Birthdays are awesome.

Birthdays, when one has a Facebook account, are even more awesome.

Birthdays, when one has a Facebook account and your birthday is on a Monday, are even most awesome.

Birthdays, yada yada Facebook, Monday and your friends are so bored at work they look for anything to do but work, are THE BEST EVER.

If I had a dollar for every character typed on my Facebook Wall used in accordance with happy birthday wishes, well, I’d probably pay someone else to blog for me.  As you can see from my past posts, that duty comes pretty cheap. 

Fortunately I have great blog friends who pity me and give me content FOR FREE that I can use ROYALTY FREE and so I don’t have to pay because it’s FREE.

WHO ELSE AMONG YOU gets a one-of-a-kind Davetoon?

Oh wait.  I didn’t crop off the copyright all the way.  Well, I guess that makes it mostly royalty free.  I don’t even know any royalty, so I’m about as royalty free as you can get.  I mean, look at my whalltoon – I’m wearing a hawaiian shirt.  People who wear hawaiian shirts don’t get to meet royalty.

Thank you, Dave for the picture.

And Thank YOU to all the rest of you who reached out to wish me a Happy Birthday, or will at some point today.   The whole weekend was great and this week has started off in stellar fashion.

I have but one Birthday Wish if you feel like doing something good for your fellow band. 

No, not “fellow man.”  “Fellow band”.

You see, my wife and I are members of the Vandegrift Band Boosters.  Our daughter is a senior at Vandegrift High, and she’s an active member of the award-winning Viper Band.  One of the things us boosters have is a program called “Effortless Giving“.  This is a way for people to support the band without actually donating any of their own money.

Yeah, I thought I’d get your attention with that last part.

Some of our Effortless Giving sponsors are local to the High School area (Capital City Running, Take 5 Haircuts, Pizza Hut).  It might be hard for some of you in other states or countries to take advantage of these offers, so I thought I’d ask you to consider helping by using some of the “it doesn’t matter where you are” opportunities.

If you purchase anything from Amazon and you start your search from our webpage, the band gets a donation from Amazon on your behalf.  If you shop at Safeway or Randall’s, you can add us to your membership card and they’ll send us 1% of your purchases.  If there’s a Compass Bank near you, you can tie your account to us and we get a percentage of your debit card purchases.  And using Goodsearch or the Goodsearch toolbar is a great way to support us as well.

So take a look at some of these ways to support my daughter’s band, and whistle the rest of the year knowing you helped a great guy on his birthday support a great cause.  And best of all, you didn’t have to spend any money to do it.

Thank you.

Wow, it’s been four years since I last posted a picture of our Christmas Tree.  Time sure does fly when you’re not blogging.

Earlier today I tried several times to tweet my XMAS tree picture, but something was going on between Tweets for iPhone, the t.co shortener, twitpic or maybe it was something the dogs ate.  But no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get my XMAS tree picture posted online.  Good ‘ol Marty pointed this out to me and held on fast, and claimed he had the patience to sit it out.

If you ask me, it’s a Christmas Miracle.  Much like Tiny Tim getting the ability to eat and muster up the energy to bless our ears with “God Bless Us, Every One!” I am now filled with the ability to blog and can muster up the energy to bless your eyes with “Hall XMAS Tree, 2011“.  I’m sure you see the pertinent relevant characteristics.  Tim wouldn’t have felt the way he did without the infirmity of not being able to walk, and I wouldn’t have felt this need to blog without the calamity of twitpic problems.

Wait, what’s that?  What is that up on the tree?  Is it a TRAIN?

Why YES IT IS, it’s a train.  Up in the tree.

Choo-choo!

Well, I for one am exhausted, what with all this blogging and stuff.  Happy Thanksgiving!

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I travel a lot.  Yesterday Jaden called me while I was out of town because the Playstation 3 was having problems connecting to the network.  He was perturbed because he likes playing online with his friends with  his favoritest game of all time:

Ok, so he has four (4) favoritest games, and they’re all Transformers.

• Transformers, the Game (from the 1st movie)
• Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (from the 2nd movie)
• Transformers War for Cybertron (no movie)
• Transformers Dark of the Moon (from the 3rd movie)

Coincidentally, shortly before he called I noticed a Facebook update from a friend complaining about the Playstation Network. 

For those who are unfamiliar with the Playstation Network (PSN), let me bring you up to speed.  The PSN can sometimes be a flaming pile of guano left baking in the Texas sun.  When it’s down (which seems often), most games don’t play at all.  It’s not just that you can’t play online with others, but for some games, you can’t even launch the game because the game developers and/or Sony decided that it’d be neat to require the online portion to be working.

Armed with the tip-off from Facebook, I could convey to my son that it probably wasn’t our Internet connection but most likely the Playstation Network that was down.  So I asked him if the other computers, laptops, gadgets were working.  He he asked me to hold on while he checked.

It took him a while.  I stayed on hold for a good 4-5 minutes, which actually is a long time knowing that there are plenty of Internet-enabled devices to check.  He eventually returned with confirmation that other devices in the house were indeed working fine.  I felt good in the knowledge that I was coaching him on the tenets of proper troubleshooting. 

We comiserated on his inability to play his game with his online friends, then I asked him about his day and how his Backyard Monsters were doing.  After our chat, we hung up, I went about my work out of town and returned that night.

Today I found this on my home office desk.

I rest easy knowing that in addition to solid Troubleshooting skills, I’ve also imparted two equally important abilities, and that is Documentation and Communication.  Now I know why it took so long for him to return to the phone.

As many of you know, I’m a proud daddy of two great kids: Jaden and Caitlin.   This post is about Caitlin and your chance to watch her tomorrow afternoon LIVE from the ALAMODOME.

That’s right, the Alamodome.

As many of you also know, Caitlin is currently a drum major in Vandegrift High School Marching Band.  This very young school music program, only in it’s 3rd year in existence, has recently advanced to the Texas UIL State finals for Class 4A Marching Band.  This means they are in the top 24 out of 250 bands in the State (after District and Area qualification rounds).

[insert fist pump here]

That’s a pretty big deal.  Texas is already blessed with a great reputation for music education.  On top of that, the Viper band is actually fairly small for a 4A band.  Due to the way the school was formed (first year was 9th and 10th graders only, then second year added 11th, then this year added 12th), the senior class is quite small.  There are only 17 seniors in the band.  That’s rather small for Class 4A (total school size between 990-2064). 

Why do I mention it?  Well, thanks to Yamaha and Mr Video Productions, you can WATCH TEXAS UIL STATE CONTEST ONLINE FOR FREE!

http://streaming.mrvideoonline.com/uil-state-2011

It’s actually going on right now — Monday the 7th and Tuesday the 8th.  There’s an entire schedule of events available at uiltexas.org.

Vandegrift plays at 1:15pm CENTRAL (2:15 eastern, 11:15am Pacific) on Tuesday 11/8/2011, so if you’d like to see my daughter and her band nice and clear on your PC, you can click the above link and watch.   I’ve watched a few bands and they have some neat close-ups and coverage of the event.

Hint: Caitlin is the Drum Major on the left, the flute soloist and the piccolo player in the center troupe.

Disclaimer: there may or may not be Tribbles at the State contest.

If you happen to miss that specific time or are not available, you can go online and watch archived performances at vhsband.com.

Congratulations to the Viper Band!

… when all around is dark.

    — Monty Python skit about Oscar Wilde.

One of our daughter’s friends snapped this picture of her during one of the band’s rehearsals and posted it to Facebook.

Mom and I are quite proud of our little Drum Major.  She volunteers, gets good grades, has fantastic friends and helps a ton of other students all the time.  We’re very lucky to have her. 

Thank you, Caitlin for making our lives better.

There are a few cool birthday’s going on in my local Twittersphere (Becky aka hellohahanarf, David aka nycwatchdog aka “Dawg”, Karen aka karensugarpants come to mind).   Ok, it just hit me that I know a lot of people with aliases.  I wonder if that puts me on some watch list somewhere.

But there’s one birthday going on today that’s very local and very cool.

My little girl is 17 today!

She’s starting her senior year and it looks to be a great one.  She’s Drum Major of an award-winning band, she gets good grades in a course schedule that’s filled with all AP or pre-AP classes, and has surrounded herself with a cadre of stellar friends.  She’s responsible, generous with volunteering and brings her parents much pride as she navigates life and discovers what it has in store for her.  She herself has won several awards relating to music, including the John Phillip Sousa award, UIL Outstanding Performer, and Outstanding Musician just to name a few.

I really don’t know how I could be happier with what she brings to our lives.

Oh wait, I just thought of something.

She’s raising money for her band’s March-a-thon.  If she was one of the top fundraisers, THAT would make me more proud of a papa.

On Saturday, August 6th, the Vandegrift High School Marching Band will set out and march a local neighborhood for 4+ hours, braving the triple-digit heat and raising money to help the band.  This is their biggest fundraiser of the year, and as a student leader, Caitlin is expected to raise the bar.

The way I see it, you have two choices.

or…

Vote with your heart, people.  Your heart has NEVER steered you wrong.

PS: Happy Birthday, punkin’

I wasn’t kidding.

Tigger takes his job very seriously.

He’s always there for the family, watching out for strangers, enemies, mailmen, evil insurgents that might break into the house at night and take the dog food and/or treats, and especially other animals such as rabbits.

You just can’t trust rabbits.

Who is your copilot?

Good news, everyone!

– Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, Futurama

If you’ve been following my most recent entries, you know that A) I begged the internet to help spread the word about my wife’s artwork entry in an online Duran Duran voting contest and B) I thanked everyone for their help, because it looked like she made 13th place out of > 300 in a contest that takes the Top 10, which in itself was an amazing feat.

Well, we found out over the weekend that after what we assume was a re-tallying of the eligible votes, her entry was officially named a member of the Top 10!

[cue the holla]

According to the official contest website, “Winners announced in 1 day”.  The details indicate that final judging ends tonight at 8:31pm EDT.

What does this mean?

Well, it means that for sure, the band viewed her artwork!

This was the huge thrill she was after — I mean, sure, it’d be incredible if they chose her artwork as the grand prize winner, but just having them look at her artwork is an amazing experience.

She’s so thankful to all of you who helped her get into the Top 10.

We’ll be paying close attention to see who wins the Grand Prize.  There are so many beautiful entries I’m sure it was difficult for them to choose.

And for those D2 fans out there, here’s a little sumthin’sumthin.  How many references can you spot?

To whom it may concern: Is there anyone out there tempted to add a little UMF to the Duran Duran Artwork contest? I tricked out my entry so you should click on it, zoom in, and give in to the reflex to vote for my success. Can you deal with it? I don’t need to be the last man standing, just one of the top 10. Sorry if it’s too much information, but I’m barely still breathing at the proposition that one of these days I might go from nice to notorius my own way. I’ve had a few friends of mine click faster than light and I’m about to come undone! It’s like being freed from chains on the perfect day in my finest hour. Fame is not a big thing to me, it’s just a matter of feeling what the first impression will be when the wild boys of Duran Duran take my artwork and look at it with their own eyes. It’s like my artwork is pleading “hold me” and that would make me smile.

Thank you, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow. I’m serious.

[The Duran Duran fans out there will recognize 'Thank You' as the D2 Covers Album from 1995...]

Well, the contest is over.  The gist is, we don’t think she made it, but we won’t know for sure for 9 days.

I’ve flirted with the limits usually ascribed to “friend” and “acquaintance” and “fellow blogger” by invading Twitter feeds, plastering onto Facebook walls, infecting email inboxes and exploding forth with word-of-mouth tenacity.  I’m sure some people are fed up to “here” with whall and his constant reminding to vote.

Then again, I’m sure some people… dare I say more people… are happy to have helped and are hopeful for her entry.  They’re truly excited to find out results and have wished her the best the whole time.  It’s these people who mean so much to me.  They know I don’t go on daily, weekly or even monthly “help me” online frenzies.  I think everyone’s entitled to a little wacky-involve-everyone-you-can-this-could-be-big excitement every once in a while and I’m glad for those of you who helped.

As far as status goes, the contest is currently in the Judging phase:

To be brutally honest, we’re not thinking she made it.  But there’s still a slight possibility she might make it, so we’ll stay tuned to see what happens.

There’s more detail in the extended entry. (more…)

If you’re one of my friends, have known me (or my family), like me, and/or trust me, or have been referred here by someone you know, like or trust…

…I’ll save you time and just ask that you please go and vote for my wife’s artwork entry in an online voting contest. There’s no login required, Login to Facebook if you have an account, and you can vote once per day (see update at bottom) until 3/28.  Please spread the word (more details below).  I’d really appreciate it.

For everyone else… this is my plea to you.

Most of you who have read my blog (it’s been up for what, 5 years now? Almost 6?) have noticed that I rarely write about my wife.  My son Jaden (now 9yrs old) is all over the place on the blog (he loves the attention and being “on the internet”), and every once in a while I write about my 16yr old Caitlin, but both my daughter and my wife prefer to be a little more private than the rest of us.

My Wife

My wife is completely wonderful.  Those of you who know her know this.  We’ve been married 18 years, have two beautiful children, and get through the daily and yearly challenges of life together.  She’s supported me throughout my career and I want to support her now for something that is very important to her.

It is out of respect for her privacy that I shy away from extolling her virtues and bragging about her all the time.  This blog would be filled with her awesomeness if I could have that publishing embargo lifted, but, alas, it was not meant to be, and I’m fine with that.  Her privacy is important to her, so that makes it important to me.

When I say “privacy”  I don’t mean aloofness, or elitism, or anything like that. She just doesn’t “get” online stuff like many of us do — she’s not on facebook; she doesn’t “do” twitter; heck, she doesn’t even read her email but a couple times a month.  She’d rather talk in person or on the phone to connect with people. People who have her email address know that they can wait a looong time before a response comes.

She just has this… wall.  A wall exists between her and online communication.  She has zero interest in online camaraderie, forums, blogs, tweets or facebook status updates.  She’d rather have a tea or coffee with a friend than type away on a keyboard or read other people’s comments.  It’s just not her thing.

Some Details

One thing I’m allowed to share about my wife is her love and admiration for Duran Duran.  She’s been a Duranie since before I met her, and that was a looong time ago. I wouldn’t even attempt to put into words here what she feels for them for fear that I’d mess it up horribly. Just know that D2, as they’re affectionately called by their fans, means a lot to her.  An incredible lot.

Another thing I can share is that my wife is an artist.  She’s extremely creative and has solid talent in lots of artistic mediums.  She’s simply brilliant.

When she heard that Duran Duran was doing a contest — an ART CONTEST, no less — well, let’s just say it tore. down. that. wall.

The Contest

So here’s the deal – Duran Duran’s contest is where fans submit their artwork and then get people to vote for their artwork.   They are promoting their new album All You Need Is Now (I suggested they call it “Whall You Need Is Now” but they turned me down).  The artwork is judged on Creativity/Originality (50%), Relatedness to Duran Duran’s “All You Need Is Now” (25%) and Aesthetic appeal (25%).  They specifically are looking for art inspired by their new album’s look and feel.

The top 10 vote-getters will advance into the next stage where the band actually views the art and votes on a winner — that winner gets a framed print of their art signed by Duran Duran, 2 tickets to see any tour performance of choice, and 2 tickets to the meet-and-greet tour performance of choice.

That’s right, I said “meet-and-greet”.

Once she realized that the contest was an online contest, I had to explain what an online voting contest was, and that it was largely a popularity contest, and it involves getting people to go online to vote and OH WOULD YOU PLEASE GET PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR MY ARTWORK WAYNE?!?!?!?! YOU’RE A COMPUTER GUY WITH ALL THE TWEETY FRIENDS AND BLOGGERS AND STUFF!!!!

All of a sudden she was OK with making a facebook account and emailing and tweeting and retweeting and asking others to ask others to vote for her artwork because — SHE COULD POSSIBLY GET THEM TO SEE HER ARTWORK!

For her, getting to the top 10 means knowing that the members of Duran Duran saw her artwork.  And judged it. Reviewed it.  And considered it closely.  AND THEY MIGHT LOOK AT MY ARTWORK, WAYNE!!!!!

What You Can Do To Help

This, my friends, is what I’m asking your help for.  I want my wife to get her artwork seen by the members of Duran Duran. That will only happen if she gets to the top 10.

Would you help us?  We need as many votes as possible.

Here’s her artwork – click on it to vote for her entry.

(click here for larger image)

Remember, you can vote ONCE PER DAY (!!!) from now until March 28th.   That’s almost two weeks of voting.  Set a calendar reminder if you have to. (see update, below) You can click on this link, once every day until 3/28 and it will help her achieve her dream.  You don’t have to login or join Facebook – it will only make you type in a couple of verification words to prove you’re not a robot.

And if you know anything about marriage, you know a happy wife makes for a happy husband.  Maybe I should say “happier“.

How to Help More – Share the Love

Won’t you please share this with your friends?  I’m looking to make this as public as possible so she get tons of votes. Point them to my blog entry with http://bit.ly/d2whall or you can use

http://tinyurl.com/voteforchristy

as a short link in Facebook, twitter, email, etc. to go directly to the voting page.

If you’re on twitter, here’s a link that will tweet for you (editable of course)

And if you need a Facebook status to copy and paste, here’s one:

Vote for Wayne’s wife in a Duran Duran art contest, up until 3/28!  http://bit.ly/d2whall (Please share with others!)

Thank you so much!

Update [3/18]: It appears that even though the Official Rules of the contest state that “Limit one (1) vote per person per day“, the voting widget itself says “You can vote for each entry once during this contest.”   This discrepancy and the fast rise in voting for her entry are causing people to question the validity of voting.  I’m not sure which rule is accurate and I surely don’t want to cause anyone any grief.  So, for now, concentrate on your one vote (and vote through Facebook if you can) and spreading the word.  We’re all D2 lovers around here and drama can check itself at the door.