Thursday, December 21, 2006

Federated Family Christmas

Family TrioMy parents and sister sang a special number at the Federated Family Christmas last Sunday, December 17.

The program also included songs by children, bell choir, band, and the choir.

If you click on the photo then it will take you to a bunch of photos that were taken that night. Be sure to check out the other sets on the site.

Federated Family Christmas
Rehearsal Photos


Ean sang for the first time in our church during the service in the morning. While the photos we took at the rehearsal don't show Ean having a good time. If you had seen him during the service then you'd have seen him dancing next to his buddy Carter.

Christmas Ingathering & Fellowship

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Seasonal Crime Prevention Tips

I got the following information emailed to me today from the Beaverdale Neighborhood Association. It was so full of great information that I couldn't resist sharing it with others. We spend a lot of time thinking about the great things surrounding Christmas but seldom think about the darker side lingering in the shadows.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

John Stark

Happy Holidays from The Des Moines Police Department!

During the year-end holidays, people are often busy, excited and sometimes a little bit careless. The following holiday crime prevention tips should be shared with others:

At Home:

  • Be extra cautious about locking doors and windows when you leave your house or apartment, even for a few minutes.

  • Lock garage doors and windows.

  • DonĂ¢€™t display holiday gifts where they can be seen from a window or doorway. Store gifts before you go away on a holiday

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Updating Website Today

Today I finally got around to doing a little maintenance on this website. It has been several weeks since I event posted another entry but I regularly visit the homepage for access to the sidebar links.

I'm still using Wordpress to manage the website so keeping the software up-to-date requires some attention every couples months as enhancement and security issues are addressed. I've gotten pretty comfortable with upgrading the software which Wordpress has made pretty simple. It also has become the time I back everything up off the server in case something goes wrong with the upgrade.

Today I also worked on implementing a plug-in which will automatically update my sidebar links from a RSS feed coming from my del.icio.us account. While it took a bit of work to organize the links into del.icio.us, keeping the links updated will be a lot easier since they are directly tied into del.icio.us. Basically, whenever I bookmark a webpage with a specific tag that link will automatically show up on the sidebar.

I also added a plugin to create a sitemap specifically designed to work with Google. I registered the website with Google and provided them the link to the sitemap for them to utilize when indexing my website. It was interesting to look at the information Google provides to those who register their site with them. If you maintain your website then I'd highly recommend you check it out.

There were other things I checked out today. I learned that I can automatically publish to this blog from Google's document editor after configuring it properly.

Anyway, the worldwide web is pretty amazing. I'm continually amazed how far technology has come since the late 70s when I first played with one of those early Apple IIe machines.