Prom Night 2013

Prom Night 2013

Samantha went to her first prom on Saturday.  She went with Christian, her boyfriend and the captain of the men's team of the Triangle Rowing Club. 

For the past five weeks we have all been subject to the daily drama of waiting to be asked, being asked, finding a dress, making plans, remaking plans, getting ready, and finally going to the prom.

Samantha looked beautiful.  Always looking older than her actual age, Sam morphed from a 15 1/2 year old girl to a stunning young woman.  Her dress was just right and her jewelry and hair were great.  They looked like they were about to have the time of their lives - with all of their lives ahead of them - they were a cute couple.

Prom is different than when I went to my senior prom in 1985.  Now you have to go to dinner separate from the actual dance.  After the prom is another party.  Lots of moving pieces driving from one place to another and I let Christian drive her.  Despite my stodginess, I said Yes (or at least negotiated to Yes) more than Sam thought I would.

To her credit Sam did a great job of following the rules we set together by making the right choices, meeting her curfew, and being responsible.  I did warn her date that I'd be up waiting - cleaning my guns - until he brought my daughter home safe and sound.  Whether or not he truly believed it is irrelevant. 

To my credit I didn't check on her via text every five minutes and held my ground when she tried to push her curfew.  

While we spent most of the day running Sam from appointment to appointment to get ready we all piled in the car in the later afternoon to go see her in her final glory.  That bit of craziness; loading the kids, getting to North Raleigh, meeting strangers, taking pictures took away from the reality of watching Sam take another stride in being her own person.  And while those strides are getting longer in distance and closer in interval - this one was stunning. 

Senior Prom 1985

Cutting the Cord

We are cutting our cable.  Off.

Yep.

The cable company has us over the barrell with a bundle of cable, internet, and phone.  Oh, you want HD channels?  That's a premium.  You want a DVR for shows you may or may not watch?  That's a premium too.  The bill is over $200 a month and do you know what? 

THERE'S NOTHING ON TV!

Seriously, $200 plus a month for shows and sports I don't watch.  In fact, none of us watch many shows that are not reruns; Sam watches a lot of Law and Order and other forensic type shows.  Yes, the exceptions are The Walking Dead and Downton Abbey, but we do not watch a lot of current TV. 

So we ditched the house phone - only telemarketers call us anyway.
We cut the cable.
We kept the internet.

We hooked the TV up to a ROKU - a brand name streaming wifi device that gives all of the shows we watch via Netficks, HULU, and 600 other on line services that do not need cable.  Are we on the cutting edge?  Maybe.  Quite possibly cable as we know it is on the way out at other, cheaper services out pace the demand of the instant gratification age.  Think about it, do you still have a rotary phone with a cord in your house?  The technology has moved on.  The younger generations are already ahead of us.  The more and more people I talk to the more and more I hear about people who have been without cable for months or longer - and they are all younger than me.

I have to admit, its scary not to turn on the TV and have to flip through channels or the guide, but then that's a stupid response.  It isn't like we can never go back to cable.  Yes, the next few months might be challenging as we learn a new way of watching TV.  The most important thing I've learned so far is that you have to know what you want to watch.  With 600 on line services you really have to know what it is you are in the mood for.  Its like going out to dinner and having to know what you want before you get there because the menu is so vast you cannot go through it all.

I apologized to my wife for cutting her into March Maddness but she just streamed the game onto her iPad. 

So why do we need cable?

Family Tree Part I

On March 17, I found out that my father's fathers father - my great grandfather, Thomas C. Brown immigrated from Ireland in 1857 at the age of 2.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

With many thanks to my mother-in-law, Betty, who does genealogy as a hobby, a hobby with a passion; she showed me the US Census from 1920 showing my grandfather living at home with his parents and in 1930, employed as a New York State Trooper and married to my grandmother.  On this document it lists his father's birthplace as Northern Ireland.

In a strange coincidence, every generation of Browns since 1857 has had a Thomas Brown.  Thomas C. Brown had several children, one named Thomas who may have died in World War I and who may have been a twin brother to my grandfather.  Then there is Thomas, my dad; Thomas Andrew, my brother who goes by the name Andy; and then my son, Thomas Jacob, who we call, TJ.  Every generation might have intnetionally used the name within the next generation never realizing that they were extending the use of the name five times.   

For some odd reason, knowing this information about my past and where I come from seems to be very interesting to me right now.  Andy seems interested too, to the point where we are talking about traveling to Ireland if we can pinpoint where the family might be from.

I know that my grandmother was born in the United States to parents who emigrated from Germany - possibly near Garmish, Germany. Mimi, as she was called by the grandchildren, worked as a gift-shop saleslady in 1930 - before she had children.

My mom's family goes way, way back to some of the first families who came to America.  We go even farther back than Cotton Mather (a distant relative) to 1635 when his grandfather and some of the first Puritans came to escape religious persecution. 

With my parents gone, a lot of these chapters of the Family Journal need to be uncovered one document at a time.  I hope to uncover more of this story in the months and years to come.