The Oo Kingdom is the official website of Charlie, Wendi and Joe Petitt of Janesville, Wisconsin. The word Oo is pronounced in two syllables (OO-oo) and appears to be a variant of cuckoo. It’s an old nickname I (Charlie) had as a little boy. Read How Oo Began for more details.
Our goal is to provide visitors with clean, friendly entertainment and information, and to share our areas of interest, including our faith, recipes and photography. We also hope to set a good example for other webmasters through meticulous adherence to established standards of Web design.
Overview of the Site
- Close to Home is what we call the root directory of The Oo Kingdom. It includes our Home page, a site map, information about the site and our family, and links to other sites.
- Our News Archive contains news of site updates and other events. Occasionally I will post a bit of commentary there.
- Web Design is intended for people who build websites, from beginners to seasoned pros. The section includes useful information as well as links to helpful resources on the Web.
- Our Faith features our statement of faith, a summary of God’s Biblical plan for eternal life, what should follow in the Christian walk, plus a poem and some essays.
- Ummy’s Nummies is a collection of our favorite recipes. Some are original.
- Seasons & Holidays is our take on various celebrations and observances throughout the year. Some pieces are humorous; others are serious and contemplative. Included are links to other resources.
- Just For Laughs consists of jokes and funny stories. Some are original; most came from email.
- Metric Conversions, Etc. offers tools for converting a variety of English and metric units. You can calculate area or volume from dimensions too. There is also a Perpetual Calendar, a Body Mass Index calculator, a Wind Chill calculator, conversion factors and formulas, fraction-to-decimal conversion charts and links to more resources on the Web.
- Ummamum’s World (pronounced UM-um-um) is a cute section filled with fanciful prose, poetry, drawings and multimedia. You just have to see Ummamum’s Surprise!
- A Heavenly Ummamum contains inspirational, heart-warming and/or thought-provoking pieces, mostly gleaned from emails.
- Oo’s Writings features essays, stories and poetry by Charlie Petitt (me). A few of the essays are commentaries on the development of this site. Posts to this section after 2004 fall under the heading of Umm… He Said.
- Ummamum’s Picture Place is our online gallery. It contains original photographs and computer art, along with the stories behind them.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions regarding The Oo Kingdom, please contact us. Your input is greatly appreciated!
About Our Changing Logos
The title logo on the Home page is rotated with the season. Following is the display schedule:
- Blizzard
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- January 1 through February 6
- Full Moon
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- February 7 through March 13
- Daybreak
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- March 14 through April 15
- Birds
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- April 16 through nine days before Memorial Day
- USA Flag
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- Memorial Day, and the eight days preceding it
- June 14 (Flag Day) through July 5
- Labor Day, and the eight days preceding it
- Backyard
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- The day after Memorial Day through June 13
- July 6 through July 31
- Summer Farm Scene
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- August 1 through nine days before Labor Day
- The day after Labor Day through September 21
- Autumn Medley
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- September 22 through Thanksgiving Day
- Holiday
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- The day after Thanksgiving through December 31
A red and maroon sunset logo is used on the Google search results pages.
Our Home Page Greeting
Near the top of our Home page, you may find something like this:
Say Oo in two syllables
(OO-oo) to rhyme with cuckoo.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007 — 7:53 pm cst
Today is the 324th day of 2007
and the 9,166th day of the marriage of Charlie & Wendi Petitt.
Enjoy your evening!
The first line will always be the same (the part about Oo). The second line gives the date and time in Central Standard or Central Daylight Time, which is the local time for Janesville, Wisconsin, where we live.
The next two lines give the day of the year (beginning with January 1 as the first day), and the day of our marriage (we were married on October 16, 1982, and the count begins the day after that).
The final paragraph (one or two lines) uses JavaScript to display a greeting appropriate for the time of day, based on your computer’s built-in clock.
For the benefit of those viewing the site with no JavaScript (or who are just reading this for the fun of it), I have listed the greeting lines as they appear at different times of the day (based on your local time):
- Midnight to 4 a.m.
- The king’s loyal subjects are all fast asleep…
Except for YOU! What are you doing up at this hour? - 4 a.m. to 8 a.m.
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- Tuesday or Thursday
- Hmmm… shall I stay up or slither back into bed?
- Wednesday or Saturday
- The early bird gets the worm… but who wants a worm, anyway?
- Sunday, Monday or Friday
- Good morning! What would you like to drink:
Coffee, tea, hot chocolate or Mountain Dew®?
- 8 a.m. to noon
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- Monday, Wednesday or Thursday
- Hope your morning is a good one so far.
- Sunday, Tuesday, Friday or Saturday
- God made this day beautiful… really!
- Noon to 3 p.m.
- Have a great afternoon!
- 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
- What’s for dinner?
- 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
- Enjoy your evening!
- 9 p.m. to midnight
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- Monday, Wednesday or Friday
- Good night! Pleasant dreams.
- Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday
- Have a good night and a bright tomorrow!
Glossary of Terms Used on Our Site
- Hex (for hexadecimal)
Refers to a numerical system based on 16 instead of 10. Used in computer codes, often to denote color values.
Hexadecimal systems use the numerals 0 through 9 plus the letters A through F, which stand for the numbers 10 through 15. Two characters in a row (from 00 to FF) can denote any number from 0 to 255.
In color values, the pound symbol (#) precedes a set of six hexadecimal characters (example: #ffd700). The first two symbols give a value for the red color component; the middle two symbols give a value for the green, and the final two give a value for the blue (hence the term RGB for red, green and blue).
- Legacy browsers
This term is used in modern Web designer circles to denote browsers which fail in their support for XML. Included are Internet Explorer 6 and older, and Netscape 4.8 and older. Not included are newer XML-capable browsers such as Netscape 6 or higher, Opera 6 or higher, and the new generation of Mozilla browsers.
- Mud room
A small room or entryway in a house where wet or muddy footwear and clothing can be removed. We have one at the back of our house, and it doubles as the laundry room. The term is used mainly in the USA and Canada.
- Oo (pronounced in two syllables: OO-oo)
An old nickname that I (Charlie Petitt) had when I was a little boy. It was my imitation of the sound made by a cuckoo clock. I later used it as part of the name for this site.
- Ummamum (pronounced UM-um-um)
A nonsense word spoken by saying three um’s with the upper teeth protruding over the lower lip. Also, a funny face (usually green) drawn with its upper teeth sticking out. See Ummamum’s World for lots of funny Ummamum-related stuff.
- UTC
Universal Time Coordinated is the international time standard. You may know it as Greenwich Mean Time. On this site, it was used in news posts made before September 30, 2004; posts made since then use Central Time, which is the local time for Janesville, Wisconsin, where we live. UTC is six hours ahead of our local time (five hours when Daylight Saving Time is in effect).
More detailed explanations of UTC are available at the following links:
- What is UTC?
- Universal Time — from the U.S. Naval Observatory