ArcoJedi's Holocron

Spring, When a Young Man's Fancy May Turn to Thoughts of Love

2010-03-11T00:08:00.000-06:00

Today went like this.

Man, he thinks, the weather all day is going to be really great. I should totally open all the windows in the house and air things out.

Opens all the windows... Takes a deep breath...

Ah, that's much better! This is great. The spring air smells wonderful.

Itch... Sniffle...

This isn't too bad. Maybe I'll find something for us to do outside later.

Sniffle... Sniff... Snort...

Hmm. My nose is really starting to run. Must be my allergies. But it is really nice outside.

Sniff... Sniff... Sniff-sniff...

Yeah, this is definitely allergies. But it's too nice to close the windows so I'll just deal with it.

Sniff... Sniffle... Snerk... SNEERRRRKGHGT

Okay, well we are officially out of tissues now and these meds are just making me sleepy. Perhaps I really should close the windows.

Snerk-snerk, sniff, sniffle, snort --AHHHCHOO!

Ow, that sudden sneeze really hurt. I hope I didn't break a rib or something.

Achoo! Achoo! AAAAKCHOOK!

Sinus pressure... Can't think... Send help...

ICKCHOOOOOO, sniffle, snort, snerkle, thhhhhhhhhnk.

Groan

Someone, just please kill me.

Finally closed the windows. Lying down to die.

So, anyway, ... goodnight. Sniffle.

Dear Canada,

2010-02-19T01:05:00.003-06:00

...Reflections on the Olympics

Hello to our neighbors to the North. I've visited your country twice, both times as a teenager on crazy road trips with friends. The one time was to the Northeast, near the area around Niagra Falls and Quebec City. The other time was to the Northwest, Calgary and Banff National Park. Canada is the only country I've been to besides my own and I had a pretty good time.

But besides those few times and the other impressions I get from television and movies, I don't really know much about Canada. So getting to watch your country throw a party for the Olympics is a real treat. What I was a little surprised to learn is that you all as a nation had to be encouraged or urged to be more patriotic than you would normally be by your very own Prime Minister.

The Liechtenstein Screamer
Originally uploaded by jonwick04

From my stereotypically American perspective this is a truly foreign concept. I mean, the United States of America is not a perfect country, but you can ask anyone on the street here and they will tell you that we are the best in the world. But honestly, what the heck do we know anyhow?

And sure the games have not gone completely perfectly; the weather has sucked a little, the forgettable flub at the opening ceremony with the one torch tower, ...not to mention the unfortunate tragic demise of the Georgian Luger. But you can't let this stain the experience for you.

You should be really excited. Can you believe you've finally won home-field Gold Medals after hosting the Olympics two times in the recent past? That's open license to go riot-level crazy right there. USA has an advantage when it comes to winning medals that can't really be ignored; we have more athletes competing than ANY OTHER COUNTRY, including China and they have a much higher population. And you are in the same time zone as us, which makes watching some of the events live or in prime time possible. Honestly, you are doing great. Enjoy this!

If roles had been reversed and we had won the host city for the Olympics this time around, we wouldn't need anyone to tell us all to jump up and be more patriotic. In fact, we'd be better off if someone in authority told us all to tone it down a notch, which we'd likely ignore anyhow.

After all, we are the best darn country in the world! And I'd say this even if Sarah Palin wins in 2012. However, please note that --like many people-- I may make good on my promise to MOVE to Canada if she does. So,... fair warning, okay? Make room.

Retrospective 2009

2010-01-05T20:46:00.661-06:00

I decided not to make an actual New Years resolution this year. Doing so has never really been my style. And when I have made some public or private resolution, it has never stuck and I've just ended up momentarily disappointed. It's good to have goals and it's good to have benchmarks, but January 1^st is just not good timing. I may change my mind by next year at this time, but we will see how that goes.

That all being said, I did plan to do a lot more writing this year. I even thought that perhaps I'd aim for at least one blog post per day, or more conservatively one post per week. But now we are ~~a week~~,.. ~~two weeks~~, ~~three weeks~~, a month worth of days into the new year and I've not published a thing... At least, not here on my personal blog (more on this later).

It should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me that I've been rather busy these last few weeks. Stick with me a moment and I'll get a good retrospective on my life and my family's life for last year put together and that will be a good starting point for this new year.

January

If you recall, one year ago was when it seemed that everyone -- and I do mean EVERYONE -- got Facebook for Christmas. As a blogger, web site hobbyist and general technological snob, I'd resisted the lure of both Facebook and Twitter with a bit of misappropriated disdain. I thought, Why would anyone who already has a blog or website (or multiple blogs and websites) need a micro-blogging service? I used social bookmarking through Delicious and StumbleUpon but that was it. Up until January of last year, I'd lumped them in with MySpace and ignored them.

But then my wife signed up for Facebook. Her coworkers were on it and had ~~bugged~~ encouraged her enough that she signed up. I soon followed and I felt like a bit of a sheep to do so. And I have regretted my previous snobbishness on many different occasions. The site provides a simple way of reconnecting with old friends from college, high school or wherever. But it also has a lot more than that. And it's free. I haven't used my dumb Classmates.com account in years, for the simple fact that every other feature I tried to use they asked me to sign up for their paid service. Facebook is free and it really is the "database of everybody" in addition to all the fun integrations, games and applications that exist there. For instance, a link to this blog post will appear on my wall moments after I publish through Blogger. My Delicious and StumpleUpon accounts are also integrated.

It's cool. But in fairness, one of my first posts was to reference that Facebook as a website had become THE biggest name on the Internet, just like AOL was 8 years ago. Everyone has an account on Facebook, just like AOL 8 years ago. And Facebook will be around forever, just like ...Oh, oops.

Okay, enough about that. The other much more important thing that happened in January was that Lisa and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. That evening was entirely too awesome for words. Whereas I had help with some of the arrangements --my dad got us the room at Harrah's using his club points-- I planned the whole darn thing and it turned out pretty well. As I sit here typing away, the next big item on my to-do list is to plan our 11^th anniversary for two weekends from now, which probably won't be quite as involved but to my mind still needs to be special for my special lady. &heart;Lisa&heart;

February

My niece Lillian and I both have our birthdays in February. Lilly will soon be THREE YEARS OLD! I'll be turning 34 this year, which is much less exciting compared to three. I'm not really bothered this time around by getting older. I think it bugged me last year and even the year before, more than it ever had before. But this year all I can muster up is a shrug for reaction. Meh! Perhaps I'm just happy with where my life is right now.

March

More birthdays for our extended family happened in March. Both Linda K. and Zöe V. share this month. Lonny and Tami had their son Bryce, so there is one more birthday. Additionally, both of our kids got invited to birthday parties for their friends at school. On some weekends they were double-booked! There was also an awesome Orchestra concert for Reese.

April

It's getting to be a regular thing that both Lisa and I sing in the Easter Cantata every year. I never thought of myself as a singer, but it's fun. Also in April of 2009, as in 2008, we had a day at the cemetery celebrating Lucas on his birthday.

May

More birthdays happened in May. I still can't believe this, but my oldest child turned 10 years old! Olivia had her Girl Scout Bridging ceremony and then school went to break for the summer.

Although Lisa and I knew for a few weeks, May was when we announced that God had answered a prayer we'd had for several months. Lisa was once again pregnant! So began a whole new journey and chapter of our lives that I'd given up hope of coming true. There was a lot of worry and trepidation that immediately settled into my mind, but trust and faith have been carrying me and still do.

For more global news, May was when the news regarding Swine Flu, the vaccine that was being developed for it and possible shortages started making the rounds everywhere you looked. My dad had some ruminations on the news and how it echoed the 1976 flu season. I came to understand that my parents' experience of the vaccine from that year was rather negative. I'd vaguely heard the story before as a youngster, but suddenly it was topical again.

I also took a day off work to be one of a dozen Career Day Presenters at the elementary school where my mom is the counselor. This was a really fun, empowering day for me.

Right before May ended, my brother and his wife Kelly had a new addition to their family, Sophia Louise Arconati. She was so adorable and it was starting to look like a really good year for new babies.

June

We began going to very regimented doctor appointments for Lisa that would eventually get as regular as every two weeks and more. Due to Lisa's diabetes, previous c-sections and so on, she has one of the best medical teams due to her high risk status. Still, not a day went by without a few moments of worry.

There was a week of PROBE for Reese, a week of VBS for both my girls and Isaiah V.'s birthday rounded out the month.

July

This is always a busy month for birthdays in addition to Independence Day. Lonny, Kelly, Lisa and my great-aunt Ruby all celebrate their birth in July. Lisa's folks came down to visit us for about a week and to see the fireworks. For the very first time, Reese went away to summer camp for an entire week! My mom, my wife, my kids and I also spent an entire week at the time-share at Lost Valley Lake. Come to think of it, we were also joined by my aunt and uncle for a few days.

August

My step-brother Lonny and his wife Tami came into town from New Jersey for a baby shower for their son Bryce, who was born in March. Lisa's dad and her twin siblings Kate and Nate have a birthday in August. My little brother Jon also was born in August. If you want to know a weird coincidence, Jon and my wife's siblings were all born on the same day. Of course, Jon was born years earlier but they all three share a birthday. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that twins are normally born on the same day. The coincidence is that my little brother ... oh, nevermind!

Going back to Lost Valley Lake for a moment, you may have seen the news in August when the news was the fire at the main sports complex. It's a pretty big deal for them and a little weird considering that they had another large fire that gutted an entire building back in 2004. It's bad luck and they are just in an area of the county that fire departments have trouble getting into. A lot of people in St. Louis have been to LVL over the years. But for our family it was a little more eye-opening to see because we had just been swimming and playing mini-golf at that very building only a few weeks earlier.

September

Lisa and I had planned a second trip to LVL for a weekend in early September. It was just us four: Lisa, myself, Reese and Olivia. Well, four and a half, if you count the pregnancy. We got a chance to see the completely destroyed building. We spent hours swimming at the pool and had tons of time for fishing. Both my girls caught fish. Even my wife caught a fish with my pole while I was walking back to the car to fetch the cooler. I caught nothing except mud and weeds! At night, we slept in a rented trailer and told ghost stories around the campfire. I told a few that I know, but Olivia made one up completely on the spot that was very involved and in depth. I wish I'd written it down.

By this point in the year, it was clear that Lisa was growing with pregnancy and this was really going to happen. I mean, we had been watching the baby's progress on regular ultrasounds and everything was going smoothly. But in the back of both of our minds, it still seemed so unreal. We waited silently for the joke to be revealed. We waited for some sort of tempering mildly bad --or really bad-- news. We held our breath and waited for the other shoe to drop...

Something I should mention is that when you have infant loss, there is a blissful ignorance that you no longer possess. The veil of security, the idea of invincibility and the boastful claim that "this will never happen to me" is no longer possible. We'd experienced loss of an infant, and we'd also experienced miscarriage. So we could no longer be blissfully ignorant, even if we wanted to be.

Near the end of September, I was let go from my job at Network Solutions. My former coworkers and supervisors may still read my blog, as so many of them are still my friends on Facebook. I'm not going to bad-mouth or complain about the company, though others have done so both privately and publicly. Things happen and (allow me this analogy) like a recently divorced marriage, accusations of blame could be tossed around recklessly. In reality, it may have been time for both parties to part ways. But hey, that's just the truth for me and should not reflect on the confidence of my buddies in their jobs or of any of NetSol's clients (who hopefully don't read my blog anyhow). For my own personal reasons, this change to my life might be the best possible news in the long term.

October

The first financial thing we did prior to wading through the unemployment benefits stuff, was to call our mortgage company and reapply for the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. We had initially applied back in the summer at some point, but our combined wages were too high. Now that I was not gainfully employed, it was very simple to ask them to reprocess our original application and we got a positive result quickly. Our monthly payment was reduced by about $400/month. By the end of the month, I was also earning unemployment benefits through Illinois and it was a good percentage of my previous wages. I haven't computed it to the exact dollar, but I feel like I'm actually ahead if you don't consider the medical and other associated benefits.

In the job market, I knew before I started looking that things weren't great. But I began to find some new avenues that I hadn't considered before on various smaller job boards as well as Craigslist. Realistically reevaluating my skills, I've begun to look at my favorite role as more of a designer, developer and consultant with tons of small business expertise that I have not yet been able to fully wield. This is opposed to or in addition to my more limited role as a technical support software expert. I've mentioned that I'm reading Covey's First Things First and using it to Dream Big. This is only one of many reasons why.

Halloween was lots of fun. Thinking historically, this holiday is becoming less of an open door-to-door kind of day and more of a closed party style of day. We hung out with the VanMeters for a little while once again this year and then we gathered candy. There are two houses around the corner from me that throw a combined open house. They barbecue hot dogs, have a half-barrel of punch and some teenagers actually put together one of the worst punk-rock bands I've ever heard. They have a "stage" and even closed off part of the one cul-de-sac for a mosh pit of sorts.

November

My dad, my mother-in-law and my daughter Olivia all have November birthdays. I believe that both Ryan and Heather also have their birthdays in November in addition to their wedding anniversary. Against our better judgment, we caved to Olivia's request to have her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my Aunt Jeannie's house with the traditional hike.

During the hike, Olivia was complaining that her feet hurt and she wanted me to carry her. In a joke, I said something about Bilbo not needing to be carried for his whole adventure to reach the Lonely Mountain. One of my cousins asked with some suspicion if she would even know what I was referring to. And that's something else I'm proud of from the last year. By Thanksgiving, I'd been reading to the girls from the Hobbit every night. We normally read something right before bedtime, but this was the biggest and longest book we've read so far. I started reading from J.R.R. Tolkien's great work after Reese had gotten so excited about the Percy Jackson series that she found. Reese likes Tolkien just okay and usually it lulls her to sleep. But Olivia listens with rapt wide-eyed attention! She asks questions too and is so taken with the characters that she is writing her own version in a little pocket notebook, which she calls the "girls version".

Lisa continued to grow more pregnant and the baby continued to grow in complete health. After a minor scare which proved to be nothing, we decided to find out the gender of the baby. We had originally planned to wait until the end and be surprised. But we changed our mind and until the technician confirmed otherwise, I thought we were going to have a third girl. Instead, I was floored that we would have a boy! I would have been happy either way, but admittedly we wanted a boy.

December

My mom has a birthday early in December. My son, who's name was going to be Samuel, was also going to be born in December. Plans for the cesarean section and the hospital stay were firmed up. A last few ultrasounds and other tests were performed and everything was great.

An interesting scheduling act was performed as the date approached. Lisa's due date was the 20^th, but the doctor we prefer was only available on Wednesdays, so that meant scheduling the birth for the 16^th which was a perfect time for us. However, we were also going to be singing in the Christmas Cantata, which was scheduled for the 13^th, the previous Sunday. Lisa even asked to do a short solo. In the past, my wife had scheduled c-sections for both girls, but she went into labor a few weeks early with Lucas. There was a very real possibility that Lisa would go into labor early and we'd miss it.

Ultimately, the day of the performance came, we sang and when the service was over, Lisa was still pregnant. The last few weeks of pregnancy are always the most uncomfortable and seem to take the longest. Even so, the feeling that this was all so unreal and precarious made the whole nine months actually fly by way too fast. It seemed like I was still reeling from the fact that the tubal ligation reversal was in fact successful, and then to learn the news that we were going to have another son... and then:

He's pretty dang handsome isn't he? Samuel Joseph Arconati was born 21.5in tall and weighing 8lbs 5.1oz. And he just keeps on growing.

In the days that followed, Lisa's mom and sister came down from Chicago to see Sammy and to stay with us through Christmas. They arrived two hours early, Lisa was still in the hospital with Sammy and I'd had about four hours of sleep. My mother-in-law, who I adore on most occasions, immediately started barking orders at me in regards to home maintenance. In the end, it was all sorted out and all was forgiven. I did get some sleep later on and I got a cleaner house in the bargain, just in time for Samuel to come home.

The girls spent the night with my mom on New Year's eve (a tradition, it seems) and Lisa, Samuel and I spent it with each other just doing nothing but a bit of cuddling.

Overall

Throughout the entire year in 2009, there was much more involvement with all kinds of activities for the girls. In addition to Pioneer Club, the girls were both involved in Girl Scouts and Reese joined chorus and Celebrate Children (think show choir) at school, in addition to Cello in Orchestra.

We continue to read from the Lord of the Rings series at night among other books, and I'm eagerly anticipating the day we complete them so they can watch the extended edition DVDs. I've been watching the bonus features when the girls go to sleep and it's really sinking in how huge these stories are.

So it was a pretty great year throughout. The highlight was getting to hold my son for the first time and to realize that he is alive and healthy and vital. And the moment I saw his face I knew he was not Lucas. I'm still worried, and I will likely continue to be until his first birthday. But I'm not as panicked as I expected to be. Our little family of five is complete and blessed and together. I will continue to thank God every day for these "small" miracles, which by my account are not small in the least.

If you've really read this far, it should be counted a Herculean task for which you should be proud... or perhaps ashamed, depending on your perspective. I can just hear you saying "There's 20 minutes I'll never get back!" Thanks for your time and I pray also that God blesses you this new year at least as much as he's blessed me in the old.

Now to see about getting some sleep...

Samuel Joseph Arconati

2009-12-16T12:03:00.074-06:00

I'd like to formally announce the birth of my son, Samuel Joseph Arconati. Today is the culmination of a strange and wonderful journey. I can't even really figure out where exactly it started, but the first time I posted about this new baby on my blog was back in May when I talked about how God works in Mysterious Ways. My life has experienced roller-coaster-up-and-down changes since that post and I haven't written about many of them, but I'm still being blessed daily. I want to once again thank everyone for their notes, best wishes and prayers these many months.

You might want to know how I posted this from the hospital. I cheated. My secret is that I wrote this yesterday afternoon on the 15^th, and set it to automatically post right now. You'll notice that I didn't start this post with a qualifier like "barring any disasters" or "assuming there are no unforeseen complications". That was difficult for me. I very much wanted to start this way and had a bit of writer's block until I worked (and prayed) around it. Because right now, all the worries and concerns and fears are at the forefront at the front of my mind. Someone should have warned me not to check Wikipedia about Cesarean Sections. Of course, by now posting these concerns and mentioning this block, I brought it up anyway. So again, I cheated.

I guess technically, I'm cheating all of you with this non-news. I don't have pictures yet, or the traditionally important height/weight stuff. But I will be posting those details and photos direct from my cell phone to both my twitter, my facebook and my flickr accounts. So if you've read this far you can follow those links to learn more and confirm things.

I'm betting on at least a nine-pounder. Thanks again... ☮

Oh-Nine / Oh-Nine / Oh-Nine

2009-09-09T00:01:00.208-05:00

Note to self:

Figure out a good way to (once again) write about the concept of the International Date Standard or International Date Format. It's an important subject that should be talked about more as the world gets smaller and we all get more connected. It's also quite a boring subject. A real yawner. Seriously...

Hmm. Perhaps I could tie it in with the date of September 9^th, 2009, since that will help demonstrate my point (with the 9/9/9). I don't know, though, that seems kind of ... pretentious. This is going to be tough.

So, I may have mentioned before on this blog that I have a tattoo. It's about 3 inches square and located on my back by my left-- er, no,.. right shoulder. Sorry, it looks backwards to me in the mirror. Whatever.

Anyway, it's a memento or reminder of my son and his short time with us. Tattoos aren't really shocking anymore to most people so it's no big deal. On those rare occasions when people see the tattoo when I have my shirt off (at the pool or the occasional Lynyrd Skynyrd concert), I always hope that it will be a conversation starter. Most tattoos have a good story to go behind them (right, Tiny?) and mine is no different.

The first thought on this is that someone who doesn't know about Lucas would ask who he was. It would give me a second or two to tell people about my son and SIDS and what these last two years have meant to me. I'm proud to talk about him any time someone asks.

The second and much less important thought on this is that at some point someone would ask me what's up with the numbers below his name. They must be dates but they are kinda backwards, aren't they? I'll post a pic of the draft I used for the tattoo since those of you reading along can't see mine right now.

You will notice that the date starts with the year first, then the month and then day. The format for this is YYYY.MM.DD and is probably unfamiliar to those of you that have lived your whole life in the USA and were never in the military.

Most of us have lived our whole lives not knowing there was a different way to abbreviate the date except in the way we were originally taught. For me (and most Americans), this was MM/DD/YYYY or MM/DD/YY. So April 26^th, 2007 comes out to 04/26/2007 or just 4/26/07.

Those ~~crazy~~ sophisticated Europeans, on the other hand, abbreviate their dates with DD/MM/YY. So Christmas this year would be 25/12/2009.

Simple enough for everyone so far, as long as the day is after the 12^th of the month. But if you see 01/02/03 printed on the page, is this January 2^nd or February 1^st of 2003? Other countries and cultures around the world have different schemes and patterns that completely diverge from these two examples so what should we do to avoid confusion?

Enter the Standard

So using the logical concept that the larger unit of time (year) should come first and then proceed to progressively smaller units of time (month, then day). This not only makes a great deal of sense, but is supported and suggested by the people in charge; the International Organization of Standardization! Never heard of them? Well, they are in fact in charge of stuff just like this. Put simply, they are...

...an international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. ...the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial standards.

If their abbreviated name - ISO - sounds familiar, it's because many of the more widely-adopted standards they've published have become known by the association with the group. For instance, CD-ROM file format is usually referred to as .ISO because they all use the ISO 9660 standard file system. Film speed is also commonly referred to by an ISO number for the same reason; by ISO 5800. But the group has drafted and published thousands more standards, including ISO 8601 for date and time formatting.

As the world becomes a more integrated place, we may all need to learn to recognize these more universal formats. I've been a fan of this idea since before Lucas was born, especially the YYYY/MM/DD. It's also easier in technology, as files listed with dates this way will be more easily organized "alphabetically" into the proper order by date. Which is easier to perceive chronologically? Folders and files organized like this? ::

2006/04/06
2007/01/22
2008/03/30

Or the same entries organized like this? ::

01/22/2007
03/30/2008
04/06/2006

News websites and blogs are most often organized this way, and you may have already noticed that the date headings on my blog are formatted this way. It just makes more logical sense, is easier for the eye, easier for the computer and will make your dates easier to recognize around the world.

So remember, do your part to use International Date Format whenever possible. Do it now, or I'll take off my shirt and show you my tattoo. You have been warned.

More Information

Dream Big

2009-07-09T01:05:00.000-05:00

Are You Dreaming Big?

This isn't an idle question. Think about it carefully. All things considered, you might believe that you are happy or content in your life right now. And if I asked you if you are living well enough, you'd probably shrug and say "eh". Perhaps you'd even claim a decent happiness.

But are you living your dreams?

I'm not ignoring the fact that the world is as it is and the current economy would make just about anyone feel cynical. I'm not unaware of how things work. But I'd tell you all those terrible things are blown out of proportion. Life is tough. Life is hard. It all means nothing when compared to the unleashed potential of the human spirit. You may think you are doing good, but it's possible you are letting these worries, concerns and "what-ifs" keep you from doing your best. You artificially inflate these road blocks to the point where they affect your behavior, weigh you down and keep you from DREAMING like a child.

Renowned author Stephen Covey said it well in his 7 Habits... and other books that much too often we sacrifice what would be best for our life for what is simply good. Here's a quote from First Things First.

Decisions are easier when it's a question of "good" or "bad." We can easily see how some ways we could spend our time are wasteful, mind-numbing, even destructive. But for most of us, the issue is not between the "good" and the "bad," but between the "good" and the "best." So often, the enemy of the best is the good.

I haven't always been a fan of self-help / life-management books, but Covey is recognized as the industry leader here. His stuff is genius. So, again, let's stop and think about the question. Are you letting the "good enough" in your life prevent you from reaching your "best"? Are you REACHING?

Failure Should Not Be a Roadblock Either

Some of us no longer reach for our big dreams because we've failed at some point in the past. We strive for what we want, but only carefully and tentatively. We got our hand slapped last time, so this time we won't reach for the big jar of cookies on the high shelf but settle for the crackers on the counter. Eventually we stop looking at or even acknowledging those cookies as if they were a fool's errand.

But failure is it's very own important and valuable teacher. We can learn lessons from it and grow. Failure should a guiding force towards a larger and more important goal. If you let failure discourage you from trying, you are piling on the ultimate failure.

Watch Batman if you don't believe me. Why do we fall?

It's true in all things in life, including both the personal and business world. Read this post for entrepreneurs about how All Your Previous Failures Prepare You for Future Success.

In fact many times when you are dreaming big, the more detractors you will have and the more people tell you "no," the closer you are probably to ultimate success. In other words, the more people telling you "no" now, the more people will say "yes" in the long term. Most people say "no" or "you can't do it" because they are afraid to try themselves and would rather see you fail than try themselves. I know that sounds arrogant, but it is true in many cases.

Still not convinced that right now is the time to be dreaming big, bigger than you've ever hoped for? At least for business, studies have shown that during times of trouble, the companies that continue to promote and expand their marketing for the long haul will outlast and outshine the companies that reacted more cautiously to the climate. I think buried here is a larger lesson about life.

Still following me? Your last and final stop should be the following article called How to Build a Castle in the Air on LateralAction.com. You should read the whole thing, but here's a snippet.

You know that dream you've had, at the back of your mind, forever?

The one you've been promising yourself you'll get round to - one-day.

It's not going to happen.

Why not? Because dreams don't happen. Accidents happen. World events happen. Things just happen to happen to you. But not dreams. Dreams need someone to make them happen.

And nobody cares about your dream. Nobody needs it. No-one will lose any sleep if it never comes to pass.

Except you.

So unless you are doing something - today - to make it happen, it's not coming true.

I rest my case. So how about it? Are you ready to fail big but keep going? If you should happen to fall, are you ready to not only pick yourself up, but stand up really tall? Are you ready to stop settling for the crackers (good) and reach for the cookie (best)? Are YOU ready to do that something for your big dreams today?

I know I am. Let's go!

Remaking "Star Wars" Like They Remade "Star Trek"

2009-06-09T00:04:00.001-05:00

On the one hand, the article I'm linking to here made me want to stand up and scream in denial. In fact, I urge you to do the same with me now:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *gasp* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ... Sweet powers of all that is sacred from my childhood, NO NO NO NO NO NO!

Okay, that's almost out of my system. That being said ... and on the other hand...

Now that both Batman and Star Trek have enjoyed cinematic reinventions, it's only a matter of time before Hollywood reboots the franchise that rebooted entertainment itself. Here's how the inevitable Star Wars reinvention could be fantastic instead of embarrassing.

Star Wars Script
Originally uploaded by Richard Moross

Here's the point where I want to be the advocate for both sides of a discussion and give this idea a fair shot. Here is where I want to point out that the article is actually good on a few points. I'll do that, but it's very difficult. IF you assume that a reboot / remake / reinvention of the saga that is Star Wars will inevitably happen in our life time, there are a lot of ways it could go very wrong. The article makes it's best point about the fact this remake idea is very likely given the way Hollywood works. And if it is going have any chance whatsoever of being decent enough to prevent riots, the suggested rules in the article are definitely good. In fact, it's kind of exciting to imagine the cool 'what-if's that could happen.

But.... please? Don't make this happen, okay? Just one favor for me from the entire movie industry. I promise I won't ever ask for anything else as long as I live. I mean, I love Star Wars and since Episode III has come and gone from the public's excitement, I've certainly daydreamed what it would be like to go back and have the whole franchise start over from film "one" (Episode IV? Episode I?) and do it with modern actors and modern film making. If I were in charge, what would I change? Certainly I've thought of some of the same details mentioned in the article, as well as many others. For instance, how would the series be different if R2 had those jet pack things all the way through? And if Grievous' body suit is supposed to be the precursor to Vader's body suit, why is it that Grievous can do so many... Wait, what am I saying?! Oh, crud, I'm getting sucked into the idea.

The worst possible thing this article has done is possibly put the idea into someone's head who (a) hadn't thought of it before and (b) might have the power to make it happen. Perhaps that's the point. We were all thinking about it. Let's at least agree on some ground rules about how it SHOULD be done. Let's remind everyone what was so cool about the series the first time around and make sure we keep that core. Perhaps that's the point.

I'm still very conflicted about the article as well as the whole idea. Go read How To Reboot Star Wars and decide for yourself.

Career Day Presenter

2009-05-26T22:41:00.000-05:00

On May 19^th, I presented at Career Day at Trautwein Elementary School, where my mother works as the school counselor. I was a bit nervous about it. One of my roles is the department trainer at work and although I've presented software training numerous times, this was going to be my largest and youngest audience. Also, I only had 25 minutes!

But it was so much fun. I'd like to write about the whole day and my experience in greater detail, but for now I'll just link to the presentation I created. It's very simple and bare-bones.

Around slide 7 I usually skipped on to the web site builder tool test drive, allowing the kids to build their own web sites.

Mysterious Ways

2009-05-24T23:26:00.002-05:00

So what's really happening in my life lately? It's about time I get everyone caught up. I've been writing about mostly mundane stuff lately and on the one hand this was avoidance but on the other hand this was a smoke screen. It's high time now to throw back the curtain! After all, I have a big announcement... So pay attention, if you please.

After my son Lucas passed away, I despaired quite a bit as anyone would expect. I came out of it little by little and perhaps that surprises some people. I still have bad days of course, some of them very bad. But thanks to my wife, my two girls, my family and most of all by the grace of God I have way too many reasons to go on living. Most of all, I know that I will see my son again some day. I could and should talk more about this experience, because I know it's important. However, that's not my goal today.

As time passed, Lisa and I began to broach the subject with each other of having another baby. This was difficult on multiple levels. There's the emotional understanding that we could not and would not be replacing something that had been lost. Lucas was always and will always be our only true perfect child. There was a time interval too because we wanted to wait long enough to fully grieve but we didn't want to be trying to have children past the age of 35.

Heavy on our minds and hearts was the fact that at Lucas' birth, Lisa had gone through a tubal ligation, making pregnancy improbable without expensive surgery. But my wife is an excellent planner and we found a way to make that surgery happen.

The surgery in November of 2007 went well enough or so it seemed, albeit they were only able to repair the one side. We were hopeful at first, but months went by with no luck. We had a follow-up appointment with dye tests and x-rays and so on and things didn't look as good as the doctors had hoped. Scar tissue or some other blockage was probably in the way. The risk of an ectopic pregnancy was high. We were referred to another doctor. We come to find out this doctor's specialty is in vitro fertilization which is beyond all sorts of expensive. Unless we won the lottery, it wasn't going to happen.

So, we abandoned that as an alternative. There was still a little hope in us that the tests were wrong or the scar tissue would heal or something else would happen. Months went by. I know that we probably sound pretty spoiled to some ears. After all, some couples try for years without getting pregnant and here we were giving up after such a short time. Please understand that we'd never had trouble getting pregnant before, so this was a hard blow.

It seemed that we were still mourning the loss of Lucas... and then we have to mourn the loss of any future hope of having more children. And the crux of it was that we had requested the tubal in the first place. It's not like we could have known what would happen, what might happen. The guilt and blame sat there anyway.

We prayed a lot and that is the most helpful. We are still going through counseling and that has been very helpful. Our families have been so helpful. Several weeks ago, during prayer time at church, I asked the congregation to pray for Lisa and I as we come to grips with the likelihood that there would be no more babies in our lives. Many of the nice old ladies in church that day came up to me with hopeful stories of their life and how long they waited for miracle children they thought would never come. This, in a way, was helpful too. Surrounded by all this helpfulness and people trying to give me hope, I still had decided that in this lifetime it was not in the cards for us. There are three answers to prayer; "yes", "no", and "wait". Sometimes when you pray to the Lord for what you want, the answer is still "no" and as His children we have to find a way to deal with that (hopefully, while seeking His help).

I think I'd almost come to grips with it. I'd taken a long hard look at our family of four and decided that it was so very perfect just the way it was. My wife and I and our two girls and the memories of Lucas would be all that we ever really needed. With the correct perspective, I became humble and thankful for the gifts that I have. And I was just about content.

Surprise, Here Comes the Part About "Mysterious Ways"

Let's consult the Ultrasound, shall we?

So, the great news is that the one tube works! The other great news is that she is just about 10 weeks pregnant! Furthermore, the baby is in the right place and already has a steady heartbeat. We aren't out of the woods yet, as Lisa has had one previous miscarriage before getting pregnant with Lucas. But based on our first ultrasound, when they saw the heartbeat on the monitor (and man, they can zoom in pretty close these days) the chances of that are extremely low.

I should apologize that it took this long to spread the news. We've known since the first week of May. I had to wait until all the really close family was told and today when we told the folks at church. I'm so glad none of the nice older ladies came up to me afterwords with an 'I-told-ya-so.' I certainly deserve it.

More importantly, though I wasn't patient enough to wait for my prayers to be answered, they were answered anyway. Perhaps it's right that today's sermon was about patience, among other fruits of the spirit. I should have known better.

This lesson I'm learning will come with more diaper changes and late night feedings. At this point, I don't care if it's a boy or girl, I just want a healthy baby! For those who've been praying for us already, please don't stop now! Obviously, you have to know now that it works...

Goodnight! And God Bless!

I Still Love the Library!

2009-05-12T22:55:00.001-05:00

The family and I have been going to the library on a semi-regular basis lately. It's a new tradition I'm going to do everything I can to maintain. The kids love it of course, but I'm renewing a love of reading and learning that I'm sad to say I'd been ignoring for too long. Also, the more I read, the more I want to write --which could mean more posts may show up here and elsewhere with more regularity (but don't read any promises into this).

I grabbed a few Steven King novels that I'd missed over the years. I've also been digging through the non-fiction stuff, books on music and movies, graphic novels and so on. I'd like to post some reviews of some of the treasures I've found, but I'm too busy reading.

Something new with the library is that they now allow you to take quite a few books out at once. I asked and the maximum per card is 100! Who has time to read that many in two weeks? I know you can renew every time, but that's ridiculous. I've found the one negative is that if you forget to return or renew your large stack of books for the whole family, the fines add up quickly ($.15 / day / book). So just be careful.

HDA Report (This Is Kinda Old)

2009-05-11T21:53:00.001-05:00

Back in the late fall of 2006, after I was let go from my job as webmaster at the school district, but before I accepted my old position at Network Solutions in February of 2007, I made a concerted effort to find a similar job here in St. Louis. One of the local companies that interviewed me was Home Design Alternatives and they were quite friendly and the interview went well. But as preparation for a follow-up interview, they gave me a homework assignment to review their current web properties and write a rough plan for how I would proceed. I sent it in and got good feedback, but they eventually chose someone else for the position. I was cleaning out an old thumb drive the other day and realized I still had this lying around.

I hesitate to publish it here for two reasons. First off, though we never made any formal agreement, HDA may feel that this document is their property. I don't know that I'd agree with this as a legal statement, but I wouldn't challenge them if they reached out to me to ask me to remove it. My second reason is that this is a very rough draft and could have been improved quite a bit. Reading over it now, it feels rushed to me. Or perhaps just incomplete, I'm not sure. I've learned quite a bit more since the point it was written that my entire knowledge base is different.

But I'm not going to make any changes now. I'm not even going to review their sites to see if they have made any changes since then that make my old suggestions superfluous. This is the document in it's original format (converted to HTML of course). Feel free to let me know what you think.

Home Design Alternatives

The following is an outlined plan of attack for the first 90 days and beyond for the web sites under the ownership of HDA. Obviously, further investigation with more extensive knowledge of the various systems from an internal point-of-view may suggest additional avenues with higher priority. Any suggestions or additional ideas from management are of course appreciated.

Home Design Alternatives, Inc. – Home

This is the main external home page for the company and establishes the identity and profile of the company at large for new or current clients. As such, it should be simple and uncluttered and easy to navigate, with descriptive text explaining what the company does. The current site accomplishes this already quite well.

My first plan for the style and layout of this site involves modifying the left side menu. Although the look of this menu is just fine, it is powered by JavaScript image replacements. I prefer to create and use CSS based menus and I believe that the same look and behavior can be accomplished here.

Secondly, I’d improve the underlying code for the layout by removing <table /> tags and replacing them with <div /> tags and more CSS for layout. These changes will not affect the site visually in most browsers but will improve load time and how well it is spidered by the search engines.

As of right now, Google has found and is listing 644 pages for this domain, including a number of pages from a ‘forums’ sub-domain as well as many other internal company linked sub-domains. Only 18 pages have been found on the main site. Currently the forums do not allow anonymous login, so I will have to wait to take a closer look, but I’d suggest putting more links and information on the Feedback Forums home page.

Yahoo appears to only have 29 pages from this domain, and only 13 on the main domain. Yahoo also indicates ~529 inbound links. MSN lists about 8 total pages. Closer examination of these entries and listings will be important for optimization.

I also note that the copyright for this site needs to be updated for 2007. But I haven’t changed that on every one of my personal sites and it is usually one of the last things.

HousePlansAndMore.com – A Division of HDA, Inc. - Home

This site is the main site for browsing, searching, listing and purchasing home plans. In it’s simplest form, this is quite a bit like just about any other ecommerce site. However, purchasing a house plan to suit a need is certainly more complex than finding a favorite book, CD or t-shirt.

The basics, however, of searching and purchasing a product and checking out will be tested thoroughly. Navigation through the steps needs to be possible with either keyboard or mouse or both. Making sure that checkout is possible in browsers with JavaScript disabled and text browsers as well as screen-readers for accessibility-sensitive users. Reducing the number of steps as much as possible is important, although this area does not need much improvement at this time.

The same changes mentioned above for the navigation menu code can be done here. JavaScript menus can be replaced with CSS, although the animation and fade-in/out affect is nice and blends well with the rest of the design.

Valid and updated code with CSS would be the ultimate and continuous goal, so removing and updating code such as this –

<font color="#FFFFFF"> |</font>

- with style sheets will not only help load time, but usability and accessibility. Tables will be replaced with Div tags as noted above.

For better conversion, I suggest having a couple of product thumbnails appear directly on the home page below the search feature. These can be specially featured homes or simple random listings. It reassures and clarifies for the customer that you have what they are looking for and catches their eye before they hit the back button.

I also usually remove text as part of images and actually load it on the page. The linked images on the right hand side of the home page can be updated for this. This will improve readability and will also allow search engines to see this content better.

When a search is performed or a category page is visited, I’d like to see the thumbnails for the products appear higher to get the user’s attention immediately.

Google has 519 pages listed for this domain. Yahoo has 546 and MSN lists about 593.

The copyright date on this site also needs to be updated, even if no changes have been made to the page or the entire site.

HDA Service

I can see no reason to update this page at this time. Two suggestions that I would make include a link to your company’s home page from here and/or a security notice at the bottom warning away anyone unauthorized from attempting to access this site.

Additionally, across the board for all sites, I’d want to settle on a DOCTYPE declaration and double check as many pages as possible for proper code validation. Check here for validation. Currently and as the company continues to grow, valid HTML code as well as on-page accessibility will be very important.

Also, on all sites, there are a few free tools I’d want to install and begin to use for tracking site statistics and improving rankings. They would be Google Analytics and Google Sitemaps assuming that these are not already in place.

Obviously, this plan can get a lot more detailed and is only a rough draft of many different steps that need to be discussed and organized with a better outline before proceeding. I look forward to discussing these plans with you.

As I read it now separate from it's original context, it is a representative list of suggestions I'd make for just about anyone's web site, especially if I was in charge of it. I don't really have many other examples of my own writing posted like this and that would be easy to change. At the beginning of the year, I wrote up a detailed statistics report for the website I manage for Ferguson Christian Church. The elders were impressed with it, but more importantly my wife was so impressed she was actually jealous. I'll have to remember to post that as soon as I get permission.

Redesign Project Continued - Color Choices and Typography

2009-04-05T00:51:00.006-05:00

I'm working slowly through the design changes I mentioned in my previous post. Here is the color palette I'll likely use as I redesign the site.

Something about the color combination caught my attention and my immediate family responded positively to it so I'm going to dive in with it.

I'm also working on the font spacing and typography quite a bit for better readability. Here is my inspiration and reference guide at Smashing Magazine.

Redesign Project - Arconati Family Website

2009-04-03T02:00:00.006-05:00

I'll give you some fair warning ahead of time. This post contains some geeky technical details about web site maintenance. I am creating this post to log some of the changes I'm making to the Arconati Family website. I'm all about transparency and delivering the "how'd-he-do-that?" answers even though no one was really asking. Also, the notes are for my own sake, so I can revisit in the future and recall how it was done.

Applying Method to Madness

First off, I'm upgrading from ASP to ASP.NET. If you ask me my rationale for this, I don't have one but it seemed like the right direction to go. My needs right now don't go beyond the minimum for a language that supports server-side includes and just about anything would have worked here. However, I'm looking forward to learning more and stretching my coding skills and this looked to be the right direction to go. The Arconati News site that I host is on a PHP capable server, so I can grow my skills with that as well (though I'll likely just toy with Wordpress and Joomla customization).

For CSS and layout, I've completely dropped my old style and system and am going in an altered direction. The previous three-column layout was cobbled together from examples on A List Apart's Holy Grail and Holly 'n John's all-float demo. I recall tweaking it a bit, but not sure how much.

If you've never tried CSS from scratch, you may not know what sort of pain it can cause. One of the issues that develops is that browsers have default rendering that they assign to numerous elements and often when a setting you are implementing is not displaying as you thought it might, it takes a little while to think to blame the browser and not something you misplaced. That is why many coders use some sort of "reset" style sheet and I'm going to be using Eric Meyer's Reset Reloaded. It will save me time and headaches.

To achieve flexible three-column layouts, I found a very interesting set of 40 templates that came installed with CoffeeCup's HMTL Editor. They actually have an original source called Layout Gala that I've bookmarked previously. The examples all had the same three columns but you could arrange them any way you wanted simply by changing a few lines of CSS. That meant I could put all the content in place and if I wanted to change the basic layout it wouldn't take very long.

I created a third and final style sheet to cover text; fonts, colors, backgrounds and other style settings not arranged in the layout.

What Software I Used

I've used Dreamweaver before and really liked it, but I'm not installing it on this computer for now. I started to use CoffeeCup's free tool (mentioned earlier), but then later stumbled on Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2008, Express Edition. It looked like it might meet my needs now and be powerful later. And it was free, so..

Unexpected Hurdles

So here are the snags I ran into. Firstly, Visual Web Developer uses certain server extensions to connect upon upload that I'm leery of and that I couldn't get working right away. Instead of creating the files and uploading them immediately upon clicking save (as I am used to doing in Dreamweaver) I save them locally and upload as a separate action in FTP.

More distracting were the issues I found in the CSS. The reset wasn't really a problem, but the Layout Gala code contains some goofy default settings for inline links by making them block elements. In translation, this meant every link would take up it's own line even if it was in the middle of a paragraph, which I tend to do a lot. But I'm cleaning these things up right now as I go.

Internet FAIL!

2009-03-07T00:14:00.002-06:00

So my home internet has been down. It was intermittent there for a few days. At first, I couldn't use any browsers (Firefox 3, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer 7) but email (Thunderbird) and instant message (Pidgin) worked. I'd reboot and it would start working again. Then the whole thing failed. The AT&T representative named "Norm" (from India?) was surprisingly helpful the first time I called. We went through a number of steps and tests, removed the router from the setup and suddenly it started working again. He tried to help me with the router too, which I didn't expect, but his documentation on my router was out of date and we couldn't really get very far. Still, I was impressed that the guy helped me as much as he did. He was pretty helpful, but I just didn't believe that it was the real issue. I put the router aside for the moment planning to revisit the issue later.

I thought that it was fixed, but it was still acting up. Days later, it quit again entirely. I should have known that this wasn't really the issue. It feels like two separate issues. One is that the browsers are all locking up in the middle of loading a page. I could surf for a while and load page after page. Then one more link and the new page just spins and spins and never loads.

So on my next call, I spoke with "Andy" (again, I doubt that was the name his parents gave him). He was helpful, but he got to a point where he decided on what the issue was a little too quickly for my taste. He told me simply that my router might be broken or ready to quit and suggested they send me a new one. He'd have to extend my service for another year if I wanted a free modem. But it was either that or buy my own. Or cancel. So I told him to send one. I'm hoping it works and works permanently.

If you are reading this, then it's now back up! Or at least, it was up long enough for me to publish this. Wish me luck.

Oh and hey, let's try something new: Technorati Tags: internet, at+t, technology.

I Have The Facebook

2009-01-30T15:15:00.014-06:00

Sounds kind of like a contractible and misunderstood illness, doesn't it? Well, I've gone and signed up for Facebook as of today. I was being an elitist snob about it until my wife got interested in it from her friends at work.

I predict I will be addicted to it quite shortly.

Update (a few months later): I saved this post on the listed date, but forgot to publish it until just now. My prediction came true, just in case you wanted to know. Or hadn't you noticed a lack of meaningful blog posts?

Take the Search Engine Optimization Quiz

2008-12-30T02:43:00.002-06:00

I didn't know how well I expected to do for this interactive quiz about Search Engine Optimization. I wanted to do really well, but am humble enough to know that I don't know EVERYTHING about keyword placement and research. I know experts at work in this field that I respect and am in awe of them in some regard. But some of these questions could be subjective or debatable. I don't want to pile on the excuses, but I was also in a bit of a rush to get it done because it's so late at night.

SEO Newbie - 64%

But considering my role's focus is separate, I'm pretty happy with the result. It is just one measurement. Anyway, enough about that.

Are you an SEO Expert? Take the Quiz!

Found via The SEO Investment.com.

One Item On My Christmas Wishlist...

2008-12-19T00:29:00.001-06:00

I posted this earlier this month, but I thought it deserved to be cross-posted.

Yeah, I couldn't really help this one. In case you haven't heard it, the song is available:

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" by Gaylee Peevey

Merry Christmas!

Barack Obama Winner

2008-11-04T22:03:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning with a pretty twisted stomach flu and for a little while I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the polls. But ultimately I did and there was no line at around 2pm when I got there.

NBC news just called the election for Obama. So I can go to bed now. I'll probably stay up a little later just to see more of the final picture.

Something that may just possibly have been missed in the news details leading up to this day is the fact that Barack Obama's elderly grandmother --the woman who raised him-- passed away this last weekend. It makes you fight tears to know she didn't live to congratulate him personally. However, he has to know that she can see him from where she is and is so very very proud.

Something separate that I meant to say in my last post is that there are issues to fix in this country. And electing the right president will help, but... That is not going to be the only step necessary. One elected official cannot solve problems on their own. For instance, just because we now have an African-American president that racism is dead and gone. One thought that illustrates the same point is someone who is pro-life voting for a pro-life candidate and assuming that is the end of their obligation to ending abortion. My friend Nik stated this clearly.

Why do millions of people ask one man to make a difference? There are 159 million Christians in America. There are 1.3 million abortions performed every year. That means there are 12,000% more Christians than abortions!! Imagine what could happen if Christians decided to get involved in the girls life instead of just electing a politician to change a law! Too many people only vote, and never do.

That is a powerful statement and I felt like it need to be quoted/restated. And the full point I wanted to make is that we cannot rely on one person to solve all of our problems by himself. He's not the Messiah and he's not Santa Claus. He is the President of the United States of America.

Well, that's over. So we can all get back to our regular lives now, right? Wrong!

Update (11:30pm): I just watched his acceptance speech. Which was great, but was my wife the first person to notice that he looked a little sad?

Today is Election Day

2008-11-04T00:29:00.002-06:00

If it was entirely possible that someone was not aware, it will be election day in the United States by the time we all wake up in the morning. I've been reading a lot about the election for the last several months, but I haven't really written about it. I can count on one finger the number of times that I've ever written about politics and I'm certainly not going to start writing about it a bunch now. It's a little late in the game, if that phrase is proper. However, I did want to express myself about my choice in case anyone was curious. One formality first:

Barack Obama '08

I don't think that's going to surprise anyone, at least not anyone that knows me well at all. But how did I --how does anyone-- really make a decision to support one candidate over another? I wouldn't set out to change anyone's mind who has already made a decision, especially between now and when the sun comes up. But if you find yourself a member of the one in seven registered voters who are still undecided at this late hour, perhaps if I document my process it will help you vote with more confidence. It's the least I can do.

As background, my parents --my mother most specifically-- were Democrats and my upbringing has perhaps leaned me in that direction. But I find myself sometimes thinking more conservatively as I grow older. As one illustrative point, I find myself sometimes leaning more pro-life than pro-choice. I'd never dream of restricting a woman's rights. I've just grown to understand the preciousness of life a bit better. This leads to an inner conflict I didn't have as a teenager when I thought pro-lifers were insane and throwbacks to the Dark Ages.

But that's just one issue. And I'd never want to be a one-issue voter. Except lately, I've come to understand that these dedicated individuals are just that; dedicated. They've drawn a line in the sand and said that the people who represent them shall never cross it. Ever. There's a certain heroism to that. There is a certain valor to looking at an issue as ~~black and white~~ blue and red and not allowing shades of ~~gray~~ purple to convince you to compromise when you really don't want to. I may not feel that strongly about many issues, but I want to say that I'd fight to the death for someone else's right to feel that strongly about one. And they shall not be denied that right by me, even if I disagree with them wholeheartedly. It's a truism that makes America great.

I don't recall how I first heard about Obama. Perhaps it was this video:

What made this special to me is not the celebrity endorsements or the interesting video cuts. Barack's voice and speech cadence is easy to listen to and so easily lends itself to music that I imagine this song incorporating his speech wrote itself. The next president is someone who we will hear speak many times over the next several years. How about choosing a candidate because they are easy on the ears? If they speak plain english, but eloquently and with subtle style... Perhaps that may seem superficial but it's important that leaders be charismatic in order to be taken seriously.

About a month ago, there was a special on 20/20 or 60 minutes that profiled both candidates and their wives quite deeply. I really liked the fact that it was very fair and bipartisan and showed the human side of both men and their families. I really enjoyed the interviews. Contrary to what you might hear, neither of them is actually evil! When the show was over, I felt that no matter what our country will be led by a good person that I could get behind. It's really too bad that only one of them can be the president and the other will likely fade into obscurity. I was left wishing for a way to vote them both into office.

I'll mention the war briefly because someone would say that I have to. I think that we as a nation have failed in this and every other conflict for the past dozen+ years because we have lost the stomach for protracted wars. Where is Bin Laden? What happened to the search for him? Can we just forgive our enemies without conceding defeat to them? I don't even know the difference between the need for justice and the need for revenge anymore. Neither candidate has a magic wand for this issue. I don't really want to talk about this and so I'll just stop there.

The issue that really clinched the deal for us --and by "us" I mean Lisa & I-- was the fact that back in June of this year, Barack Obama very publically proposed legislation to better track SIDS and stillbirths, bringing attention to an issue I care deeply about. If you can look me in the face and tell me that you can't at least consider the guy for that reason alone, I don't want to hear anything more from you.

Beyond this, I listened carefully to what some of my friends, ministers and other people I looked up to had to say. For instance, check out these blogs:

Nikomas Perez's Posts About Politics
Derek Brink's Posts About Politics
...and a lot of other sites I bookmarked: My Bookmarks on Delicious Tagged Politics

No matter what, it's time to vote. If you need one more strong push to do so, understand that 48 months is a very long time. Want to feel that down to the marrow? Listen to 48 Months by Sinister Dane [mp3] or download the mp3. Once you're done head-banging, pick yourself up off the floor and go vote!

ArcoJedi's Messy Stuff Central

2008-10-10T00:08:00.004-05:00

One of the very first web sites I ever created is closing very soon. ArcoJedi's Messy Stuff Central is being forcefully shut down in a manner of speaking. I got an email at the end of September that AOL was shutting down it's 'hometown service' for good.

We're sorry to inform you that on Oct. 31, 2008, AOL® Hometown will be shut down permanently. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I became aware of this service for the first time way back when I first used the internet post-college at home on a black-and-white-screen Macintosh II.

Do you remember those? Well, I really got into the internet beyond just email when I got home from college. Dad got me an AOL account because they were next-to-free through his work. This would have been about 1997 or so. I was working on a group project with the Dark Sun Mailing List, but lamented that I didn't really have a place to host the files. Someone suggested that I use the hosting that AOL included. I looked into it and found out that AOL subscribers (which technically included me) had 10mb of free space online at - members.aol.com/USERNAME - and I took advantage of it. What it amounted to at the completion of the project was about two dozen wordpad files (.rtf), most of which I'd written myself. They were uploaded to a folder and the server built a directory listing which I linked to for the mailing list.

Fast forward about two or three years. I'm married, a father of one and a member of a small-town garage band called Rod & the Satalites. When we lived in Quincy, Illinois at this time we didn't really have much when it came to a computer and I didn't have time for it anyhow. However, when we moved back to St. Louis, my first hobby project was to build a long overdue web site for the band. I posted pictures of the band members, short three-line bios, a few upcoming show dates and contact information. I created this all on my mom's computer using Windows 95 Microsoft Paint and Netscape Composer 4.5! Yeah, good times.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to visit back at Quincy as often as I'd hoped and I eventually stopped contact with the band members. The older free-form Dark Sun Mailing List got replaced with a more official corporate one and it wasn't much fun. They had also halted Dark Sun as a product line. My site sat dormant with few updates until probably 2003 or so. That's when I became a member of MonsterCommerce and really started learning about websites.

I wanted to create something new and was going to just use the AOL space, but it turned out to be a little difficult to manipulate without being signed into AOL at the same time so I found an alternative in the space my cable provider and earthlink made available and started work from there. Eventually those other sites became the family sites you see today with domain names and everything. But I never forgot those older projects.

So, get yourself caught up to the present day. In case you haven't noticed AOL is way down on the list of successful internet companies and is completely repurposing themselves into an entirely different animal; a content and portal provider instead of an ISP. At least, I'm surmising that is their plan. I'm not really following it all that closely. Since the hometown/journal operations don't really benefit anyone at AOL, they did the smart move and retired them. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long. At least I got wind of their warnings and saved those files. AOL also had a blog tool at one time that I tested out and they made it easy to import these blogs into Blogger.

So, my Dark Sun Net Project and Rod & the Satalites pages will have to find a new home in some archive folder somewhere. I have all of the files saved to my local computer and will probably post them somewhere, just for the sake of history. The AOL Journal has been imported properly too, just in case I ever wanted it (which, at the moment, I don't).

My AOL email address still works for those old college friends that still have it, though I check it infrequently. There's some life lesson here about impermanence and growth through destruction, ... or something. Anyhow, that's how it happened.

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One Year Later

2008-09-02T17:57:00.003-05:00

It has been one year since my son Lucas passed away. I find myself in a different place then when I last updated about this at the sixth month mark. At the same time, some things are the same.

I recognized the significance of this day well in advance and planned to do certain things and avoid others. My plans weren't exactly written in ink, which as it turned out was pretty good. I planned on taking a half-day off work in the morning and Lisa went in and expected to come home at about noon. As it turned out, she came home earlier than planned and I just stayed home. I was going to go to the cemetery by myself, but instead we waited until we picked the girls up from school and went as a family. It was a small short healing moment with just the four of us.

Lisa and I are seeing a counselor through a program from Harvester Christian Church and this is helping us to work through many issues that had become roadblocks in the last six months.

We had been encouraged through these appointments to seek a vacation of sorts away from everything. This past weekend was the perfect time for that. The girls went with the VanMeters to the farm for cows, fishing, star-gazing and tractors. Lisa and I went to Lost Valley Lake for a romantic stay in a condo all to ourselves. We walked, fished, swam and fished some more while nursing Lisa's sunburn. It was a great weekend and a great reminder of things we'd like to do more as a family --perhaps without all that sunburn.

Besides that, work is very busy with migration and I'm doing all that I can to help our team be the best that it can be.

There are still many half-written, abbreviated or unfinished posts languishing in the series I'm supposed to be writing that goes through my life story. I don't have the same inspiration and drive to push forward with this project right now, but it's not closed yet. I've been really very interested in other projects --Musical Holocron, Arconati News, Happy Is The Bride-- that have been taking up all my time that I've not really needed to add more. Perhaps I'm allowing myself to be distracted or perhaps I don't feel the need to continue at the original pace. Either way, I'm not upset about it.

All in all, the best thing I can say is that we are moving forward and ready for the next chapter in our lives no matter what that may bring.

Started Adding Products - HappyIsTheBride.com

2008-07-24T01:36:00.002-05:00

We've recently started adding products to our wedding bridal supply store. I'm excited that Lisa and I have renewed interest in both this and other family projects.

Magnitude 5.2 - ILLINOIS

2008-04-18T04:37:00.004-05:00

Did you feel it? I know I did. Lisa woke me up as she felt it first. She thought I was having a seizure or something. When we both realized that it wasn't me and it wasn't the dog either (who mostly slept through it) we understood that it was an Earthquake. See usgs.gov - Magnitude 5.2 - ILLINOIS. We met Reese in the hallway as it woke her too, but by that point it was over. I've never felt an Earthquake in my life, so it was a pretty exciting experience. I'm glad that Reese was able to sense it as well as she's my little scientist. Olivia awoke moments later and neither of them were scared at all.

It's always hard to reference how powerful an earthquake might be in relative terms. Here's a good cheat sheet hosted by Michigan Tech: Earthquakes Magnitude Scale and Classes.

Update (10:14am): We just had an aftershock while I was at work. Take a look: usgs.gov - Magnitude 4.5 - ILLINOIS.

GoodSearch

2008-04-07T01:26:00.004-05:00

This is just a quick note to document that I've begun adding a new feature to the Ferguson Christian Church website. It's called GoodSearch.

Here's a new easy way to raise money for your favorite cause. Just start using GoodSearch.com as your search engine and online shopping mall. Every time you search the Internet or make an online purchase at one of their partner merchants, GoodSearch makes a donation to your favorite nonprofit or school and it's powered by Yahoo! so you get great search results!

The links posted here will lead directly to the right page to track the church's ID. Let me know what you think.

Six Month Mark

2008-03-02T23:42:00.002-06:00

As of today, it has been six months since my son passed away. Nearly the entire day has gone by without me recognizing it's significance. I thought of him multiple times but in the same detached way as almost every other day. Most recently at work, I've posted a print-out of the following comic prominently at my desk. Though the character speaking is probably referring to a missed romantic love, his loneliness makes me think of how much I miss Lucas.

As you can tell by the slow molasses speed of the most recent posts, I've kind of been busy doing other things. I have not abandoned the relating of my life story, but I have lost momentum and it irritates me like a thorn. Rest assured that I have several half-written posts and notes that I've started over the last few months, but none in a form worth sharing yet.

My original and overly ambitious plan was to have it all finished by the end of October! I had been wanting to participate in NaNoWriMo through November, pumping out a "Great American Novel" --or at least a dozen thousand words worth of a decent try. Perhaps I'd spout just a big block of random text for my own amusement, but at least it would mine.

Work has been quite busy which is a double-edged sword. Sometimes, it's nice to be busy rather than not. Other times, I'd rather be morosely bored rather than stressed. I am excited by where I'm leading my career (reminding myself I am in charge of it) and by the work that I'm doing.

While letting my story slide to the back-burner, I've still been working hard on my other projects:

I've improved some of the graphical and multimedia stuff on FergusonChristianChurch.org.
The domain is finally live on ColorburstVideo.com.
The Arconati News site moved from one host to another.

But mostly these have been back-end changes. I've drafted posts here about these and other things unrelated to my life story or Lucas. But I won't publish them until I've caught up with real-time on my biography, if that's even possible.

Anyhow. Thanks for the intermission and enjoy your night!

ArcoJedi's Holocron

Spring, When a Young Man's Fancy May Turn to Thoughts of Love

Dear Canada,

...Reflections on the Olympics

The Liechtenstein ScreamerOriginally uploaded by jonwick04

Retrospective 2009

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Overall

Samuel Joseph Arconati

Oh-Nine / Oh-Nine / Oh-Nine

Enter the Standard

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Dream Big

Are You Dreaming Big?

Failure Should Not Be a Roadblock Either

Remaking "Star Wars" Like They Remade "Star Trek"

Career Day Presenter

Mysterious Ways

Surprise, Here Comes the Part About "Mysterious Ways"

I Still Love the Library!

HDA Report (This Is Kinda Old)

Home Design Alternatives

Home Design Alternatives, Inc. – Home

HousePlansAndMore.com – A Division of HDA, Inc. - Home

HDA Service

Redesign Project Continued - Color Choices and Typography

Redesign Project - Arconati Family Website

Applying Method to Madness

What Software I Used

Unexpected Hurdles

Internet FAIL!

I Have The Facebook

Take the Search Engine Optimization Quiz

One Item On My Christmas Wishlist...

Barack Obama Winner

Today is Election Day

Barack Obama '08

ArcoJedi's Messy Stuff Central

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One Year Later

Started Adding Products - HappyIsTheBride.com

Magnitude 5.2 - ILLINOIS

GoodSearch

Six Month Mark

The Liechtenstein Screamer
Originally uploaded by jonwick04