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This entry contains SPOILERS from the J.K. Rowling novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

Continuing with my series on the new Harry Potter books, I’ll speak, this entry, about Albus Dumbledore. Like Karl Rove (why must I compare the two?), Albus seems to be a master planner, The Architect of Voldemort’s demise, if you will. Yet, it will be Harry Potter who gets the fame of defeating Voldemort, the one who has books written about him and his quest to rid the world of a horrible evil. In this entry, I’ll discuss Dumbledore’s behind-the-scenes contributions to this era, but also much more. I won’t comment further in this summary, because I know I risk beheading if I do. So, see you on the flip.

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I’ve always had an active, hobby-like interest in genealogy.  I enjoy finding out where I’m from, and who my family members were.  So, it surprised me a year ago from last month, when I was at a family function, to see the name of former United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a family tree made by my uncle.  Given that he’s pretty distant from me (7th cousin 7 times removed on my mom’s side), but I enjoyed knowing that somebody who had so vastly changed this country and led it through a war was in my family.

Because I like to re-invent the wheel, I’ve been trying to retrace that line myself.  Alright…wanting practice is the real reason!  I’ll never get good in this myself if I can’t even recreate what someone else has done.  I’ve also been trying to look back in time for the other surnames in my family.  While on this quest the other day, I came across a name that intrigued me: Laura Ingalls Wilder.  You know, the author of Little House on the Prairie?  Somebody with my last name mentioned being descended from her on their website.  So, I started my search.

I was intending to find a connection to Wilder through my last name, and didn’t expect something else to come up.  However, while I was searching, I noticed another last name to which one of her ancestors was connected: Delano.  Well, you can see how quickly this would pique my interest.  I immediately abandoned my attempt to find some connection through my name, and started trying to find the dotted line connecting FDR and LIW.

I’m happy to say I did it!  Here’s the connection:

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father was Charles Ingalls, who’s father was Lansford Ingalls, who’s father was Samuel Ingalls.  Samuel was married to Margaret Delano, who’s father was Jonathan Delano, who’s father was Jabez Delano, who’s father was also named Jonathan Delano.  Jonathan had another son named Thomas.  His son was Ephraim Delano, who’s son was Warren Delano, who’s son was Warren Delano, Jr., who’s daughter was Sarah Delano, the wife of James Roosevelt.  The two had a son named Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would go on to be the 32nd President of the United States.  By a quick calculation, they are fifth cousins once removed.

But that’s not all!  Ingalls Wilder is also related to yet another President.  Good old Jonathan Delano (the brother of Roosevelt’s ancestor Thomas) also had a daughter named Susanna.  She married one Noah Grant (can you see where this is going?).  They had a son named Noah Grant, Jr., who had a son named Jesse Root Grant.  He had a wife named Hanna Simpson, and together they had a son named Ulysses Simpson Grant, the Civil War general, and the 18th President of the United States.  To Wilder, Grant is a fourth cousin twice removed, and to Roosevelt, he is a fourth cousin once removed.

On a sidenote, after wandering aimlessly around rootsweb up through the Delano line, though many marriages, and back to like 1650, and forward through the name that showed me, I found another President: Richard M. Nixon.  He’d be so far away though, I’m not even going to try and look up the generations and times removed.

In all, it’s not so surprising.  The Delanos and the Ingalls are both apparently very wealthy families, and wealthy usually marries wealthy.  Anyway, back to my search!

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On a side note, I know I don’t get many visitors to this blog, but this is anybody who might have be doing some drive-by reading:

Do you have a blog which you’d like some more visitors to read? If so, I want some more blog reading material. Simply provide a link to your blog in a comment, and a brief one to three sentence description of what it’s all about (this is to prevent people from just drive-by spamming me, hopefully). Even if it’s a “this is my day” blog, I wanna know about it. If it’s about the virtues of fine Italian cuisine, I wanna know about it. However, I run a semi-family oriented operation here, so nothing NSFW unless you consider your site educational in nature. I’m not a prude, but I don’t need parental complaints about their kid running across an “erotica” site. At least if your site is education, I’ll have a decent response if they do complain, because some people really are prudes.  If I like your blog enough, I’ll add it to my Blogroll.  How’s them apples, huh?

This is not only for my benefit. By giving me some good blogs to read, you in turn given anyone who might see this entry good blogs to read. And all advertising is good advertising, right? Well, I guess unless it’s bad advertising.

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Back, finally! The reason for my absence for the last 10 days is, well, because I was initially being lazy. But, then, the server the site is on was moved to a new machine, and some things got mucked up in the process. But, it’s all fixed now, at least as well as it can be.

Gods, there is a lot to talk about since I’ve been away. However, there is nothing more important on my mind at the moment than The Architect himself, Karl Rove. I know I’m late on this by a couple days, but server issues will do that to you.

Do I think he was forced out ala Rumsfeld and definitely Powell? No, I don’t. Do I believe the crap about wanting to spend time with his family? I’m not questioning his ability as a family man, but am questioning the explanation. The “family needs” explanation is often used when a politician either wants to retire, resign because he feels it’s time, or resign because he’d rather it not be time, but the situation calls for it. It seems that for a lot of the administration officials who’ve recently resigned, I think it would be safe to use the latter option. Here’s why it’s so for Rove.

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I would like to say that my weekend was pretty awesome.  Well, not weekend, since it all happened on weekdays, but I digress.

On Thursday, as I’ve been mentioning for the past couple of entries, I went to New York City to see The Colbert Report.  It was awesome because though we had to stand to see the show, we were able to go backstage.  It gets better.  I got to meet Stephen Colbert, who is just as energetic off the camera as he is in front of it.  Didn’t do too much talking, but got to shake his hand and complement him on a good show.   He seems to be a very nice guy (some people can be real asses when they get off camera).  Given that he took the time to greet the people backstage both before and after the show says a lot about him, I think.

Besides Colbert, didn’t actually do much in the city.  Walked around Virgin Megastore before having dinner before the show.  Got to sample this wine at Olive Garden, which was not very good, to be honest.  Then, after the show, we’d planned on going to an ice-cream place, but ended up at McDonalds, since the others of my party were hungry for food.  I just wanted dessert, so I got a hot-fudge sundae.

The next day, ate at a local diner called MaryBill.  Good food, but a little greasy, and I’m not sure my Crohn’s agreed with that.  Of course, could have been the chicken parm from later that day.  Speaking of which, got to meet my friend Adam’s friend Adam again, and we had dinner at the restaurant I was supposed to go to almost two months ago.  It was pretty good food I must say.  Afterward, I viewed a finished episode of Expedition Season 4 (freakin’ awesome!) and helped edit another one (well, provided suggestions).

Then today, not so much.  Came back, went swimming, perhaps drank one too many with the Mike’s Hard Lemonade I had, since I feel kind of strange right now.  Never had three drinks in one day before, though I tried to space them apart.

Today, I just have a graduation party for a family friend.  Should be good, though I’m not paying $5 to swim in the lake.  I can do it for free at my grandparent’s house.

P.S. Final day at 3 was great!  Got to go out with one of the photogs again, and this time, he let me shoot footage!  Not sure if what I shot aired, since the only VO I was able to catch, I’m not sure if any of the footage was mine.  Still, had an awesome last day.

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So, I have indeed decided to end my internship at Channel 3 tomorrow. It’s going to be a bit of a sad thing leaving. I have loved every moment of it, as a whole anyway (there were boring-ass moments and days). Still, I think I’ve done everything I’ve set out to do. I may not have focused on one area (since the area I’d like to focus on is more-or-less off-limits, besides shadowing, to a non-union intern like me), but I think I’ve covered quite a bit. I’ve spent a lot of time on the assignment desk, to be sure. On the other hand, I’ve been out with photographers, learning how they do their thing, learning how the live trucks work, and all that. I’ve been among the engineering people, seeing how they route live feeds, cameras, and other sources. I’ve also done some information look-up for stories. I’ve shadowed and worked a bit with a producer, seeing how they prepare their shows, and have even gotten to write something! And finally, I’ve gotten some insight into how a reporter does their job, though that’s not quite my shtick.

So, tomorrow will be a bit sobering, perhaps, but I’ll have left knowing that I’ve gotten in a little bit of everything, which seems to be the rule of thumb for me. Know something about everything; I think that’s a good rule. After all, if I end up getting into producing someday, I’ll need to know something about everything that’s involved with it. Not only do producers need be creative and tell a story, they also need to know the technical aspects of things. It’s not all, “I want this. Do it.” A good producer should know at least something about how the equipment does what they want. Likewise, I feel that the techie photog/editor need to have a creative side to them, or else their shots and edits are bland and boring. They should be able to tell a story out of what shots they have gotten. So, even if I haven’t been focused more on one thing, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It can be only good to get your hands in at all aspects of production.

Thursday is most definitely on, and as much as it will be a time to go see my friend, and go see Stephen Colbert be funny, it’ll be a bit of celebration for me, perhaps an extended birthday gift to myself. Especially since I took the non-traditional route for my 21st (which I’m not saying is a bad thing).

Now, to bed to be rested for the final day.

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Went out with a reporter today.  That’s was loads of fun and I definitely learned a lot, and brushed up on what I thought I knew, but was confirmed today.  Won’t go into the details of explaining what happened, as I’ve done it to others already.   I’m seriously thinking of cutting it off Wednesday, the internship that is.  I’ve now done everything I set out to do, and I’ve already been working more hours that I have to for the credits, so it’s not like I’m working up to that and skipping.  Money is an issue, even after my birthday (which rocked).

In any case, Thursday and Friday will be lots of fun.  I’m going to New York City!  Why, you ask?  Besides to visit a friend, I’ll be getting to see The Colbert Report!  I’ve never been in the audience for a show on TV before (or possibly backstage if they’re out of seating – having friends who have friends is the epitome of cool), so it ought to be an interesting experience.  Then maybe we’ll hit the bar or something.  I’ll be staying over for the night, then the next day seeing what progress has been done on the episodes of Expedition the two Adams are editing this summer (yes, still thinking about it even when it’s not the school year).  So, it should be cool.

Keeping it short today, since I’m exhausted.  Getting up at 6am to get to the bus around 7am, then getting there at 8am, and staying until damn near 7pm is tiring.  Have a good day.

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Unfortunately, I only got to see the last 4o minutes or so of the Democratic CNN/YouTube debate. However, I think it was time enough to get an idea of my likes and dislikes.

Likes: The whole idea of using public-submitted videos is important to me, because I feel it may give the candidates a taste of what questions and concerns the American public has, as well as give them something of a say in how the debate is run. Obviously, I won’t delude myself into thinking that they had total control. Still, I think it could have been better for CNN/YT to have perhaps picked, say, the 50 videos they considered the best, then have held a public vote over at YouTube (how they’d figure in multiple votes, I’m not sure, but I know they could have done it). That would have given the people more control over the process.

I thought most of the questions seemed pretty fair, even if I didn’t like some of the answers (Healthcare for illegals? Come now…be realistic) . The only question I thought strange (and others agree) is the assault-rifle toting hick asking about their views on gun control. Come on, CNN. I know you’re liberal leaning, but be responsible here. You could have surely picked someone who asked the same question in a more mature manner, without having to drag out his “baby.”

As for Anderson Cooper, I thought he did a fantastic job in keeping the candidates in line, which is a difficult task at the best of times. By the way, listen up, Senator Dodd. Shame on you for making Connecticut look bad talking out of turn! I know they shafted you on time to speak yet again, but you’re running for President here, not a race to see who could get in the most words before being shushed.

I didn’t see enough of the debate to make fully formed opinions on who won it, though I do think (and know this means little) that Biden and Obama are the most Presidential looking. Sorry, Dodd. I know you’re my home boy, but I somehow can’t see you in the White House. As for the questions they answered, I felt some were well answered, and others not so well. The candidates need to stop spouting off campaign slogans and tell how they feel in plain language. I concede, however, that this is difficult when Cooper gave you so little time.

Finally, I’d like to take a moment to comment on something that wasn’t in the debate, but happened during the analysis time afterward. Wolf Blitzer had an interview with Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of John Edwards. What possessed them to do this is beyond me, but they asked her who would do better in womens’ rights – him or Hilary Clinton. Hello! What the hell did you think she was going to say? “Oh yea, that Hilary will do so much better than Johnny Boy!”? She’s the wife of a candidate for President, for cryin’ out loud. Of course she’s going to support Edwards, no matter what her real feelings may be. She wants him in the White House as much as he does. She’s NEVER going to say that Hilary is better on some issue, because that would only hurt him. That said, she did compliment Hilary on her record, which I liked. Very polite on that.

So, I come out of this feeling pretty good, and I look forward to the Republican CNN/YouTube debate on September 17th.