Happy Earth Day - Take 2

Note to self: The Blogger spell checker uses a pop-up window. When Norton blocks the pop-up, Blogger loses the text of the post.

Happy Earth Day! Do you remember when we here in the U.S. really got on board with the whole Earth Day thing? I seem to remember it coming on strong in school sometime during either the Carter or Reagan years, but I'm not positive. It does seem that interest has faded. A little research shows that Earth Day was proposed by John McConnell in 1970. Born in 1915, it appears that he's still kicking around. I found an online journal entry dated Dec. 21, 2005.

I have a sort of funny related story from my trip to the grocery store yesterday. At the checkout were a young man and young lady, both somewhere between 18 - 22 years old. We'll call them *Bob and Sue. As I was writing my check, this is how their conversation went:

Bob: "So I guess tomorrow is Earth Day."
Sue: "Earth Day?"
Bob: "Yeah, you know, Earth Day."
Sue: "What's that?"
Bob: "The day we celebrate the Earth."
Sue: *confused look*
Bob: "I guess it's like this hippie holiday or something."

I didn't laugh, although it did take some restraint. Since Mr. McConnell was 55 years old in 1970, I'm not sure he was qualified to be called a hippie.

In any case, take a minute to look around you today. I'm not a big environmentalist or anything, but it's pretty clear that things could be better. Can you take a couple minutes to improve things just a little today?

*Names changed to protect my short term memory loss.

Another Site Rebuild

If you've been here in the last year, you can't help but notice that things look very different today! Since the blog system makes it so nice and easy to post news, I'm changing that to our main page. There's a lot of links that need to be tweeked, but for the most part you should be able to navigate around. I'll be working on streamlining everything over the next few days, and working on a template of my own so that this page and the rest of the site match.

In other news, after clearing a reschedule of the kid's confirmation with Pastor Rudy, I have us all registered for the Asthma Ride again this year. If you'd like to ride with us or make a tax-deductible contribution, this link is the place to do it. This is a big deal for us, a once a year thing that is sort of our training goal. We want to ride the full century (100 miles) on Saturday this year. Last year we rode the "metric century" on Saturday and the 40 mile ride on Sunday for a total of 105 for the weekend. Jason would have been the youngest rider to complete the metric if it weren't for the fact that Sam is almost 3 years younger than he is. In any case, we need the support of friends and family to help raise money for the cause.

Other than that, it's been Spring Break for the kids this last week. We didn't do much special, although I did take them on Thursday to the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy Center to see "Fighter Pilot" in their Imax theatre. It was worth the trip.

That's all for now, going to salvage something out of this weekend!

Republished entire site...

I've been told that people trying to use the contact forms were being asked for a password. Well I finally remembered that tidbit at a time where I could look into it, and discovered what they were talking about. There was at one time password protection on some areas, and I thought (since some of the reports were not very specific) that they must have one of those old pages bookmarked. That wasn't it. Apparently there was something on the server that got all goofed up, and even my server password wouldn't work when this popped up.

I tried to reinstall the FrontPage extensions from the control panel, and of course that failed, so then I had my web service provide do it from their end, which killed the site. Republished yesterday and everything works fine, including the contact forms.

If you already have our e-mail addresses, you can of course use them. If an e-mail comes in from the form it carries an anonymous@seanic11.net return address, which Norton will reject as spam. We usually check our spam folders for anything that shouldn't have been trashed, but we might miss one once in a while.

Christmas in April?

I'm sitting here with the windows open because it gets toasty on the third floor when the weather is nice. Wafting in my window is the sounds of an ice cream truck, merrily running through it's never-ending repertoire of Christmas songs. Jingle Bells caught my attention, followed by Silent Night. It's a world gone mad I tell you!

On other subjects, I'm a little down. Grandma's mental health continues to deteriorate as the Alzheimer's tightens it's grip. It's getting to a point where I'm less and less sure that she understands who I am, but she still perks up for me when I go in and put on a happy face when I visit. Some visits are better than others, but the better days are coming less frequently. She seems pretty good physically, she's weak but never in any kind of pain. I guess that's a blessing.

The kids are going through confirmation classes, which pretty much ties us up for most of the weekends until the first weekend in June, then they are pretty busy throughout July with camps and spending a week each (but separately) with Mike and Annie. The choir is "going on tour"the last weekend in June, up in Pennsylvania near Philly. They will be performing at a church that doesn't have a children's choir of any kind, and the congregation is putting the kids up in their homes for a couple of days. Should be a great experience for them, and the day they get to spend at a theme park is a bonus. I think it's Dorney Park they are going to.

As for me...I got to get out of this job. Building bikes has been OK, but I can't seem to get anything else done. Specifically the things around the house that as "house-spouse" I should be doing. On the positive side, outside of about $300 I took to Williamsburg, everything I've made has gone to pay off bills. They're just about wiped out now, so it's time to go before I go insane. I didn't give myself a chance to write seriously, an error that I will soon correct.

A note on the web site...I think I may make the blog the front page. Have to talk to Terri first and see what she thinks...

Until next time!

Tom