September 11

Oct 6, 2008: Washington, DC 2. Spent a week in Washington, DC for Drake. Tracey flew out and we had a charmed weekend together. Highlights are on my Vox blog site. Complete pics are here and here.

August 19, 2008: PDF Library. Several important family history books are now availabe in PDF format for download.

July 12, 2008: The Black Hills and Devil's Tower Trip. Another era has ended (this is the last time, I promise). I've stopped maintaining this website. It's looked dated for years. Web services do it for me now. Whenever I sync my Nokia N95 to my laptop, the photos are automatically backed up to my Sugarsync site, thumbnailed, put in a gallery with slideshow, zipped batch download and everything. I can't compete with that.

May 5, 2008: Photo albums online. Over the winter, I scanned in ALL my photos, including all the old genealogy pics. 11,000 scans, about 50,000 pics. Can't believe I did it now. Check out my Sugarsync site where you can download them directly. If you need help finding particular photos, please contact me at donsevers@mchsi.com and I'll send you a link to the photos you're interested in. These families are represented.

October 6, 2007: Major new page: Mom's photo albums. This is a megatask I've been trying to figure out how to accomplish for 10 years. They're finally up!

October 5, 2007: This is the page no one's been waiting for, the Garden Page. In spring of 2006, I dug up 12 areas and have been planting things ever since. I want a wooded lot full of flowers. It's getting there.

September 5, 2007: Finally posted some pics from our combo vacation to Washington, DC, Aug 13-19. I went to see the Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championship, and Quinn came along so we could see all the fabulous treasures on the National Mall together. No commentary yet, but the photos tell the story.

July 27, 2007: Latest pics, vids and info can now be found here. It's my new Vox blog. I can upload items directly from my better-than-iPhone Nokia N95. This is way beyond a paradigm shift. Will I now ask whether I'll continue to maintain donsevers.com? Not yet, but it could be possible.

July 16, 2007: Colorado State Park Cabins.

June 18, 2007: Severs Reunion II. John was back in town to run the Hy-Vee Triathlon. We got together at our house this time. Turned out great and it raises my hopes that we’ll do this more frequently from now on. Is it still a reunion if you get together all the time? Anyway, we can’t let a year go by without seeing everyone!

March 6, 2007: The wait will be over soon. My collection of family group photos is coming online gradually.

February 17, 2007: North Woods 2

This is the first time we've vacationed in the same place twice.

December 15, 2006: Norwegian breakthrough

I’ve been quietly updating my genealogy page for several weeks now after making contact with a cousin in Norway. But now, this has reached the status of a major breakthrough. First, I posted a bunch of Iverson items for a cousin in Minnesota. Then, she put me in touch with a 3^rd cousin of my mom’s who had lots of cool stuff, including this gem.

October 27, 2006: Quinn and I took a Halloween camping trip and returned to clean up the vanishing Kinkade cemetery. My gg grandfather William Porter Severs’ natural father was George Kinkade, so we’ve recently learned that our male ancestry is a line of contentious, loud, opinionated blokes who never backed down from a fight.

August 12, 2006: Severs Reunion! John was in town to run a triathlon, so Bob and Jayne had us all over for a pool party. Thanks, everyone, for a great time.

July 22, 2006: Gunnison/Ouray/Moab

June 5, 2006:

March 21, 2006: Gateway Getaway Great camping at Cuivre River State Park. And the Arch is, of course, unique. But so are a lot of other things.

February 7, 2006: The Door County Winter Camping Trip Things often turn out better than you think.

September 8, 2005: Macy Jane Selma Severs Updated daily, but only some of the time.

July 15, 2005: The Rockies Trip. Revisiting a Precambrian classic....

May 2, 2005: Found Quinn's 5dm, his 6d and his 7d while hunting in Illinois. Huh? Read on....

March 21, 2005: I follow physics research, and over the last ten years, new accelerators capable of creating mini black holes have come online. Well, I couldn't help wondering if there was any danger in this particular avenue of inquiry, but I couldn't find any papers which addressed it head-on. Until now. Relax, due to highly technical reasons, the dangers are miniscule that the Earth will be the epicenter for a phase transition of the quantum vacuum resembling a supernova spreading through the entire universe.

January 24, 2005: The North Woods/Snowmobile Trip. It's good to be alive in a fossil-fuel economy.

Tate's 1 year pics are in.....

January 12, 2005: Quinn appears on almost every page of this website, but he still deserves his own page.

August 22, 2004: The Upper Iowa Canoe Trip

August 15, 2004: Hoover High School 25th class reunion

We had a great turnout and it was a blast. It's not about going back to high school. It's about meeting the great people we've become.

July 8, 2004: Updated the Friends Page. It's about time.

July 7, 2004: The Irony & Self-Reference Page is finally up. And not everything on it is ironic or self-referencing. Man, irony always gets me into trouble.

July 5, 2004: The Glacier National Park train/RV megatrip

June 21, 2004: We gave in to the incentives and got Tracey a brand-new, 2005 Chrysler Town and Country Touring minivan. Yup, we're a two minivan family. Man, it's sharp: butane blue, power doors, stow&go seats. Tracey's loving it.

June 20, 2004: Father's Day camp and tramp trip

April 3, 2004: Passed Security +.

March 16, 2004: Updated Tate's page.

The Myth of Pattern. I was inspired by Stephen Hawking to finally write down this essay concerning the limits of human knowledge. Excerpt: We have taken the success of our thought patterns to indicate their veracity. This is fallacious in the realm of formulating a theory of how the universe works... In the movie trilogy, The Matrix, humans were confined in a neural construct created by machines. This is actually the case, except we make our own illusion, and the illusion is not enforced. We are free to keep in mind that we live in a mental construct and that the universe “out there” is rich in mystery and variety beyond our comprehension.

Einstein: "Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears it ticking, but he has no way of opening the case."

March 4, 2004:

January 18, 2004:

We had our holiday party this weekend. Superb meal at the Wakonda Club. I love where I work.

December 7, 2003:

Tate Donovan Ryals Severs

Born 12/3/03, 2:49 pm, 8 lb, 5 oz, 20", blue eyes

August 31, 2003:

The move is over and it's all good. We're just tired and grateful. It's cool today after a hot week, so we have the windows open. I can hear kids playing outside. Feels like home already.

Contact info: Don Severs, e-mail donsevers@mchsi.com

August 20, 2003: The Lake Superior Trip

Had a class cancel giving me an unexpected week off, so we seized it and headed north for 5 days of camping in the minivan. Heaven....

August 3, 2003: Grandma Flock turns 100!

We had a great turnout for Tracey's grandma's 100th birthday party in Sparta, WI. Almost 100 of Irma's descendants and their spouses showed up to wish her a happy birthday. Cousin Greg Paul did an outstanding job providing a slide show and gave everyone a CD full of photos spanning Irma's life. Thanks so much, Greg!

(right-click to save)

4 generations.... Irma Rademacher Flock, Lorraine Flock Donovan (Tracey's mom), Tracey Donovan Severs (expecting Dec 24).

July 27, 2003:

The Seattle/Orcas Island Trip, otherwise known as The 3rd Big Trip

Tracey, Quinn and I went to visit family in the Great Northwest. Our hearts are full.....

July 2, 2003:

Sold the West Park townhouse and bought a house in Johnston. No more looking, yippee!

June 7, 2003:

Major website cleanup. New Genealogy pics and new cousins page.

May 27, 2003:

In the planning stages: 25th Hoover High School Reunion, Class of 1979

May 24, 2003, The Honeymoon

March 31, 2003

What a dream. I've combined the Wedding and Tracey pages. Now it's easier than ever to experience our romance again and again.....

The Wedding/Tracey Page

Yellowstone Trip/The 2nd Big Trip: Quinn and I had an absolutely charmed 12 days of camping and non-stop togetherness. Now, Quinn heads back to day camp and I return to teaching computer stuff at Hamilton College.

Hiking to Inspiration Point in the Tetons. ahhhhhhhh......