Guilty Pleasures

Friends,

There’s a certain gratification that comes from imposing order on chaos. Whether it’s crafting a story, assembling a puzzle or building a project, every completed stage is delightful, even though there may never be a “finished product”. One of my guilty pleasures, genealogy, has mutated beyond a one-dimensional search for ancestors into a quest to tackle the social fabric that connects me to the world. My genealogical web (family tree seems an inadequate metaphor) has metastasized into a large and eclectic collection of interweaving connections between folks with varying degrees of affiliation. Think of it as seven degrees of JP González. The only rule for getting added is holding some relation with someone who is already on the tree. As you might imagine, this means a good chunk of folks on the tree hold little or no blood relation to yours truly. Still, it’s satisfying to connect the dots and, particularly rewarding when I get to merge individuals. A son is also a husband (perhaps married several times), and a father who, thus, may appear multiple times – depending on the context in which he was found and added. Another rewarding activity is purely circumstantial: it’s when the quantity of people in the database reaches a memorable number. I recently surpassed 66,666 individuals (which warrants celebrating with a screenshot). To help put that into perspective, if we were talking about donuts, that would be 5,555.5 dozen!

I’m betting you too fall down the rabbit hole once in a while. What secret obsession gets you carried away? Or, are you that unicorn that leads a perfectly balanced life? In either event, I’d love to hear from you, so drop me a note whilst celebrating national donut day by scarfing down that pumpkin spice donut (or cruller?)

Happy National Donut Day!

P.S. Not sure what to do to celebrate? Get a free donut at a participating purveyor, or, better yet, stay at a donut-themed hotel room!

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Friday Donuts

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