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Carney Studio January 31, 2005

Posted by Liz in : General , comments closed

I just thought that I would brag about how great the new Carney Studio web site looks! :) If you haven’t seen it yet.. well you should!

Christmas January 21, 2005

Posted by Liz in : General , comments closed

Well Christmas is over and the New Year has just begun. So as we take down all the Christmas decorations we reflect on just how much fun we had this year!

We had a nice long Michigan visit with my family and had a ball. As always it is sad to have to come home, and already I am counting down the days till next year. I have now posted all of our different Christmas event photos. Watson’s Party, Burling Chirstmas, Our Christmas, Ramsey Family Christmas, and Michigan Christmas.
Best Wishes to you and yours for 2005,
Liz, Ben, & Ashley

Take a moment December 20, 2004

Posted by Liz in : General, War On Terror , comments closed

Christmas is almost here all ready… and what has been your attitude about it? All wrapped up in the stress of shopping and fighting with the crowds and traffic? I know I was a real scrooge for a good two months as the framing orders at work began to pile up around me to the point where we can’t move around the office without pushing something aside first. I was really stressed out and pulled a large amount of extra hours at work to get them all done. Now I just feel stupid for all that stress; for most part the framing is done.. .but who cares… Christmas is about celebrating Christ’s birth with family and friends. I got a stab to the gut to get that back in my head. Friday we found out that Justin, my new brother in-law and Stephanie’s new husband, has now been called to active duity and must go to serve our wonderful country. His Christmas with us is called short as he will be leaving Sunday for extra training before he goes overseas. Now every minute counts and our goal is to have the “best !@#$ Christmas since Bing Crosby tap danced with Danny !@#$ing Kay” to quote from Christmas Vacation.

Christmas has always been a very special time for me and my family and is something we always look forward too. Christmas brings out the little kid and me and I just get so excited for head to toe. Heck I start counting down the days until next Christmas the day after Christmas. All the snow, card games, after Christmas shopping, and most importantly the family I only get to see once a year! For those who know me… Halloween means nothing compared to Christmas! lol. Right now though I have mixed feelings. It’ll be a Christmas where we put on our happy and brave faces while inside we are dreading the fact that Justin has to leave the next day to start training.

I don’t really know why I am typing all this and posting it on the website… maybe to say don’t take your family and friends for granted. We were told earlier that we had until late this summer before he went active. We planned on a nice big Christmas, for him being there for the birth of his first born son in Febuary along with what every random family event that happens now until then. So I guess I am just venting because it sucks!! Anyways, thanks for listening and please keep Justin, Stephanie and the rest of us in your prayers. It’s going to be the hardest Christmas and at the same time it will problably be one that we will all cherish and hold dear to our hearts while he is gone until he is back home safely in the arms of Stephanie, Joyanna, and his newly born son.

I’m an .MPG November 20, 2004

Posted by Ben in : General , comments closed

I must be bored because I did another one of these stupid things. What’s worse is I actually decided to post it here.

You are .mpg You live life like it was a movie. Constantly in motion, you bring pleasure to many, but are often hidden away.
Which File Extension are You?

I’m Zend Certified! October 29, 2004

Posted by Ben in : General , comments closed

Just thought I’d toot my horn here, though most folks that read this blog probably won’t know what “Zend Certified” means. In short, it means that I’ve passed standards set by Zend for know-how to program PHP.

From the Zend PHP Certification Study Guide:

The Zend PHP Certification formally confirms the recognition of specific abilities and skills acquired and developed by the examinee. In other words, how predictably is the person likely to perform when applying PHP technology to a business problem? Have the examinees reached a predefined minimum standard in both academic and practical experience needed to produce quality work?

And since most don’t know what PHP is exactly (also quoted from the study guide):

PHP is the most popular Web-development language in the world. According to estimates compiled in April 2004, there are over fifteen million unique domains—and almost two million unique IPs—on the World Wide Web that reside on servers where PHP is supported and used.

The term ‘PHP’ is actually a ‘recursive acronym’ that stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. [. . .]

So, in short, it’s basically a programming language used mainly on, but not restricted to, the Web. As of August, the number of sites using PHP was right at 17 million.

I’ll blog about my experience with and thoughts on the test a little later on my techno-orientied blog, if you’re interested in reading that sort of stuff.

Surving Ivan September 17, 2004

Posted by Liz in : General , comments closed

Everyone who has been watching the news has heard about the crazy hurricane season this year. We, like many, have been keeping a watchful eye on Florida and groaning everytime they say, “Here comes another one.” Well, last night Ivan tried to play it’s game on us; instead we played a game. We played Scrabble by candle light after dinner. We lost power around 5:00pm and it did not come back on until a little after 1:00am. I am now thankful for having a gas stove; it came in handy as we were able to eat dinner. (just had to call my mom and have her give us a ring on the cell in 15 minutes LOL)

While eating dinner with every candle in the house lit, we watched our back yard turn into a swift moving river with a few little waterfalls. It was quite pretty looking although it made taking Ashley out into an adventure. Which, by the way, she would forget what she was out there for and play in the water. Labs like water a little too much I think!

We were lucky, though. Not much water came into the garage and the only damage we recieved was our leaking front window and all the pinestraw washing away out of my garden, taking a few of my plants with it. We have some neighbors that weren’t so lucky and have trees that came down and hit their houses.

Oh for the score of the Scrabble game:
Ben: 217
Liz: 214

Review of LiveJournal Panel September 6, 2004

Posted by Ben in : General , comments closed

I posted a review of the LiveJournal panel at Dragon*Con on my technology-oriented blog, BenRamsey.com. It’s entitled “Uninformed Bloggers At Dragon*Con.”

Dragon Con… Freaks or just having fun? September 6, 2004

Posted by Liz in : General , comments closed

For an early birthday present this year my in-laws gave me two tickets (so Ben could go with me of course) for Dragon Con so I could meet Anne McCaffery. We had a great time and did get to chat with her as she signed my books. Thank you Ramsey’s for the tickets; it was a really great experience and we both had a lot of fun.

Ben and I woke up early on Saturday and packed an overnight bag and headed on our way out the door to Dragon Con in downtown Atlanta. We parked our car and walked up to the hotels that were hosting the event to have a look around. Wow, was my first thought… these people are a bunch of freaks. Mind you it was Belle and Snow White walking across the street followed closely by some kind of monster. (I think it was going to eat them.) As we get a little closer you see more and more costumes walking around. Then oddly enough you start feeling like you are underdressed… maybe I should’ve worn something more than just a Buffy and Spike T-Shirt. It was wierd how I had found myself thinking I should have some kind of costume on… that I am the freak. Well maybe I didn’t get that dramatic, but next year I think I will have to do at least a little something more.

Now the parade was really something to see… and yes I did take pictures, but really it is just a glimse of what it was like to be there. The work and money that some people put into their costumes is unbelievable. It was also cool that many dropped into their special pose if you asked to take their picture. Now there were some people that walked around dressed up as… well, let’s just say Ben and I would look at each other and shrugged. Thankfully those were not too many as we were mainly surrounded by Storm Troopers, Fairies, Klingons, and the other creative costumes. So over all I would have to say that the people walking around all dressed up are not freaks; just having a huge amount of fun.

Saturday night after a long day filled with fun we stayed at the Hilton courtesy of Ben and hotwire.com. Have to say that I am kind of disappointed. I had a little higher expectations for it. The room was nice, but I really thought that it would’ve been a little fancier. It was funny though.. waiting on the elevator to go to our room I heard someone make a comment “There are some more of those people”. They had seen our Dragon Con badges. LOL So we may not’ve been wearing fun costumes, but we might as well have been because evidently with or without the costumes you are labled as one of “those people” if you attend Dragon Con.

Ben and I walked around quite a bit and went to different tracks and I will not bore you with all of that. The coolest thing was I meet Anne McCaffery and her son Todd McCaffery and got to hear them read a chapter from the next Pern book Dragon’s Blood. Anne is such a great strong reader… it was a great experience that I will always hold dear… now Todd needs to work on his reading a bit.

The only thing that we didn’t get to do that I wanted to was to have a beer with a bunch of Klingons… but there is always next year.

Wedding Photos are up August 27, 2004

Posted by Liz in : General , comments closed

The wedding photos from Steph and Justin’s wedding are up and ready to view. They are a low resulation so they will fit on our web site. Please e-mail me if you have any questions or to place an order. www.liz(at)benandliz.com (writen out so I can’t be spamed.)

Stephanie Got Hiched August 24, 2004

Posted by Liz in : General , comments closed

Yes leave it to baby sister Stephanie to make life more interesting. She met a great guy named Justin Jones and hooked him good. (Yes folks, this one didn’t get away. Really we couldn’t of picked a better guy for her. He treats her like a princess and is awsome with Joyanna.) Well, they are so perfect for each other that they just couldn’t wait to get married… and so yes we put together a wonderful and beautiful wedding in only 10 days.

August 21st was the wedding day at Woodstock City Park’s gazebo with the reception at the 1904 house. The ceremony was beautiful even with the heavy downpour of rain that thankfully did not last too long. I was bestowed the honor of being the matron of honor which became interesting when I was asked to also be the photographer as well…. not something I would do again, although I was able to pull it off with Ben’s help. (I couldn’t have done it without him. Thank you Ben) The photos will be be up soon to share with all of you.