Category Archives: Family

The goings on in this crazy family of mine.

Commercial Jingles

By Dougal | Published: June 20, 2007

My wife was a Communications major in college. So she often makes observations about how organizations try to get their message out to their audience. One thing she remarked on recently was the decline in the use of musical jingles, as opposed to non-musical slogans, in advertising. Read more in her post, “Ask any mermaid you happen to see…”

Also posted in Fun, Personal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Benefits of Blogging

By Dougal | Published: April 27, 2007

My brother-in-law, Bob, has been keeping a blog on wordpress.com for a while now called Arcane Code. He mostly writes about software development using Microsoft tools, because that’s what he does for a living. He’s also had some interesting posts lately about installing various flavors of Linux under Virtual PC, and a long series digging deeply into SQL Server. But one of his most recent posts caught my eye and I wanted to share it: Arcane Thoughts: Benefits of Blogging.

In this article, Bob briefly outlines six benefits that he gets from writing on his blog: Meet and Greet, Self Documenting, Self Promotion, Mentoring, Education, and Giving Back. [...]

Also posted in Blogging, Blogs, Community, Personal, WordPress | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Alabama Tornadoes

By Dougal | Published: March 2, 2007

Many of you are probably currently familiar with hearing about the tornado that hit Enterprise, Alabama yesterday. What you might not realize is that my wife and I both graduated from the high school that was leveled in that storm system. Seeing the devastation in our old home town has been very surreal for both of us.

Our niece, who is a senior this year, was at the high school when the tornado hit, and suffered some cuts and scratches. Her car was also damaged, but unlike many others we’ve seen on the news, her parents think it should still be drivable. [...]

Also posted in Personal, The South | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Happy Birthday, Susan!

By Dougal | Published: December 27, 2006
Suze and Claire

Susan and Claire, October 2005

A very happy birthday to my wonderful wife, Susan! She is truly an amazing woman, able to take care of our kids, keep up our house, help out her parents at their business, and take classes for grad school, all at once.

Also posted in Personal | Tagged , | 2 Comments

We interrupt this silence for a brief message…

By Dougal | Published: December 8, 2006

I’m a working stiff with three kids and an hour-each-way commute. I think that’s all the explanation needed for the long break, right? :)

It’s not like I didn’t have anything to write about. Since my last post, Jamie had a birthday, Mary did some really cool stuff with squids for a science project (and I can’t believe I forgot to take pictures!), Claire started walking, I had to give our dog an emergency midnight bath, and Susan started finals in her grad classes. [...]

Also posted in Personal, Work | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Egads! It’s Purple!

By Dougal | Published: October 26, 2006
Halloween Digital Divas Theme

Susan’s spookalicious Halloween theme

A few months ago, I mentioned that my wife Susan had gotten her blog up, complete with a pink theme. She’s been pretty busy lately, what with taking care of our three kids, working part-time, and taking graduate classes (whew!). [...]

Also posted in Blogs, Personal, Themes, WordPress | 1 Comment

Knock, knock…

By Dougal | Published: June 28, 2006

I know, I know… I haven’t been very active on the blogging front lately. Once again I’ve been sucked into a swirling vortex of job and home projects, with little-to-no time for participating in blogdom. I’ve managed to keep up with most of the latest memes, and I’ve added a few new del.icio.us bookmarks, but there’s been no opportunity to develop any nifty code or write about the subject of the day.

I’ve got eight draft posts in my queue, and three of those are no longer timely, and so I’ll probably end up deleting them. [...]

Also posted in Blogs, Holidays, Personal, WordPress, Work | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The prodigal son returns

By Dougal | Published: May 15, 2006

On Friday afternoon, I called home as I was leaving the office, as usual. Before I had a chance to say much more than “hello,” Susan said, “guess what?” Not knowing whether it was something good or bad, I asked, “what?” She replied, “the prodigal son has returned.”

A neighbor down the street from us had found our dog! This nice young lady had first spotted Spirit wandering around on Thursday, and thought that he didn’t look like he should be wandering around on his own. [...]

Also posted in Personal | Tagged | 1 Comment

Digital Diva

By Dougal | Published: April 25, 2006

It’s been a long time coming, but my wife, Susan, finally has a WordPress blog. You can check it out at DigitalDivas.net. As you’ll see when you get there, It’s Pink! Susan spent a lot of time adapting some CSS techniques for her site, and I helped her turn her html code into a WP theme.

I’m sure she’ll be posting on a variety of topics, from web design and technology, to current events, to family matters. [...]

Also posted in Blogs, CSS, Design, Themes, WordPress | Tagged , | 2 Comments

return(true);

By Dougal | Published: January 10, 2006

function do_stuff() {
  if (in_array($date, $holidays) && $vacation == true) {
    travel('away');
    visit_family();
    $gifts->exchange();
    eat();
    travel('home');
  }

  if ($new_year == true) {
    eat() && drink();
    $weight++;
    $sleep = false;
  }

  $slack = false;
  $resolve++;

  $work->resume();

  return(true);
}
Also posted in Fun, Holidays, Personal, Work | Tagged , | 20 Comments