October means it's time for the annual trip to Pumpkin Town to get some pumpkins for Halloween. Drew and Will paused momentarily before heading on to more fun activities...

As you can see, the highlight of the day was the inflatable slide and the pony ride. Happy Halloween!

A few weeks ago the southwest view from my office was a sea of near-uniform green. Today, with the fall leaves changing color, nature's incredible palette is on display before being put away for the winter.

In the background is the CityPlex Tower previously part of the Oral Roberts City of Faith Medical and Research Center (1981-1989). Now an office building, its 60 floors and 648 feet make it the second tallest building in Tulsa and Oklahoma behind the Williams Center/BOK Tower at 667 feet.

I acquired the domains Danz.net, Danz.biz and Danz.us two years ago, but I never found a web host to park them on that provided everything I wanted for a minimal fee. I am extremely pleased with the host of DanzFamily.com, TotalChoice Hosting, but they don't allow addon domains (adding multiple domains to a single account) which meant I would have had to purchase multiple accounts or a reseller account both of which were costly options. Long story short, Danz.net/biz/us are now being hosted with A Small Orange which provides a great full-featured "tiny" hosting package for just $25.00/year.

     

I haven't updated the various statistics/rankings for the DanzFamily.com in a long time so here you are:

Google Page Rank = 5

Google Backward Links = 1,240

TTLB Ecosystem Rank = 382 out of 58,090 blogs (Large Mammal).

Technorati Rank = 4,465 out of 57.4 million blogs.

Alexa Rank = 947,247 out of the entire interweb.

Number 1 on Yahoo search for Danz.

Number 2 on Google search for Danz, thanks to a darn New Zealand dance site.

Number 4 on MSN search for Danz, always knew they were worthless.

Finally, this past September 11, 2006, DanzFamily.com saw the highest single-day number of visitors (3024), page loads (6327), hits (264,811) and bandwidth (15.89 GB).

[Update I:] I just realized that the cool mouse-over effects I have for the images associated with Danz.net, Danz.us and Danz.biz above (as well as the ones in the left side-bar) aren't working for some reason. I hate computers. And, while I'm at it, the new Explorer 7 really sucks the big pumpkin something awful. And Firefox 2, while better, has its own maladies.

I'm off to live in a cabin in Montana...

[Update II:] Fixed the mouse-over effect, simplified the code and somehow eliminated the conflict so everything is working again. Not moving to Montana...but may still work out some kind of time-share deal.

We've all been very busy lately so not much time for blogging. For the first time that I can remember, we all took a nap together today...Mommy, Daddy, Drew, Will...and Joey (the cat)...were all sacked out in bed for a lazy afternoon snooze.

The picture is a rainbow on our carpet that appears during certain times of the year when the early morning sunlight comes through our front skylight at just the right angle. The intensity of the colors is really amazing...Roy G. Biv in all his glory.

Will's two month old photo with a little artistic touch.

Given Google/YouTube's latest political shenanigans, deleting or flagging as potentially "inappropriate for some users" conservative YouTube videos while far more shocking and inappropriate leftest and jihadist videos go untouched, I went in search of another free video hosting service and after comparing a few, I found Vimeo (video with an "m" instead of a "d" so that it contains "me," as in "me video").

Signing up took less than 10 second and I was uploading my first video only a few seconds thereafter. The first area in which Vimeo whips up on YouTube is availability of the video after upload. With Vimeo, my video was available to everyone immediately when the upload finished. With YouTube, I've upload four videos, two were available in 5-10 minutes, one took over an hour and one took more than half a day. As to probably the most important consideration, quality, I think Vimeo may also be superior. Finally, reliability, for which YouTube has been touch-and-go lately, will be determined after more usage.

This video was shot in September at Bricktown in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, during the Okie Blogger Round-Up 2006. I was on my way to dinner with Charles Hill and Michael Bates when I saw Bricktown's huge Old Glory waving against a perfectly clear blue background and just had to stop to take some pictures and video footage.

Some time ago, I got a hankering to play some old Nintendo games that I used to play with friends. I looked around at old consoles and determined that I didn't want to waste a bunch of money on old equipment and cartridges knowing full well that I really only wanted to get a quick fix and wasn't likely to play them much afterwards.

I searched the internet and found there were software emulators for the console, Nintendo 64, that played the games I remember playing years ago. After a little research, I picked the emulator Project64. Next, I needed a controller. First choice for maximum authenticity was to purchase a used Nintendo 64 controller and a USB adapter. However, no adapter was available locally and I was too impatient to wait a few days to get one by mail order. So, it was off to BestBuy to pick up a Logitech RumblePad 2 Game Pad. Besides immediacy, this also had the benefit of being able to use it for other non-Nintendo games.

Now, I suppose I could have just played the game on my computer but that wouldn't fully duplicate the same sit-on-the-couch and play-on-the-TV experience of the real thing. So, using our laptop and a cable or two I was able to hook everything up to the big screen. In no time at all I was up and running old classics like Donkey Kong 64 and Super Mario 64 among others. I also took the opportunity to download a bunch of games for Drew and Will: A Bug's Life, Elmo's Letter Adventure and Number Journey, Tigger's Honey Hunt, Tom and Jerry and...Drew's favorite...Toy Story 2.

These are a few screen shots from Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue. They don't do the game justice as I wasn't able to get a good action screen shot while, at the same time, working the controller.

Will, just relaxing in the sweet spot with Daddy.

Now that's a fire, Burger King's got nothin' on me...

Most weekends, and sometimes during the week, we grill out on our trusty Weber gas grill. Tonight it was steaks and with the help of a little flare-up they had that extra-carcinogen goodness. There's just something about grilling out yourself that makes the food all that more delicious. We've tried all kinds of assorted rubs, marinades, and various combinations of seasonings, but nothing seems to beat good old salt and pepper for the best flavor.

My mom grew up fairly poor on a farm in rural Oklahoma where they raised their own animals. My grandfather maintained that while they didn't have a lot of money, they always ate well with lots of meat at every meal; breakfast, lunch and dinner. When we visited, it seemed like we had steaks every night. I think about my grandfather almost every time we grill out. He would have loved tonight's meal.

Daddy: How do you like Daddy's iPod?
Drew: I like it!
Daddy: Can daddy listen?
Drew: Not done yet.

Later...
Daddy: Can Daddy listen now?
Drew: Not done yet.

Later...
Daddy: Can Daddy listen now?
Drew: Not done yet.

Rinse and repeat.

This week, Mary, Drew, Will, Ma and Pa went to the Tulsa State Fair. I'm glad Ma and Pa got to go and enjoy the fair with the boys while I was at work. Otherwise, if I had gone, I'd have been my usual Drew/Will hog and they would have been relegated to spectators.

There was lots to do. Drew is especially proud of the tower he built. And, although the picture doesn't really show it, Drew was very excited about riding the ponies and ran right up them to get a ride. I shouldn't be surprised, last October Drew showed that he was a natural bucking bronco rider.

Drew was not at all excited about the petting zoo and announced early on, "I'm ready to see something else." Everything changed when he discovered that he could feed the animals. As a result, for Drew, this was the highlight of the day.

Mary and Drew show their bravery as they pose for a photo with Macaws on their shoulders. Mary looks like she's having a good time, but Drew's not about to take his eyes off his new friend. I'm amazed by how old Drew looks in this picture...he's only two! Maybe it's the hat...no more baseball hats...I want my two-year old back!