-William-Snow-Family-Descendants-of-William-Snow-Who-Landed-at-Plymouth-Mass-in-1635/727919/16

http://www.mocavo.com/The-Index-Library-Calendar-of-Wills-and-Administrations-in-the-Court-of-the-Archdeacon-of-Taunton-1537-1799/773889/385

http://www.mocavo.com/surnames/snow

http://www.mocavo.com/contribute#treefile

http://www.familycrestuk.com/#/surname-names-index/4564307919

http://www.mocavo.com/The-Mayflower-Descendant-a-Quarterly-Magazine-of-Pilgrim-Genealogy-and-History-Volume-13-14/433979/813

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (part III)

...Continued from...


 
     Alice Irene Smith     

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (part II)

...Continued from...
 
   For 13 years I was raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.  I remember living in Ballinger, Texas and we would travel up to Irving to visit my father's parents for the religious Assemblies being held there on the weekends. They were rare visits indeed.  So much so that they were really the only times I ever remember seeing my grandparents.

 
   I recall every time we arrived at my grandparent's home it was always near dark, and army-surplus sleeping bags were placed on the floor with quiet conversations from the adults. The older I became the more I became interested in family history and the chatter about the kitchen table. During those visits my grandmother would recover a book from the top of the living room closet.  THE TEXAS SNOWs had be printed from a family reunion on mimeographed pages and stapled together in the most simplistic of terms, but for me is was a most fascinating adventure, (besides, my own name was on page 23!) Years later I acquired this very book and have embellished it with additional updated material from various sources: Find A Grave, Ancestry, and others.
 
  I believe it was 1972 when my Dad's grandfather, (John David Snow, the one I was named after) passed away, it was the first funeral I ever attended.  As a young boy growing up my father spent many summers with his grandparents and so losing them was a very deep blow for him.
   As a Jehovah's Witness (JW) I was raised with doom and gloom just on the horizon. The Society had always implied that "the end of this wicked system of things" was just around the corner; and with that marriage and higher education were never stressed and even discouraged. Tracy and Cindy dropped out of school. Dad had an eighth grade education and we were all (secretly) proud of him for getting his GED later in life. Mom, Brenda, had become an LVN back in '69, she worked in nursing homes as a Medication nurse, and Dad worked for Coca-Cola as a service Manager on the machines.


   The JWs officially ended in our lives in 1976 when the family disassociated themselves from the Organization; yet, mom and I still went to the Kingdom Hall. After a while our attendance faded as well. 1977 I saw Star Wars, it was an amazing flick! I saw my first Rated R film in 1979: Alien, it was a blast!
   By Junior High I had begun making friends. I thoroughly enjoyed this time as lifelong friends were made, like Mike Cope, Shannon Love, Paul Mean, Tony Cox and Troy Hines.  Each one were an explosionary boost to my personality as I had never had such friends before growing up as a JW. Mike Cope was my dearest and closest confidant even into adulthood.  At this time, 1980 Shannon introduced us to some college friends: Don Walker and Michael Smith who played Dungeons & Dragons, (a Nerdy roleplaying game for folks with overly active imaginations).  Don lived in a trailer park across from the school and so the walk was not that far, then again nothing was very far in Brownwood, Texas. 
  We use to go to The Kettle Restaurant and drink coffee all the time and sing Elvira at the top of our lungs over and over and over again; until one time they actually had to pull the plug on the 'ol jute box!!!


 
...Continue reading.........NEXT




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MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (part I)


     My name is David DeLane Snow.  I was born on July the 12, 1963 in Irving, Texas to Bob and Linda Snow.  By the time I came along my brother was already three years old. (The blurred memories and faded photographs and stories filled in my "black out years").  I remember Carmel covered apples, laying on my stomach watching Star Trek in color! The "wonderful" smell of Moth-balls always makes me recall my mother's mother as she used them for everything! Laughter and smiles. I remember tearing open a "Christmas gift" and trying to re-package the bright red fire truck without getting caught. I remember a lot of ear aches not getting attended to and being yell at for my crying.  Slaps as well; I became deaf in my right ear, (nerve damage it was said). I remember hearing the word “retarded” a lot and wondering what it was.
   However, my being the "love child" did not seem to last long in its enchantment for having 'just another mouth to feed' began to take its stressful toll on my mother.  Her depressions and loneliness lead her into drug use. Heroin became her addiction of choice, that later eroded to an affair.  (According to my Uncle Rick); Dad was dropped off by his father one day from work and came home to find Linda entertaining another man in their bed.  Losing it Dad beat the man so severely that he went to the hospital, and Dad had a stay over in the local jail. (A story I never personally heard recanted until after my father's passing).

   It was not very long after that episode that a divorce came through.  As the State did in those days my brother and I were awarded into our mother's custody.  (The vagueness of these events stem from the dust of years, age, embarrassment, and just wanting to forget things, and for the parties involved to just move on in life).  My Dad moved on with his life. Drinking for one.  Continuing her apparent downward spiral, Linda took my brother and I on her junkie-prostitutional journey with her; (as my brother remembers several details of our mother's "front seat companions").  Where and how things took their real turn continues to be a mystery but somehow life went on.  Linda dropped Tracy and I off at a daycare babysitter, and on the third day of not showing up family members were out-of-the-loop as well; or simply unable to step in and accept the burden of caring for us.  The State of Texas came in and CPS advanced us into the care of Buckner's Children's HOME. (As of this date I still have not found out the duration of our stay and records were not forth coming in my adult attempts to uncover them).   Either months or years it was long enough on our psychological development to seed some strong issues on my brother and I. But in time we were "rescued" from it to endure other childhood experiences.
   My dad move on with his life but the memory of his sons played on his mind continually so that by the time word reached him the wheels of how to retrieve us turned quickly.  In some bar swimming in a piety party Bob met Brenda Shepherd, a newly divorcee with her own daughter.  Sharing their stories Bob also told her "my cousin says the world is going to end in 1975 and I need to join Jehovah's Organization."
   To which Brenda replied, "Before that happens you need to get your boys back." After that smile they both got married in a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, and then headed to Buckner and argued over my brother and I. Linda was a mess as all she and Bob could do was scream and yell at one another with Brenda trying to play the calm one.  “If you take ‘em,” Linda said leaning toward the other woman, “take better care of ‘em than I did.”

   I recall a dark night leaving the bright lights of a gas station waking up in the front seat of the car.  The seven years old me looking up at Brenda and asking, “Are you my new mommy?”
   “If you want me to be,” came her smiling reply that it was alright to go back to sleep.

   I remember I use to love being a Jehovah’s Witness, bow tied and book bag in hand, playing the doorman at the Kingdom Hall and enjoying the Dramas at the Assemblies. I was special, an elite among men.  There was no loss of Christmas joy, nor any memories of the wickedly-Pagan Halloween; other than not answering the mysterious knockers who came to our door.  Yet as I grew up I always felt confused.  Every time I had just begun to understand what was being studied in the Watchtower, and proud that I was able to answer predetermined questions into the microphone as it was passed about; a few months later New Light changed things.  No matter how much I tried to grasp their deep theological concepts they kept sliding out of my hands.  I was never smart enough, I was told for Jehovah’s Light always gets brighter and brighter.  I recall growing up and being in the field Ministry doing the preaching work and having doors slammed in my face, dogs being set lose to chase us away, being sprayed with water instead of lawns.  I remember being sent to the principal’s office for not saluting the flag as an idol and over hearing one worker tell another teacher, “There’s that stupid kid again.”

   “Stupid,” “Retarded” wear on you after a while.  (Note to self: things to never tell a child.)  I failed first grade for these very reasons. I was always a failure at simple things that was why I was in class with other Special Needs Students.  Up, until I sixth grade everyone thought and called me “special,” (I never knew why), when I joined “normal kids” for the first time.  As it turned out I was not Developmentally Challenged after all just dyslectic, deaf in my right ear and needed to wear corrective lenses.  Did not help my early case that I came from a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic and bi-polar step mother or being raised in an overly controlling religious group either.

   Everyone in my family became baptized members of The Society.  I had always wanted to get baptized at the District Assembly, the same one as when the Dramas were done, like how cool would that have been?! Yet, as much as I loved The Truth, I always seemed to have had too many questions for the elders. Their forever-changing doctrinal New Light always reinforced the reasons for my low self-esteem issues as I was not smart enough to understand such things.  What hurt my growth of such spiritual matters was after rambling on excitedly so about something I learned directly from the Bible, my Dad said, “Son, even Jesus rested, can we give all the questions a break?” 

   With all the negativity that others seemed to look into my life I thought I lived in a thrilling time.  I had an old tree in our back yard that had a plank of wood nailed to some high branches and it was my “tree house”. I loved Star Trek and Planet of the Apes cartoons growing up.  Vietnam news playing in the background on TV only reinforced to us the “end of this wicked system of things” was just on the brink of sure fulfillment. Yet, when the year 1975 came and went without Armageddon our worldview changed.  My father became disillusioned and bitter against The Society as our family’s attendance began to fade, but my own faith in the Governing Body as the true mediator of my salvation never waned.  
CONTINUE reading........ NEXT



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Back in the Day... REO SPEEDWAGON

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PUDDLES The Creepy Clown

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STEAMPUNK

I would so love to have some things like this!!!
 

FROM THE DEPTHS

  
A fat brown-haired rat scurried along the base of the smooth stone wall.  The two torches at either end of the unseen hallway flowed in through the barred window of the jail cell's oaken door.  Sandaled steps approached.  Keys clattered about.  The lock tumbled.  A burst of flooding-light came thrusting in from about blackened silhouettes, along with a scruffy bearded-young man.  He was dressed in tattered cloths reeking with the stench of fish.

  Landing on his hands and knees the new arrival looked into the grey eyes of his watching companion.  An old balding man with knees drawn up sitting in a corner met his gaze in return.  The rats were being greeted like pets by the seated man just as the one standing from his near fall collected his thoughts.

   “My name is Grinletch. What is yours old timer?” Sounding more like they had just met in the town’s crowded marketplace instead of the most feared dungeon in the west.

   No response came from the pale fellow feeding the fat rodent.

   “Hum.  So, when do they feed us in here?” His words slipped out more as a whisper to himself.

   Still, his words fell silent in the direction of his companion.

   Walking along the dank, darkened cell the new comer looked at the walls that seemed to cave in about him. Tick marks etched out the days that seemingly compiled into the passage of years along three of the walls. Then he asked, sighing, “Geesh!  How long you been here?” Turning his gaze back to the silent fellow, who again gave no interest to his presence? “Wow, and how am I to endure such torture as this mute!” He exclaimed his frustration.  Still there was no response.  Barely had moments even gone by as his whirling thoughts were beginning to drive him crazy already, then Grinletch divulged, “Well old fool I suppose it was just a matter of time before a thief like me got caught and thrown into The Tower.  Lucky I did not get a hand severed. So, what are you in here for, if I may ask?” Hoping another approach would yield sanity back to his feeble thoughts.

   Yet as before, his words fell short in the dark chamber as his nerves began to unwillingly settle into his new normal.  The young man crossed his arms and began pacing back and forth pondering how to get answers when suddenly the screech from a rat’s caught tail made the old man look up for the first time.

   “Seventeen years, eight months, twenty-seven days and six hours have I become accustom to the walls; and all for the cause of love.”

   Excitedly laughing that his sanity had been restored in finally receiving an answer, Grinletch admitted, “I knew the tale of a woman’s jealous husband would figure into all this somehow!”  He glowed with thoughts of his own escapades of window escapes from midnight romps.

  But the slow head shake, furrowed brows and disapproving smirk told the young fool there must have been a deeper tale forth coming in the dark.  So, leaning against the door that seemed eternally shut, he awaited the details. The old man’s smirk eased into a smile that resigned to give up what he had began, “A long time ago…”

 

   As a boy, my childhood friend and I would venture off into various explorations as boys are known to do.  For hours we went scouring the edges of the woods that skirted as the beginnings of the forest of Kinderval.  Along dry creek-beds and streams that took sharp bends with islands that fueled both our imaginations of wondrous possibilities. We wondered about what else the wide world had to offer.

  Later as we grew, we took a ship to Lindol just north of the Great Bay and again explored the city streets with all the wonders that pagan realm had to off.  The Valara and not The Watchers were revered there in her temples: Ulmo was foremost.  That Water Lord held Balinthane’s attention most.  I was simply there enjoying the experience of not getting caught by our most disapproving of parents.  Later in the evening we would return home unto our families who were none the wiser of our mischievous questionings. 

  I am Mornel Sinthrex.  Adulthood saw me move to Uruk, the great village of the east, far from Mithar’s Towered shore to explore the study of pottery; an adventure away from my own home. Yet, Balinthane ventured back to Lindol for greater studies in her Eldar Scrolls and in time became a secret follower of the Valara. This was unknown to me for years as our correspondences began to become more infrequent, waned and then ceased.  Due to personal responsibilities and life’s own turning wheel we grew further distance, but ever remained friends mind you. Yet, we both had the knack from time to time to pick up where the other had left off.  We never inquired about the religious beliefs of the other.  It had never occurred to me to ask as quill and paper were as costly to me as was time to him.

   For years we corresponded by currieries and even then our brotherly bonds grew firm. Then there came a brief season in time when our paths crossed again in person.  For a Spring I left my wife and three sons and two daughters for Lindol to sell my wares and return with profit.  As things gave way and our friendship rekindled I learned firsthand the personal fate of my brother-friend. 

   He had become caregiver to an aging father whose burden of conservative views and years in the Brotherhood’s Priesthood had calloused his thoughts upon the growing world.  Four wives had come and gone for Balinthane and never a child brought forth from their unions. Till - finally a lovely young thing named Mircythvin of Lindol gifted him with seven daughters and a strong son.  His father detested this fifth wife, children or no; for she had once been a Priestess unto Ulmo the Valara. 

   My friend insisted upon many a protest that her old life she had given up for the regard of The Watchers! With my personal arrival Balinthane’s father hoped I would talk him into leaving this wench and return to The True Path.  A hornet’s nest to say the least was what I had entered.  Ever being the true friend, I smoothed things over with redirected tales of Uruk and my adventures to both Gondor and the Dwarven realm of Jebul.  In those tales my stay was most wonderful and the tensions repaired as I had accepted Mircythvin as a sister.

 

   Through the years afterward and by way of letters his secret fellowship in favoring the Valara over The Watchers became more apparent; yet, they were vaulted within my loving friendship with Balinthane.

   Then two silent months drudged by without a letter, so again I ventured for a visit to Mithar a final time.  On this occasion we met not is his father’s home as usual but upon the very steps of The Great Hall itself.  A welling suspicion of fright began in my bones as to why such a meeting place was called forth as I met his letter near the Eastern Gate.

   Speaking briefly after somber salutation without embrace, Balinthane informed me, "My father received your last letter instead of me. I had gone to into town and missed the messenger."

   Thinking nothing at first I answered, "I am sorry he has been so ill as of late. - Oh - THE letter..." I suddenly recalled that my quill commented on many of his details and Valaraian ritual services. "HE READ IT?"

Balinthane:  "He read it."

Mornel: "I am forever sorry my friend." Sincerely hoping the reminder of their status was not fully crushed by the secret revelations of passed deeds.

Balinthane:  "So am I. But, he is my father and must come first."

   We had been co-conspirators of embracing the moment and exploring all the taboos of the world that our parents abhorred. We were young and fearless in those by-gone days.  We finished the thoughts of the other, and inspired the others imagination with insights for we loved learning as much as the adventures of youth. Yet in time his seemed to lead into more trouble than my own had the courage for. I envied Balinthane greatly for such ventures. In time we grew apart and children become men.

The next day we had cut off ties and our open friendship in the eyes of his father, who was the local priest were.  I severed our bond as I freely accepted the role of instigator of those grave mischiefs that had occurred. The local authorities came upon me and from the Lord Magistrate was I imprisoned within the very walls of Varlendur itself.

  We corresponded by currieries and even then our brotherly bonds grew firm. Then there came a brief season when our paths crossed again in person.

  The Guard:  "You are being released."

Mornel: Speechlessly stunned, then after a slow breath of softness came over his lined face as he began petting the rat in his lap again.

Grinletch: "He must have been here too long, he is afraid to go.

Mornel: "No. It is time now." The old man released the rat to run free again, just as he himself was now being released. Then rose and went to the doorway and stopped to answer the guard who held it open.

The Guard:  "Where will you go?"

Mornel: "What I have always done. Live."

Grinletch: "What are you going to do?"

Mornel: Smiled a toothless grin and replied, "The rats and time both have taught me tenacity. Have faith my friend the light will find you."

   Upon leaving the Grey Tower's massive front doors the newly released prisoner saw his old childhood friend standing at the bottom of the steep stair.  He had waited all those years later to see him, though they spoke seldom and never of the old-grievance.  He stood there all alone.

   With each step the old man took toward the bottom ancient memories began to flood his thoughts. Memories before the rats, before the beatings and the engulfing darkness came seeping into the old man’s thoughts again.  Until, finally many years later they came face to face. The old childhood friend's face was streamed with tears and a trembling chin. Yet all the newly freed man could say was, "I am so very sorry for the loss of your father, he was a great man."

Not the ONLY ONE...

THERE's more than One of me out there!!! Oh Nooooo!!!!



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BEING A LEADER

   Being a leader takes much much more than attending a seminar CAMP. Though they can be trained I am beginning to believe leaders are born. But Great Leaders of the masses well that's just extraordinary. 

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