Web Design

It's been a long time since I've written anything (I'm not as good at this as my niece Amber). Last night I finished a 6 week community ed class on XHTML and CSS. I took it to help me learn how to better create websites because of my affiliation with the Race to Robie Creek (www.robiecreek.com) and my assignment to administer the website. I have been affiliated with the race for over 20 years and started administering the website in 2007.
When I started with the race I was a bus driver, transporting the participants out of the park, from the finish back to thier cars. The second year as a driver there was a terrible accident at the entrance to Spring Shores Marina at Lucky Peak Resevoir. This is where the participants park their vehicles (because there's no room at Robie Creek). We couldn't get the buses in or out of the marina and had to drop off at the entrance and people had to walk another mile or two to get to their vehicles (after running the "Toughest Half Marathon in the Northwest"). That year I parked my bus halfway between the park and the marina and co-ordinated the busing so we didn't stack up the buses.
The next year I was at Robie Creek co-ordinating all the transportation for Mayflower Contract Services, Inc. (the company I worked for) and worked with Jeff Emacio who represented the committee. At that time we would go up and flag off parking and set up the busing area on Thursday night before the race and would camp up there Friday night before the race so we could finish setting up the morning of the race. We always had a lot of fun.
In 1994 I left Mayflower and Jeff asked me to join him on the committee. I've been attached ever since; even when he left a few years ago. This opportunity has given me many new friends and allowed me to expand my skills and opportunities (including putting me on two other race committees--much to the chagrin of my wife).
The busing has evolved over time to allow us to quickly get the participants out in a timely manner. The most recent improvement I made was about 6 years ago. Spring Shores went through a make-over and decreased the amount of parking we would have for the participants. Idaho Parks & Rec offered their HQ parking lot on Warm Springs Ave. This is about 10 miles from the finish and so we had to devise a way for participants to get there. At first we made 2 separate lines, but that was frustrating for those who parked so far away. They saw a ratio of probably 4:1 buses to Spring Shores vs. Parks & Rec HQ. So I decided that we would bus everyone to Spring Shores and then have a transfer bus there to Parks & Rec HQ. I was worried that the participants would balk at waiting in line for the bus at the park and then have a second long line at the marina. My fears were unfounded. The busing went so smoothly, I thought something was wrong because there was never a long line at the marina.
The second year of the transfers also went smoothly and I felt like I had brought the transportation to a point where now anyone could follow the plan and be successful. I started thinking about taking another job on the committee or leaving; like Jeff did. The race takes a lot of time and is a big commitment, but is addicting.
In late 2006 we learned that our webmaster would not be able to service the website any longer because of his new job. The race director sent out an email asking if anyone would take it over or new anyone who would perform the service for the race. I replied stating that I was interested but had no experience; if she couldn't find anyone I would learn how to do it. She responded almost immediately saying, "You're it!"
And so started my foray into administering a website. There is a huge learning curve associated with it, but I love putting myself in a position to learn new computer skills. It's almost like I have to have a reason to do it, and when I do, I dig in. The website was administered with FrontPage 2002. I muddle around with it and did a passable job keeping it running. My biggest fear for the 2007 race (my first with the site) was that I would do something to mess up registration. Registration kicked off at 8:00am President's Day and my link worked fine; but, within minutes people could not register and our site shut down shortly thereafter. I was in a panic wondering what had happened. Fortunately Darren, our former webmaster, was able to help communicate with our host to get our site back on line, but there was still a problem with registration. What had happened was that this:

• registration had closed rapidly the previous year, less than an hour (the first we did registration completely online) and we had advertised that
• so many people tried to register at once that they overwhelmed the registrar's server
• the registrar's IT guy was out of the country and they had a problem getting it online
• the registrants were upset that they couldn't register and were continually hitting refresh, compounding the problem
• the registrants went to the message board and overwhelmed our server, which caused our host to shut down the site

Bottom line--it wasn't my fault, I just didn't know how to get the site back up. Fortunately Darren was able to help.
In 2008 I was prepared and we thought our registrar was also but, alas, they were not. We didn't have the same problem. But their site had issues and registration still took hours and registrants were frustrated once again.
So my skills have been growing in web design and administration. I have a LOT to learn. I mentioned that I was using FrontPage 2002. It's a good program but I felt it was out of date and wanted to make some changes. We had had comments from others that the site was dated and could use refreshing. Some volunteered to help, but all they wanted to do was build the site themselves and did not want to work with me. I wanted to work with them so I could learn more about web design, giving me the ability to make changes when I wanted or needed to. With the director's permission, I purchased the visual editor Expression Web 2 late last year and redesigned the site. It looks better than it did, but still needs work. When I saw this community ed class I knew that it was a bargain and would help me. When I learn something new I learn best hands on. If I can then go back and take a class, having some knowledge of the content, my learning increases exponentially.
This class was one of the best I have had through community ed! The instructor, Bruce Maxwell (http://www.f28webdesign.com/index.php), was very organized and informative. He structured the class so even novices could understand. He went through the XHTML language and CSS language in a way that gave us all a base to use when editing code. His philosophy regarding web design is that one needs to know the code, even when using a visual editing program, so one knows what to look for when issues come up, because the visual editors aren't perfect. I have applied some of the things I learned to the race site and plan to make more improvements over the next year. I'm starting on another website for a different non-profit and I'll post more about that when I finish it.

Too long

It's been too long since I've updated. We returned from our trip and I've posted some photos on Flickr. I still haven't found work, although I did interview a week ago Friday with H&W. Nick's football team, West Jr. High, won the city championship. They outscored their opponents 8:1 this season and the coach told them they're the best team he's coached (over 20 years).
Nick injured himself the other day and had surgery on his hand yesterday. It looks like he'll fully recover, just have some scars to remind him to (hopefully) think before acting.

Darius' Birthday

Darius turned 3 October 6th. Katie held his party at Chuck E. Cheese where we ate pizza and cake. The kids played games and interacted with Chuck E. Cheese. Darius had fun and was kind of "zoned out" playing games and riding rides. He was cute running around and putting coins in the machines he wanted to use. One of his favorites was a ride that sang the "ABC's", he rode it 3 times in a row. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Big Judd's

Becky left for Las Vegas last night. She's down there for a Vision Seminar to learn more about the business. She'll be gone all weekend.
Nick and I went to dinner at Big Judd's. He's been slightly obsessed with going there for a while and I thought I'd surprise him. When we pulled up, he got a big grin on his face. They have a couple of specials 1) a 1 lb burger with fries or tots and a drink or, 2) a 2 lb burger with fries or tots and a drink. If you finish one of the specials, you get your picture on the wall. I ordered the Super Bacon Burger (bacon & ham). Nick ordered the #2 with tots. He finished over half of the burger in 10 minutes, after 45 minutes he was done eating. He finished 3/4's of the burger and half of the tots.
While he was eating the burger another family with 2 teenage boys came in. Their faces reflected incredulity at the size of Nick's meal, then the boys proceeded to order the same. Their waitress told them that the meal was free if they beat the current record of 10 minutes 34 seconds! They only caveat was that they had to order fries rather than tots. She told them that the record was broken a few months ago. The previous record was 11 minutes and stood for 3 years.
Our waitress hadn't told us about the challenge or Nick would have tried it. One of the boys only finished about 1/3 of his meal, other finished 3/4's of his in that time of 10 min 34 sec. Nick felt that one should eat the meal slow and not drink soda in order to complete it and get your picture on the wall. I explained to him that one must eat it quickly so the brain doesn't get the signal that the stomach is full. He's a little uncomfortable right now--but he'll be fine. He said that next time he'll order the 1 lb special.

Bug Cakes

Last week was Becky's boss' (cousin's) birthday (Happy Birthday Dave). He was out of the office hunting all week, so they decided to do something for him today. She volunteered to make a cake and wanted to make a "bug" cake for him. For those who don't know, he is an entomologist and spends time in Mexico studying insects. I remembered seeing a cake pan at Williams-Sonoma called "Backyard Bugs". We talked about it and I bought one. She spent the weekend playing with the pan and decorating "bugs" for Dave.
The pan comes with a cake recipe but she found that she didn't like the cake. She then used a cake mix (along with her extra box of pudding) and liked the results better. I didn't try either one as I am working on losing another 15lbs before we leave and am not eating any simple carbs. The grandsons enjoyed eating the cakes from the first batch. I took pictures of the finished "bugs" before she left for work this morning and have posted one here.
If you want to borrow the pan, just give us a call. We also bought a Train pan for Darius' birthday next week and that can also be borrowed.

Big Nasty Hill Climb

The Big Nasty Hill Climb in New Plymouth, ID was our last event of the year with the shave ice shack. Although they set an attendance record this year, we didn't do as well as we thought we might. Friday was almost dead, Saturday was better, Sunday was the best day. We had more business in fewer hours than Saturday. It helped that the day revolved around the big hill which was right in front of our booth, plus it was the warmest day of the weekend.
We don't like doing events over Sunday because of our beliefs, so we will decide if we want to do this again next year (and only do events that don't do Sunday) or not.
We bought the shack a little too late to get into many events this year, so we'll have to start working on next year right away if we're going to keep it. Our flavors are the BEST, as stated by our customers.
Check out some of the 700+ pictures I took (I won't post them all [lol]).