I'm partly Waf*ck'd

I promise I'm going to explain the title at the end of this post.

I've been really out-of-the habit of posting lately so I thought I should do some catching up/previewing. There are several topics I have to post on and there's just not way to squeeze them all in. So here are some of the recent highlights which I intend to later follow-up on.

In mid-may I got to go on a Geology Field Trip with the Researchers I work with to Western Colorado/Eastern Utah. The highlights of the trip for me was visiting Arches National Park and the Colorado National Monument. However, these were more side-trips to the rock formations that the researchers went to see. I took quite a few pictures and they are already accessible on Flickr. I'll post some highlights soon. Personally, I think the wikipedia articles are more interesting then the official sites so feel free to check those out:

1. Arches National Park
   
2. Colorado National Monument
   

The week after I got back from the trip I had surgery for the first time in my life. I had an Inguinal Hernia repaired and was off from work for a week. I'm technically still recovering as I'm supposed to take it easy for six weeks following the surgery. I'm under the impression that I'll still feel "something" from it for several months. For the most part I'm getting along fine now, but every once and a while you'll catch me walking funny.

The one good thing about being off work let me do was beat "The Orange Box". I had bought Half-Life 2 when it was out on the Xbox but hadn't gotten around to playing it. When I found "The Orange Box" for PS3 on clearance I had to buy it for Half-Life 2 Episodes 1&2 and Portal... and since the PS3 version of HL2 should have been graphically superior to the Xbox version... well my Xbox copy is still in the shrink Wrap. Anyway... I had beaten Portal well before the Surgery and had gotten to Ravenholm in HL2. So the week off gave me enough time to finish HL2 and the two add-ons. Of course, now I'm looking forward to Episode 3 and I'm not sure how if/when this will be made available on the PS3.

Other than my excursion into the world of Half Life, I finally picked up Zack and Wiki on the Wii which is an excellent game for $20. In fact, it's another one of those "critically acclaimed" games that didn't sell very well... which is a shame, and a game I would highly recommend picking up because its a good if not excellent game that can definitely be had for cheap. I figure I'm about Half-Way through it, but I tend to only be playing this when I'm not playing Rock Band. Speaking of Rock Band... my drumming is getting better. I've completed about 2/3rds of the song on Hard.

Shannon and the baby are doing well. She just started her seventh month.

We're about to see how much sitting in a car the two of us can handle as we'll be driving home to Louisville this Thursday. Unlike past trips we are going to split it up across two days.

Now to the title... Shannon and I haven't agreed on the middle name for our son. So far nothing as felt "right" enough to either of us... and any name that one of us likes the other doesn't. In an attempt to find "Family" names might be good prompted me to start exploring my own genealogy on ancestry.com. Personally, I think the site charges way too much for their service, but they do have a ton of information. Anyway... while researching my mothers family name "Wafzig"... I've managed to track down when the Wafzigs came into the country and that entire line. Anyway, Mom is the daughter of Raymond Joseph Wafzig, son of Joseph Nicholas Wafzig, son of Paul Wafzig, son of Michael Wafzig who, along with his wife Anna Maria "Mary" Holz, immigrated to the United States in 1860 and settled in Louisville.

I've met with quite a bit of success researching the Wafzig family, in part, because Wafzig is such a unique name that it's not like research "Smith" where there is just so many people that it's hard to tell who is who. On the other hand.... I've learned that nobody can spell Wafzig. Michael Wafzig was the hardest to find information on because is name is spelled different on the manifest of the ship that brought him the US, the 1870, 1880, and 1900 census as well as his death record. In fact, the only time I've found his name spelled correct was on two different public records showing him living in Louisville in 1876 and 1877 along with his son Frank.

Anyway... to the subject of this post. Here's a free link to some public 1880 census data showing Michael's family in Louisville. Personally, I'm glad they didn't adopt this as the official spelling. :)