This web site

(This was a poll on the old site.)

Looks good to me? 0 votes
Organized well but not very aesthetic: 2 votes
All kinds of ugly: 1 vote
I don't know what "aesthetic" means: 0 votes

Trip to Erwin Orchards

We went to Erwin Orchards on Saturday. We had a great time and took plenty of pictures, though the apples Helen wanted to pick — Cortland — were already gone. A tractor pulled us out to pick a peck (silly Imperial units) of a variety of apples and grab a couple of pumpkins from their pumpkin patch.

Katrina loved picking the apples and playing in the play area. Elena discovered biting apples, which she enjoyed; she kept pointing at everyone else’s bags of apples and grunting.

We though $7 for a gallon of cider was a little much, but we did buy some very tasty doughnuts and an already-picked peck of Cortland apples.

My favorite charities

I’ve compiled a list of charities to which I have donated or considered donating.

UPDATE: I’ve added links to Charity Navigator pages when available.

(If I can figure out a way to make my list at Charity Navigator public, I’ll post that link here instead.) (Charity Navigator doesn’t currently have a way to publicize one’s charity list, but they may add such a feature someday.)

Hurricane Rita Aftermath Video

When my father, George Town, was in the South volunteering for the American Red Cross, he shot video of Hurricane Rita’s aftermath using a CVS One-Time-Use Camcorder.

Part 1 of 2:



Part 2 of 2:




I split it into two parts for YouTube, which has a limit of ten minutes per clip.

Marching Through History

On Memorial Day, May 31, 2004, NBC Nightly News broadcast the segment “Marching Through History”, which featured the Lakeshore High School Marching Band.



The original video clip (.mp4, 12.8 MiB) — recorded by me but currently hosted at Cybernet, Dave Melcher’s employer — can be played using any MPEG-4 player that supports MPEG-4 video and AAC audio, including recent versions of QuickTime. The fact that this video plays on iPods is purely serendipitous — I encoded the video well before iPods with video were announced.

Helen and I graduated from LHS in 1993 and 1991, respectively. Through what I can only imagine to have been clerical error, I was a drum major of the band during my junior and senior years. (Melissa Cobb née Gilreath was the senior drum major during my junior year, and Heather Schultz was the junior drum major during my senior year.) I also played the baritone; Helen played the French horn. (There will be a quiz.)

The total number of kids Helen and Brad should have

(This was a poll on the old site.)

Two is plenty: 0 votes
Three: 3 votes
Four: 1 vote
Five or more: 1 vote

Pictures from Donna & Tom's Wedding

Helen has added pictures from Donna and Tom’s wedding rehearsal and wedding to her photo gallery. (Tom is Helen’s brother.)

I apologize for the orange tint in the pictures from the rehearsal — I’m still learning to use my Canon EOS 30D. Incidentally, my lens is the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens.

Helen's Public Gallery: Open for Business

Helen has posted some pictures to her Public Gallery at Picasa Web Albums. Enjoy!

Frequently-Asked Questions

Personal


Who are you guys?
We’re Helen and Brad Town. We have two beautiful girls, Katrina and Elena, and a beautiful baby boy, Allan.

How many kids are you going to have, anyway?
I like to say we’re going to keep going until we’re poor. We’re currently talking about at least four.

How can we contact you?
You can leave comments here. Another way is to send us email. Brad’s address is townba@pobox.com, and Helen’s is helcia@pobox.com.

This site


What software is this site running?
It used to be Drupal with several extra modules, but we’ve since switched to Blogger.

What hosting service are you using?
In addition to Blogger, we use NearlyFreeSpeech.NET. I’m very happy with it. I was also happy with our previous host, Hosting Matters, but NFSN is much, much cheaper for us (by around three orders of magnitude).

Are these really frequently-asked questions?
Nah.