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I don’t have time for a full post this morning (no surprise there), but I just had to give you some totally awesome news. Things seem to be looking pretty good right now for 3 out of 4.
1) Jim’s intermural football team won Game 1 of their championship matches. It was apparently a close game, won by a touchdown or so. Even though I was not able to worm any of the details out of him, I assume that an integral component of the win was Jim catching passes and running in for TDs. Congrats, Jim. Hope you win it all.
2) Johnny has been offered an incredible Dean’s Scholarship from Vanderbilt University Law School.
“Dear Mr. McDonald:
Vanderbilt University Law School is pleased to offer you a Dean’s Scholarship, one of the highest honors awarded to incoming law students. As a Dean’s Scholar, you will receive $15,000 each academic year to apply toward law school tuition and fees, for a total of $45,000. This merit based award demonstrates our sincere desire to invest in you, your legal education, and your future. We believe that you will bring to the Law School a level of commitment that will not only enrich the Vanderbilt community but also extend to the national legal community.
We could NOT be more thrilled for him. He has been totally focused on his law school search and is totally deserving of this scholarship. So unless Cornell or U of Michigan want to one-up, it looks like my little boy will be going to Nashville. (Hello, Country Music Hall of Fame!)
Contrats, Johnny. You have an exciting future ahead of you.
3) Heather got back the results from the biopsy of the lump removed from her breast. Benign, no cancer! This is the best news of all. I’m glad you are enjoying your flowers, and hope the soreness is going away. Contrats, Honey. We love you so much.
So, UltraBob…..........what is new with you?
Proudly yours,
UltraMom
Just wanted to take a sec to tell Heather I love her and wish her a speedy recovery. Oh and if you aren’t Heather then I still think you are pretty nice and all, but you aren’t my little sister. I’m not sure I’d say I love you, but you seem pretty nice for the most part as long as you stay away from that bad habit of yours. Anyway, if you need them I’m passing some wishes for a speedy recovery on to you too.
Ahh, Thanks UltraBob! Thank you for the flowers as well. They sure brightened my day. They are beautiful. Thank you UltraMom, UltraDad, UltraJohn, UltraJim, and UltraGirl for them as well.
What happened to Heather? Eventhough I don’t know what’s wrong, Get Well Soon, Heather.
The first thing that I’m sure first popped into your head is unfortunately true. It was indeed Mexican Killer Bees.
For those of you who don’t know, I had a lump removed from my breast. Great news, I just got a call from the surgeon’s office. The lab results are back and it was benign meaning I don’t have cancer.
Just what is the date today….........lets see…....April 17. Wait, did I say APRIL? Then why is there snow covering the ground?!!! What is wrong with the weather around here? It is supposed to be Spring!
The robins know it. The daffodils are in full bloom, spreading their sunny, yellow contagious joy. The tulips are just starting to open their petals, showing a hint of the color they will become. I am about halfway through digging the weeds out of my garden spot, and yesterday I planted rows of seeds indoors in a mini-greenhouse full of little peat pots. UltraDad had to mow the lawn last week, and I dug my bike out of the shed and took Murphy for a spin around town. So, it was quite a shock to look out my window this morning to find several inches of the white stuff already on the ground and more falling from the sky in huge, wet flakes. I think the flowers were even more shocked; the daffodils were bent to the ground by the weight of the snow, while the tulips, being shorter and stouter of stem were merely sporting jaunty little cold, white caps.
I should have known better than to get my hopes up about Spring and warmth and sunshine, yesterday being Easter and all. Eastertime is a notoriously bad-weather time, at least in my adult-Idaho experience. Easter egg hunts at our house were rarely held outdoors. Not only was it usually bitterly cold, but sometimes the dogs, cats, etc. would find the eggs before the kids did, as they had rather short attention spans and were apt to give up quickly if the eggs were not in plain sight (the kids, not the critters.)
Easter seemed a little odd and anti-climatic for me this year, not having any of the kids around. Why I remember a time…....................
A day or two before the big day, we would have an egg-coloring afternoon. Usually I would buy one of those Paas egg-kits containing the dye tablets (just add water and vinegar), a wire egg-dipper, stickers, cardboard cut-outs, and, coolest of all, a wax crayon. Anything you wrote on the egg with the wax crayon would remain white after the egg was dyed. It seemed very magical, especially when I was a kid. I mean, the writing would barely show up on the white egg, but afterwards the words, “Kathy’s egg” would gleam white and bright against the dark rose-dyed hue of the colored egg. Easter baskets were usually empty margarine tubs lined with that fake green paper “Easter grass” that tended to multiply and scatter about the house as prolifically as Christmas tree tinsel. Peeps were a traditional, though not very tasty, addition to the basket. Also included were jelly beans, bunny-shaped sweet tarts, and foil wrapped chocolate eggs. As Easter-Bunny Mom, I usually included jars of bubbles, a pinwheel, and perhaps some summer-time outdoor toys like kites, balls or frisbees. Sometimes when the kids went to bed, cake layers would be cooling on the table. When they woke up the next morning, the Easter Bunny would have come, not only bearing gifts, but also having turned those plain cake layers into a bunny-shaped cake complete with frosting. He would also have hidden colored easter eggs all over the house. UltraDad always threatened to shoot that rabbit if he didn’t stop wreaking such havoc!
We had to get up early so we could go to the Easter Breakfast at church. This was an annual event ostenibly put on by the teens, though they required much adult help. All of my kids helped with this throughout their teenage years, and I especially loved getting waited on by one of them (for a change.) The menu was sour-dough pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, and coffee or juice.
Then we would usually run home to change clothes, putting on Easter best for church. I loved sitting in church with my kids singing the familiar Easter songs: “He Lives”, “Allelujah, Christ Arose”. The sermon would also be a familiar one about our Savior’s death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins; his resurrection and promises to all who believe in Him.
Home again, there might be a big, family dinner of turkey or ham, afterwhich we might trudge out into the blustery wind to try out the kites and pinwheels. The kids would be full of energy, to put it nicely, after consuming large quanities of candy, except, perhaps for Jim. He was a bit of a hoarder, and I tended to find his Easter and Halloween candy stashed away in drawers or under his bed several months (or sometimes years) later.
This year I attended a different church, alone, and fellowshipped with people I am only beginning to learn about. But the Easter Hymns and message are universal. UltraDad and I went over to sister-in-law Pat’s house for a very nice dinner, and a little cribbage . Murphy didn’t have an Easter basket, but he did get some scraps from the Easter chicken.
UltraMom
Poor Flowers
Brave Polly
“Peeps were a traditional, though not very tasty, addition to the basket.”
You just didn’t let them sit out long enough to get stale. Really, really crispy-stale. Then they are quite delicious.
‘Easter baskets were usually empty margarine tubs lined with that fake green paper “Easter grass” that tended to multiply and scatter about the house as prolifically as Christmas tree tinsel.’
as prolifically as?!? I’m not denying that it might compete, may even be in the same multiplication and scatterificity class, but as prolifically as is just plain sensationalism.
I remember peeps being somewhat fun bb gun targets.
Hello!
Nice to meet you!
I’m Japanese man studying English.
I browsed your blog.
You have original idea, I guess.
Althogh I am strange to write blog in English, I write blog in English and Japanese.
So native speakers who are visiting constantly point out the mistakes on my blog!
They flatters me!
I think I could learn from you.
Have a good day!
Japanglish Times from Tokyo Japan
Great blog as usual. Hope the snow is gone as I am coming up to the Hub today. Love you Cougar
When I was going through to make sure the side menu toggles would work in each page and fixing a few pages that has been stuck on an older version of the design for a long time, I stumbled across a few page header graphics that we had on the site, way back when Johnny and I first started it. I’ve added them to the rotation of page header graphics that appear randomly, so if you reload the page a few times you should see them. Can you spot which ones are new-old?
Ooo you’ve been busy on the ol’ blog lately…
*waves at UltraMom*
I was noticing last night, that at smaller screen sizes the readable area for the main content is pretty small, so I decided to make it possible to turn the side menus off one at a time, and expand the content area. In the menu at the top of the page you’ll see UM and UB buttons. Those buttons are used for turning off the UltraBob and UltraMom side menus respectively. One click will turn one off, and another will bring it back. Currently when you visit another page in the site the side menus will go back to how they were, and you’ll have to rehide them, but if you let me know that you like being able to turn them off, I’ll make it so the site will remember your settings for the side menu.
If the toggle doesn’t work in your browser (in particular I haven’t tested Internet Explorer on Windows) please let me know what browser and what version of it your are using. I know that it doesn’t work on Internet Explorer for the Mac, but I don’t know anybody who still uses Internet Explorer for the Mac so I’m not all that concerned about that.
Please give feedback, I’d really like to know if this helps anyone.
When I click on either UltraBob or UltraMom it toggles off the far right menu. I can not get the other menu toggled off and it does not expand the main text area. Maybe I am doing it wrong???
Clever solution.
Firefox 1.5 Mac
The UB & UM buttons work as expected but clicking either the UltraBob or UltraMom headers toggles only UltraBob. Content expands as expected.
Wow, I knew the heading at the top of the menus would be the most intuitive way to turn them off, but since I hadn’t found a good way to turn them back on intuitively without going through the trouble of creating little buttons to reside and the right side of the page when the side menus were collapsed I had decided to leave the side menu functionality around, but not announce it just yet and see if anyone mentioned it.
I now know where you most quickly turn for toggling the menus, and I’ve made it so that clicking the UltraMom menu expands the content area. Also Heather, I suspect that the content expansion is fixed too. I think it was probably just expanding the content behind the UltraMom menu. Also, let me know what web browser you are using ok? If it is Internet Explorer, great I need someone to test that out, but when you are done testing, go look at this post for some advice about what to use to look at web pages. I’m really happy to see that you are still reading the site, and keep the comments coming!
Oh yeah, and just to give some further instructions:
Feel free to turn off the side menus by clicking the headers at the top of each one, but remember that there are buttons in the button section at the top of the main content area labelled ‘UM’ and ‘UB’ that will allow you to turn each side menu back on.
Of course I read your site! Yes, I am indeed using internet explorer and it now turns the side windows off and back on, but does not expand the text area, sorry:(
Hi Heather,
Hmm, I just went and looked at it in Internet Explorer, and you are right, it doesn’t work does it. In fact the menu only disappears for a second and then the page reloads. To add insult to injury, the side menus aren’t even positioned correctly as it looks on my browser. Even worse than that… I don’t care very much. Internet Explorer is a crappy browser and people shouldn’t use it anymore unless they want their computer to be run over by spyware and viruses. I still have to support Internet Explorer in work I do for my clients, but I don’t have to for this site. I highly recommend that you go to http://www.mozilla.com right now and download the firefox browser. Food will taste better, and colors will seem more vivid. When I get some time, I’ll go try to figure out how to make my script work in Internet Explorer for my own intellectual fulfillment, but you won’t see the side menu positions improving unless I do it on accident.
Dear Diary,
Couldn’t sleep well at all last night. I was really tired and went to sleep at about 8, which made UltraGirl nervous so she woke me up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep again until it was almost time to get up
Gave UltraGirl a ride to work. Was planning to work at the office, but the parking near the office was full, and I was exhausted. I wen thome instead and crashed into bed for a brief nap to get mne through the day
Woke up and wrote out my todo list for the day, knocked a few things off the list.
Was feeling cold and dirty so I hopped into the bath to do some reading and write up a draft of a blog post coming soon to the Akatombo Media site.
Saw UltraMom on Skype and walked her through getting her e-mail client set up so that she can send e-mails again. She has apparently been unable to click on links in web pages and send e-mail since she moved to Nevada.
Got out of the bath and knocked off most of the rest of my ToDo List items.
Went to starbucks, got some coffee, and finished reading the relevant sections of the svn book. Captured a few new ideas in a text file
UltraGirl came home, so I went home too, listened to the new Anti-Flag album on the way home. First time I’ve had a good chance to listen to it. It is really good. Can’t wait to spend some quality time with the liner notes.
Gave Kuri feedback on an alpha release she is working on.
Realtor came over to deal with some last minute paperwork
An old friend of UltraGirl’s called on the phone, and our movie watching plans were shot as they talked on the phone for three hours
We went out for a couple of belgian beers at a nice little bar here in Zushi, and now we are going to bed.
Thanks for your testing help. If you’re that good on no sleep, I fear your testing fu when you’re fully rested.
Go forth and rejoice! You will now be able to view UltraMom’s ginormous popup images in their entirety. Well, actually unless she or I goes back and fixes the one’s she has already posted (and I have fixed a few) then you’ll only be able to see the new photos in their entirety.
I may be the only one who has been bothered by this, but whenever Mom added an image to the site recently it was always too big for my laptop screen, and the popup window had no scrollbars so I was unable to see the parts of the photo that didn’t fit into my screen. As mentioned in my post about how to link (for which I haven’t gotten so much as a thank you I might add), I was planning to do a write-up on how UltraMom could fix this issue when uploading her photos, but then I thought, “She shouldn’t really have to do that. It is our site that is generating the code for her popup window, so why should she have to go back and correct it. I should go in and make the system generate the code how I want it.” So that is what I did. I dug into the code that runs our blogging system, and found the part that generates the popup window and modified it. I was a bit hesitant to do it, because our blogging system is written in Perl, and I’m not all that familiar with Perl, but it was extremely easy.
Anyway, unless we have gone back and fixed it, the images on this old post from UMom should demonstrate the popup window with neither scroll bars nor the ability to resize.
The test post I just put up should have a popup that should be resizable and have scrollbars unless your screen is big enough that the image fits in it without scrolling.
Now just in case you want to go back and fix your old popups Mommy, you can do that by changing two things in each popup link:
scrollbars=>no,resizable=no
should change to:
scrollbars=>yes,resizable=yes
If you examine the source for your posts you should be able to find that for each popup.
Mexican Killer Bees
Oh yeah, the mexican killer bees. I almost forgot to mention them. Yes everybody I am still recovering from that incident as well.
Very glad to hear that you are not cancerous Heather. I’m not superstituos, but if you are I would recommend getting rid of your demon cat because she brings nothing but ill to all!
A note to Mom, I see how the priorities are arranged in this family. We rank these three factors in the following importance: 1) Athletics, 2) Academics, 3) Health. Jim winning his FIRST game of the flag football tournament gets top billing? Seriously? I mean if he’d won the semi-finals… (which he subsequently did) then I could see it, but come on!
No, Johnny, actually the priorities were
1) Health
2) Academics
3) Athletics
I saved the best for middle and last.
Love you, and SO proud of you.
UltraMom