Vince Anderson Interview?

 
From Morten Johansen.  You can listen to it here:

http://dbkk.dk/images/stories/Vince/vince%20anderson.mp3

Monday Mailbox: What is a High Nelly?

Monday Mailbox is a weekly post dedicated to questions received over email. Here is one, for a nice change of pace:

It's been fun discovering what to call different styles of bikes through your blog... diamond frame, step-through, loop frame, mixte, truss frame, Frascona curve! But what exactly is a High Nelly?

I have wondered about this myself, especially about the term's origin.




Used predominantly in the UK and Ireland (and not very common anymore), in a general sense "High Nelly" describes upright bikes. More often than not, the term refers specifically to women's bikes, and particularly to vintage ones. So, for instance, an old fashioned loop frame with swept-back handlebars up higher than the saddle might be called a High Nelly - similar to what an omafietsis to the Dutch.





But in Northern Ireland last summer, I was treated to a more detailed explanation. I was told that originally, "high nelly" referred to a specific style of a woman's bicycle frame, where the head tube was extended considerably past the height of the seat tube. This ensured that the handlebars could be set up as high as possible, for a fully upright and ultra-ladylike position. Apparently, only frames thus constructed are true high nellies.






Interestingly, in manufacturing its popular Lady's Tourist model, some time in the 1940s Raleigh switched from the original extended headtube design to one where the headtube was more or less level with the seat tube. The measurements of my 22" 1973 DL-1 frame are almost identical to the measurements of my 22" 1936 Lady's Tourist frame, save for this aspect and the resulting difference in posture.So, going by the explanation above, only the very early Lady's Tourists can be considered high nellies, whereas the later DL-1s (as well as most other post-war English 3-speeds) are not. And according to the same definition, lots of modern bikes can be considered high nellies, since extended headtubes are now quite popular.




Unfortunately, I cannot find any written information about the origins of the term, so I can't cite my sources beyond "conversation with collectors." And sadly, who exactly this Nelly was, for whom I assume the style of bicycle was named, remains a mystery.

Thoughts on RootsTech

Much has already been written about the RootsTech Conference, which was held last week in Salt Lake City. Randy Seaver has compiled a list of Geneablogger posts in his post RootsTech .. Geneabloggers Review. But I thought I'd add my two cents worth...



I managed to arrive on time for the keynote speakers on Thursday morning in spite of having to remove two inches of heavy, wet snow off of Van Dora and then driving in "rush hour" traffic through the valley. That drive stressed me out so much that I decided to forgo the keynote addresses on Friday and Saturday - knowing too that they were being recorded and would be available for viewing later.



I'm not going to give a run-down of the sessions that I attended but will just say that with 6700+ people in attendance, most rooms were crowded. There were several sessions I wanted to attend but couldn't because the room was already at capacity when I arrived 5-10 minutes before they were due to start!



This year I decided to attend sessions on topics that I knew very little about. For the most part, that strategy worked out well. However, I had a big issue with the descriptions of some of the sessions and the fact that very few were identified as Intermediate level. The bigger issue, however, is that several sessions identified as Intermediate were definitely not. And, the titles of some sessions were misleading.



One session, billed as "using technology to solve research problems," was very disappointing. In my opinion, it was a basic beginners level overview of how to do your genealogy - the only "technology" mentioned was the use of the internet and genealogy software. In fact, the speaker, after polling the audience to determine our research level, stated that she expected more beginners to attend.







Some of the highlights... learning about the Genographic Project, picking up some ideas from Denise Olson on using Powerpoint (or other presentation software) to tell short family stories with pictures (photo above), and learning that Thomas W. Jones utilizes online family trees in his research process.







On that latter point, the Thomas Jones session "Can a Complex Research Problem Be Solved Solely Online?" was worth being stuffed into the smallest room available. The session was unlike any other I attended - an interactive experience with the audience responding to questions regarding resources that might be used and then learning from 'the master' what was actually used. Can you imagine getting an email from Tom Jones inquiring about the sources for your online tree?



Will I attend RootsTech next year? Doubtful. But then, that's what I said last year! I think a better option for me is to watch the sessions that are live-streamed and archived for later viewing. Also, if they follow through on their plans to have 600+ locations holding sessions locally at the same time in conjunction with live-streaming - well, that would be awesome.








The downside of attending virtually, of
course, is that you miss out on the interaction with other attendees
and spending time with friends. But if RootsTech grows in attendance
next year like it did this year, the current venue would be
impossibly crowded...

Annual totals for registration

If you look at the past 5 years of registration on Mount Rainier, you'll notice that the numbers are declining, from 13,114 in 2000 to 8,927 in 2005. However, when you look at the trend over the past 15 years, 1998-2002 appear more as a spike. Certainly, the sport gained a lot of momentum during the 90's. Here are the numbers.

On a another note, Washington State D.O.T. have their hands full on highway 123 (that's the road between Cayuse Pass/hwy 410 and US 12 and the Packwood area). Access along the east side of the park may be delayed this spring if there is a lot of road damage; stay tuned...

Capture

I have a new computer that's taking a little getting used to. The pros are obvious: My m and n keys are no longer worn out, the case isn't cracked at the seams, and boy, is it zippy fast.

Really the only con is that many things work differently. As an official old person, I think I'm obliged to resist change. Or whine about it a little, at least.

Photoshop Elements will do so much more than my old mini-featured generic program. I couldn't resist the urge to make my bug photo look like a cartoon, as you see. But the features aren't intuitively obvious, and they're not much like the old Photoshop 3 I used to know.

You people with wide-screen computers were so sweet not to tell me how off-kilter I've been. I like my new screen, but some things (mainly my blog header) appear centered incorrectly. I haven't figured out how to fix that yet.

The screen is also very bright. So I may have trouble getting the photo levels right for a while.

I have a spiffy new Bluetooth mouse. No cords, it's great! But it has a bit of a tendency to drift to the left all on its own when I use my usual sofa-pillow-as-mousepad.

I will figure it all out eventually.

Jake's Peaches

Last April I told the world the story of Jake's peach tree - the saga of a Harry & David peach pit, planted a few years ago by my sister and her husband and son Jake. In its fourth spring the tree burst into beautiful pink bloom and Red and her family hoped there would be peaches.

Next came a photo of the developing green fruit and then in July the photo above showed them beginning to color.

A week ago my sister Red sent this photo of the ripening fruit with the guy who planted the tree and had faith that it would grow and bloom.


And she also sent a photo of some peaches in a bowl. They weren't huge, but they were beautiful peaches!


When a recycled Harry & David box arrived this afternoon - I had to share the joy!





Dear Family,
There's a light fruity fragrance already - maybe Philo and I can sample one of these very special peaches tomorrow. Thank you all - I can't believe you did this!


And Red - sure hope you and sister Josie will have a chance to get to Mamma Mia soon if you haven't already been to the theater together.
I wrote about seeing it this week with my friend MSS over here at Annie's Addendum and don't think there are any real "spoilers' in my post.


I bought the CD yesterday - guess what - the booklet has all the words, so by the time the DVD comes out - I'll be ready.


Now I just hope you are as thrilled with the movie as we are with the peaches!

This and That

You can get with this

or you can get with that

Sometimes I wear a helmet



sometimes I wear a hat



Sometimes I work from home

with my lovely assistants



Sometimes I go on rides

in the cold wearing mittens



Sometimes I ride with others

sometimes I ride alone



Taking wacky pictures

with my camera phone



meeting nice people



eating hot soup



climbing hills along the

Concord-Lexington loop



Now let's all get cozy

with a warm cup of java



Or how about a crazy

wool balaclava?



Enjoy your weekend

and the beauty outside



No matter what you're into

it's time for a ride!