That’s right – Digital Divas is temporarily *not* pink! Welcome to the Halloween Theme (which may well be the Thanksgiving and Christmas themes too, since I’m now in grad school and barely have time to post much less create new themes).

Anyway, I worked on the graphics for this theme before classes started, so that’s how I was able to get this up. Well, that and a little help from my husband, Dougal,who said, “I know you’re swamped right now – would you like me to upload your Halloween theme?” Being the WordPress God that he is, I knew I could obviously trust him and jumped at the chance to actually get this theme up before Halloween. In addition to Dougal, I’d also like to credit some fellow iStockphoto artists for their contributions, first, Amanda Bodack, for her wonderful black cat, which reminds me of my beloved Spazmo kitty, and to David Russell, for his spider web and scary dangling spider! (Admit it – you know you were scared!) Both of these artists have great libraries on iStockphoto – take a look if you get a chance!

Meanwhile, back to midterms and Happy Halloween!

So what do these disparate subjects have to do with each other? Read on!

My family and I recently attended my 20-year high school reunion. (Oops – did I say 20? I meant to say 10!) It was great to see all of our friends from high school, and one nice thing is that my husband went to the same high school (class of 1985), so they were his friends too!

Most of my summer, though, was spent planning for the reunion, including the reunion website. (Hence the lack of postings here.) Working on the site helped me keep up with my PHP skills, as we had several online forms, and also learn some new skills. We had an order form for reunion t-shirts, and had that form transfer/populate data to PayPal, so that classmates could order and pay through PayPal, either with credit/debit card or a PayPal account. This might not sound like a big deal in the grand scheme of web development, but we thought it was pretty nifty to be able to post an online t-shirt order form with the online payment option as well.

The reunion had a Saturday brunch for families, followed by an evening social for the adults. The event was well-planned by not only our beautiful, but smart Homecoming Queen, Jessica Birchfield. Jessica really set out with the right idea – make it fun and affordable, and moreover, flexible. She accepted input from any classmate, and tried to incorporate everyone’s ideas. And best of all – the Saturday evening social was casual dress – no purchasing a formal only to hang in the closet to collect dust after the reunion!

After an evening of shakin’ what our Mama’s gave us, we heard of a good blues band, The Mutt Brothers, playing at a local club, and headed in that direction. (Yes – it was already past midnight and we were *still* awake!) Aside from feeling like we were going to asphyxiate on smoke, we did enjoy the band, which featured guitarist Jack Black! Well, OK, it wasn’t really Jack Black, but given a couple more beers it could’ve been! Actually, his name is Greg Davis, and he’s a friend of one of our classmates, and quite talented too. All of “the Mutts” are extremely talented and we definitely recommend them if you’re looking for an awesome blues band!

Then it was back to Atlanta and back to reality. *Sigh*.

Our family recently took an extended Memorial Day weekend and finally got to have a long overdue visit with several relatives. We left Atlanta on Friday afternoon, and first drove to Fairhope (near Mobile, AL) to visit with my husband’s family. While we were there, my mother-in-law cooked the entire time – we ate sausage and biscuits, homemade blueberry muffins, cheesegrits, etc. for breakfasts, and had smoked pork roast, fresh silver queen corn, baked beans and much more for dinners.

We left my in-laws on Monday morning and headed east on I-10 to my grandparent’s house near Pensacola, FL. When we arrived at lunch, my grandmother had prepared her homemade chicken tenders plus an assortment of salads and chocolate oatmeal drop cookies. While at my grandparents, we also got to see my Aunt Liz and Uncle Dave.

After leaving my grandparents’ house late that afternoon, we headed to my brother’s house in Enterprise, AL for an overnight visit. When we arrived at his house, he had prepared a beef roast with potatoes, carrots, onions and greenbeans, plus chocolate pudding pound cake for dessert.

Are you seeing a pattern here? In case you haven’t seen the movie A Bug’s Life, the basic premise is that a colony of ants is being tortured by grasshoppers. The ants have to gather the winter food for the grasshoppers, but once the grasshoppers eat the feast, they leave the ants alone for the remainder of the winter. So, the ants’ mantra is “They come, they eat, they leave. They come, they eat, they leave.”

Sounds a lot like the Campbell family – we come, we eat, we leave. We felt like a swarm of locusts, leaving destruction (or at least corn cobs) in our wake. In the words of my Aunt, as we were leaving my grandparents’, “Swarm on!”

We have finally swarmed full circle back to Atlanta and reality. The reality of trying to lose the 10 pounds we each gained on vacation. 😕

One of my fellow PTA cohorts sent this to me – thought it was too good to pass up and needed to be shared with the world. (Or at least my little Internet corner of it anyway).

Here is something we’ve long theorized, but now has been mathematically proven:

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions…

If the alphabet is represented as:

A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, and so on, until Z = 26

Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+ 23+15+18+11 = 98%

and

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But,

A-T-T-I -T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

AND, look how far butt kissing will take you.

B-U-T-T-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
2+21+20+20+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 140%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it’s the Bullshit and Butt kissing that will put you over the top.

I recently saw a re-run of a television show on the Discovery Channel which reminded me of the original idea to use this domain name for a blog. About a year ago, my husband Dougal and I saw an ad for a tv show that looked pretty interesting – Dive to Bermuda Triangle – a show discussing scientific phenomena which would explain the odd occurrences in the Bermuda Triangle.

We tuned in, interested to hear some scientific theories, as opposed to the usual mystical explanations regarding the Bermuda Triangle. The show began well – discussing a prominent theory that large gas bubbles released from submerged rock formations could be responsible for sinking ships as well as interfering with aircraft controls. They even showed several experiments in which the release of these large gas bubbles did indeed cause ships to sway violently, and eventually ended up causing them to capsize.

Up to this point, the show seemed to maintain it’s scientific integrity; however, did I fail to mention that these large gas bubbles were methane gas? The fact that these “killer” (yes, “killer”) gas bubbles were methane was already causing a minor amounty of hilarity, but then, about half-way through the discussion of this gas-bubble theory, a new “scientific expert” was introduced to the program. A geologist? An oceanographer? No indeedy – a “Self-Proclaimed Bubbleologist”! Dougal and I looked at each other, as if to silently say, “Did he really say he was a Bubbleologist?”

After a great deal of snorking and several “Don Ho” jokes later, I informed my husband that *I* am a Self-Proclaimed Webologist! Then, going back to the gas bubble theory, I asked him something like, “So, if a bunch of submariners all farted at once, could they sink an enemy ship?” His immediate reply was, “You need a blog.” Hence the emergence of one Self-Proclaimed Webologist and digitaldivas.net.

Why yes, it is! So why, may you ask, did I make this site so very pink? I could quote my children, and just simply say, “Because I do!”. And while that would indeed be accurate, the underlying reason is that over a series of time, I have created many other web sites that were either burgundy-and-black themed (worked at two different colleges – both of which had burgundy-and-black colors – go figure), or other earth and/or muted tones. Decided I wanted a change, so here’s my new blog that looks like it was hosed down with Pepto Bismol!

And what do I intend to post on this pink blog? Most likely, the rambling thoughts of a techno-geek Southern woman (yes, that would be me), and posts on my own topics of interest, that hopefully others will find interesting too.

So thanks for reading my first post, and please feel free to share your thoughts on any posts!