News Archive: October 2002


October 1, 2002

All HTML on ookingdom.com has been upgraded to meet the latest standards and specifications. Each page meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Conformance AAA.

Recent postings on this page regarding Oo can be found at the following two pages in The House of Oo:

Oo’s Almanac now lists the first recording of Oo on tape, along with the other events.

October 2, 2002

A new page entitled Our Home Page Greeting was posted today. Also, Ummamum Media Files has been updated to include text transcripts of all sound clips.

October 4, 2002

On this date in 1981, I asked Wendi out for our first date. Twelve days from today will be our 20th wedding anniversary.

October 5, 2002

YES! Wendi did agree to go out with me on our first date. Of course that was in 1981. I took her to Ponderosa Steak House in Beloit, Wisconsin, where we ate T-bone steak for dinner. Then we went to a park, where we talked for quite a while and took a short walk. Finally, we went to Arby’s for some root beer.

We’re still trying to figure out what to do for our 20th anniversary on October 16.

Don’t recall seeing that “Digital Home” line on the logo before? Well, it’s new with Version 7.01.

Second posting, 12:30 p.m. Central Time

Shorts 2002 makes its debut in our humor section.

October 7, 2002

All 11 of our logos have been remade to include this line of text: “Digital Home of Charlie Petitt & Family”. At first, I set it up to display actual text on the page, but that was messing up on Internet Explorer for the Mac, so I did it this way instead. This looks nicer, anyway.

Our scanner broke, so I had to get a new one. This one will even scan slides or negatives! Expect some new pictures online very soon.

October 15, 2002

It’s open season on Ummamum adoptions. You may also want to see our new 20th Anniversary Page.

October 16, 2002

Well, it’s now 20 years and counting for Wendi and me.

Some older pictures are making their way into Ummamum’s Picture Place. All of 2001 is now complete; 2000 will follow soon.

October 18, 2002

The pictures from the year 2000 are now online at Ummamum’s Picture Place. Some pictures in the original sections have been omitted due to privacy concerns.

October 24, 2002

A few small changes have been made:

Sea Moss and Lichens

My eldest brother worked at an electronics manufacturing firm, and he would often bring rejected parts home for my dad to experiment with (he was into electronics too). When CMOS (pronounced SEE-moss) technology came into use in the 1970s, he and Dad were both excited about its potential. Tiny chips, requiring less power than normal transistor circuits, could replace large, complex circuit boards! They were forever talking about new projects they were building with these CMOS chips.

My sister and I didn’t know that CMOS was an acronym for Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. To us, it sounded like sea moss—the kind of moss that would grow in the ocean. We assumed it was a code name of some sort for the new technology.

One day I made a funny… or maybe it was a real groaner! I said, “If they call them sea moss, it’s no wonder Dad took such a lichen to them.”

Radiator Leeks?

It was Saturday, October 19, 2002, and I was busily bagging groceries at the grocery store.

A customer came through with a good deal of produce on his order. Included on the order were some leeks, a large green onion-like vegetable.

“Better not get these near your radiator,” I warned the man. “No one wants leeks in his radiator!”

Second posting, 3:20 p.m. Central Time

A second footnote has been added to How Oo Began.

Our old cover pictures have returned! They’re in a new section of Ummamum’s Picture Place called The Oo Kingdom Cover Picture Archive (this may return in 2022).

October 25, 2002

Six new pages appear in Just For Laughs, beginning with Marriage Advice From Kids. They are ones I discovered in my archived email.