07 March 2009:  We've really been plugging away at getting the site updated - we really have.  Don is currently in school in Gulfport, MS so his weekends are free and he's been making the most of them to get everything up to date.  We've completed all updates through 2007.  We'll get to 2008 and 2009 and have the site completely up to date when Don gets back from his next travel assignment at the end of April.  In the mean time, there are TONS of new stuff here for all to look through.  Please start with the SITE INDEX as that will show you what pages have had the content changed on them (updated) as well as show you all the new pages we've added.

01 November 2008:  Well this update has been a long time coming and is a major revision.  Firstly, for those of you still on dial-up 56K, the photo pages are going to kill you.  I changed the format from 25 photos per page to 50 per page.  This was to consolidate the pages - there was just getting to be way too many.  The largest page right now will take almost 5 minutes to completely load at dial-up speeds.  Sorry...but you really should get high-speed broad band, it's 2008!  I've also added ALL of the photos from 2006 and 2007 - there are A LOT of new photos there.  I'll be getting to the photos from 2008 soon and hope to have them posted in the next couple of months.  After this I am going to REALLY make a hard effort at updating every month or so.  Editing over a thousand photos over the past month has not been all that fun.  Please let me know what you think of the update...especially if you are having significant problems with the pages loading now that I've consolidated the photos.  If enough people are having problems I'll split them back up (but I really would rather not).  Let me know though.

26 May 2007:  OK, I've gotten tons of e-mail from everyone complaining about the site.  I'm really sorry that I am not even close to keeping it up to date and I will no longer even say I will try.  I will update it at once a year!!!  But I'll make no further promises than that.  Things are just too busy with work and the house for me to find time to sit at the computer for hours updating it.  So why the update now?  It's 95 degrees outside and I'm not about to do any of the projects I have waiting - today's my down day sitting in the office with the A/C on.  So, I'll do my best to get everything updated.  And in the future, we'll see how often I can get around to updating this.  No promises beyond the "once per year" update.  Though I will really try to do it more often (though I've said that before).  Anyway, on to the update.  Check out the Site Index so you can see which pages are updated and which pages are new.  The updated photo pages corrected them so you can click on them for the pop-up large picture.  Then there are tons of new photo pages all together.  Check 'em out and let us know what you think.

01 March 2006:  WOW, can you believe it's been almost a year since I did a full update of the site.  Well, for those of you that know me, the answer is Yes.  I have not been exactly punctual on my updates before this, so add in a change of duty stations and family move into it and of course you can believe it.  Well, I finally got around to it (see update below and you'll understand why).  I added 13 pages of photos plus a page of drawings.  That'll take you a while to go through.  There have also been a few minor tweaks here and there updating pages, but nothing big.  Once again, checking out the site index is the best place to start as it will show you what has changed/been added.  No promises, but hopefully I'll keep things a little more up-to-date.

01 September 2005:  A quick update to a few pages to reflect our recent move.  Don't have the time yet to update photos, I'll get to it soon enough though, please be patient.

27 March 2005:  I added new photos to 2005, pages 2 and 3.  I also made some minor layout changes to a few other pages and corrected some typos that several of you sent reports in about.

19 March 2005:  I added new photos to the 2005 page 1 and created a page 2.  I updated many of my woodworking pages, mainly to separate some of the content, but also to add new stuff.  And FINALLY - I've added some pictures to the art gallery.  I'll get the girls to do some new stuff and get that posted - it'll be a lot easier now that we have a scanner again.

27 February 2005:  I added a new page for the USS CONSTITUTION - read family updates below and you'll understand why.  The page is located under my pages.  The site is running very well on the new server.  By the way, the photo from the breaking news has been downloaded over 122 times now!!!

06 February 2005:  Well, all is set up with my new internet host (ixwebhosting).  Yes, I know I said last time I was going with PowWeb...but at the last minute I changed my mind - they are currently going through some hard times with recent hardware upgrades and a lot of down time.  Not something I'm interested in having to deal with.  So I went with my #2 choice.  Things went very smoothly with the transition and some preliminary testing showed excellent results.  If you have checked out the site while I was hosting it on my home server (www.abele.no-ip.com) then you will only notice some minor updates.  Check out the Site Index to find out what pages have been updated since then.  Please be sure to update your bookmarks/favorites if you changed it for the no-ip address - that site will be coming down in a week.  Oh...be sure to check out the "Breaking News" below.

31 January 2005:  Well, after 3 weeks of dealing with my PREVIOUS hosting company (Full Service Hosting) I gave up and registered to have PowWeb Hosting take things over.  All went smoothly and the site will be back up and running on their servers in a couple of days.  Hopefully I'll have better luck with this company.  Oddly enough, today I received an e-mail from FSH saying they were working on my problem!!!  Nice, 3 weeks for them to START working on it.  I called and told them I was cancelling - their reply, "OK"   No trying to convince me otherwise - that's when I knew I had made the right decision.  Since the company was bought out it has gone down the toilet.  If you see any problems with the web site, please e-mail me as it will take a little while to shake all the bugs out of the hosting server.

24 January 2005:  All right.  Well, I'm fed up with Full Service Hosting.  After 3 weeks they still have not been able to fix the problem with our web site - so I'm unable to upload anything to it to update it.  Soooo...I'm in the process of getting a new hosting service - this time from one that has many years of excellent customer support testimonials.  It may be a while for them to get things up and running, so in the mean time this is what I came up with.  I'm now running the web site from our computer server at home.  I don't know how long my internet provider (Cox) is going to let me get away with this - but until they tell me otherwise, it'll be here until I get the new host set up.  You'll need to use a temporary address to get to it, rather than having to type in my server's IP address (a bunch of numbers).  Since you've obviously found it, you know that the address is:  www.abele.no-ip.com.  If you try and connect at a later time and can't, it may be that I have the server down.  Please e-mail me and let me know if you have any problems.

09 January 2005:  OK, no more promises for me to do monthly updates.  I'll update when I get time to - so get off my back!!!  Seriously though, it's been busy and I had a lot of photos to edit.  Check out all the new photos starting on 2004, page 11.  I updated that page and added another 6 pages (over 200 new photos).  I've also updated the Woodworking Page (for a small project) and the Pets Page (to fix content).  I also fixed the counter to reflect when I actually started the site (December 2000).  I know that the feedback form is not working.  Full Service Hosting is working on it.  In the mean time, if you have any feedback, e-mail them to:  webmaster@abele.ws  I have put an updated feedback form on the link at the bottom of each page which will direct you to e-mail me directly.

07 November 2004:  The only updates this time were the addition of new photos (2004, page 10 and page 11).  See family updates for more information on them.

25 October 2004:  Well, I'm staying on track with monthly updates.  I added some more to my woodworking pages and published a bunch more pictures starting on page 7.  Another update will be coming soon - see Family Update below.

18 September 2004:  Yeah, yeah...I know.  I told you I would update on a more regular basis and here I am finally getting around to posting the pictures from the past 3 months.  I've been busy...so get off my back!!!  Anyway, there are almost 150 new photos - start on 2004, Page 2 and go from there, lots of new and really cool stuff.  There is also a new page for my trip to Florida (see Family Update).  I also added pictures of my beer draft system (long in the works).

31 July 2004:  Well, there was no update for June.  That was because we were busy with people visiting and finally taking a vacation (see below).  Anyway, I've finally gotten some time and updated it.  So here's what has changed.  I added a metric butt-ton of new pictures.  They probably won't all be there until tomorrow, but it'll get done this weekend.  I also added a script to the top right column that displays the current terror threat level.  I had been looking for this for a while and, oddly enough, it was the Department of Homeland Security that published it.  Oh, I added their link to the links page as well.  I also posted an update to my truck page detailing some "minor" changes.

28 May 2004:  This is a quick update.  I realized I did not have a box to the left for Memorial Day, so had to fix that.  If you click the picture, it will take you to the web site for the White House Commission on Remembrance.  Please remember to pause for a moment of silence on May 31st at 3:00 pm in memory of our fallen heroes.  Please note though that Memorial Day is actually  May 30th, not Monday the 31st.  Memorial day has a deeper and more solemn meaning other than to have a 3 day weekend and to kick summer off.  It's a day of mourning, not celebration - let's keep it that way, if for only a minute at 3:00 pm.  Thanks.

09 May 2004:  As I have promised, I am updating the site monthly now.  I made a few changes yesterday (see family update) and today I added a bunch of pics that were taken during April.  The thumbnails and full sized images are different sized (just a little), because the new digital camera shoots in a much higher resolution and the ratio is different.  I've still kept them to a max size of 800x533.  That's it for now, I need to upload this and then I'll send an e-mail to everyone (I forgot that last month).  Be well...

06 April 2004:  Well, I did say that I would keep this more up to date than I had been doing.  And it's been about a month since I updated it.  So, I had some free time tonight and did just that.  Of course, I really didn't update much.  I added a new link to the right for the Freedom Pen Project and a page to my woodworking about the turn-a-thon we did in support of it.  It's an excellent project, please check it out.  I also updated the links page, adding a few new woodworking ones, and...big news in the family update below (if you haven't heard yet).  Until the next update...

04 March 2004:  Yeah, I know.  I promised to keep up to date and here it is March and I'm just getting around to posting Christmas pictures.  No excuses.  I got busy with other stuff.  But I've added 3 pages of pics, so be happy :-)  Anyway, didn't do much else tonight.  I'll hurry and finish this up and send out the e-mail to all notifying you of the update.  I'm not going to promise to keep up to date...I just can't seem to keep that one, but I'll try.

02December 2003:  Well, as I promised, I'm keeping it up to date.  I've added a page to my woodworking area that covers the new miter saw table I built.

On a positive note, from feedback I received (thank you for it), I made a layout change to the photos pages.  There are now buttons at the bottom which allow you to click to the previous page and the next page.  This allows faster scanning through them.  There is also a button which allows you to immediately return to the top of the page so you can access the menu.

I've also received feedback from several people that the pages are not displaying correctly, mainly the menu.  I found that this seems to be primarily related to Netscape.  I've added a pop-up which will detect whether you are running Netscape or not.  If you are, it warns you that the pages and menu will not display correctly and that you should switch to Internet Explorer.  Again, I'm just as anti-Microsoft monopoly as anyone else, but I can't spend the time to make the site 100% cross browser compatible, so please just use the industry standard.  That's it for now.  More updates soon.

26 October 2003:  I know you probably already know how I am going to begin this - basically the same way I always do - telling you that I have changed the layout of the site, once again!!!  Well, I just can not seem to get it the way I like.  It has been quite a while since I made any real changes to it.  The change of homeport and all the underways that followed were really hectic and left little free time.  But now that we are high on the blocks, I shouldn't be going anywhere soon and hope to get this completely updated.

I added a new section for archives of our family updates, as I already had been doing for the site updates.  Just saving some history.  I deleted the link for sending e-mail - it was a spam attack waiting to happen.  So I've added a link to a web-based feedback form.  If you have any comments, fill it out and it'll send it to me.

I really like the new menu across the top.  It's easy to use and even easier to program.  If you have your screen resolution set at anything less that 1024x768 the entire site is not going to look right.  Your browser will squish everything down to fit into the window (except the menu).  Unless you have a really small monitor, there's really no reason to set the resolution at 800x600.

The next update should be around the holidays when I add more pictures, unless I get to update some of the "under construction" pages before then (I'm going to tackle the art pages next).

26 April 2003:  I completely changed the way that the home page looks (yes, again), mainly because I just can not seem to get it to look the way I want.  It also had a lot to do with people complaining about the Java Script I used for the menu not working and taking a while to load, so I got rid of it.  Of course, I replaced it with another Java menu, but this one seems to work a lot better and is much easier to update.  It does get kinda funky looking if you are using Netscape.  As I said before, I don't have time to make this thing 100% cross-browser compatible, so switch to Internet Explorer.  I also wanted to change the layout of the page to kind of a newspaper layout with columns and boxes.  This allows me to put specific things I think are important right on the home page (and easier to update them).  It's another drastic change, so please let me know what you think of it.  If you don't like it...don't worry, it'll probably change in a couple of months anyway  :-P  But if you do have suggestions for improvement, please let me know.  That's it for now...

02 September 2002:  Wow...it's been a while since I updated the site (of course there was another deployment in there to hamper things).  So it's time for a major revision (and yes Elisabeth, I am a perfectionist).  So where to begin...

In my area, under "Doc" I updated all the pages with a disclaimer to keep me out of trouble.  I've have finally completed the "Chiefs" page, the "Navy" page, and the "Submarine" page.  I also added a page on the USS CHIEF and one on the SSGN conversion.  My home brewing and woodworking sections seem destined to remain "Under Construction" for ever.  I just can't seem to get the together.  <sighs>  I'll get around to them eventually (as well as sorting out the links page).  The most drastic change though was with the photos pages.  As it was, you had to check out 4 different pages just to find all the new photos I post (a page for me, one for Kel, and one each for the girls).  Additionally, if the photo contained more than one of us, it was on multiple pages.  This was a big pain from the beginning, so I went back to an original idea.  All the photos are in a single area, listed chronologically from 1965 to the present.  To keep the pages loading quickly, each page only contains 25 photos.  The new photos will be on the last page, at the bottom.  This makes it quicker and easier to keep up to date.  It also makes it easier to put miscellaneous photos in there too.

I'll be adding a new section shortly too...there will be an "Art Gallery" where I'll put photos of the kid's art work.  I've been thinking about this for a while and I'll get hot on it here in the next couple of weeks.

Well that's enough changes for today...time to publish this thing to the web...it's going to take forever to upload with all the major changes...enjoy!!!

16 February 2002:  I've given the web site a new make over and hope you like what I've done with it.  The pages have basically stayed the same, but I've changed the layout considerably.  Primarily I got rid of the Microsoft themes layout which also eliminated the navigation buttons at the top of the screen.  Hopefully these new changes will make the pages load faster and be easier to navigate around.  As always, if there are changes you would like to see (or improvements you can recommend), please e-mail them to me.

29 January 2002:  I am finally able to post the changes I made on 02 January.  We had some computer problems and I had to reload our systems.  We are back up and running.  I have also made some other changes along the way.  On the index page I got rid of the Weather Channel box - do you really care what the weather is here?  It's always raining.  Anyway, it's gone and what better to take it's place (and I finally found the right place for it, but old glory - long may she wave.  There are many other changes.  All of the pages will show today as the most recent update because I went through and verified that they had no mistakes.  I am adding a new layout for site updates.  This page will continue to provide updates, but a more concise page contains an index of all pages on this site and the date of their last update.  Pages changed within the last 30 days will have a "new" icon next to them.  Please check it out.

02 January 2002:  Happy New Year to everyone, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is enjoying the holiday season.  I was lucky enough to get back from sea just a few days before Christmas.  I got about the best gift possible - to spend the holidays at home with my family rather than at sea.  Pretty much all of the pages have been added to, including new photos of the girls and our new puppy.  I've also finished my page on "hospital corpsman" and "submarines."  I've decided that I don't like the navigation buttons at the top of the page and will probably be changing them soon (not sure whether I want to switch to a frames page style layout or side navigation buttons).  That's about it for now.  Now that I'm home, I'll be updating the site almost weekly (I hope), so be sure to keep checking back.  Thanks and take care...

02 October 2001:  Well, a lot of changes have taken place.  This is a completely new format for the pages, a new server, and of course the new address (finally).  It's taken a lot to get to this point, but there is still a ways to go.  There are still many pages which are "under construction."  I promise I'll finish them as soon as I can (and my schedule permits).  Stay tuned and check back often for updates.  When major changes do occur, I will e-mail everyone.  If you are not on my list, please send me your e-mail address and I'll add you to it.  Take care and be well...

10 September 2001:  EarthLink has finally gotten me so frustrated that I canceled my hosting account with them.  After over a month and more than 3 hours on the telephone they finally got my site up.  But, unfortunately not to my liking (several things were not as they were advertised).  And when I tried to get some sort of an answer to the entire fiasco I went through, all they would say is that they were sorry and would refund my account - not a single person (talked to 3) even tried to ask what it would take to get me to stay.  Because all I wanted was a sincere apology and answer as to what happened.  But sadly, their customer and technical service has taken a significant turn for the worse over the past 3 or 4 months.  I'm currently looking for another ISP because I now what nothing to do with them.

What amazed me even more was that I contacted Kallipoi International (based out of Seattle, WA) and they took my application over the net Monday night and my site was up and running (as advertised) the next day.  AND, they called me to confirm that I was not having any problems with it.  I'll be moving all these pages there as soon as I have the time.  Until next time, take care and be well.

30 August 2001:  Well, I purchased the domain name www.abele.ws and have officially registered it.  Two weeks ago I contacted EarthLink to host it and they still have not gotten the site set up yet!!!  They have until tomorrow and then I'm canceling my contract with them and will go with another provider.  As soon as I do find a server all the pages will be moved to the new domain.  And with a new domain will come a new look that I've been working on for a while.  No hints, you'll just have to wait.  Oh, in case you didn't notice, all the pages for the current site have been moved to a single web site (home.earthlink.net/~dbabele) rather than scattered between 8 different sites.  This is in preparation for moving to the new domain.  Sorry for all the confusion with constantly moving the pages.  Once I get the new domain set up, there will be no more moving the location of the pages (I hope).  Well, take care...be well.

13 August 2001:  Another major change, this one even bigger than the last.  I redesigned the main page to get all the text off of it, it looked way too busy.  So now the introduction with our biography, that I'm sure no one wants to read more than once, is on it's own page.  As well, the updates page (this one), is listed separately.  I think this will make things a little easier on the eyes and make navigating around a lot easier.  I added all the links to the left with buttons.  Eventually I'll turn this into a frames page to make it even easier.  I'm also in the process of updating the directory structure (again) to conform to normal naming conventions used on the web in HTML authoring.  As soon as I figure all of it out, I'll do it.  I'll leave things this way to elicit input from everyone, see what they think of it.  Then decide whether I want to keep it or change it yet again.  With having to share all my web space over 8 web addresses, I am seriously looking into buying my own domain name and just having EarthLink host it for me.  For all the hassle it'll save me, it's worth the extra couple bucks a month.  We'll see.

29 July 2001:  Major change here - I redid the overall formatting of the pages and completely changed the directory structure, this was to standardize the way I have them laid out, sorry for the inconvenience.  You'll need to re-bookmark any pages.

Removed all the hyperlinks on this page and created a "Links Page" that has them all on it.  Haven't organized them yet, but I'll get back to them and put them into categories.  Was looking a little sloppy up there with all those underlined hyperlinks.  I added a page about my truck to my page.  Lots of boring information for the most part.  Good pics though.  Changed Kaitlyn's page to put some candids on her opening page and a link from there to the birthday pics.  I also got rid of that hit counter, seems Digits.com had a tendency of losing track of the actual hits.  Checked it yesterday and at one point it only registered 21 hits, then 42, then 33 - not very accurate if you ask me - so it's outa here.  I don't recommend anyone using them.  Hope to add photos of the pets soon as well as get working on more of my page.  Still no input from Kelly  :-(  her page is destined to remain blank for eons.  I'm going to get rid of this background.  It's too dark and makes reading it difficult.  I'll change it as soon as I find one I like.

Until next time...Be well.

03 July 2001:  Wow, did I ever forget about something...actually it was more like a small deployment on a submarine kinda took up a little bit of my time.  Well, I'm back now, at least for a little while, so I'll be updating it some more.  Decided I'll date these entries to follow a chronological update sorta thing, yeah, right.  I got a digital camera for Christmas so the photos should be a little more up to date now.

I added a butt-ton of hyperlinks (the red underlined words) above.  I like having a cornucopia of resources and having those links here makes it easier for me.  If you don't like them, don't click on 'em.  By the way, all of these links open under separate windows directly into the web site.  I am not responsible for the content on their web sites.  If any of the links are dead, please e-mail me so I can update them.  I also added some candid photos of Kayla on her page and a photo montage of Kaitlyn's 2nd birthday on her page.  I hope to get some input from Kel soon as to what she wants on her page and when I get more time (have spent over 5 hours working on it tonight), I'll update my page too.  I plan on separating my area out a little bit into my varied interests and hobbies.  I'll be sure to include the Navy, my woodworking, home-brewing, and of course, my truck (can you just smell the testosterone?).  Anyway, that's it for now...

Well, everyone have a safe and happy 4th of July.  Be well.

14 December 2000:  Well, I thought about it and figured that if my ISP was willing to give me free web space, I may as well use it - not like I'll be setting any kind of trend and I most certainly won't be making the web any more trashed than it already is.  So, I'll post recent pictures, stories, and links that I find to be useful, interesting, or just plain weird.  If you like what you see or have any constructive comments, e-mail me...if you don't, then just leave and don't come back!!!

For those of you that came here looking for porn...just click on Kelly's picture (just don't tell her what I posted)...If you came here looking for high-tech web graphics, animations, and sounds...sorry, wrong page - a lot of that stuff is just chaff to keep you from realizing the page really has nothing to offer and I'd like to think I have something to offer to someone (even if they are a sad, lonely, troll of a computer weenie).

Hmmm...I'm finding that I have a bit of work to do...seems that I love to take photos, but the developing and sorting thing is kinda kicking my butt...so hopefully Christmas will find me with a little more motivation to get those done and I'll post more photos.

Well, I've spent more time on this tonight, than I had planned, so I'll dump it to the web and work on it again later...take it easy, be well...Later..