JoeB1934 Declutters His Life History at 90

                        Who am I?

I joined LibraryThing Jun7, 2021 and have a library of 2,446 books. I have read about 1700 of them and 700 on my TBR. Since my joining date I have initiated 64 talks in different Groups. My most recent thread can be found at https://www.librarything.com/topic/359868#n8575966, with the title:

JoeB1934's Wandering Through Books - Posting my Reading Journal for 2024

I was born on July 13, 1934, and YES, it was a Friday. You can see that I am now 90 years old. What does anyone at 90 most likely do? Reflect, reminisce, and most often wonder where did all that time go, and what have I been doing?

Well, one thing I could do is write-up a Life History. Not a tell-all autobiography, for sure. Some key events in life come by way of photographs, like marriage, or graduation, for example. Sort through the zillions of photos we all tend to accumulate. Maybe, but what about how to represent periods, or critical life changing decisions I made.

The approach I am about to go with can be seen in the thread I mentioned above. That thread is all about enumeration of books I have read YTD and discussing my personal reactions to those books. I do list individual book titles and authors in touchstone fashion, but I don't find that raw data to be very memorable to me.

Instead, along with some others, I have begun to display compact cover displays like this:

This post is for the books I have read this year, but they also include photos important to me and my emotions. With this display I am presenting to myself the opportunity to relive, to some degree my year in life. I spent the most hours reading books, but life changing events also occurred.



In a nutshell I am about to launch into an adventure where I go back through my life history and find, or create photos of places, objects, people, events etc. that can be combined into a 'photo album' of my life history. Like these book covers do.

I have used the phrase Decluttering because that activity is meant to strip a room, or anything that has extraneous items hiding the truly useful, or valuable items. Stripping out interesting, but non-essential details from any discussion, or problem is a trait that has served me well throughout my life.

Can I do it here? Time and a lot of work will determine if this concept is useful. I plan on using this thread to report progress on the project, but don't expect very frequent updates.

Looking forward to seeing how this goes. Decluttering is a valuable activity in all areas of life.

Why have I chosen to start this project now? As I was approaching my 90th birthday the reminiscing I mentioned goes into overdrive. Added to that was the death of Cynthia, my wife of 68 years on June 22, 2024. Now it is time to prepare a eulogy for her. The one we produced contained all of the essentials, but it fell short of what it could have been.

In thinking about my life history, it seemed that I needed to produce some representation of my life that was more than significant milestone dates. In every life there are events, or periods which, in retrospect were turning points in your life. Additionally, there were periods when what you were doing was especially memorable.

This concept in some ways was triggered by the cover display of books I have read in 2024. Those covers contain titles and authors and when I look at an individual cover it triggers emotions in me that existed when I read the book. I want to collect or create photos of events in my life that convey my emotions at the event or period of time.

With the help of my family, we are about to attempt to create my life history with this objective in mind. I consider this a decluttering project because it is important to strip away interesting and useful data to arrive at the heart of my journey.

My family and a decluttered 90th birthday is presented below.

            The Birthday Family



Michael, Madeleine, Shelley, Joe, Percy, Carey, Trevor, Gabrielle with Louis Ribak Painting in background

Starting the day
Woke up at 5 AM, per usual. After normal get-up and get started had my everyday breakfast of muesli with berries and a lungo espresso.

Because it is Saturday
Go to Trompeau French Bakery for walnut croissants, butter croissants and canele's. Then go to Kaladi Coffee for fresh espresso beans. The walnut croissants are the closest I can obtain to match potica, which is a classic Slovenian pastry made by my Scottish mother.

Take Percy for his Walk
I choose the overall destination and he chooses the path in order to maximize his sniffing success. Also stop at local farmer's market to obtain fresh Colorado peaches and apricots.

Because it's my birthday
Gather at 4PM for a memorial dinner where the birthday person selects their complete menu to be prepared by other family members. In my case I chose a meal created by Cynthia to emulate a fantastic meal we had in the 1960's at Toklat, a wilderness lodge near Aspen. This meal consisted of the following:

• Main entree: BLAM patties (beef and lamb) with a special tomato sauce
  
• Grated potato pancakes sort of like latkes
  
• Salad of romaine lettuce, walnut pieces, currents, and mandarin orange segments.
  
• Dessert: Sunshine cake, which was a childhood favorite baked for decades by my Scottish mother
  
• A variety of British teas.
  

A Special Breakfast on 7/14
A breakfast we often have as a family which I named Scones and Bones
This meal consists of:

• Boiled eggs
  
• Currant scones
  
• White oven scones
  
• Fresh lemon curd and cream
  
• Mixed berries.
  
• A variety of British teas.
  

            Developing a Plan

I will approach this problem as I have done throughout my life on a myriad of problems. This starts with defining in simplest possible terms what the problem is. I have done this to my satisfaction in >1 JoeB1934:.

The most critical next step is to breakdown the problem into concise pieces, the development of which would produce the desired solution to the problem. In my case I need to review my life to obtain pictures of the most memorable events in my life. In this case these are to be found in:

Major Memorable Sources

• Traditionally photographed events, e.g. marriage, birthdays and graduations.
  
• Places of residence.
  
• Vacations taken.
  
• Foreign travel trips
  
• Items purchased that are important memories
  
• Books read that impacted my life.
  
• Written descriptions of key events in professional and non-professional periods.
  

Note that each of these items will have a date attached to them, but I am not searching for them in chronological terms. I have enlisted all of my family members in the effort required to meet my needs.

There literally could be thousands of photos relevant to my search, but I need to remind all of us that I am looking for the smallest number of photos to 'represent' the event. One wedding photo and not dozens. Also relevant is how large a set do I want to end up with, I am thinking about 100 as a goal.

I am sure that we have all suffered through photo albums which went on for hours with lots of repetitions and little written info. Photos of long-ago relatives and no names on the back of the photo.

In my vision each chosen photo must have, at least a one-liner to tell important facts about the photo.

Processing the Photos

Acquiring these photos, which will number in the 100's must be followed by a way to store their digital form. I have chosen Google Drive as the storage depository.

My account will be shared by each of my family members so they can place their candidates as they see fit. Additionally, the seven categories itemized above will each be in a matching sub-category to make the sorting of the candidates easier.

Presentation of the Digital Life History

Even though I came up with this idea from my work with LT, it isn't possible to develop and present the life history in LT. There are a number of applications which were designed specifically for creating a digital photo album and my investigation didn't produce a system that I found useful.

In discussions with Trevor, my grandson about what is needed he advised using Microsoft PowerPoint. It is described as:

Perfect for creating visually appealing presentations with slides, animations, and multimedia elements.
Whether for business meetings, educational purposes, or personal projects

While PowerPoint wasn't available in my day, his knowledgeable advice sounds perfect to me. There are several ways we could produce a photo library. Such as:

• A continuous timeline of all events.
  
• Grouped by the categories which were used to find them.
  

Or any other approach that seems useful.

It is also very important that each photo has attached the associated commentary that explains the inclusion. PowerPoint gives that flexibility.

This is obviously only my starting plan and it could well be adjusted as real-life occurs.

Quite the project, Joe, but rewarding. I love that you have enlisted the family. The process will be as interesting as the result, I would think.

What an amazing project, Joe. I look forward to following along with how it's going. Include details such as your Scones and Bones breakfast - those are the beautiful little details that make up a person.

>6 AlisonY: Glad to have you involved as we are decluttering my family 'stuff' accumulated over 68 years of marriage. We are uncovering items very valuable historically and quite hilarious at times. Carey and Shelley, my daughters are doing the hard work as I can't always be trusted to search trash for jewels.

I assure you that if the project goes as planned you will be fully satisfied with details. I just have to know when to include/exclude them to keep the story down.

I have decided how to collect info for this project, how to store the data and, most importantly how to present it to everyone. First I want to tell you a simple story.

My Quest for Fly Fishing Glory

When I was a teenager, I decided that I really wanted to be a successful fly fisherman for trout. I tackled this project the way I have always done, systematically go about obtaining the knowledge to be successful. These steps were:

• Find the best equipment for the job. Fishing rods, and reels. Waders for fishing, Basket for holding fish and a net to capture them in order to remove from line.
  
• Learn how to tie flies from my Aunt Priscilla, and acquire all the materials and tools necessary.
  
• Learn from the major book on fly fishing at that time Trout by Ray Bergman. All about dry flies, streamers, wet flies and nymph fishing.
  
• Tie a few dozen flies recommended for the trout in my stream territory.
  
• Get agreement, which wasn't difficult, from my father to take me to the most promising stream
  
• Take a number of trips to the selected stream and acquire the proper casting skill so that I could present a fly to a potential trout waiting there.
  

Does this story intrigue you at all? I think maybe a little, but how about I add photos to the story. Pictures of the stream, fish I caught, me in my gear, etc.

What I can't add is the anxious feeling when I see a trout feeding on surface insects and I try to delicately place a dry fly coming down to where he is feeding and the heart stopping event when he comes up under the fly and I hook him, which leads to a tug-of-war between the two of us. Much of the time the fish wins the battle, but elation when I do. No matter the size I carefully return the fish to the water, maybe after a photo taken.

Building My Life History Library

If you are reading this post, you obviously know a lot about the LibraryThing system for storing all books in a structured and retrievable way. For my current purposes I want to focus on the system built by BookBrowse.

LT has a standard genre set which they defend at all costs. Beyond that there are tags which are defined by users without any specific rules. The net effect is bookkeeping tags mixed with genre-like tags at a lower level than the main genre set.

BookBrowse has a structured set of tags which every book is attached to by reviewers. The structure is as follows:

• Main Genres: These are similar to LT in some ways, e.g. Mystery, Historical Fiction, but has others unlike LT. Some of these are: Romance/Love Stories, Short Stories, Poetry & Novels in Verse and so on. A total of 18 items.
  
• Subgenres/Themes: There are 38 items in this category. Some are familiar to me like books-about-books, coming of age and magical realism. Many others are somewhat different. Mid-Life Onwards, Dealing with Loss, Jewish Authors, Immigrants and Expats, on and on to the 38 total.
  
• Settings: These are regions in the world and all Us States. Examples are: New England, South, Britain & Ireland, Russia, Middle East etc.
  
• Time Period: Total of 12 periods. Some are 17th Century or Earlier, 18th Century,1920s & 30s, 1940s & 50s, Contemporary, The Future for 12 different ones.
  
  
  
  I am not trying to start a dispute with LT over their approach. What is important to me is the notion of creating tags for my purposes:
  
  
  
  • People I have Known: Father, Mother, Wife, Children, Employees, * * * *
    
  • Periods of My Life: Birth thru High School, College Years, first 5 Years of Employment, ****
    
  • Employment History: Internship at MFS, General Electric, MMC, * * *
    
  • Residence Locations: Wyoming, Walla Walla College, Cincinnati, Schenectady, Boston, Sanat Barbara, ****
    
  • Foreign Locations: Scotland, Slovenia, Vienna, Paris, ****
    
  • Special Interests: Fly Fishing, Back Packing, Archaeology, Age of the Earth, ***
    
  • Year or Period: 1934, 1956, 2000, 1960-1970, *****
    
  
  
  In my approach to a life history, I have what we can call 'Objects' and each of those objects can be tagged by use of their association with any of these seven JFB History Tags.
  
  Instead of books my objects will be:
  
  
  
  • Slides
    
  • Photos
    
  • Documents
    
  • Books
    
  • Audio Recordings
    
  • Video Recordings
    
  
  
  My JFB Life History will exist in the form of an Excel spreadsheet structured similarly to the one that I use on my LT book analyses.
  
  The first column will be for each object we have created. The next column will be the name of the file by format. Jpeg for pictures, or .doc for a document, etc. The adjacent columns will include one column for each of the members of the JFB History Tags.
  
  For example, if I find a photo of my mother, that photo would be named on a row and attached to any of the tag genres appropriate to that photo.
  
  We are about to initiate a serious effort to finding or creating these objects. These suggestions are for the conceptualizing the use of a library for our purposes. Undoubtedly, I will create new tags that don't quite fit our initial set.
  
  The strength of this approach will be the ability to slice and dice the data in a variety of ways according to the tag distributions.
  
  As per usual for me I now feel that I have belabored TOO long about how and why I am using Excel to store my object records.
  
  If one simply looks at a standard LT export of your library, you see:
  
  
  
  
  • Bookid which is like my Objectid
    
  • Title which is like my Object Name
    
  • Authors which is like my persons
    
  • ISBN which is like my specific jpeg,doc,pdf identifier
    
  • Publication date which is like my dates for the object
    
  • Collections which tie different objects into a group
    
  
  
  This is the simplest analogy, and probably easier for you to understand.
  
  Here is a Trimmed Down Snapshot of Excel Data Sorage
  
  
  
  Stay tuned as I will update how this process is getting along
  
  Madeleine and I are currently homing in on the equipment to create these digital images and the process for collecting them and their inclusion into the data spreadsheet.

>8 JoeB1934: This post made me thing of a lovely book you might enjoy: Machine without Horses, a novel about a renowned maker of fly ties in the Scottish Highlands: Megan Boyd.

>10 SassyLassy: I looked at that book and it is wonderful sounding. Did you know that one of my favorite thoughts is that most human beings have a story unique to them but worth knowing about? Books about 'ordinary' people are among my most favorite books, and this seems to be very worthwhile, and he tied flies in Scotland!

Over in the SassyLassy thread there has been an ongoing discussion about decluttering, and I posted a bit about the subject as it applies to this effort. I have copied it here as it probably should have been in the first place.

This seems to have become the thread talking about hoarding and I am back, someone without any training in psychology to talk about the emotional aspects of the subject.

As someone who is in the midst of decluttering 3 storage units filled with life's accumulation of 'things' I am encountering full-on the emotional side of the subject. To top it off I am developing a decluttered Life History of myself.

The processing of physical items from storage involves looking at an object and to determine: is this something that is true trash, or is it for recycling, shredding, or memorabilia?

I believe that at the heart of most hoarding is the inability to decide when first confronted with this question about an object is the postponement of the decision. I'll think about that tomorrow, or later. The result? Three storage units.

We are forced to go through making these decisions countless times now. A large number of these choices are very easy, but others not so much. Emotions run rampant, as laughter over a memory forgotten, or an item that was feared lost, or joy upon seeing it is still there. My family is making the bulk of those decisions, and they know me very well, so I get to make them when they run across something obviously meant for me.

This joint effort will finally result in separations of what I called memorabilia into sub-groups. True retain for life of someone in the family, give away to Goodwill, or other charity. Have an estate sale for things of value that no family member, or friend wants to keep.

We haven't yet arrived at the full gamut of photos, slides and documents related to me that need to be digitized for my life history. I have begun to create the mechanisms for doing that digitization and creating a digital storage unit which I can go through to arrive at my decluttered life history.

I am already realizing that I will need to make hundreds of decluttering decisions about personal memories that I will retain for final times. A chore that will be rewarding at times but leading to regrets about how I might have led my life at other times.

At the end of this effort, you will certainly know me in all but my most secret aspects that each of us retain.

I have done some research into the tools needed to effectively gather desired digital material for this journey.

Since various members of the family will participate in this effort, I needed to have a method for storing data in a location available to everyone. This was an obvious choice provided by Google on a Google Drive for file sharing. This has been created as a depository.

The next tools must provide a convenient method for making digital copies of physical prints. I acquired a very inexpensive, but powerful flatbed scanner. This choice was: Epson Perfection V19 II Color Photo and Document Flatbed Scanner with 4800 dpi Optical Resolution, USB Power and High-Rise, Removable Lid. You can spend hundreds of dollars on such a device, but it cost only $75. It actually has a menu choice to send the scan to Google Drive.

For converting 35 mm slides I chose: Wolverine Titan 8-in-1 High Resolution 35mm, 127, 126, 110 and APS Film to Digital Converter with 4.3" Screen and HDMI Output. There are a number of choices here, including sending them to a photo conversion shop, but that is prohibitively expensive. This Wolverine converter is easy to use, and it only cost $150. It also has the capability to send the digital product to Google Drive.

So, the tools are now in place and the real grunt-work, which probably will be on-going for several months can proceed.

In my next post I will describe our current efforts as mentioned in >12 JoeB1934:

>11 JoeB1934: "Did you know that one of my favorite thoughts is that most human beings have a story unique to them but worth knowing about?"

I have always tried to keep this thought in mind whenever I've been cornered by drunken bores in parties or taverns over the years. Instead of obsessing over how boring I was finding their droning ramble in the moment, I'd try to pay attention to their voice and speech pattern. I'd think, "How would I replicate this person's voice if he (rambling drunks are almost always "he's") was a character in a short story I was writing? What would be the speech pattern characteristics that would help create a unique individual? Sometimes, though, I would try to concentrate on what the person was actually telling me. Maybe there really was an interesting story buried in all the repetition and digression. Anyway, what I eventually came to was this:

There are no boring life stories, though unfortunately there are a lot of bad storytellers.

>14 rocketjk: Wow! That last statement says it all. I won't forget that one for a long time.

>14 rocketjk: There are no boring life stories, though unfortunately there are a lot of bad storytellers.

That's brilliant!

I just need to make sure that I am NOT one of the baddies! Maybe mediocre will be my grade but I plan to do the best I can do.

>17 JoeB1934: As I've gotten older, I've certainly become more . . . how shall I put it? . . . loquacious. In an attempt to avoid becoming a garrulous old coot, I've tried to insert an alarm clock in the back of my brain. If I find myself going on for too long, the alarm goes off, at which point I stop, take a breath, and say, "How about you?"

BookBrowse brought my attention to the book The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates

The Summary of the book is:

Both sweeping and exquisitely intimate, award-winning author Bart Yates blends historical fact and fiction in a surprising, thought-provoking saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man, beginning in 1920s Utah.

"Each day is a story, whether or not that story makes any damn sense or is worth telling to anyone else."

At the age of ninety-six, Isaac Dahl sits down to write his memoir. For Isaac, an accomplished journalist and historian, finding the right words to convey events is never a problem. But this book will be different from anything he has written before. Focusing on twelve different days, each encapsulated in a chapter, Isaac hopes to distill the very essence of his life.

Does this sound a bit vaguely familiar to someone you know?

I have read the book now and the author did achieve the stated objective of "distilling the very essence of Isaac's life."
However, the entire book is fiction, and of course the author is an accomplished writer. Focusing on 12 days in the course of nearly 100 years in the life of a person sounded limiting to me before I read the book, but at the end I did feel confident that I understood the life of the man portrayed. The skill of the author provided me with the images that allowed me to feel this way.

Could I do this with my life history? Absolutely not, with my limitations.

The goal is still reasonable for me if you allow replacing the word 'essence' by something like 'memories'.

In some ways this project of mine got started at a family dinner last year when I brought up a couple of events in my professional life that they found to be new and revealing to them. They already knew all about memories involving all of us in their lives. What I haven't discussed with much detail are the periods when I was involved in US national security analyses.

Of course, I still cannot and never will discuss details that were strictly classified, and I am 25 years past that period anyhow. What they found fascinating were my stories about people I worked with and the broad outlines of those projects.

Any of you that have followed my book reading and 'reviewing' know already that I am not inclined to provide a level of detail on a book with analysis of the quality of the writing, or the historical representation of facts.

Instead, i focus on how the book affected me psychologically and how I reacted to the characters in the story. What I am trying to do in this project is more like a 'review' of my life with concentration on the individuals and memorable events throughout my 90 years.

Just as an aside I am incensed at the behavior of anyone that treats classified documents the way a certain person has done. Imprisonment for life is the only outcome I would be satisfied with.

P.S. dchaikin has just released his review of Possession, which he calls the best book he has read. This statement is also true for me. The point I would like to make is that he produced a review that is a model for how I would like to review any book. Alas, I don't have that capacity/talent.

While decluttering our 3 storage units I have had a LOT of very pleasant discoveries. Details, especially about the first 20-30 years of my professional career. Reports on projects I worked on with mathematics that I once knew, but now are like a foreign language to me.

I have never written any fiction, or literary work of any kind. Even so, it has come back to me that in writing a report it was impossible for me to proceed until I had determined the title of the report, and designed the report structure, including 'chapter' headings.

The title was especially important as it sets the stage for what I am about to say. Examples of this in the book world are everywhere. Consider my two most favorite books: Possession by A. S. Byatt and Enlightenment by Sarah Perry

I am quite dense myself about the importance of a title until I am near the end of the book. This then explodes in my brain as to why that was the perfect title.

I imagine I will be reconsidering the title of my current Life History project when it comes down to it.

This is absolutely true for an epoch-oriented structure to my history story.

I woke up this morning with a more complete concept of how this project can be modelled as a technical report, of which I have written quite a few. Or, for that matter 'writing', or programming an application.

When I wrote a technical report, as I mentioned just above, I have to create a set of subsections, or chapters if you prefer. These sections can be standalone as entities in their own right. That is, they have a purpose and within the section there are subsections. Each of which have their own purpose.

In a real book these chapters contain pages, each of which can have a specific purpose. These pages could have been written without belonging to a timeline. Individual paragraphs could have been written by the author at a time of their choosing.

In software development this is considered object-oriented programming. Each such object can be developed by a different individual. The job of the project manager is to create an overall structure for the project, with underlying sections, or chapters and assign individuals with the job of completing an object to spec.

With this in mind I have Madeleine searching for photos I request, and each one is an object. Meanwhile Carey & Shelley are searching through the many boxes of my life and they bring to me interesting objects that I had forgotten about. Like my invitation to make a presentation at The Hague on defense modelling.

Meanwhile I am drafting other objects in the form of word paragraphs that introduce a photo, or that Hague letter.

The beauty of thinking about this project as compiling an inventory of independent objects is that it leaves to me to assemble them all into a cohesive story that viewers will enjoy. There can be multiple forms of these stories.

In technical writing there is often an executive summary. Think of that as a synopsis and the viewer can stop with that . My record for writing an executive summary of a project assigned to our Systems Analysis department at Martin Marrietta Corp (MMC) to help them make some important business decisions.

That assignment created a significant software development which I will discuss in more detail in my final life history document.

The executive summary was one flip chart that simply said Buy More Minuteman

Popping in to say hello. Been wrapped up in my own minutiae, but wanted to let you know I'm following along.

>22 labfs39: Thank you for dropping in. I give you credit for urging me to continue posting even if it appears no one is watching. You explained that I get a benefit even if no one is watching because the process forces me to think through my concepts in the most effective way.

That is certainly true for my two previous posts, as it is allowing me to crystalize my thoughts about where I am headed.

Yesterday Carey came across one of the most important documents of my life. This document is labelled as Statement of Personal History This was a detailed list of my residences from birth to January 9, 1974.

It provides very accurate details on my: Education, Family, Foreign Travel, Employment, Credit and Character References, Residences, Membership in Organizations.

These must be provided in exact detail, with date, names, locations, etc. Attached was National Agency Check Request confirming that all of the data I provided has been confirmed by agents of the Federal Government.

This document was part of a request by an agency of the US Government to confirm and upgrade my Top-Secret clearance for the work I was doing on National Security issues.

This document provides me with details about residences and employers far more detailed that I can provide at this time of my life. A goldmine for acquiring relevant photos from a time that I wasn't actually taking many.

An equally important reason is that it provides entry to my explaining why I needed a Top-Secret clearance in the first place.

I have been employed as a Systems Analyst for about 40 years for government and commercial firms. These projects ran the gamut from project management of architectural firms to war gaming analyses of various U.S. national defense scenarios. I will provide many details on these activities in my final life history.

In order to do the work in national defense I had to obtain appropriate access to data and information vital to understanding any role I might have in performing my job.

The work I did spanned all the way from the Secretary of Defense to the Air Force, the Army, the Navy and agencies in what is called national intelligence, like the NSA, CIA and DIA. My role in working for these agencies was VERY minor and not critical for defending the US. It was all analytical and NOT operational.

That is, I was never a spy!

Most everyone thinks about the CIA as all spies, but the reality is that far more of those who work there or are employed by them were from academia in economics, science, political analysis and often working with open sources of information.

Later I will discuss what part I played in these studies WITHOUT revealing any classified information.

Given my background you won't be surprised at my thoughts about the Classified Documents case against Trump. Basically, if it were up to me, it would be prison with zero possibility for parole.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that not only did he mishandle classified documents, but he likely used some disclosures for his financial, or political profit.

Some of these documents were likely available to a very small handful of individuals within the US government.

I believe that prior to his first election he couldn't have obtained a Secret clearance, let alone Top-secret and beyond.

He is at least a white nationalist, and maybe a Nazi sympathizer like his Father.

Meanwhile I had an uncle on a destroyer that was attacked in WWII and Partisans in Slovenia bombed their own village church so the Nazis couldn't use it as a communication tower. My Mother was afraid that her not having become a naturalized citizen would hinder me in my career. So, she studied and got her credentials. Her Scottish brogue didn't hurt her chances with the judge, from what I heard later.

I had to take and pass a polygraph exam twice in my career. Also debriefs after every foreign travel that went anywhere close to the Iron Curtain. I was never asked to do anything, just report my observations.

Some of which were hilarious like the time we went into Czechoslovakia and at the border we had to fill out a messy form. As thet let us in one of the guards made a comment to another one in their language. What they didn't know one of our travelers spoke the language and he told us the guard said "if we let these people in we will let anyone in".

The only advice given to me was to avoid exchanging money as that was a sure-fire way to get into trouble.

Back to my fears for democracy. I am encouraged by Kamala Harris but don't underestimate how far the MAGA crowd will go to challenge any election. Don't forget that as President Trump will kill any criminal case within his powers. The most significant one is the classified documents case.

This morning, I awoke with a couple of thoughts about my posts yesterday.

Cynthia had an uncle who was quite a storyteller and a quote she acquired from him was "I told you THAT so I could tell you THIS".

My posts yesterday should be thought about in a similar vein. But the THIS will be a lot later in my storytelling.

Another thought I have is that I must always remember that I am doing this project for my family and there will be many stories for their benefit that are of marginal interest to anyone else.

In the course of my life history project I was led to consider two books relevant to my project.


The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates is a book of fiction about a man Isaac Dahl who at almost 100 decided to summarize his life in 12 different days of great importance to him.

Both sweeping and exquisitely intimate, award-winning author Bart Yates blends historical fact and fiction in a surprising, thought-provoking saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man, beginning in 1920s Utah.


Machine Without Horses by Helen Humphreys is also a book of fiction created by the author about the life of an ordinary person.

In Machine Without Horses, Helen Humphreys explores the real life and the imagined internal life of the famous and famously private salmon-fly dresser, Megan Boyd, a craftswoman who worked for sixty years out of a bare-bones cottage in a small village in the north of Scotland. Humphreys, both present in the story and its architect, reveals with her inimitable style the complicated emotional landscape that can exist under even the most constant surface.

I have finished the book by Bart Yates and found it to be quite impressive with only 12 critical days in the life of a 100 year old man.

SassyLassy mentioned the book Machine Without Horses in my life history project for, I believe two things, First was my mentioning about becoming a fly tyer myself as a teenager. Second is that this book is also a created life history for a real person that existed.

I just received a print copy of the book and look forward to reading it soon.

I want to assure you that my life history won't be fiction, but these books demonstrate different approaches to creating a life history.

>25 JoeB1934: >26 JoeB1934: Such an interesting life, Joe!

One of the last things I did before going to bed was to read about 20% of the book Machine Without Horses by Helen Humphreys. Before you read what I am about to say re-read >28 JoeB1934:.

That cover raises many questions about the book because the elegant woman is somewhat incongruous with Megan Boyd a reclusive sounding woman working in a barren cottage in Scotland. This cover announces clearly that the book is a mystery. Was Megan Boyd really as expected, or secretly someone from Scottish society?

I believe that I already know the answer but want to read more of the book before I put in a spoiler. What I can say is that almost from page 1 I have learned a lot about my task in this search for my personal life history.

>29 labfs39: As Madeleine says every good book is a literary mystery to me. Most lives are a mystery, but few are written about in a literary manner. My life story won't be very literate, but it does qualify as a mystery.

>30 JoeB1934: I had a lot of questions about that cover too. The title is actually the name of a country dance, one which is Boyd's favourite. However, in the end, I decided the cover was more for marketing purposes than anything else.

Today has been a VERY daunting time.

First, the girls are opening what turns out to be 71 boxes of books, which they are sorting for the family get together tomorrow. Many non-fiction books for when I spent a lot of time searching for meaning through science. Added to that many books about specialized archaeology and anthropology studies of interest to me.

Second, even more books on projects I worked on since I started in 1956 with GE in their Advance Engineering Program. Big thick binders from lecturers and weekly project reports. I truly don't even understand the math today. Those years determined the complete course of my professional life as I found out what I really loved was applying math to real world problems.

I am beginning to wonder if my life history is bigger than I can handle. Every morning, I wake up with excellent ideas on how to approach the project, but by 1 PM
I'm thinking about a nap and there is so much data gathering to do. Slides to convert and photos to scan. More importantly I need to produce cogent commentary on every photo and object.

I am so determined to make this gift for my family that I just have to buckle-up buster.

>33 JoeB1934: I hope you are able to enjoy the process. I think your family would not want you to stress over it. Perhaps set some limits on scale?

>34 labfs39: Thank you for your concern. I am in a more positive frame of mind this morning.

I now realize that one big factor yesterday was the mountain of books in our library. The girls (they are still girls to me even both in their 60's) separated them into sub-groups, like art, science, religion etc. So many memories!

If I think back to my initial thoughts about my project, it was book covers as memory triggers. This morning, I started thinking about all those books and how can I retain those memories. I don't really want to take photos of each cover, but I can use an ISBN scanner to save each one into a personal book library.

How about that, sports fans, as I believe some famous sports announcer said. How about a new personal LT library? So, at 4AM I ordered a handheld scanner to be delivered today from Amazon.

Now I can do what I really love, analyzing a database to highlight the most important memories out of that mountain of books before we release them to DreamBooks.

>35 JoeB1934: If you download the LibraryThing app onto your phone, you can also use your phone to scan ISBN barcodes into LT. I did thousands of books that way when seeing up the Folio Athenaeum.

ETA: Since book covers are important, I want to add that if LT doesn't already have a cover for an esoteric title, you can take a photo right in the app and add it, easy peasy.

>36 labfs39: Thanks for that tip. We are using it. The main problem is that the majority of our books are pre-ISBN. Taking photos of those I really want to remember.

>37 JoeB1934: Ah, that does slow things down.

This is how we are decluttering our book library. There were actually 71 boxes of books which the 'girls' sorted by genre, etc.
Today everyone is here to choose their favorites for retention and you can see some boxes are partially vacant already. Each person that removes a book promises to take photos, or use the LT app to scan the ISBN.


You can see in the background two of our favorite abstract art pieces.

In my life history I will discuss how we became art collectors.

Today I found six books from my adventure into fly tying and fishing. They were acquired and read when I was 17-18 years old. If you review how I did that exploration it tells you all you need to know about all my years since then. I was born this way.

You can see two of our favorite abstract art paintings which I will tell more about in my final life history document.

Many boxes are already reduced by the grave robbers. Honestly, I really want each book to get to a good resting place. Some of the books I made sure a family member has it and where possible my new LT library of these books will provide me with the memories.

>39 JoeB1934: What a huge task lies ahead! Great photo.

>39 JoeB1934: A life of books is a life well lived, I say. I love seeing the picture. How many family members came to rehome books? Such a great idea.

>41 labfs39: Seven: Me, daughters Carey and Shelley, son-in-law Michael, grandson Trevor, granddaughter Madeleine and granddaughter-in-law Gabrielle.

Looking forward to hearing about your art collecting....you have taken on a task that would be daunting to many, myself included, I admire your tenacity. You encounter an issue, sleep on it and resolve it...admirable.

Would be interested to hear about your travels, although I don't want to add to your list of tasks.

>43 almin: My plan includes trips we have taken over the years. The question is when I will get to them. There are days when the task seems bigger than I can handle but my health is good enough that I can do it for my family.

The JFB Trip Down Memory Lane

As you well know we (mostly my family) are in the midst of decluttering 3 storage units of material accumulated over my life. Can you visualize how much is included there? Physically these units were all 8x10x20 feet in size. That is about like a three-car garage. I am guessing here but the books would occupy something like 25 % of one of the storage units.

Another way to visualize the process is to note that, so far, we have taken (in round numbers):

• 15 boxes of paper to the shredder as they have personal financial records.
  
• 50 boxes of paper to recycling, magazines, reports about technical thigs I worked on, etc.
  
• Many boxes more of 'things' that need to be processed About 1 storage unit equivalent.
  
• About 70 boxes of books to choose for retention, or distribution.
  

Yesterday my job was to work on some of the boxes that no one else can determine what to do with. I'm guessing here again but there is something like 25 boxes of paper and objects that only I can process. Let alone all of my hand tools.

Yesterday I went through all the material from the 3 years I was involved in the GE Advanced Engineering Program. My time there actually produced one example of the GE goal: take a talented engineering grad and provide additional education until they can be productive in the real GE world.

Do this by lectures and one assigned engineering problem per week using the lecture material and writing up your solution in an informative way. Add to the lectures the freedom to select once every quarter the student's choice of which engineering sub-discipline, they wanted to try for themselves.

This program resulted in who I am today, a person that loves applying mathematics to 'operational' problems in business and life.

I started with about 6 banker's box equivalents of material. I have it down to 3 boxes by disposing of all the lecture materials and retention of about 70 write-ups I made on those weekly problems. There is a notation on each of my reports as to the time taken. Typically, 20 hours per week added to the normal 40 hour work week.

Dear Joe, I've been away from LT for a couple of months and have only just discovered your thread. Your project strikes a chord with me; I have spent a difficult year trying to sort through my late father's things (he died one year ago this week). Like you, he had kept all sorts of potentially fascinating things, but unlike you he didn't embark upon sorting it whilst still alive. I love the way you are involving your family in what you're doing. I found so many things of Dad's that I would love to ask him about - without his explanation they mean little to me. There was so much potential for interesting conversations hidden away in his boxes, and now it's too late. I wish you all the best with your project - I'll be checking in now and then to see how you're getting on.

>46 rachbxl: Thank you for your commentary. One thing I can agree with you on, is the importance of retaining those ties with our family members. I am so fortunate to having spent an incredible amount of time with my father and, as I look back on it, I inherited a very high percent of my being from him.

In my visualization of this project there will be a large amount of my mother and father's lives. My life truly relates in a strong way to theirs.

I have done a lot of posting over in the SassyLassy thread relevant to hoarding and such. After one post cindydavid said the following:

I had posted "At the end of this effort, you will certainly know me in all but my most secret aspects that each of us retain."

She responded with:

"way back in the early aughts I was part of an online book group for several years, and we usually chose a tag line for ourselves.this would fit in the "natlbsb" file " not a tag line but should be" thanks for that"

I had to do a search and found that "natlbsb" is a recognized phrase. More to the point is that my original post quoted above actually IS my tag line.

When I woke up at 3AM this morning, of course my mind was engrossed by all this project and what it means to my family.

I started reminiscing to myself about memories from my life. Childhood and on. By and large I don't have a very good memory. For example, I cannot tell you of the top of my head any years that such-and-such happened. I am getting even worse about names of people, and I have always been fully capable of coming up with a word for a thing, or an activity that is "close but no cigar" in the world of horseshoes.

My children don't hesitate to do a quick translation of any phrase and move on. Unfortunately, Cynthia was a stickler for words, and I was frequently challenged to correct a phrase.

For example, it is midwinter, and I say, "I'm going out to mow the lawn". Would you have any issue with that?

More importantly I have decided to create what is called in the intelligence world a Top Secret- Eyes Only" document.
This will be a word doc containing a random collection of memories that I have retained during my life. Some are amusing, some disappointing, many embarrassing, many downright stupid things I did, or thought.

As a collection they will reveal my greatest flaw. I rarely think through to the consequences of an action. Most of the time this doesn't cause damage, but there have been times which it did so.

In brief: I am a totally incompetent chess player.

This document is meant to be for MY EYES ONLY. I will have to encrypt it or do something which will never be seen by anyone, including family members.

However, it will drive my searching for appropriate photos, or documents that build up to the complete life history project.

For anyone interested in my comments >28 JoeB1934: about Machine Without Horses by Helen Humphreys I have posted my analysis of the book in my Wandering Through Books thread.

I spent more time today going through my father's documents, writings and other mementoes. I continue to be amazed at what he did with his life. For a person with an 8th grade education who had to start working in a mine at 15 years old because his mother had a bad heart, and he needed to be an income producer.

As you will learn when I tell his story he became a person who had an airplane by the time he was 29, and he became a fine cabinet woodworker, a builder of small boats and an amateur archaeologist. A person that professional archaeologists consulted with. I can hardly wait to tell you about his life and his influence with what I have done with mine. His genes and my mother's genes make me who I am.

>51 JoeB1934: Your father sounds like a fascinating man as well. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, I think.

I continue to find long forgotten memories from my life. One of the most surprising was a copy of a paper I wrote for a class titled Freshman Composition. I can't remember what the instructions were, but I produced on February 20, 1953 a composition titled The Shutterbug Hobby

This was a 16-page document that the professor gave a grade of B+. (She had marked a faint A- early in the document, bur downgraded it to B+ by the end) The outline was as follows:



This document provided a harbinger of how I approached problems for my whole life. I didn't even own a camera, but I could do the research necessary to summarize everything you need to know in becoming a 'shutterbug'.

It was what you would expect from an engineering student where most of others in the class were more 'literate' than me.

Equally surprising to me is the cursive writing. I think that early on I went to lettering everything and that is what is true for the rest of my life. If you look at the complete 16 pages there isn't any crossing out of words as I would expect in a draft. I guess this is a final after-the-draft.

I wish I retained another paper I wrote for Prof Lay which was literary to some degree. Per her instructions, I had written a short story about 2 characters in a longer story she provided for the class. I chose two very minor individuals in her story and created a relationship between them.

When I turned in my composition, she asked why I wrote about them. My answer is still with me today. I believe everyone has a story to tell.

I have mentioned previously our family connection with the two Taos artists Loui Ribak and Beatrice Mandelman. I will speak of them when I finally arrive at my life history document but nowhere close to where my granddaughter Madeleine just had published in Southwest Contemporary as follows:

https://southwestcontemporary.com/

Sifting Family Lore and Life Advice from the Files of Taos Moderns Beatrice Mandelman and Louis Ribak
Newly discovered letters revive a writer's quest to discern why two Taos-based modernist artists had an outsized impact on her family—but not art history.

Madeleine Boyson • August 23, 2024

Please read that and you will find what a professional can do with our story.

You can see from this article that Madeleine could write my life history an immense amount better than I can.

But this is my story, and I need to tell it, but she will be my editor and advisor.

Joe, you might be interested in some of these classes online. The 92NY is close to me and is a wonderful organization. They offer many classes and resources online. Have a look here. It looks like you have it all in hand but you might like to sit back and listen to others’ experience.

>55 kjuliff: If you are able to read Madeleines Piece in Southwest contemporary, you will find that my editor will help me produce exactly what I have envisioned for myself.

Most interesting to me is that, while I knew she was working on it I never had any knowledge of what it would be like until I read it for the first time. Up until then all I heard from her was encouragement on what I was doing and proposed to do. Little did I know that there is a striking similarity between her article and what I hoped to produce.

All I hope for is to produce a life history that is as informative as hers about my life. Mine won't be as good as her professional production, but maybe mine will be informative.

I need to add that Madeleine truly knows me, and especially my reading as anyone else in the world. For two years I drove her to the University of Denver and her return to home. We discussed almost all facets of our lives.

Also, note that her piece is a blend of the life history of Louis and Bea and her own personal life events.

Carey and Shelley have progressed a long way from the books displayed in >39 JoeB1934: The family members all made their choices with books they wanted to keep but the vast majority remained to be dealt with. Early on we thought that boxing them up and having DreamBooks come to take them away was the way we would go.

However, Carey and Shelley inherited some of my traits and they said, 'hold on' let's do some inventory and analysis of which of these books have real value. Their new plan was to create storage shelves in Cynthia's bedroom after removing most of the furniture and setup a system for processing some of the books for sale on Ebay. Being very adept at spreadsheets and Ebay listings they were off to the races.

Today that room now contains shelving units for about 75 banker's boxes for about 1500 books. The books in each box are of similar genres, style and format. All prepared for perusing and sale. The books of value less than the effort required to sell them will be sent to DreamBooks.

What about me?

While they were sorting and organizing, they were feeding me boxes of paperwork and books that belonged to me. Paperwork and documents related to all of my employments, various activities key to my life and hobbies. I have finished doing first-level sorts and disposals of all such materials.

Now a final sort to get down to the skeleton of memories that are important to my story. None of this work includes photos and slides which are very important.

I have been very impressed with the Epson scanner, which is very easy to use, and it has several features for dealing with what to do with the produced scan. One button will send a pdf of the scan to a Google Drive and you simply place the name you want for the pdf.

It sounds like you are in business, both with book disposal and your scanning project. I'm glad things are going well.

I have spoken before that when I write a technical report for a project the most important and critical task is to create a title for the report. I am unable to write much of anything else about the project until I develop a title which, in a short phrase summarizes the essence of the project.

I believe I have an excellent candidate for this project, and it won't be as prosaic as 'My Life History at 90'.

After what seems like forever, I am finally starting to write about my life history! This doesn't begin with my birth, as I intend to mix chronological events with the most meaningful events in my life.

Upon graduation from college my first job was to participate in a 3-year GE Advanced Engineering program which mixed varying work assignments with educational lectures and engineering problem solving. These three years helped to define who I am as a problem solver.

>60 JoeB1934: ...and the suspense builds...

I'm glad you are making progress

>62 labfs39: With regard to the suspense comment, would you prefer that I serialize this story like in the distant past?

>63 JoeB1934: Ha, ha. I just meant you were dropping teasers about the title.

>64 labfs39: I didn't mean to do that, but in an indirect way this subject certainly fits within my title.

I hope the progress you're making in both organizing and archiving the items you've collected over the years and with your life history are satisfying to you, even if there is a lot more to do.

I'm in a constant process of curating my own shelves, and have just pulled six books out to take to the local used book store for credit (yes, I see how this can become a cycle).

>66 RidgewayGirl: Yes, I am enjoying this immensely. Memories are flooding back, and we haven't actually gotten to photos yet. The main issue I need to work on is the tendency to overexplain myself. As >18 rocketjk: advised against in writing of this type.

>18 rocketjk: Great advice. I’ve always had this tendency. I’ll explain something, then explain the same thing again in different words. Less is more is good advice. But it’s a hard habit to break.

Just got back from a bakery shop trip with Madeleine. We went over how my life history thinking has evolved during the last week as I have been working on my GE course years.

In case you don't know I am a pastryholic person who loves going to new places and this is one of the top such shops in Denver. It was crowded by 'millennials', or as I used to say yuppies. Madz was quite amused when I said I am not only the oldest one here, but I am also probably 3 times their average age. She laughed and said that is exactly right for me!

Then, she looked at me and said do you actually understand the significance of your age and what this project means to us all? I replied that this last week has brought it to the top of my list and that I am very enthusiastic about working out the most valuable rendition possible. Yes, I do realize that.

Then we took our coffees, a loaf of bread and about half a dozen really outstanding croissants to a table to enjoy and plan how we will put together the desired product.

By the way try a Kouign-Amann, pronounced queen amon pastry if you ever get the chance.

What a lovely memory in and of itself, Joe. This project has value, not just in the output, but in the process. I'm so impressed.

>69 JoeB1934: It's so lovely to see the progress of this project. I think it's quite right to recognise how much this will mean to your family and the generations that come after. My grandmother, toward, the end of her life began writing a memoir in a notebook. It's written in four languages (she forgot, as time went on, which language she was using) and details her participation in India's freedom struggle and fight for independence. She didn't finish it but it's one of our most valued possessions, and her four grandchildren share custody of it. My cousin is now reading it to her children: that's four generations which will cherish it. I'm sure that your project will mean this much and more to everyone!

I have been wondering about what value there is in this thread about my life history.

I have concluded that there are a number of LT members that off-and-on contemplate doing something along this line. As Lisa, who has encouraged me in my prior threads, continues to say that my process is where value exists the most. There is interest in the details of my history, but that is transient while if you learn about my process there is a possibility of value.

In this regard I plan to emphasize details about my process. As in the start of any project the beginning analysis can evolve rapidly. In my process I absolutely must begin with a title that sets me off on a path. I mentioned this in an earlier post and, being faithful to my expressed intentions I will now post the title for you.

This title might well change some in the future, but it does represent the direction I am going today. I truly believe that most individuals have lives which are worthy of remembering.

I want to acknowledge that my life is as ordinary as many others, but due to circumstances that came my way my path became a bit out of the ordinary. From what I read in posts by other members most of them have led lives which were beyond ordinary as much as mine.

In the future my family will appreciate this effort, and I hope others can learn from my 'project' to create your own memoir.

This morning, I woke up with thinking about my next step in writing what I'm now calling a memoir. I'm not sure why I switched from life history to memoir and I might well change back by the end of this project, whenever that is.

At the top of my thinking was the realization that it is somewhat of a miracle that I am able, mentally and physically to even attempt this at 90. I have never had an ability to recall what I was doing in any specific prior year. Carey has maintained a key event calendar so she can see when a major event happened in her life. I am REALLY using that data in my reconstructions.

A concept that I wish I had used is to write a yearly summary throughout my life. Most of us LT members produce a list of books we read each year, or the 'best' books of the year. Do that for your life events, including books, so you have a year-by-year diary. It doesn't have to drone on about trivia. Just sentences about memorable events. Something that will bring out memories when you get old like me.

>74 JoeB1934: That's an interesting point, Joe, especially for those of us who don't keep a journal or diary. The nearest I come is an online project called 10Q. Every year during the High Holidays, the organization emails out 10 questions, one each day. You answer and then your responses are kept until the next year, when you can read your old answers and respond for the new year. Your answers can be kept private or shared. The questions are about important events that happened to you during the year, goals, reflections. I've been doing it for many years now, and it is interesting to read back through them. Trends become apparent that a single year would not reflect.

>75 labfs39: Thanks for your comment. It sounds like an excellent system to get where I wish I had gone. I really appreciate your continuing interest in my 'last and greatest project'.

In post >74 JoeB1934: I mentioned the idea of maintaining a yearly diary tradition of key events for the year. I haven’t done that, but my current Life History activities have revealed to me that for 4 years from 1956 – 1960 I actually have a weekly diary!
During that time, I was employed in the General Electric Advanced Engineering program. This was a mix of full-time activities as an engineer along with lectures and training in solving real world problems, rather than theoretical subjects as taught in universities.
I will discuss this in more detail in my life history, but these weekly ‘diaries’ are technical reports addressing an actual engineering project. These reports must be written to a strict format as follows:

• Title
  
• Problem Statement
  
• Assumptions
  
• Results
  
• Discussion
  
• Analysis
  
• Appendix
  

In my class there were 17 graduates from very prestigious schools and all of us were graded weekly and ranked by the instructors for that week's reports. Talk about pressure! These problems were designed to take 20 hours above the normal 40-hour work week. A typical report was about 20-50 pages of handwritten calculations and graphs.

I have retained almost 100 such reports produced over the first 3-years. These are about 2-3 reams of papers that I have kept for almost 70 years!

LT reviews could be formatted in a similar way, and I can see that influence in the ways I write my style of 'reviews'.

A few days ago, I spoke about how useful it would have been if I had produced an annual diary of key events, reflections and any other notable comments about the year. I'm sure pretty much all of you thought 'great idea' but too late to start now.

Here is another suggestion which you could start this year. In my decluttering of my life, I have found it essential to identify the 'genres' of my life. Life genres, not book genres! These genres are relatively few in number. For example, my genres are:

• Lifetime Periods
  
• Family & Relatives
  
• Hobbies
  
• Jobs
  
• Trips
  
• Ancestry
  
• Art/Music
  
• Archaeology & Geology
  
• What about the Universe
  

These life genres are NOT in order of importance. Like books, these genres mix to produce a combined picture of my life.

These genres have evolved as we have decluttered 3 storage units. Simply grouping objects without deciding to keep or dispose of any defers the time for those decisions. Just have clearly defined storage for each of the genres in your life.

If you have been following along you will realize that I have spent a lot of time working out how I will achieve my goals for this life history. Tools to use and organization of subjects. My most recent work has been with my 4-years spent at GE with a lot of work experiences, changes of residence and, most importantly being taught how to apply what I have learned to real-world projects and how to write that work up for an interested customer for my solutions.

My thinking about how to tackle my goals was originally triggered by looking at the 'quilt' style display of book covers by dchaikin. I absolutely love that display when applied to my own books read. Looking at a cover triggers in my mind memories of how I felt about that book.

Anyone that has an interest in a specific book can look up in LT details on the book from the touchstone approach. However, if they want to know my personal reactions to the book, they will have to find my 'review' if I did one. My reviews usually include a brief synopsis and my personal thoughts about my reaction to the book. NOT a detail worthy of being a complete review like the best reviewers produce.

I have 'evolved' my approach back to the quilt concept. In this approach 'covers' become:

• Photos of things, places, individuals.
  
• Memory snapshots in written form akin to telling a story at a family dinner.
  
• Audio snippets accompanying memory snapshots when important to the memory.
  
• Digital photos of individual document pages helpful to memory snapshots.
  

The bottom line is that this project consists of memory snapshots assisted by true photos and audio.

I will present project synopses whenever necessary for a memory. In the case of projects performed as part of my national defense activities security requirements would preclude details anyhow.

Just an update about my progress. Have finished the module relating to my 4-years employed at GE and completed the 3-year Advanced Engineering Program.

Now moving into the assignments involving national security projects. Just to break the concentration on work experiences, also working on some heritage/ancestry modules.

A lot of photos and supporting documents to process.
Very pleased with the modular concept as this allows me to produce a variety of final reports dependent upon the audience that I expect to be interested.

I woke up early this morning with another 'bright' idea about this decluttering life history project.

I progressed through my GE job/education experience mostly using various documents that I could scan and add to my life history pdf file. Now I am venturing into post GE jobs and faced with describing more of my emotional and psychological activities that were important to produce.

It isn't that I hesitate to talk about these situations, but putting those thoughts into words that make sense to a reader is daunting. As Madeleine states, using voice reduces the expectation of filling a large space.

I look back to the day when I tried to tell the story of my association with Dr Hugh Everett while at a family dinner.

Dr. Hugh Everett III was an American physicist best known for his groundbreaking work in quantum mechanics. He developed the Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics, which suggests that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements actually occur in separate, parallel universes. You can read about him and his theory in many publications, but my association came from having done work in war gaming analyses for the US government.

I now feel that I can tell that story by combining voice describing those events in association with scans of key documents that help provide context to the story.

Using PowerPoint I can create a presentation combining voice with commentary about slides which are physical examples of areas we both worked on.

In some way I am thinking the title of my life history could be Stories Told Around A Family Dinner.

>81 JoeB1934: That sounds like a fascinating acquaintance. Did the telling at the family dinner not go over well?

>81 JoeB1934: It went very well as far as I could tell it even in a synopsis way. I am currently working on placing the story into proper context.

In order to do so I have to bring my activities into a part of his activities by historical events that brought the two of us together, even in a minor way.

My focusing on a PowerPoint presentation format with a mix of visual and audio crystalized for me this week. My total focus has to be on leaving a complete remembrance for my family. There isn't any reason for people who aren't family, or friends to want to know about my life.

I am an ordinary person who had some extra-ordinary things happen to themselves.

I wouldn't even be a minor footnote in the life story of Hugh Everett. This is true even though his Lambda Corporation actually offered me a job to work on their projects.

Just to add a bit of trivia to my current frame of mind I need to mention that this week I took another step to preserve for my family a historical item.

I have owned since 1985 a Toyota Land Cruiser with, at the current time only 148,000 miles on the vehicle. We have used this for many of our outdoor pursuits through the years.

It needed quite a bit of work done, like new tires, a muffler and other items, but I decided I need to preserve the vehicle for my ancestors even though there really isn't a lot of current plans for it. We only use it for around 2000 miles per year.

But this week I spent several thousand dollars so that it would be an item inherited by the family. It helps that this vehicle is considered a classic and increasing in value every year.

It has finally dawned on me that my choice to make this a PowerPoint presentation is exactly what I did during my career when I presented am analysis, or a methodology, to an audience who had gathered to hear what I had to say.

The first, and most important such a presentation occurred in September 1966 at The Hague for a Nato Conference on Operational Research in The Strategic Duel.

That was the first time I met Hugh Everett who was also a presenter.

This process for me is re-awakening my understanding of myself. Throughout my various jobs I learned that I am definitely a process person, rather than content oriented.

What is a process person?

Take reading a history book on WWI. A process person is very interested in why did the war start, and why did the generals choose the terrible tactics for fighting the war? Another point of interest would be what went on in a soldier's mind and behavior.

Traditional details about when and where certain events occurred as written up in a history book are less interesting to a process person. I stop reading a history book if it provides mostly these details.

I crossed a real threshold on my life history process yesterday.

I have been working on my job experiences with GE during the 1956-1960 time period. As I have mentioned I plan to end up with a PowerPoint presentation for my stories but first working with PDF files in Adobe Acrobat. Acrobat will export any pdf to the Power Point format, so I started there. The Epson scanner will send any scan directly into a pdf.

I built 36 PDF files that I exported to PP and found that some of them, especially jpeg files, didn't translate well. I improved the pictures by exporting pdf into jpeg and then inserting those jpegs directly into slides in PP.

Now in PP I can really use their design features to convert my slides into the most informative and interesting formats. Adding my narration is easy so I am now working on a valuable story about my GE experiences.

From now on I will send any scanner result directly to the PP directory.

I am really pleased with my focus on PowerPoint to create my life history. For example, I chose a background picture of Freemont Lake where I have gone to hundreds of times in my life. This picture is my screensaver, so I look at it every day.

Meanwhile, I have created a general theme for my presentation and PP has a design feature which provides candidate displays like this one. It might not be my final choice but that facility is very useful in my need to make this presentation enjoyable.

Beautiful photo

I have been learning much more about the power of PowerPoint and it really is fulfilling my dreams!

The most major advantage to PP is the inclusion of narration which can be attached to each slide in a presentation. I purchased a microphone used by podcasters and the app which converts any recording into a format acceptable to PP. That took a bit of learning for me in how to attach the narration to a specific slide.

Now, instead of working out the text for a slide I create a slide which has more of bullet points and the narration explains the concept I am trying to provide. These narrations, I have learned can require creation of precise phrases and dealing with the shock of how I sound.

It turns out that PP has a solution to a problem I have been worried about for months. As I have created this life history with a diverse set of modules, like jobs I've had, my heritage, etc. this could result in a large number of slides. My worry has been what to do for those who might want to know about my jobs, but not so much on my trips overseas.

PP allows me to have a slide with a table of contents and to provide a hyperlink for each content item which jumps directly to the slide # which starts that topic presentation. So, one document can contain my complete life history, and anyone can go to what interests them directly.

Now, with these procedures in hand ALL I need to do is find photos and relevant documents and create those narration snippets!

A new front page of my life history.



Introduction to my GE training.



What the GE education involved.



Report writing was critical to their program.



The power of PowerPoint is that they make it so easy to create slides. I only put in the text I wanted for a slide and their designer option shows a number of suggestions on how to show that info to the best advantage. You can choose one and move on to the next slide. If I get unhappy with a slide later, I can go in and replace the design with a new one with no work.

At this stage I have about 25 slides explaining my GE experience. I have just shown a sample so you can see where I am headed.

In any slide you can insert a note further explaining the slide. A couple of these pictures show notes at the bottom of the picture. Eventually I will attach an audio which tells what the notes say as narration.

>92 JoeB1934: A very beautiful opening Joe. Quite delightful.

I am about to finish my module on my GE education and training. I will send it to Madeleine for her suggestions and editing. When that is finished I could send it to my family but there are about 10 other modules to produce so will move on to those first.

>94 JoeB1934: You are working at quite a pace Joe.

>95 kjuliff: I haven't been this excited since I did an extensive search for a method to help me discover my Reading Fingerprint back around 2020. In that 'project' I had to learn how to extract from LT book details that would help me analyze books for my needs. I had to learn how to make Excel jump through the hoops for me.

I believe that it was Lisa who said this was my next (last?) great project and it certainly has me fired up.

Learning new tools like PowerPoint, Adobe, scanners, microphones to create narration and reliving many old memories has my mind on a high. Over my life I created two commercially viable computer applications, started two small consulting companies and I have come to believe that this project is a very fitting activity for me at this time in my life.

>96 JoeB1934: It does sound exciting and invigorating Joe. It’s great to learn new things. You get such a sense of achievement and when we retire we miss activities that pushed our minds .

You are obviously a person who was very productive in the workplace, and there’s no reason for that to stop. It’s a win-win for you and your family, and I am very happy for you.

Echoing Kate. I'm so glad you have this project to give your life meaning, structure, and joy. I envy you, truth be told!

Thank you >97 kjuliff: and >98 labfs39: for those very appreciated comments. They definitely encourage me on my way.

Just as an aside I have learned PowerPoint solely by asking Copilot any question I have, and it provides me with enumerated steps on how to do what I want plus footnotes to other sources for the answer.

Like most all software PP has a menu system which is quite complex, and Copilot focuses me on exactly how to navigate me to the action I want. Today I asked Copilot how to make my PP presentation be enhanced for those of us who are visually impaired.

Copilot produced four very distinct steps I can make with my slides that will enhance their performance for the visually impaired.

I now use Copilot for my guidance in using windows, in setting up my microphone and all of my instructional needs. For example, instead of typing a page of text I can use the Windows audio to text routine and simply edit the page in Word.

I have 'published' my first draft of my life history in PowerPoint. There are 30 slides, each with narration by me explaining their purpose/function. This draft only includes a few slides explaining the project and the process I will be using for all upcoming modules. The only module completed at this time is the GE program I diagramed earlier in this thread.

Producing that module sets the stage for many other modules. My family members are going to be viewing the presentation individually and passing along reactions and comments to me.

I hope to be close to completion by the end of the year.

I have now started My Early Life 1934 to 1952, which is when I graduated from high school. My next module then will be Time at College 1952 to 1956.
These two additional modules will bring me to 1960, which truly is the beginning of my professional life.

I’m really impressed by your progress Joe. I admire the way you are picking up new technology and using it so effectively.

Over the past few days, I have clarified my process as a result of thinking about doing the modules I mentioned in>101 JoeB1934:.

When I began to work on My Early Life the flow of memories just didn't come naturally. Any storyteller knows that there is a way to prepare for telling a story. A memory would occur to me to discuss but the need to do the prep work just wasn't there for me. So, I placed the memory alone in my module leaving the prep work for later.

When I went to my college years, again I had selected memories, but no desire to work on prepping.

My mind simply wanted to discuss what happened in my professional life starting in 1960 and going to 1973 which covered, in essence, the period when my working life entered a realm that I never imagined before.

Thus, I am working on the 1960 to 1973 job period full time now. Any memories that come up I can always drop into other modules for working on later.

>103 JoeB1934: Any memories that come up I can always drop into other modules for working on later.

A great way to place markers so you don't forget them, but can stay in the flow of the moment.

In looking back at my professional life, I inevitably land on a project assignment I was asked to work on when I was employed at the Martin Company in 1961. The vice president of the Denver facility asked our group to assist them in projecting future revenue from the TITAN ICBM business with the US Department of Defense.

The computer war game I created to help in answering this question evolved over many years and ultimately landed development contracts throughout the defense and intelligence community.



In many ways I hesitated to discuss this work in the LT platform for fear that many members who are likely strong opponents of war would be offended.

I personally am very much anti-war and pro arms control and horrified with the military behavior during the Viet Nam war. You might not have noticed that I was 27 years old when I started this project.

I worked on this software and a large number of associated projects for about 40 years, so you will understand why the title statement is accurate.

I view all of my efforts in this regard to be strongly supporting anything that will prevent war ever happening.

Impressive Joe

>107 labfs39: Agreeing with Kate. Wow

Edited to add: I hope you don't receive any flak from our community over your work, Joe. Personally, although I hate war, I dated an F-15 fighter pilot for several years. It was interesting, even though we didn't always agree.

>107 labfs39: This thread is the only time I will mention these stories. More background, of course will be in my finished life history, whenever that happens. My intention is to provide access to those, like you that are actually interested in my story.

I am not ashamed about the work I did. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that projects, and software I helped develop played a significant role in the situation that exists today in terms of national security.

I have been doing additional reflections on this life history project. My objectives and intentions for the overall project remain the same, but I have decided to complete first my professional life story. This goes from college graduation in 1956 to my retirement in 2000.

This total interval will be partitioned into 7 modules which relate to the seven different organizations I worked for in the 44 years. Two of the modules were for two companies that I created and sold to two different companies. This means 3 companies were independent of me/my creation.

I have a hope to finish this job module by Jan 2025. Then I can devote winter of 2025 to my personal life from birth thru 2025.

I think it's smart to pick off the low hanging fruit. Our professional lives are more structured, and I think would be easier to organize than our personal lives.

Since the beginning of this life history journey, I have cast this as a legacy for my family. As I work through various stages of my life it has become very obvious that this is a journey of self-discovery where I don't require an audience.

It reminds me a lot of searching for my reading fingerprint from years ago. In reality, I never found that exercise to be interesting to many (any?) other LT members, or even my family. I did discover what characteristics I value in books and evolved my reading interests.

Even with this realization I am writing my history with the intent of explaining to others why I behaved in certain ways, like why did I change jobs.

These thoughts have come roaring back as I begin my module on working at Science Applications Inc. for 8 years. I left that VERY lucrative high-profile management job to start back by myself in starting a new company. Why did I do that?

The answer? I wasn't having any "fun". For me, "fun" is creating a process to answer a client's questions.

>111 JoeB1934: I love that your projects are "journeys of self-discovery." I could use such a voyage myself. Someday.

>112 labfs39: I started these projects after I had "retired", so maybe your "Someday" will come after you do so. Until then you are still creating your life history.

My main thought is that you could memorialize your activities in a way that will support your searching for memories.

>113 JoeB1934: you could memorialize your activities in a way that will support your searching for memories

I really should do something. I only seem to take pictures of my nieces and the dog these days, and I don't keep a journal or even a calendar diary any more.

When SAI lured me away from MMC in 1973 it was based on this philosophy.



I was employee 662 and that 'conglomerate' now has annual business revenue of $23 Billion.

I left them in 1981 to pursue my own dreams.

I am currently writing about those 8-years and how they ended.

>116 JoeB1934: I just had a quick browse of SAIC's website. Interesting concept.

I have finished my SAIC module and the next one starts with my resignation from SAIC at the age of 49. I had become a 'Chief' instead of an 'Indian'. My days were spent in personnel issues, marketing and solving non-technical problems. SAIC agreed with my request to finish a contract I had been working on with my oldest client, the 'Agency'.

I had planned to start a new module with the title Stonehouse and Allegro which covers the final 17 years of my working life, but I felt the need to table that and work on my personal story from birth through college graduation. In contrast to my recent work the material for this period consists mainly with memories and photos. No documents, per se.

The mammoth photo searching project consists of almost 20 banker's boxes full of slides, photos and other memorabilia. Strangely enough the first very relevant photo that came up was this one:



This photo was taken in Amsterdam in 1966 when I was headed for The Hague to make a presentation at a NATO National Security conference. I discussed this very thoroughly in my MMC module which none of you have seen.

I was 32-years old at the time. In other words, 58-years ago!

The odd thing is that I don't know who took this posed picture. I was travelling alone.

Carey and Shelley asked me this week if I was really nervous about this presentation to such an important group of people. I don't remember being nervous very much.

As I think about it, my analysis work had been dissected about 100 times during my GE education. Rated for quality by engineers who were, in many cases with doctorates. GE considered my education for their purposes equal to a doctorate. My presentation, in other words came from that perspective.

It was somewhat ironic that in documentation of this conference I was labeled as Dr. Bozovich. Mostly because most of the other speakers had that designation.

I have now spent a week poring through photos with the idea I could focus on a module about my childhood. Talk about wishful thinking and it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that when searching through photos you obviously will find MANY that are of great interest than the target.

I ended up scanning about 200 photos that were very important from many perspectives. I have now decided to partition my life history into two main segments.
My Business Life and My Family Life.

I will spend today on photos which fit into my family life. Tomorrow I will get back to my Stonehouse and Allegro module. With necessary development and editing that should produce an acceptable Business Life segment of my total life history

Thoughts on Aging

Yesterday I had three events that provided me with thoughts about aging.

First, I took a group of four out to an interesting lunch to honor a good friend who is retiring from dentistry at 70. He was an excellent dentist but spent his whole life preferring to be working with pipe organs. He is a proficient organist, but his love is working on organs. Tuning, maintaining and consulting with churches needed help choosing an organ and installing one.

He is leaving Denver and moving back to his hometown in South Dakota where relatives and childhood friends live. He is reflecting a lot on his life and what is ahead for himself.

Here I am having never worked for very long at a job I wasn't in love with.

Second, my daughter Carey, who I live with, has been dealing with the decision concerning when to apply for US Social Security. Currently you have to be at least 66.5, which she is. If she joins now her monthly payment will be $X. If she waits 3 years it will be $Y, which is measurably higher than $X. You can go nline to obtain X and Y for a person who qualifies, but the decision is up to her.

She came in a couple of hours later and says, "I know exactly what to do!". She had built a spreadsheet with calculations for income by year by which year she joined SS. This showed clearly that she would be better joining now because it would take until she was 81 before the later joining date caught up with the earlier date in annual revenue.

I wasn't surprised as she has worked with me for a number of years in development and training companies in our project management software.

Third, in the evening I was casting about for something to watch on Netflix and came across a series Man on the Inside staring Ted Danson who I had enjoyed years ago.
I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but briefly Danson plays the role of a retired engineer who has time on his hand after losing his wife to Alzheimer's and he is convinced to join an assisted living group that has had someone apparently steal a valuable jewel.

Ultimately, we learn about all the various members of the group, how they got there in their old age and the importance of friendship. In Danson's role he learns how he could be so much more of a grandparent and father and friends to everyone.

I too have spent way too much time dealing with my interests while neglecting people I should have been a better friend with.

Final Thoughts as 2024 Comes to a Close

I started this adventure on my 90th birthday (July 13, 1934) and since then I have created 121 posts! I'm sure that many have wondered what I was talking about in this 'thinking out loud' style of mine. After 5 months I have evolved a lot in terms of how to do this and the photo in >89 JoeB1934: continues to be the simplest goal of mine.



Instead of doing bits and pieces of these objectives I decided to create a standalone presentation of my What Did I Do? history from 1956 to 2000 when I retired.

The reality was that for that period I had the most documentation saved, and it really is a standalone of a history-like story. Who I am is fully revealed in this story.

I will continue working on my personal and family modules, but that process will probably take a lengthy period. Maybe I could shoot for my 91st birthday.

I plan to release to my family the What Did I Do? module around 12/25/2024.

Also, I have been working on a trip I plan to take next June/July that I have been calling A Trip Down Memory Lane . This will be a 6-day trip around my living in Southwestern Wyoming, the Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone Park. I am working on a PowerPoint presentation describing the detailed itinerary to show the family on Christmas Day.

My gift to eight family members will be an offer to pay all accommodation expenses if anyone wants to go along on the trip. They have to pay for food and transportation.

You give us so much to ponder, Joe. I love the updates on your project. What a fabulous Christmas gift to your family. And your proposed trip sounds fantastic. I will definitely look forward to hearing about it (and seeing photos)!

Joe, such an interesting project! And, to go along with that, an interesting life. I'm enjoying reading what you're putting up here.

Over the last few weeks, I have crystalized my thinking about this life history project of mine. The overall concept is still good but how I will be arriving at a the end game has developed in a substantial way like >122 JoeB1934: describes.

As I have been at this project for around five months, I evolved my directions to concentrate on stories that only I can produce.

For example:

My story about What Did I Do? essentially describes my professional life from 1956 to 2000. Writing that has forced me to recapture details that only exist in my memory.

The module A Trip Down Memory Lane couldn't be written by any of my family members, even though they have been on parts, or all of the trips I am memorializing.

Who Am I Writing This Story For?

From the beginning I have had in mind putting out a record for family and friends about patches of my life that they only know part of. I have learned that the biggest beneficiary is myself.

I had to develop a process for doing this project and my life is punctuated with similar efforts that in a nutshell has always been my most favorite thing to do. In a major way I have had to remember what I did and why I did it. In essence this has really defined not only What Did I do? Even more Who Am I?

Another dimension of this question about 'who am I writing this for?' is 'Who will be on the distribution list?

Let's look at this issue by deciding to create a potential list of relatives, friends and acquaintances. I find that my list of non-family friends has pretty much disappeared because at my age there are very few still alive.

Fortunately, I have built a list of LT friends. I haven't any notion to send my products only to certain of these LT members. I have decided to send finished modules via Google Drive to any person that provides me with a request to do so and sends me an email address.

The only module I can deliver today is A Trip Down Memory Lane . This is a fairly small module, and like all modules will be in PDF format.

If you want to see a copy, send me an email requesting one. My email address is jbozovich@msn.com

My next module What Did I Do? I HOPE to have done by January 31 2025

My objectives for what module I work on next has changed with my mood, as can often happen. In thinking about what books to read next year I concluded that I want to create a list of my most favorite authors of all time over the last 50 years, or so.

Thus, I am about to pursue my Personal G.O.A.T. List of Authors

In case you haven't ever seen this acronym it means Greatest Of All Time.

Stay posted as I report on this effort.