I know I did stuff in 2001, but how much of it will I remember for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge tonight?
Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission: Impossible! music, please!):
1. Do you recall what you were doing in 2001? Family, school, work, hobbies, technology, genealogy, vacations, etc?
2. Share your 2001 events in your own blog post or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or post in some other social media system. Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.
Well, at least now I know how Randy is able to give so much detail about events from many years ago. I, however, have never written a newsy annual letter, for Christmas or Chanukah, telling everyone what I was doing during the year. And my recollections are pretty scant.
In 2001 I was living in Oakland, California. I bought the house and moved into it in 1993, so by 2001 I was pretty well settled. I think I had four pets: Cody (dog), Kirby (dog), Hank (cat), and Sassy (cat). I may have still had a housemate.
I was working at the Seismological Society of America (SSA). My business card said I was the Junior Web Geek, but I don't remember what title I came up with for Publication Assistant. The latter meant that I copyedited Seismological Research Letters, the monthly journal that was less of the hard science and more news and history, and I did administrative work for it and for Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, which was hard science, physics, geophysics. Junior Web Geek meant that I assisted our contract computer person with maintaining our online presence. I also helped with general administrative work in the office and at our conferences.
I do recall that our annual conference that year was held in San Francisco to commemorate the 95th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. I don't think I stayed at the hotel, but rather went back and forth every day from Oakland into San Francisco. I distinctly remember taking BART at way too early in the morning on April 18 to be at Lotta's Fountain for the annual ceremony held there in remembrance of the quake. I dressed in my finest vintage attire from the period and wore it for the rest of the day.
I might have attended one or two conferences during the year related to my work at SSA.
I was at work on September 11. I don't remember how we learned what had happened. I think we found a television and were able to watch some coverage. When I went home, every TV station was showing replays of the same films from CNN except the Food Network, which had a slide expressing sympathy, and Comedy Central, which was airing an episode of The Daily Show with They Might Be Giants as guests.
In gaming, I probably attended GenCon that year, which was still being held in Milwaukee (it wouldn't move to Indianapolis until 2003). At least I think I was still managing to go at that time. I might have gone under the aegis of Reaper Miniatures, as I no longer worked full time for a game company. I probably didn't make it to Origins, though. I was still going to Strategicon events, so I'm pretty sure I went to OrcCon and Gateway; maybe I went to Gamex. According to the list of credits I compiled for my own satisfaction, I did editing that year for Citizen Games, Fast Forward Entertainment, Grey Ghost Press, and Hobgoblynn Press and created indices for Alderac Entertainment Group, Reaper Miniatures, and Steve Jackson Games.
I started volunteering at the LDS Oakland Family History Center in 2000, so I'd been doing that for about a year. My 6-hour volunteer shift was on Saturdays. I enjoyed helping people with their family history research (and still do!). And that's all I can think of for genealogy that year.
That's about all I can come up with. I tried looking through my e-mail archive to see what it might tell me, but I had forgotten that I started my Gmail address in 2004, so it has nothing for 2001. I think I was still using AOL then, and those messages are long gone, so nothing to look at.
