Our Heritage: A Wholesome Holiday Recipe

There is nothing quite like the smell of bread baking in the oven. My wife made a challah, a braided egg-enriched bread, the other day. Throughout our house, I felt enveloped by the bouquet of baking dough. It's more than just an aroma wafting through the house. I think it’s also the heat and moisture that made for this very cozy, sensory experience. Nostalgia doesn’t overwhelm me. My heritage does not include homemade bread. Bread came from the grocery store my family owned. I cannot recall my mother ever baking bread, except heat n’ serve Parker House rolls, when I was a kid growing up.

But there’s something about baking bread. The scent of soup steeping on the stove doesn’t do it. Sautéing onions and green peppers in a cast iron pan smells great . . . initially and then becomes a piercing odor as the ingredients caramelize.  

During the holidays, there are lots of wonderful aromas from great cooking and baking going on in homes across America. Women and men pull out old family recipes from their box, dust them off, try to remember the previous year’s adaptations, and use them once again. Traditional family recipes make the holidays special. Each year, daring amateur chefs and cooks create new traditions by choosing to introduce new recipes to prepare traditional holiday foods.

Okay, Norman Rockwell’s classic illustrations influence my imagination.

With little exception, most holiday meal preparers adapt recipes to their tastes, some making handwritten notations on the printed page or computer printout. You might say they personalize them for their family and guests, adding another treasure, especially if it tastes exceptionally good, to the family’s trove.

Family, good food, caring friends, and the time to enjoy them are the components of great holiday memories. We document our heritage by keeping those memories through stories and photographs that capture the uniqueness of our experiences.

Sadly, every year families lose significant portions of their heritage because of fires and natural disasters. After every fire and flood, residents who say that they lost everything are most heartbroken by the loss of the pictures. As you look toward the end of the year and starting 2011 with a set of New Year’s resolutions, consider an easy one. Create digital files of the things that are important to you, store them in a safe location outside your home, and begin backing up your computer files on a regular basis.

Need some ideas about how and where to get started? Visit www.OurHeritageVault.com for a list of thing important things to consider, including your favorite bread recipe. And if you don’t have a favorite recipe for bread yet, try this one: http://www.howcast.com/videos/265122-How-To-Make-Challah-Bread

Risk Management for Old Photos & Other Stuff

I participated in a business expo this past weekend and had a chance to talk with some strangers as well as people that I know about Our Heritage Vault. There was a general feeling that life is so much easier with digital photographs and all the things that you can easily do with them, although several people said they don't do much. (I have one friend who just keeps buying more and more multimedia cards to continue taking photos but does not download them to a computer or photo service--very risky behavior.)

People didn't talk much about old photographs though. They know that they'd hate to lose them. They just don't have the time or money to convert them to electronic files and store them in independent, multiple places like a safe deposit box, on the cloud, as well as on a external hard drive.

We encourage everyone to manage the risk of losing the physical elements of treasured memories. Take some time to just prioritize what you might miss most . . . the wedding photo on the wall, the kids photos on the bookcase, a grandchild's first crayon drawing, or an aunt's recipe for your favorite dessert. One person said that she has so much stuff--boxes of memories. Okay, maybe she has more than most of us, but the barrier remains the same. Where do I start?

I asked her, "What are your favorite 24 photographs?" Photographs tell stories and being able to tell 24 stories from photographs is a good place to start. You can add more related photos to further articulate a particular story and edit (toss out) those photos that really don't enhance a story.

It may be a big job, so think about doing it with someone who may appreciate the stories. If that person doesn't appreciate a specific story, it may help you identify those that are more important or interesting. Family gatherings, like Thanksgiving, may give you a chance to look at a some old photos too.

WARNING: Depending upon the quantity of your old photos, this can be a daunting exercise. Take it slow. Make a plan. Make it manageable. And most important, make it enjoyable by sharing with others.

Dead Sea Scrolls will be Digitally Available

The Washington Post reports that the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google are digitizing the entire collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls. One of the most fascinating and talked about archeological discoveries of the 20th century, scholars and the public will have online access to the electronic versions of the artifacts which will enable study without the risk of accelerated deterioration by exposure to light and variable air conditions. The report indicated that approximately 30,000 fragments from 900 scrolls will be digitized. 

Digitizing Founding Father's Papers

Americans will have easy access to the nation's Founding Fathers' papers thanks to the collaborative efforts the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grantmaking arm of the National Archives, and The University of Virginia (UVA) Press. NHPRC will provide a grant of $2 million to digitize volumes of documents and post them on a special web site. For more information, visit the National Coalition for History. 

The Case for Off-Site Digital Storage

More than 35 families may have lost their treasured photographs and other important documents in the aftermath of the San Bruno, CA natural gas pipeline explosion and fire last week.

How could you even imagine an entire neighborhood suddenly going up in flames? The residents of Detroit, MI don't need much imagination more than 85 homes, most of them unoccupied, burned during a wind-driven fire earlier last week. Tens of thousand lost electricity as the firefighters struggled to get the fire under control.

These two events remind us that in today's world things happen suddenly. It's easy to procrastinate and put off the tasks to prepare for an emergency. Getting around to it tomorrow or next week or next month is okay for certain things. You can lose the use of your home or office for a few weeks or months and you can survive. Your insurance company can pay your hotel bill and provide funds for new clothes and furniture, but how does your insurance company make you whole when your child's baby pictures or your wedding photos are consumed by a raging fire?

Our Heritage Vault offers some gentle advice about starting to digitize and store the important things in your life outside of your home. Take the first step by identifying the things that are most important to you. Our Important Things Index can help. Prioritize those things that matter to you and start scanning them or engage a reputable firm to do it for you.

Most important, back up and store your electronic files outside of your home. Use a portable hard drive or thumb drive to store your photos and keep it a safe deposit box or store the digitized material online in the Internet cloud.

Keep Data Safe During Disaster

The Miami Herald, Keep Data Safe, offered some planning ideas to mitigate losses from a disaster. For more about what you may want to protect, visit The Important Things Index  at EvacuPacket.com. where you can also learn about some innovative ways in which to protect the things that matter to you and your family.  

Automobile Maintenance Records

I had my car serviced for the first time yesterday. Last December, a storm and accompanying flood wreaked havoc on my previous car. My insurance company declared the auto a total wreck and told me to go out a buy another vehicle since my then 3-year old car would never be the same.

As I was driving to and from the car dealership, I must have passed 6 former dealships. Seeing those empty storefronts with vast parking lots surrounding them reminded me that I should keep my own set of maintenance records for our cars and not depend on a dealer to keep them for me. By scanning and keeping a digitized copy of my maintenance and repair receipts, I'll have the evidence to prove that the car was properly maintained and eligible for any repairs covered under the vehicle's warranty. I plan to keep those records in Our Heritage Vault.

Prepare to Share

We've been working on a new brochure to describe our products and services. It all comes down to "Prepare to Share."

When a family decides to prepare to share, it reviews its possessions and selects the things that are important to it. It chooses to digitize favorite photographs or collect digitized ones in one place. It determines that having the family's health histories and prescription drugs gathered in single location is a good thing to share with physicians and emergency care providers.

Our Heritage Vault's Important Things Index is a free checklist of the items a family may want to share. The biggest issue preventing a family from sharing its heritage may be time. It takes time to review a checklist items and pick those it wants to share. It also takes time to prepare the material and put it a place that is safe but accessible to the people that will enjoy or find the information helpful.

Our Heritage Vault offers solutions. If you want to trade dollars for time, we can digitally replicate photos, important documents, letters, and other sentimental items for you. We send your original materials back to you with your digitally archived material saved on a CD as well as a free virtual safe deposit box for you to try at Our Heritage Vault. Visit our Facebook page to learn the details about our sensational summer sale. For just $99.00 we'll create digital replicas of up to 75 individual photographs and 75 documents or letters.

First Day of 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season

Today marks the first day of hurricane season and long-range forecasters are predicting a very active season of tropical storms.

We awoke to a thunder storm and local street flooding. Some water seeped under our garage door, a reminder of December 17, 2009 when 6 inches of water collected in our garage. Like most folks, we store stuff in our garage. Not just automobiles, garden tools and sports equipment, we store old files, research papers, high school and college year books, photographs and newspaper clippings in our garage. Naturally, we had those heavy papers on the bottom shelves, stabilizing our storage units, and yes, they got soaked and had to be tossed out. We scanned and digitized several particularly sentimental items that we were able to dry out before they got moldy but many things were lost.

Everything on the floor and on the lowest shelves of the storage units in our garage are stored in covered, plastic bins now. We'll be fine . . . as long as 12 inches of water doesn't collect in our garage. At that point, there won't be time for preserving old memories. We'll be more concerned about being safe, moving our washer and dryer to a higher place inside the house, and trying to stop any water from seeping into our home.

It's time to find and create electronic files of those other old photos.

More Rain, More Flooding, Less News Media Coverage

A Newsweek blog post dated May 6 notes the lack of national news coverage of the Nashville flood. With losses estimated at more than $1 billion, it is a significant event that was overshadowed in the media by the attempted bombing in Times Square and the Gulf oil leak.

Even if the national media focused on the Nashville flood more broadly, its coverage would detail the estimated size of the community's loss, the height of the flood waters, the curtailment of activities, and the inconveniences that the masses would have encountered. Among the real stories of this tragedy along the banks of Cumberland River are the losses of individuals and families. In addition to losses of property, the lives of 30 people ended because of these storms and floods. Insurance proceeds will exchange losses for money but money cannot replace lost lives and lost remembrances.

As part of its education programs, Our Heritage Vault offers free copies of "The Important Things Index," a comprehensive list of the things that people may miss if they are lost. Once you identify those things that you'll miss, you can take steps to avoid those losses. Email MoreInfo@OurHeritageVault.com for your free copy.

Severe Weather Warnings: A Reminder

The first alerts about severe weather for our area arrived about 8 o'clock this morning. We tuned into The Weather Channel (http://www.weather.com/) on television to follow the storm, a continuation of the one that swept through the South over the weekend. Jim Cantore, reporting from Weir, MS, where a devastating tornado hit, remarked that many people were just picking through the ruble of what was once their homes looking for pictures. He noted that it takes a storm and the loss of those personal items that makes you regret not doing something to protect those special memories and precious mementos.

Our Heritage Vault offers ideas and resources to preserve a family heritage. The EvacuPacket is an emergency organizer for your important documents and photographs contained within a water resistant pouch. www.EvacuPacket.com

Suit seeks compensation for Einstein papers lost in Lick fire - SiliconValley.com

Suit seeks compensation for Einstein papers lost in Lick fire - SiliconValley.com

EvacuPacket--Revised and Ready

The EvacuPacket, a unique emergency organizer in a handy, water resistant grab 'n go package is the place to store your important original documents and your digitized data in one safe, portable place. Our Heritage Vault urges you to prepare your family's important things before the storm clouds gather.

Recently revised and updated, each EvacuPacket includes a 4 GB flash drive with 13 fill-in-the-blank templates to organize and consolidate your personal ermegency information and plenty of space to save your digitized files, including documents and photographs. The packet also has space for emergency cash, keys, and extra credit cards.

Visit www.EvacuPacket.com to learn more.

Passover Seder--Forum for Memories

Attended a first night of Passover Seder last evening. Sitting around the table after dinner talking about Seders gone by, meals shared with others, and whose recipe is best, one of the guests remarked, "It's nice to remember and talk about the good old days."

Agreed.

Preserving Memories--Scanning Old Menus for the Hollywood (FL) Historical Society

Preserving the memories from great meals past and inexpensive repasts, in today's dollars, at that.

We digitally scanned and created electronic files of menus from some of Hollywood's foremost restaurants of the 1930s for the Hollywood (FL) Historical Society. The images will appear in an upcoming issue of the historical society's newsletter, providing visual enhancement to an article about dining out and special events in the community.