Denise, I didn't have enough intestinal fortitude to go outside of my garage (where I took all the lightning photos) to get an unobstructed view of the storm. As it turns out, that was a good decision, in light (yuk yuk) of the fact that said lightning/thunder was everywhere, including right above me (it seemed). I had the shutter on 'continuous' so I ended up with about 800 pictures and about 10 usable ones. Tyler, I'm supposed to say that, aren't I, what with this marking my fourth winter. I have heard it's going to be quite different than last year's winter; much more cold is expected. Of course, even your snow is different than ours, isn't it? At least you have a botanical garden to go to, with glassed greenhouses and everything - and Movenpick. Hope you get there some February - it's outasight.

First of all, regardless of who uses it, I can't help but recommend that you max out the ram in your desktop if it hasn't been done already. It's great "bang for the buck". You can probably get a $500 laptop that will do the trick, but I might suggest a trip to best buy or one of the other dealers and talk to them about it. I noticed that hggregg has some great prices, but their sales folks don't seem to know their stuff so "caveat emptor". Buy one with a dual core processor and at least 3 or 4 meg RAM and you should be fine. (I'd worry less about the hard drive capacity.) Also, based on my latest experience with HP laptops, I would avoid them. I bought one for my niece a bit over a year ago and the mousepad buttons have come off in addition to it failing to go into sleep mode when the clamshell is shut. They look great but don't hold up worth a darned under normal teen use.

I don't have an IPod, so no help there. As for making sure you don't buy duplicate CD's, my solution is not so much maintaining & carrying around an inventory of what I already have...but carrying a wishlist of what I want, or "need" if you work on building collections. If it made my wishlist, I know I don't already own it. If it made my wishlist, I know I've thought about it and want it more than any impulse buy and it serves a purpose for my music tastes and collection. If I see a CD in a store that's not on my wishlist & could be an impulse buy...I DON'T buy it!!!! I write it down on my wishlist for the next planned trip...or to verify, or to think about it or research it in the event I discover I really don't need or want it in the next few days. I've had to discipline myself to do this, but it absolutely works for me in stopping wasted money on impulse buys. If the CD is released, remember that IT WILL BE THERE THE NEXT TIME, and if it's not, there are so many other ways to buy the CD online or in other stores. You're not missing any opportunities if you walk away from impulse CD purchases.

Ancestry just had a special. Go ahead and join when you are up to it but cancel as soon as your 14th day rolls around. In the meantime, after you've made a free account somewhere is the option to sign up for the free newsletter and I think it's a different box to check for specials. Read everything on the subscribe page so you don't miss it. They don't send a lot of mail and the newsletter is very worthwhile. There will probably be a 6 month world special for $99. If you don't need access to anything outside of the U.S. I would just go with a discovery subscription. I caution you about the ancestors who have been traced back to 1400. You will HAVE to do your own detective work to be sure you have the right people. You always start with yourself and work backwards. Finding one family with joe as the husband and mary as the wife and they have a boy jim and a girl sally is not going to be good enough. You have no idea how many people have those names, even in the same place. And the farther back you go, the harder it is because the census didn't require the name of everyone in the household until 1850. Before that it was head of household and hash marks in age and sex columns. It's not as easy as it looks on TV. I do want you to keep your enthusiasm but I don't want you to think this will be solved in a year or two. My cousins have elected me chief researcher because I'm more careful than they are. They run things by me that they've found for me to fact check. I'm trying not to put my arm out of joint patting myself on the back but I want you to go into this knowing it's going to be a lot of fun work! Get yourself some three ring binders at the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Next time Staples has a case of paper on sale, buy it. Get some cheap ink from Amazon.com. Print everything that you think fits most of the parameters of your search. It's a lot easier to print it now than find it again later. Citations. If you haven't heard it yet, you will. I didn't do it when I started because I was "only" going to look up my grandmother on my dad's side. Well, let me give you the best piece of advice I can think of. When you save something, make sure you write on it where you found it and everything else so that if you were to look for it the next month you would be able to pull that sheet out and know exactly where you found that information. After I got serious I had to go back and do it all over again. Not fun! Second thing, and you could do this now, subscribe to some genealogy blogs. There are so many you will find a few you like. You probably won't understand what they're talking about until you do some research yourself but in a short while you will. And they know where the other resources are. Ancestry has a youtube channel full of tutorials. Go there and watch a few. Have your eyes glazed over? It happens to everyone I talk to!!