Denotes experiences the author has had
We have been enjoying the 1,000 year old history of Spanish Castles and 2,000 year old Roman Ruins during our snowbird escape to Costa del Sol – the sunny south coast. See two previous history articles: Fuengirola Castle, Roman Ruins The Alcazaba of Malaga, Spain; Islamic Muslum style castle from 11th centry, which is more […]
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This old Castle (el Castillo Sohail) dates back to before 1000 CE is located in Fuengirola, which is the town we are snow-birding in for a few months. Its not as fancy as some of the other castles in Spain, because the ruins are older, but the protective walls are impressive to picture in an […]
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Our Canadian snowbird escape this year took us to Spain in Europe. We enjoyed the sunny Costa del Sol area in the Mediterranean a few years ago when we visited for a few weeks in the spring season, and realized that they have a mild winter season which is more like our spring or fall […]
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Our body’s nervus system is a complicated maze of biological “wires” making the physical parts of our body work correctly. If one of the nerves gets pinched, then strange things may happen to various parts of the body. For over 3 years I have had an odd “itchy” forearm, with no visible symptoms of rash, […]
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Some reflections on our 1st year of retirement, which began on Jan 1, 2023: Although everything went pretty much as planned, the biggest surprise was the strange psychological feeling that it was too good to be true, and we might get caught – sort of like playing hooky from high school, and the principal would […]
Continue ReadingMy old vintage Electronics Hobby Photos In the mid 1970’s, during my teen years, my interest in electronics resulted in my building of a totally “home brew” computer. It was based around the RCA 1802 microprocessor. I started with a basic circuit diagram as published in “Popular Electronics” magazine, who referred to it as the […]
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The popular TV series “The Last Kingdom” tells the story of a Viking ancestor in the UK during the 1000 AD era. The real life “Uhtred of Bamburgh” turns out to be an ancestor of the Canadian van Nostrands, back 29 generations ago! The TV series is historical based fiction, so it tells a somewhat […]
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I was amazed to discover a chain of Royal ancestors in my distant family history from 34 generations ago (1000 CE). The current “internet based” genealogy uses a SINGLE really big family tree which allows the work of many families to co-exist and be combined in a natural way, which is documented and supported by […]
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My DNA ancestry test revealed that many of the people who consider their ancestry to be in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and coastal Spain, actually originated from the Persian Plateau area of the Middle East, about 25,000 years ago! This northward migration happened as the Ice Age was receding and plants and animals were being […]
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Dutch ancestry originating from Denmark, to New York, to Ontario, and Nova Scotia. The north American family name vanNostrand, originated from 1638. Two Dutch brothers emigrated from Nordstrand Island, Denmark in 1638, present day Germany. The name has been spelled in various forms since then, including: van Nostrand, van Nordstrandt, Van Norstrande or Van Nostrande, […]
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