even though we did not get to go to detroit recently for my niece hannah's high school graduation, we did get some photos they sent us.

click image for larger view

we are very proud of hannah for her achievement! sorry we could not be there to share in your nachas. at least your grandma mimi got to go for the graduation.

hannah is going on to michigan state after the summer.

i was stumbling late tonight on stumbleUpon and came across a neat blog for those of us using the phpBay pro plugin for wordpress.

Click image for larger view.

it's the blog of melissa eaton and her site is dedicated to talking about the eBay affiliate network program and the phpBay pro plugin.

so the cool thing about this plugin is that once it is installed (in the usual manner) all you have to do is activate it and it will start tracking all of the search terms used in your blog's search box.

you just click to get the report, which tells you which terms were searched for, how many hits each term got and even if terms were losers and got no results.

the losers might be telling you what users expected to find and did not on your site, so maybe it's time to start blogging about those topics too.

the search meter plugin's author is bennett mcElwee and can be found here at wordpress for download.

ok, so here's the question...has the new yorker magazine gone too far in the cover image for the current issue?

the cover depicts barack obama in a robe and turban and his wife michelle obama with a huge afro haircut and a machine gun slung over her shoulder.

there is also an inside story in the new yorker magazine about barack obama's political upbringings in chicago from 1995 on.

so what do you think about the new yorker's choice of putting this cartoon on the cover?

yesterday ruthie jon and i drove out to cedar hill, texas to see the new office my wife moves to today officially.

she is the director of public works for the city of cedar hill, texas. cedar hill has been building a new government center and it is finally finished and ready for everybody to move in.

the image here is from the cedar hill city web site and the other 2 images seen when you click the image are images inside that i took from our visit there. they are of our son jon and are looking up at the top of the building.

it's a very neat and eclectic building with very interesting colors and spaces. from the outside it looks pretty traditional, but inside it is anything but that.

there are curves and balconies and wood roofs and lots of angles.

my wife has a nice office on the 2nd floor and we got to set all her stuff up when we were there on sunday.

congratulations cedar hill for a job well done.

i came across a great new (and i mean very new) course on how to harness the power of stumbleUpon to increase traffic to your blog or web site.

Click here to view more details

it is a free course if you want it a chapter at a time, paid if you just want to zip through all 20 chapters at once without waiting.

the course is called stumble rush and is offered by caroline middlebrook. you can sign up directly for stumbleRush here and/or go to caroline's excellent blog.

i'm already up to lesson #2!