Well, I'm in the process of updating my old main system, "bubbler," the new mobo/quad-core CPU I used came DOA. So I returned it, got a new set... dead. Not quite fully dead, only "mostly dead," so I got a third set and it worked! However, my main disk died as well, a 1TB drive, but no problem, I back up to two different drives, one external, one internal. For no known reason the external drive, that I VERIFIED the backup on was completely clean, and the internal backup only had bits and pieces of my data. All-in-all, lost a year or more worth of data; imponderable. Now THAT hurts! So I'm still rebuilding it, upgrading the mobo/CPU, memory, and adding a couple 2TB drives and dumping Win Vista for Win 7; I'll be SO glad to be rid of Vista which, as we all know, is just one bloated bug/virus. I've been using my HP Paviilion laptop as my main system 'til I can scrape together enough "good data" to let the upgraded "bubbler" system (I think I'll call it "bubbler 7" now, seven should be about right for how many times I'm upgraded it from my first "bubbler."

So that's the good/bad news. I managed just yesterday to retrieve all the current cashen.com & cashen.net site files, so I updated cashen.com pages, just a couple, the "gadgets" page (added my new tablet/laptop named "tubbler,") the "about us" page, and some cleanup and additions that no one but me will care about; hope I didn't break the site too much :). I'd added our Vegas trip slideshow, but never mentioned it before (and, since the slideshow uses Adobe Flash, there's a problem; Adobe STILL doesn't support a 64bit browser (uh, WHAT year is this now?) So to see it you need to run the 32bit browser versions. I'll update the site some more, but the priority is to get bubbler fully loaded with my way-too-many files and programs. The ones I can retrieve, that is (sniff...)

Been a while. I updated my "Gadgets page"(or any page for that matter) to reflect some changes in my systems, and to introduce my newest toy, the Asus 1005HA Netbook, a really cool machine. Really cool. I'll add some updates to some other new "toys," and I want to add a slideshow of our trip to Arizona (Phoenix) to see our friends Marc and Angie, and to see the Champions Tour (Tennis). Had a fun time!

Also updated our DVD collection; we're pushing almost 800 titles now! Wish I'd have invested the cost into Gold though. Hindsight's just always a killer... ;)

Fixed the homepage, I'd added too many new links ("Poor Obama," "Over 50"...) and the page wasn't set up to display it well. Changed the graphics and spacing. All kinda "tech" stuff, but the end-result is it should look better. One problem is if you're running the old 640x480 display resolution, you'll have to scroll the index page because I had to expand it beyond that. But then, who runs in that mode these days? I think it'll be safe...

I found an article on foxnews.com. About guys who are still "sexy" when they're over 50. I wasn't mentined, that stinks. Look here.

Also, made some minor changes to the structure of the site. You probably won't notice, but it made me feel good... :)

By nature I'm not polical, but with the upcoming election, and the failing media, I've become so. Electing a Marxist/Socialist like Obama will ruin the US. He's clearly a Media Darling (CBS, for one example, played 38 positive Obama stories vs. just ONE for Mccain. Now, I'm not a Mccain fan, but... where is the balance in the media?)

I copped this snippet from Glenn Beck. Listen to it, and ... think. (It's an MP3 download)

So, I stripped out (mostly) the "Vegas" pics from the "Sing/Vegas" site, and created a new "Vegas-only" page(s). I still need to tweak them a bit, but for now, good enough. It was the trip we (Ernie & I) took to celebrate Angie's birthday in Vegas (did I mention I really, really hate Vegas? Just wanted you to know...). Who's "Angie and who's Mark?" take a look here.

Oh, and I had to yet-again rebuild Vista. Did I mention just how terribly Vista sucks? In case I didn't, here's what I think about it. Three GB of memory, 1TB (terabyte, big) of main disk, 800GB of alternate disk, 500GB of backup storage, and a mirrored (RAID 1) 340GB RAID network storage, dual-core 3+GHz processor, and a bunch of nifty things like a couple DVD drives and USB peripherals and completely updated drivers and software and OS patches and BlueTooth and a 23" LCD monitor, a wicked-fast video card, and more. Yet, Vista does what the heck it wants to -- to HECK with what the USER (me) wants! Should'a stayed with XP. Or DOS, at least when you did a "cd mydir" it didn't pop up a warning message and ask you four times "Do you REALLY want to change directories?," or deny you with obscure messages telling you you can't do that without "Administrative authorization." Oh, and no Blue Screens. Not to mention it killed my "Profile" six times, so I spent the past three days rebuilding them/it. Nice to know you can't trust your computer to be YOUR computer. It simply does whatever it chooses. It's like driving a car and the gas pedal switches with the brake, or when you turn left it either turns left (good), or goes straight (bad), or turns right (even more "badder"). Live and learn. Of course, "learning" is arbitrary, it's Chaos Theory. And it can take (arbitrarily) 2-5 mins to copy a 2.5MB file, WTF? It's a 7200 RPM 7200.11 32MB cache, SATA 3Gb drive! You don't get much faster than that. Oh, and a "fun thing..." I had to create and copy User Profiles to rebuild the system. By default it loads a profile I don't use, so I have to, at the logon screen "Switch Users." So I do, and select my standard what-should-be my home profile, and it boots right up. So there are two problems: One is that it defaults to what should NOT be a default profile, and Two, when I "switch profiles" it just logs in without asking for any password. THIS IS A PASSWORD PROTECTED PROFILE! Even any 16 yr old non-hacker could figure this gap is security out! Vista's been out, what?, maybe two years and the geeks at Microsoft didn't NOTICE THAT? Idiots.

Enough whining for now, I guess. Vista, though, really, really sucks. Microsoft is, and very much should be, embarrassed. So comes "Windows 8" or some-such. I won't be first in line to buy it though. MS gathers thousands or hundreds-of-thousands of error messages a day, and their response? I presume it's a bunch of engineers playing air-hockey and working on the next for-sale OS to "improve" Windows to the "next gen." Monopolies' stink, some more than others. And they always fall down.

Sorry, too much whining. But one more thing,,,

I pulled my Guestbook page. No one was really using it, except for some spammers who sent me, uh, some more-than-obscene messages via the form. The SW I used provides for anti-spam, but it's not working, so ... delete. I'm tired for four (and more) letter words from spambots or just plain nut-jobs.

Small update, I recreated the "Singapore/Las Vegas" slideshow by deleting the Vegas stuff (as best I could, lots of pictures). Ernie wanted them separate so now I need to create a "Vegas-trip" slideshow. Anyway, it's all "Sing!" now. Go see it...

Oh, and I had to re-rebuild my system again, it's about 60% done (a ton of apps, all that need to be configured and pointed to data streams/sources). Vista, yuck on you. I'm becoming a real fan of Restore Points now, hopefully it will help.

I updated my "gadgets" page to reflect new updates to my computer (which, "Vista" has been a total pain). I upgraded to a 1TB disk, and found one of my memory sticks was shot, corrupting my disk(s) and generally reeking havoc. I buy good memory -- that's important -- but I got screwed by Corsair, two bad sticks out of two. So now I'm down to 2GB of memory, I need another gig. Vista, as a result, went nuts, and I reinstalled it several times to clean it up. And I'm in the process of reconfiguring everything from basic desktop to email to Dreamweaver, which stinks. "Vista, Vista! Why did I EVER go with you??"

But more important, I added our Singapore slideshow! Cool memories. I added a "soundtrack" to it, fun songs, and with over 230 pics, just right. Come and see a look...

Well, first of all, the site "template" has changed, I got tired of the old one and thought I'd go with something similar to the Home Page color-scheme. I like it better, it's simpler, and I dig the colors (although I'm still on the fence on the background, but Ernie likes it... What's a guy to do?)

Added a slideshow for our honeymoon, updated Ernie's page, updated my "Gadgets page," and added/updated "other things," but I admit that I did it over time, and am too lazy to check through my VCS to see what's changed. Oh, added a Guestbook as well, although I doubt it'll be filling up very soon! ;) Changed some graphics, added some as well ... needed to because of the template change (BTW, a "template" is what I use to define the overall page "look & feel," so I don't have to edit each page one-by-one. Not all pages use the template, but the "main" ones do).

First of all, Happy New Year! I suspect this will be just a great year for all of us...

I posted some pics of Bingo, our black cat, and Minja, our new dog. You can see them on our pets page. Both are just great, we have some really good pets, we've been lucky.

Oh, and for reasons I haven't been able to figure out, the videos of our wedding on our picture page gives that darn "404" (page not found) error. I'll work on it, the videographer did a tremendous job, the the wedding couldn't have been better!

Our first "anniversary"! (Granted it's just a month, but "hey!"). We got back yesterday from a wonderful cruise through the Hawaiian islands, and had a great time. Ernie set the trip up, and she's good at it (trained in "Event Management"). We had a cabin with a private deck and spent a lot of time just sitting outside and watching the Hawaii islands flow by. Of course we spent time on shore (and of course spent too much money on trinkets), and we took a few excursions such as the requisite luau (I don't like luau's, but this one was ... incredible. You'd have had to be there to understand, but just think "firebreathers." And that wasn't the high-point!) We took a great tour of Oahu, some just "walkin' around" excursions, Ernie took a submarine tour, we had a sunset catamaran tour scheduled, but unfortunately it was canceled. We took a helicopter tour in Hilo (and yes, I "white-knuckled" it all!). It was great though. Ate too much, and we might have done more, but I forget... there was so much.

We were on a ship called the "Pride of America," and it was impressive (900 ft boats tend to be). Service was great, prices too high, and it was worth it all.

I'll post pics as soon as we sort through them all, we took a lot :).

Wow! We're married! Ernie honored me by saying "I do" (Or some equivalent like "Yup"). We got married June 16th (my sister Kathy's birthday BTW) and the ceremony could not have gone better. Friends, family, drinks, cake, and three excellent meals. Music and videos and photos. I'll add a link to our wedding photo page when I get it set up. Alexa was our flower girl, and then she flew out of state to be the flower girl for her cousin!

I'm a lucky guy... :)

fiddlin... It's been a while since any updates, my bad. I was down with pneumonia for the past few months, and am just coming back now...

But, I did manage to buy a new car! It's a 2006 Hummer H3, pretty cool, solid, and my fav color, green. You can see a few pics here.

No site changes (well, I did add some "Women's Turn Down" gags I got from Ernie on the "Fun Stuff" page. Read it and giggle).

I just wanted to brag a bit about Alexa here, if you'll indulge me a while...

Everyday she gets more amazing. I'm suffering motion-sickness just watching her grow into an adult. She'll be eight soon, and for someone who's just almost eight she's so intelligent, kind, forgiving, honest, sweet, loving, funny, sarcastic, well-loved, genuine, excited by life, exciting to be with, appreciative, humble, giving, enthusiastic, obedient, (I'm running out of adjectives here!), loyal, sincere, beautiful, and overall, she's got integrity. I've never seen her do a selfish or mean thing. I can make her laugh with the simplest of jokes, and she makes me laugh in turn. There's nothing like her running into my arms when she sees me, and there's nothing as sad as seeing her off somewhere away from me. She's just off the charts. Must take after her mother :).

Oh, and she loves me and her family, truly. How much better can this all get?

How'd we get so damn lucky?... Sorry for bragging so much, but she deserves it.

Oh, here's some of her recent art. Pretty darn good I think. I can barely even write legibly. I love her so much.

I'm working on a site redesign, nothing major, but I'm not quite satisfied with the redesign yet. Besides, Dreamweaver (the tool I'm using) is doing very odd things, so we're in a battle to agree that what I WANT to do, it'll do! I hope I prevail.

Added a picture of my mom and dad that I'd never seen (dad wearing a TIE! Never seen that...).

I also added an "Ernie" page. How could anyone be so beautiful and sweet and smile so much!

Moved mom's tribute to her own page from the main page, updated Alexa's pages with some new pictures and a video (10MB AVI) of her sparring at her Karate Belt testing. I admit I was both surprised and impressed by her sparring skills, she was great! (And so was her "opponent").

I also did some behind-the-curtains consolidation of web pages. You shouldn't notice it, but it makes it more organized. And, I'm thinking of changing the site "template" (the page that defines how the other pages all look). Getting tired of the "look" of the site, and hey! It's fun!

Added some new pictures of Alexa on her page. And there's new movies of Alexa taking her Karate belt test. Check 'em out!

Updated the "Pets" page to reflect our new kitten "Fluffy," and the loss of our other pets, "Little Cat," who just disappeared, and the loss of our hamster and Guinnea pigs. We haven't had much luck with pets lately...

I was getting tired of the look of the homepage, and got some inspiration and ... updated it. Check it out, if you'd like. I also found literally hundreds of files that had no use. Not sure how they even got there, but I haven't exactly "pruned" the site in a long, long while.

Actually, I'm growing tired too of the overall site layout, so I might roll out a new template sometime. We'll see.

I've done numerous updates to the site since the last (lagging) "What's New" posting. Some new content, minor updates, and cleanup, but not too many changes. Alot's been happening with Alexa, she's reading like mad, and is growing smarter and sweeter by the day. But I'm used to that... :)

(Oh, I did fix a minor bug in the program that displays how old she is. I thought it was a day off, but I'd input the wrong time-of-day for her birth, so "sometimes" it would be right, and other times not. Fixed)

Round 2... Moved the site again, this time to an entirely new hosting service (Lunarpages.com). My old host, Websitesource just wasn't working, and their "support" was, um... I have to assume cutbacks in budget and personnel. They're hiring from the pool of people who couldn't qualify for night-work at Walmart. If you're every really mad at yourself and want to self-punish, sign up with "websitesource.com". You'll get all the punishment you need... Lunarpages, on the other hand, has been a dream.

As far as the site content, in moving it I cleaned up some unneeded files, updated some failed galleries for Alexa, and added some things to her page. That's it.

The site has moved to a new server, one who's not exactly "easy" to deal with. Still making changes and trying to get everything to work. Bear with me, it's been a struggle.

• Fixed (hopefully) the search on the main page. This hosting service uses a new engine, and needed a lot of coding to make it "comply".
• Added some new videos on Alexa's page of her singing, and doing her karate. Check them out!
• Added some minor updates to my page.
• Changed my "door" pages. I won't tell you where they are, though. :)
• Added an instant messaging "chat page". It's only good if one or more people are chatting, of course!

Alexa earned/won her first trophy for karate! I'll post pics when I take them

Really nothing new, but some comments...

Tonight, while we were playing (actually, trying to play a computer game, but it was crashing), Alexa and I were joking about all the problems we were having, and she turned to me suddenly, hugged my leg (she's still kinda short) and said "Dad, my life with you is the happiest life I ever could have". That's a quote. She went back to her seat as I tried to get the computer to work, but my eyes were tearing up. And the best part is, she does this all the time...

So, nothing "new" on the site, but I just wanted to brag.

Happy New Year to all!

• Added some pictures to Alexa's Current Photos and added some new-news about her
• Added a search feature for the website on the main page
• Added some pics to the "Where We Live" page

More updates:

• Alexa's now 5! Had her birthday over here and it was a blast with a bunch of crazy, sugar-infused kids running all around.
• Lots of updates to the general site. I added the "Get Updated" box above so people can get email notification when this page changes. It used to work with another service, which, as tends the web, went belly-up.
• Added some pics of our new cat Wizard and the killer-hamsters on the pics page.
• You might notice I locked out Alexa's page. Sorry, but I felt it was best. If you want to see her page (and who wouldn't?), email me.
• Updated my self-serving "Toys" page describing the tech toys I relish, or hate, depending. The "real time update" of apps running on my systems is now broken, and I haven't been able to track it down.
• Added a few pics to our picture page. I need to add more though.
• Fixed, and added to my "Favorite Links" page. A lot of those "favs" were dead now, so that kinda drops them off my top interests!
• Moved our new house picture page from the main page to the picture page -- the house is not "new" now that we've moved in and cleared out most of the boxes.
• Fixed the random quotes at the top of the main page.
• Some "behind the scenes" site fixes and changes, nothing you care about except that most of the broken stuff isn't broken any longer.

• Obviously a long lag in updating this page, and there have been lots of changes.
• Alexa's now 4 1/2, and is now her "own person," an incredible person at that. See her page for more.
• Alexa's mom and I have split up, I'm sorry to say. But we're both focused on making Alexa's life the best we can, and we're doing just that, in fact. Alexa's the most important component of our lives, and that is foremost.
• Overall update to the site, especially to my own "Toy's" page. I added a lot of pictures to Alexa's page as well.

• Some more pictures added to Alexa's page.
• I'm now "Reverend Dean Cashen"! Sadly, you can be too.
• I added a form that let's you send text messages to my phone. Why? Because it could be done (certainly not because it needed to be)
• I've been buying more DVD's, so I updated my list

• Added some pictures to mom's page, including a panoramic view of her new apartment (large image, 240KB)
• Added a pic to Dean's page
• Added some pics to our "Together" page

• Updated a few things:
  • Added a page for my mom, Eve Cashen, who's been sick lately. Get the "skinny" here.
  • Alexa's photo pages have been updated (new photos)
  • Updated our picture pages, added pics, reorganized them a bit. Added a "Dean's Family" page.
  • Updated my "Toys" (computer) pages, slimmed them down, added new toys.

• Oh boy. A lot of changes to the site, and this page was updating them, but in cleaning up (My home PC was hit by a virus, compounded with a disk-transfer failure), a number of pages and pictures were corrupted, including this page. So, data was lost. I'll update this as soon as I can. But for now, here are the primary changes to "cashen.com":
  • New format. I "templated" the site, adding the green frames on top and bottom, a consistent menuing scheme, background, and a logo (the vertical "cashen.com") to the left, among others. Looks mighty snappy, doesn't it?!
  • Updated Alexa's pages, primarily adding a new picture "slideshow" to allow me to more easily add current pictures.
  • Updated our favorite links page, most of which was out-of-date.
  • And general updates to text, pictures, etc., throughout.

• And again, finally added some new photos of Alexa on her page, including her 2nd Birthday and Christmas 2000! Come take a look!

• Added (finally!) some new photos of Alexa on her page. Come take a look...

• Almost no content change (I'll be adding pics and updates to Alexa's site, however). But the big news is that this website is now fully hosted as "cashen.com"! I got the domain hosted on webpipe.net! Whoo! whooo! Yeah daddio! (Maybe you have to be geeky to be really excited about this....)
  
  It may take a day or two to filter the DNS change throughout the web, then I'll pull the pages from Primenet.

• Loads of updates to Alexa's page in the past month. Go over to see her new pictures, including her 1st birthday photos!

• Caught Alex climbing the stairs today! Sorry, no pictures.

• New Alexa pictures, and an update on her progress (which is stunning)!

• Added a bunch of new pictures to Alexa's page, not to mention some updates of what's new with our beautiful little girl. Happy Father's Day!
• Not incidentally, the IdTA page deserves some mention, it's been updated across the board for '99 (The site is no longer being maintained by me as of Fall 2001)

• Alexa did her first rollover all by herself! See the pics on her pages!