DWmommy.com

Welcome to the New DWmommy.com

2026-02-01T12:00:00Z

Welcome to the newly converted static version of DWmommy.com!

This site has been converted from classic ASP to a modern static site using Eleventy. All the original blog posts and photo galleries have been preserved. Hopefully everything is still running as expected.

Feel free to browse around using the navigation on the left, or use the search feature to find specific content.

~Angela

VerifyClient() with non-standard CF AJAX

2011-01-11T14:31:17Z

If you've ever researched ColdFusion AJAX security features such as VerifyClient() or secureJSON or secureJSONPrefix, you've probably come across Ray Camden's article already (or one of his blog posts about it) but in case you haven't, before you continue I want you to at least read this post from Ray. (If I hadn't read Ray's postings I wouldn't have been able to come to the solution I'm going to tell you about without more effort. So thanks Ray!) Now, with that out of the way...

I'm using both some custom AJAX and some built-in ColdFusion AJAX goodness on a client's website. I only want AJAX calls to be able to get data from a particular page. Otherwise, I want to return a blank page to the user. In other words, I don't want someone browsing directly to callbyajax.cfm.

Now we all know that URL parameters can be hacked, but in my client's case if someone manages to pass in valid params that will get them results and they can bypass ColdFusion's VerifyClient() too, then that's good enough for me. With that in mind, my ideal solution would allow me to still use VerifyClient(), even though I'm using custom AJAX. So how can I make that happen?

Once you know that all VerifyClient() is doing is looking for a valid URL._cf_clientid, then it becomes a matter of passing in a valid _cf_clientid. The next thing that comes to mind is, "How can I get that value on my own so I can use it?" Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as I hoped... To my disappointment, the value used for _cf_clientid isn't anywhere to be found in the Client or Session scopes.

Something generates the parameter and the output looks something like this: ?_cf_clientid=C56E92048D21B1B348A3D097D842866B. I could only conclude that ColdFusion was using some sort of encrypted value and it didn't seem there was a way to access it natively. I was stuck. So I turned to my wonderful husband Dan who happens to be a ColdFusion genius, for some help and brainstorming. (Thanks for your patience Dan!)

Dan noticed that the URLs generated by native ColdFusion AJAX calls use some global JavaScript variables that ColdFusion sets right after the opening <head> tag. So Dan suggested that I use <cfajaximport tags="cfdiv" /> to force my page to write the global variables so that I could references them much like ColdFusion does. I didn't like that idea, mostly because importing tags I didn't need seemed wasteful. Once I got over trying to find a native way to get that same string of alphanumeric characters, I decided I should probably think about Dan's suggestion some more. I recalled recently seeing an example somewhere (though I can't recall where), that showed <cfajaximport /> without the tags attribute. Turns out, the tags attribute is optional, so I only had to use <cfajaximport /> in order to render the globals to the document. Ok, that feels a lot less dirty to me; I can live with this workaround.

Here's a simple proof of concept (by no means perfect) for you to view in the browser: VerifyClient.cfm. Notice the comment in the source code that points out that the globals were generated by using <cfajaximport /> at the top of the page. Here's the ColdFusion Code in the file that it links to (which is supposed to be called via AJAX, but faked for proof-of-concept purposes):

<cftry> <cfset VerifyClient() /> <cfcatch> NO!<cfabort> </cfcatch> </cftry> YES!

The beauty of this solution is I can now use one file for both custom and built-in AJAX functionality and still use VerifyClient().

Don't forget: You must enable client or session management in your Application.cfm or Application.cfc file for VerifyClient() to work at its best. Without client or session management enabled, VerifyClient() will not throw an error if URL._cf_clientid exists. (Empty values and bad values will pass, but missing _cf_clientid entirely will throw the expected error.)

Sidenote: I ran a test to see if I could get away with passing _cf_clientid via the Form scope instead of the URL scope. No luck; ColdFusion is only checking for URL.

Debugging a Dreamweaver Extension Installation Issue

2009-06-05T15:29:57Z

Perhaps the most unhelpful error message of all time: Parameter incorrect. That's the error message that only a handful of Dreamweaver users were experiencing when trying to install Cartweaver3PHP.mxp version 3.1.13 into Dreamweaver CS3 or Dreamweaver CS4. Originally, we were getting reports of this issue from Vista users. We thought for sure Vista was the culprit. Eventually someone reported having the install issue on Windows XP. Most people had no problems installing the extension on both Vista and XP, yet for a handful of users the install would only fail. Since it wasn't just Vista anymore we could conclude that it wasn't a simple Windows OS issue, so what was it?

As the sole extension developer for Cartweaver, it was my job to figure out why this was happening. I turned to Tom Muck, PHP developer for Cartweaver, for some advice since he happens to be a long-time Dreamweaver extension developer himself. Tom gave me a few ideas to look into and we both tried to help customers with the usual extension trouble-shooting methods. Unfortunately none of our suggestions worked for our customers.

Debugging this issue was difficult to say the least, particularly because none of the Cartweaver team could duplicate the problem. If you're a programmer, you know that it can seem nearly impossible to fix something if you can't make it happen yourself. Similar to how one might debug a website having an issue, we had to determine what the customers who were experiencing the problem had in common with each other. I also had to try and determine what they didn't have in common with the people who had no trouble installing the extension. Usually this sort of approach proves fruitful and the issue can be narrowed down to some difference between systems. In the case of extensions, it is often another installed extension that's causing the conflict. I carefully compared lists of installed extensions between users who had the issue and did not find any conflicts. I was stumped.

Lawrence (founder of Cartweaver & owner of Application Dynamics Inc.) put together an email list for people having the issue who were willing to volunteer to help figure this out. One volunteer noticed that the install process writes files to the TEMP directory, and he pointed out that he believed it stopped writing files at a specific file. Once I heard this, I thought there could be some meaning there but couldn't find anything wrong with the last file that got written, the file directly before it, or the one that should have been written next.

The last time a strange error happened in one of my extensions, it was due to a line break in JavaScript (which was 100% legal). Was this another case of whitespace in a file causing an issue? I'd go insane trying to find a stray whitespace -- especially since I was never able to duplicate the issue on any of my configurations. I'd likely drive our customers to madness by asking them to retry a billion times. I was not a happy extension developer.

Lawrence and I talked about it some more and decided to just try and repackage the extension and see if that worked. I was afraid that if it did work, we'd never know why the issue happened and it might happen again in the future. A part of me hoped it worked so I could make customers happy, but part of me wanted to know the reason the MXP wouldn't install so that I could make sure it never happened again. I tried packaging it on several different systems with several different versions of the Extension Manager. It was always the same result; the extension worked for all of us at Cartweaver but our volunteers still couldn't install it.

I'd asked our volunteers to send me their TEMP files and I started taking a closer look at their files. I stared at the files in Beyond Compare for what felt like days. I could not find a problem anywhere. Why though, were both of their systems stopping at a specific file? There had to be something wrong.

I was staring at the files in Windows Explorer and noticed something odd. The file's Last Modified Date was listed as December 31, 1969! How strange. I checked the file on the Mac in Finder and it was December 31, 1903! As it turned out, the file was missing a Creation Date even though it had a Last Modified Date. As you may have guessed, that was the cause of the install issue all along.

One part of this issue remains a mystery to us still. Why in the world did only a few people have the problem and not everyone? My guess is AV software or security setting were somehow set to not allow files without a creation date to be written, but that's just a wild guess. If you know the answer, be sure and let us know as it'd be nice to know.

Thanks to all the Cartweaver 3 PHP customers who experienced the issue for being so patient as we worked to resolve the issue. Hopefully I'll never encounter anything this difficult to track down again!

Why VictoriasSecret.com E-Gift Cards Suck - Part 2

2009-04-15T07:58:59Z

If you haven't read Part 1 yet, this post won't be near as interesting...

One month after the egift card ordeal, I got the email! I got two emails actually. The first one looked very similar to the second, the difference being the first email was to notify me that the email had been sent to the egift card recipient. In this case, that was me.

Here's what the egift card email looked like. (I've blurred private info and the Victoria's Secret model so that they don't ask me to take the image down.)

You may be thinking there was a date for delivery box somewhere that I filled out that caused the email to be delayed for a month. Nope.

Keep in mind that I was issued a refund on March 25th. I have to wonder if the egift card is still valid.

Why VictoriasSecret.com E-Gift Cards Suck

2009-03-19T13:17:07Z

On the 14th of March I logged in at victoriassecret.com to purchase an E-Gift Card for someone. The checkout system needed to know who I wanted to send the email to. Since it was a birthday gift, I didn't want them to get it ahead of time. I was also concerned that they may never receive it at their Yahoo email address. So, I used my email address because I knew I'd get it since I have never had an issue receiving email from victoriassecret.com in the past.

The next day, the email for the E-Gift card was still not in my inbox. I emailed them a reply to my order confirmation email and this is what I got back:

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding Victoria's Secret web site. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Unfortunately, based on the information provided, we are unable to determine the nature of the problem you experienced.

In order to properly address your concerns, may we suggest directly contacting an Internet Services representative at 1-800-970-1109.

If you need further assistance, please reply to this e-mail or call anytime.

Victoria's Secret is committed to providing an exceptional experience for our customers. Angela, we look forward to the opportunity of serving you in the future.

Sincerely, [Rep Name Omitted] VictoriasSecret.com Customer Service

Not enough info? I provided my entire order confirmation email. So I emailed them again at about 7pm on the 15th:

What more information do you need? You have the confirmation number.

I shouldn't have to call. You should be able to send me the Egift Card information again.

I'm guessing that the fact that I had the email with the ECard sent to me was confusing to you perhaps? I had it sent to myself [email was here] because I didn't want to risk my friend [name was here] not getting it in her email and I'd have no easy means to get it resolved if that happened. (I also don't want to give out her email address.)

So please let me know what I need to do to get the eGift card information.

Thanks, ~Angela

Still no E-gift card in my inbox. Instead I get this lovely reply at about 10:30pm on the 15th:

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the EGift card that was not received. We apologize for any inconvenience.

We have resent the EGift Card. If you have not received the EGift card within 24 hours, we suggest checking their SPAM or junk e-mail folder.

You can check the status of your orders, backorder, returns and exchanges at any time on our web site. Please click on the link below, or 'copy and paste' the URL into your browser.

http://www2.victoriassecret.com/html/custsrvc/orderstatus/

If you need further assistance, please reply to this e-mail or call anytime.

Victoria's Secret is committed to providing an exceptional experience for our customers. Angela, we look forward to the opportunity of serving you in the future.

Sincerely, [Rep Name Omitted] VictoriasSecret.com Customer Service

I'd already looked up my order history to see if I could glean anything from that. Nope, nothing. I couldn't see what email address I'd put into the form at checkout or any of the recipient's details. Had I misspelled my own email address? Entirely possible. I emailed them again at about 8:30pm on the 16th:

Hello Julie,

I still have not received the EGift Card. :-(

I am the one who should be getting the email; it is to the same email address as I'm writing to you.

I have victoriassecret.com white-listed; it does not go into a spam folder.

Clearly I get email fine from victoriassecret.com or I would not have gotten your reply nor would I have gotten the order confirmation.

So, what can be done to get the email? Can you save it as a PDF and email me the attachment?

Thanks, ~Angela

Hoping for the best I waited for a reply. I waited. I waited some more. By 10am on the 18th still no e-Gift Card and no email reply either! Ugh, I emailed again:

Hi,

I am re-sending the email below because I still have not gotten the EGift Card and I never got a reply to my last email about it.

~Angela [The previous email appeared below]

I finally get a reply at almost 4pm on the 18th:

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your E-Gift card. We apologize for any disappointment this may cause.

Per your request, we have resent your E-Gift card and activation instructions to the original e-mail address. Please allow up to 24 hours to be delivered.

If you need further assistance, please reply to this e-mail or call anytime.

Angela, Victoria's Secret values each of our customers and hope you will grant us the opportunity to serve you again in the future. Thank you for contacting Victoria's Secret.

Sincerely, [Rep Name Omitted] VictoriasSecret.com Customer Service

As soon as I received the reply, I responded which was about 7:30pm on the 18th:

Hello [Rep Name Omitted] or whoever reads this...

At this point I'm extremely disappointed that I still haven't received the EGift Card.

Can you please copy/paste to me the email address I had it sent to? Perhaps I typed it wrong and this is all my own fault?

It should have gone to [correct email address appeared here]

Thank you, ~Angela

Yeah, I'm getting annoyed and a tad snarky. I've had a different Customer Service Rep reply to each of my emails. I'm convinced none of them read the history. Of course, I get a reply from a different person, this time at nearly 10am today (which is the 19th):

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your Egift Card. We regret any inconvenience this matter may have caused.

We have submitted for the Egift Card to be sent to the new email address and it should arrive within 24 hours. We hope this information is useful.

If we can help you further, please reply to this e-mail or call anytime.

Angela, we hope that you will enjoy the products you purchased from Victoria's Secret and look forward to serving you again in the future.

Sincerely, [Rep Name Omitted] VictoriasSecret.com Customer Service

Now I'm even more annoyed. She didn't answer my question. So I reply at about 10:30am today.

Thank you, but you did not tell me if I made mistake and the email address of where the egift card have been previously sent to.

Can you please tell me this information?

Thank you, ~Angela

P.S. I haven't gotten it yet. I'll wait the 24 hours but shouldn't have to.

A nice and quick reply that was actually from the same Rep. as the previous reply came in at about 10:45am today which said:

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your EGC. We are happy to assist you with your inquiry.

We are showing that we had the old email that may not be forwarding through so we change the email address and we will see if this works. We are not showing any errors. We hope this information is useful.

If we can help you further, please reply to this e-mail or call anytime.

Angela, we thank you for your interest in Victoria's Secret. We hope you enjoy our products and look forward to serving you in the future.

Sincerely, [Rep Name Omitted] VictoriasSecret.com Customer Service

Hmmm, okay maybe I did type it in wrong? That doesn't make sense, but alright... Why can't they just tell me the email address I entered originally? I'm getting frustrated again, so I write a short email at 11:29am today:

Hi,

Please tell me what you're saying is the "old" email address. I've asked for this 3 times. Please give me the answer to my question.

~Angela

The same Rep. replied again at 11:34am today:

Dear Angela,

Thank you for your e-mail regarding your EGC. We are happy to assist you with your inquiry.

Please contact the Customer Service department at 1-800-970-1109 for more assistance with your EGC.

If we can help you further, please reply to this e-mail or call anytime.

Angela, please accept our apologies. We take customer service seriously at Victoria's Secret and look forward to serving you again in the future.

Sincerely, [Rep Name Omitted] VictoriasSecret.com Customer Service

Fine. I give up. I'll call customer service. (I think it is lame that they say to call and in the next breath say I can email. I don't like calling and wish I could do it all in email.)

So here's how the call went... First, the recording states the call may be recorded for quality assurance. Good! I'll let my frustration show so maybe they'll fix this terrible user experience.

The woman who answered was very nice and polite. Based off the phone number I was calling from she already had some of my info in front of her. (That's always a little creepy to me, but cool at the same time.) I explained to her the situation, making mention of how I was not able to get the email address the E-Gift card was originally sent to. She explained that "for security purposes we can't email that information".

WHAT?! I'm the one who placed the order. I can't get that information in my order history or in the email but I can call and get it? It's easier to fake who you are by calling than to prove you're legit by replying from the expected email account or logging in to the website. In my mind, the phone is less secure, but she gave it to me and it was correct. I complained they should at least have said in the email, "For security purposes" etc. I would have called sooner.

She then proceeds to ask me, "Was this a gift?" I said yes, and explained my reasons for having it sent to my email. She then let me know something I never would have expected. She said that the recipient would have to log in from or create an account with my email address in order to redeem the gift card! WHAT?!!!

It's an E-Gift card, should be as simple as entering in a code at checkout to redeem like any other gift card. Right? Yeah, I would think so too but that's not how they do it.

Over the course of my call I gave the lady an earful I'm sure. All the while she was patient as she could be and said she'd pass my frustrations/suggestions along. I'd suggested that the order history let me see who I was emailing to & their email address. I also told her that it isn't that hard for them to do this, and that I would know because I build websites for a living. I even told her I'm not some idiot off the street who doesn't know how these things should work or how they work, that she could Google my name and find out who I am and that I know what I'm talking about when I make these suggestions.

Sidenote: Yikes, I'm not proud of that attitude and I'll probably never be hired to work at VictoriaSecret.com (they're a ColdFusion site and I'd love to work for them to make their site so much better, but it is more unlikely now than ever -- not just for this call but also because of this blog post. Oh well... back to my story.)

In the end, I asked for a refund and she was able to do that quite quickly. I asked her how I could get a gift card that would be usable online. My options were to buy one online and wait 7 to 10 days or get one in a store. Either is usable online.

I thanked her for putting up with me and apologized, "I'm sorry for taking my frustrations out on you. I know how hard it is to be in Customer Service. I hope I didn't ruin your day." She was polite, but I'm sure she was frustrated dealing with me. I honestly feel bad for that.

In the end they'll still get my money. I'll be placing an order on behalf of the gift recipient later tonight. I just can't and won't likely ever buy an E-Gift card because: A) I never got my email and there's no good reason for why I didn't B) I can't have it sent to myself and then print it out and give it to someone or forward it to a friend's email. That's why I think VictoriasSecret.com's E-Gift cards suck. Hopefully my feedback will be received and they'll improve the process. Not that I'll ever know unless someone tells me, since I've no intention of ever buying an EGC from them again. THE END

Blue and Gold Banquet 2009

2009-03-03T10:36:02Z

This Saturday was the Blue & Gold Banquet, where Cub Scouts receive the badge that they've been working towards. My son, Gaetano, received his Bear badge!

When the scout receives his badge, their Akela (that's me in my son's case) pins the badge upside down over their left pocket (close to their heart). When the scout does his first good deed he can turn the badge right side up and it can be permanently attached to their uniform.

Gaetano was with us shopping at HEB and a bunch of those yellow coupons you see hanging everywhere had fallen and scattered on the floor. We were busy shopping to notice them, but Gaetano saw them and picked them up and put them all back on the hook.

At first, I thought he'd knocked them down and was just cleaning up after himself. I was ready to scold him for touching them in the first place but he told me they were already on the floor and he was just picking them up. Awwww, he did a good deed! :-) Tonight, I'll have him help me put his patch on his uniform.

The following are some statistics from the back of the program from the Blue & Gold Banquet that I thought you might find interesting. Keep in mind that Gaetano is a Cub Scout, not a Boy Scout. Gaetano is a Bear now, and has Weblos 1 and Weblos 2 to complete before entering the Boy Scouts in the 6th grade. As you read through these facts, keep in mind that with every year that passes in scouting, the next level brings more advanced achievements and greater commitment.

For every 100 boys who join Boy Scouts:

Twelve will have their first contact with a church or synagogue
Five will earn their religious emblem
One will enter the clergy
Eighteen will develop hobbies that last through the merit badge system
One will use his Boy Scout skills to save a life
One will use his Boy Scout skills to save his own life
Seventeen will become Scouting volunteers
Four will become Eagle Scouts

Gaetano tells us that he'd like to go all the way to Eagle Scouts. I would be so proud. As his Akela, I promise to do my best to help him reach his goal.

Though Gaetano looks like he's laughing in the photo on the right, he's actually doing his impression of his sister crying like babies do. That's my goofball! I love my Bear cub and look forward to more good times with scouting.

Gaetano's Allergy to Artificial Color

2009-03-02T10:36:25Z

Back in March 2005 I blogged about discovering my son's allergy to artificial color. It was a brief entry stating I had a suspicion and would be taking him to see an allergist to confirm my suspicions. Today I’d like to finally follow up and get this out there for other parents who may have children with this allergy.

When Gaetano was 4 years old, he'd had a chronic cough for nearly 2 years. He had multiple ear infections as well and the doctor said that if he gets one more ear infection we would need to put tubes in his ears. The poor little guy was constantly congested but I didn't know why. I've been congested most my life, so I figured it may be bad genes, but I hoped to find a different reason.

Gaetano would get a fever and I'd give him Children's Tylenol for it. Most of the time he threw it up right away. Sometimes he'd throw up later. Either way, I'd blame the vomiting on the fever or illness itself.

It was the same way for antibiotics; he would get a pink colored Amoxicillin and he'd throw that up too. Again, I'd blame the illness or fever. He'd get better, but not as quick as I thought he should for being medicated. It almost always felt like illnesses had to run their course and that medicines didn't really help.

In between being sick, when he was more healthy than not, he was still congested and coughed quite frequently. I took him to the doctor to see what was wrong.

The doctor tried to tell me he was asthmatic and gave him Abuterol (which I've since learned contains yellow #6) for his chronic cough. It didn't help. I knew it had to be something else and figured it was something he was allergic to. I didn't know what that allergy might be. Was it the old carpet in our house? Was it all his stuffed animals he'd drooled on for years? Was it some other environmental cause that I didn't know about? I looked for every possible cause I could find -- I didn't want him to be asthmatic and suffer with that all his life.

From time to time, Gaetano would spike a fever and throw up but had no other symptoms that were noticeable. It could have been that he wasn't very talkative being only 4 years old and not having the words to express how he felt. It could be that he really had no other symptoms. I'll never know for sure.

Every illness (for lack of better term) which happened seemed to have a decent explanation of its own. Yet somehow I knew that there had to be some common thread. Maybe it was my maternal instincts, maybe it was my analytical nature at play, or maybe it was neither. It just seemed logical to me that there could be something making him sick and I just didn't know what it was.

I started trying to keep a mental note of what he ate before he threw up to see if maybe it might be something of a gross food combination that would naturally upset anyone's stomach. (You know, like milk and orange juice together.) Sometimes I had to figure out what he'd eaten by what came out of him... I started to notice that every time he puked it was pink.

Looking back through my blog, I see that I never wrote about taking Gaetano to see an allergist. Well, I did that and found that there isn't a prick test for artificial color. He was given a prick test anyway and turned out he wasn't allergic to anything that he was exposed to at home or daycare.

I learned that the only way to test for an allergy to artificial color was to remove it from the diet for 3 full weeks before re-introducing it to the diet. If he gets ill, it is fairly safe to assume that the dye was the cause. You should then wait for the reaction to clear up and then 3 weeks after that you can try introducing the artificial color once again. We did this several times, sometimes without my own knowledge...

Most of our family thought that I was just being a health nut or overprotective, that there's no way that artificial color could possibly make anyone sick. Some thought, "a little won't hurt", while others simply didn't believe it at all.

At the time, I was going through divorce and Ambrogio (my ex-husband) didn't think there was anything wrong with our son. Ambrogio just figured I was trying to be controlling since I was "picky" about Gaetano's diet from the time he started eating solid foods. (I made all his baby food from organic vegetables.)

It wasn't until family members gave Gaetano foods with artificial color without telling me first that they believed me. It's pretty convincing when you give him something with red dye in it and he pukes in your car!

It took a few months to get everyone else who cared for him on board with checking every label. There were many "accidents" and those responsible always said things like, "It wasn't that much.", "I'm sure he'll be fine.", "It wasn't red, it was just yellow #5." It was infuriating at times to say the least.

Months later, I'd finally gotten Gaetano off all artificial color for a full month and his cough was much better. He was generally much better behaved too. We thought that was just because he was getting older but I've since learned that some children react to artificial color with bad behavior (or hyperactivity).

He got sick a few times the year following, and we came to discover that there's only one liquid antibiotic that did not have artificial color in it. One. That's right; just one. (It was an Amoxicillin, but I can't recall exactly what it was called right now.)

The doctor said that since there's only one antibiotic he could have, it was important to keep him healthy since he could build an immunity to it. Though there would be ways to get around that issue, it would be a major hassle he explained. So, I did my best to keep him healthy as I could.

A year later Gaetano was much healthier over all. He wasn't congested anymore and hadn't gotten any more ear infections either. (Yay, no tubes!)

Over the years there have been several slip-ups where he's had artificial color. In kindergarten it was orange iced cookies for Halloween that some parent told him it was okay to eat even though he said he couldn't have it. He trusted them. In first grade, there was a similar instance. There've been plenty of other times where he was given something either accidentally or carelessly over the years.

From time to time we run into people who don't believe his allergy is real. They think I'm nuts. Most people are understanding thank goodness. However every now and then someone will try to tell me that a "little won't hurt" and I just stand my ground. Most of the time saying something like, "Well if you want to clean up his puke then by all means give him a little!" convinces them enough not to give him anything he shouldn't eat.

Gaetano's had a rough time of it in the last couple years because kids at school can be so mean at times. Some have teased him that they have certain candy and he can't have it. For the most part, he handles it pretty well. Sometimes it gets to him and he says to me things like, "Mom, do you hope that I grow out of my allergy some day?" or "Mom, can we just test it and see if my allergy is gone yet?"

To make Gaetano feel better, I try to buy everything red that I can for him to eat that is all natural. (I know he's allergic to the other colors, but red is the one that makes him puke.) I buy all sorts of great treats from Whole Foods for him because I know that shopping there is safe. I've made homemade candy corn, bubble gum and marshmallows for him and they're even better than store bought junk! Luckily there's very little that I can't find an equivalent for, so he doesn't feel left out.

Why am I writing all this after so long? The answer to that is soon to come. (Hang in there; I know this is a long blog post!)

Last night, we were eating at a restaurant and the server offered us some "all natural" black cherry soda. I asked the waiter if he was sure that it was all natural and told him my son is allergic to artificial color. He said it was all natural except that it had sugar in it. I commented to him that sugar is natural, and he said that some people complain because it has sugar in it. That should have been my tip-off that this guy had no clue, but I trusted him.

Half way through drinking the can of soda that the waiter had poured into a glass, Dan started to read the can's label. You can see where this is going... Red #40 was the final ingredient. Dan & I did our best to not make a big deal out of it and let the waiter know.

In short, I didn't like how the waiter handled the situation. I found him rude as soon as he said, "I told my manager and he said it only has a couple of drops of Red #40 in it." I decided against talking to the manager at that time because I didn't want to make a big deal with my son there. (The waiter offered me the chance to speak to him now or I could call him later. For some reason, he insisted that if I was going to talk to him it had to be now, not after our meal. It was very awkward.)

I was as nice as I could be about it, letting him know that I just thought he should know so he didn't tell people it was "all natural" anymore. I told him that I didn't blame him, that I should have checked the label. He didn't seem to believe me. Despite the awkwardness, we ordered dinner and did our best to enjoy the meal.

Gaetano seemed a little concerned that he might get sick. I explained to him that he'd been wanting a test to see if he's still allergic. "Well, this is your chance!", I told him. I explained that if he didn't get sick from it this time, then maybe he's outgrown it.

I wanted to allay his worries and really let it be a true test. I knew that only some red wouldn't necessarily bring on fever and vomiting but I knew it would at least bring on congestion and possibly an upset stomach. I didn't tell Gaetano what I thought might happen.

I really wanted to talk to the manager on the way out (while Dan & Gaetano waited in the car), but I didn't. Having been a restaurant manager myself for some time I was mad that he didn't even bother to stop by the table. I knew that if I spoke to him it was not going to be pleasant. I saw the manager from a distance. He looked like he was a generally grumpy person. It would have been ugly... So we left.

About 45 minutes later I noticed Gaetano didn't look too good. I asked him how he was doing and he replied that his tummy hurts. I asked him when it started hurting and he said it'd been hurting since about five minutes ago.

I did my best to get his mind off of it, making him smile and laugh while being careful not to make him suspicious. He went to bed in a good mood and I hoped for the best.

At 3:45am I woke up with a massive headache. I'd been dreaming that Gaetano was sick and that I'd taken him to the hospital. The doctor said it wasn't his allergy, but it was stress due to the TAKS tests. I got out of bed and went to go check on Gaetano. He was sound asleep and didn't feel feverish. I felt relieved. Maybe he'd be fine. Maybe he's outgrown his allergy?

In the morning, Gaetano woke up and complained of a headache and tummy ache. I checked his sinuses and he seemed to be rather stuffy. Most likely a sinus headache caused by the congestion that ingesting artificial color causes for him. The verdict is that he's not over his allergy.

Gaetano was worried that he'd throw up at school because of his upset stomach. Dan & I tried to put his mind at rest and convince him that he's just worried about the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge And Skills) test tomorrow. I'm hoping that we were right.

I really hope he feels better. He needs to be feeling good for TAKS tomorrow. Having a bad day prior to the big test is sure to make him tired.

So there you have it; I'm writing this for two reasons. One is because I'm worried about my son since he had a dose of Red #40. The other reason is because I know that by sharing my story here on my blog it'll help other parents.

If you found this info helpful, or have a story of your own to share, please leave a comment. Thanks!

2009 Adobe Community Experts Program

2009-02-11T13:30:54Z

My membership in the 2009 Adobe Community Experts program has been renewed. Dan's has too. (He's sure got a way with words; I'm so boring.)

I'm honored to be part of the program. Thanks Adobe!

Mom, does Adobe.com sell clay?

2009-02-05T21:42:51Z

Earlier tonight my son asked me, "Mom? Does Adobe.com sell like a whole bunch of different colors and kinds of clay or something?"

Oh the innocence of youth. You know, I once thought the very same thing of Adobe itself -- back then there was no ".com" to speak of. I always thought that Macromedia was a better name and still do. Adobe clearly had a brand name with a larger market penetration so they made the right choice keeping their name.

At any rate, his question helped to remind me that intuitive naming isn't absolutely critical to success. I for one prefer intuitive names, but that would just make sense. ;-)

Broccoli Potato Cheese Soup

2009-01-12T19:59:01Z

Tonight's last minute dinner decision was Broccoli Potato Cheese Soup w/ Beer Bread. There's no secret to the beer bread; it's just Archer Farm's (from Target) Beer Bread, for which I used Shiner Black.

I've made up several recipes for (broccoli) potato cheese soup over the years. How I make it on any given day/night is largely determined by how much time I have and what ingredients I have on hand. Tonight's recipe was the quickest and easiest of all my potato cheese recipes.

Total prep time & cook time: 25 minutes (which includes washing the broccoli and cutting the florets off a head of broccoli)

Here's the recipe:

1 box (4 cups) Organic Chicken Broth 1 can Campbell's Cheddar Cheese Soup 4 oz. Five Cheese (Provolone, Mozzarella, Asiago, Romano, and Parmesan) shredded Kraft Cheese 2 cups Potato Buds 3 oz. Shiner Black beer 2 oz. water 3 cups broccoli florets (2 cups is okay if you prefer less) 1/2 teaspoon Lawry's salt 1/4 teaspoon Garlic Powder 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon White Pepper, however much you prefer

Directions: In a 3 quart pan, heat the chicken broth. Once the broth is boiling, add the Broccoli. As it is boiling I added the Lawry's, Garlic Powder, and White Pepper. Cook broccoli to desired tenderness. (I like it to be softer rather than crunchy in a soup. Boiling about 8 minutes should do.)

Measure 1 cup of the Potato buds. Moisten the Potato Buds with the 2 oz. of water and the 3 oz. of beer. Stir it up real good until all the flakes have dissolved.

By now your broccoli is done, so with a slotted spoon, remove it from the pan and set it aside in a dish.

Add the Potato Buds mixture to the boiling broth and stir to dissolve it. While still stirring, add the remaining 1 cup of Potato Buds to the soup. Don't stop stirring! Stir it until the flakes are dissolved then remove it from the heat.

Open up the can of cheddar cheese soup and pour that into the pan. Stir that up until the cheese is no longer identifiable. Add the shredded cheese and place it back on the burner on medium heat. Stir it well until the shredded cheese is good and dissolved.

Last but not least, add the broccoli back to the soup and stir it just enough to mix it in.

If you really love cheese, you can serve it with some shredded cheese (Five Cheese or cheddar) on top.

French Vanilla Sweet Cream

2009-01-09T23:27:58Z

Tonight I made a quick-n-easy vanilla ice cream. I made this up on the fly, no printed recipe. (I do that a lot; I make up recipes on the fly but write 'em down so I don't forget.)

Total prep time about 30 minutes, but the wait time is 12 hours after putting it in the freezer.

Update: I accidentally said whole milk. Turned out I used 2% Milk (Horizon Organic to be exact). Sorry about that! I'm sure whole milk would do fine though.

Here's the recipe:

1 pint (which is 2 cups) Heavy Whipping Cream 1 cup ~~whole~~ 2% milk 1 can Borden sweetened condensed milk 3 teaspoons vanilla bean paste 1/2 cup sugar

While the whipping cream was being whisked on high in the mixer, I measured the 1 cup of milk in a 4 cup capacity measuring cup.

Next, I added the rest of the ingredients to the measuring cup and stirred it up until the sweetened condensed milk was all dissolved.

By then the heavy whipping cream was completely aerated into a nice thick whipped cream. I added the mixture slowly (about 30 seconds of pouring) from the measuring cup into the mixer. I let it mix for another 30 seconds.

Then I transferred the mixture to the ice cream attachment of the KitcheAid and let it mix until it got good and thick.

Last but not least, avoid the temptation of eating it all and put it in a container in the freezer for at least 12 hours.

The result is a nice french vanilla sweet cream.

Momisms

2008-12-05T09:18:59Z

I often listen to XMKids in the car with Gaetano. There's a hilarious song by Anita Renfroe called Momisms that comes on every so often. Gaetano doesn't seem to appreciate it near as much as I do of course.

I love Momisms more each time I hear it and thought why not share it here on my blog. Enjoy!

And for those of you wondering if there are any Dadisms, well Anita's got this for you:

Support Our Troops & Cub Scouts

2008-10-27T16:00:23Z

Cub Scouts only have one fundraiser per year and that's popcorn. We need your support to help keep things running smoothly for our boys. Please take a moment to at least consider a purchase today, even if you don't eat popcorn -- you can always send some popcorn to our troops (keep reading to find out how).

To support my son's Cub Scout den, please click on OrderPopCorn.com which will take you to http://www.orderpopcorn.com/Store/Catalog/Default.aspx. Enter your Entry Order Key TEJE3AX. The screen should say Welcome you are supporting Den 11 Gaetano B. and that's it; just browse to find the popcorn you'd like to order.

You'll find there's an option to send a popcorn tin to our troops for $25. What a great gift and way to show your support for our men and women of the military.

Thanks for your support!

Update to the engagement post...

2008-10-01T08:37:07Z

Oops, I missed a closing quotation mark and part of my post announcing our engagement was cut off. If you're interested, the paragraph starting with "Dan has posted" is where it got cut off. Here's a link for you to make it easier: http://www.dwmommy.com/?day=9/11/2008 Sorry about that folks!

Jet Packs are Pricey!

2008-09-26T14:52:01Z

On the way home from school yesterday, my son decided to ask me a question. Here's our conversation for your reading pleasure.

Gaetano: Mom, how much does a jet pack cost?

Me: A what? A jet pack? (I know what a jet pack is, I was just caught off guard since his question came out of nowhere.)

Gaetano: Yeah, you know the ones you wear to make you fly.

Me: Yeah, I know what a jet pack is. Well, you know I'm not sure. I'm not even sure there is such thing as a real jet pack. If there is, I'm sure it costs a lot of money.

Gaetano: You mean like 50 bucks?

Me: No, probably more like 5,000 dollars. I don't know, maybe more.

Gaetano: That's a rip off!

Me: Well when things are new they usually cost more until enough people have them and then they cost a lot less.

Gaetano: Maybe you could look it up on Google when we get home. I don't know why they would cost that much. I can make a jet pack!

Me: Oh really? You think it is just that easy?

Gaetano: Sure! I can make a jet pack. You just make the thing and put straps on it so you can put it on your back like a backpack, but I don't know how to make the flames part.

Me: Don't you think "the flames part" is important?

Gaetano: What? (He didn't understand what I was getting at.)

Me: Well, don't you think the flames are important? Isn't that what makes it fly?

Gaetano: Ooooh, yeah.

Me: So don't you think making the flames is complicated? I mean, if you're going to wear a jet pack they have to make it safe -- so the flames don't burn your butt.

By then we'd just pulled into the driveway. Gaetano was laughing hysterically. I'm guessing he was laughing that hard because of the imagery, but also because its not every day he hears mom say "butt".

If it weren't for Dan telling me about the guy who crossed the English Channel today I would not have blogged this.

According to the article, this jet-wing (jet pack) costs $190,000. Boy, I was way off! When I get Gaetano home from school today I'll be sure to show him the video. He'll surely get a kick out of it. I bet he'll say he looks like Buzz Lightyear too, probably right after he exclaims that $190,000 is a "rip off" too.

Dan says, "We're gettin' hitched!"

2008-09-11T22:46:00Z

Nope, we're not buying an RV... Yep, it is true; earlier today Dan asked me to marry him! (A few weeks ago, he quite jokingly asked me in a very thick southern accent, "Wanna git hitched?" To which I said, "Not when you ask me like that!" Hence, the title of this blog post.)

Everyone's been asking me, "How'd he propose?" so I'll fill you in...

I just returned yesterday from 10 days in California, so I was totally worn out. It was a little after 10am this morning when he came in to try and wake me up (again). I was just not wanting to wake up at all. I was thoroughly exhausted. Dan said, "While you were gone I bought something that should help you wake up." He pulled the ring out of his pocket and presented it to me.

I was so bleary-eyed that I could barely make out that it was a ring, let alone what shape stone it was. It did the trick though; it woke me up! I had to stare at it a moment, to make sure I was really awake and not just dreaming it. Then Dan said, "So do you want it?"

I said, "Well yeah, but you haven't asked me to marry you yet!" Dan said, "Oh yeah... Will you marry me?" Of course I said, "Yeah!" [So technically speaking, his blog post is slightly inaccurate, since I didn't say "yes" -- I said "yeah". ;-)]

Dan has posted a picture of the ring on his blog. I know, its HUGE! Those who have seen photos already can't seem to tell by the picture if it is silver or gold, it's a platinum cathedral setting and simply gorgeous.

Gaetano is thrilled. He keeps telling me how excited he is that Dan is going to be his stepdad and that he's so happy for me.

No news on a date or anything else yet. I'm sure we'll blog it when we've made some decisions.

MacBook Pro Screen Goes Bonkers

2008-07-07T06:29:48Z

Last night I got home and found I'd forgotten to plug in the power to my MacBook Pro and left it on without putting it to sleep. That's happened before; it usually just shuts down on its own.

This time, it went to sleep on its own but the screen looked like it was on a psychedelic journey of some sort. All sorts of shapes everywhere and they seemed to be enlarged portions of apps I had open earlier. Some were even flipped upside down and even stranger, they were skewed to appear as if they were angled back and away from me (think hallways in really old computer games).

I woke it from sleep and as I moved my mouse the screen would sometimes redraw a little, but nothing got any better. I took some video, and pulled some screenshots from it. The first is what it looked like shortly after I woke it up.

I tried hooking up another monitor to it, but that didn't have the desired effect. So I used command+tab to move through applications (all by guesswork since the screen would update to more garbled mess) and I would press command+Q to quit the apps. Sometimes I held command+W to close windows, just for good measure. I was working blindly after all, so who knows what it was doing.

I tried clicking in the upper left where the Apple logo would be, and it seemed a rectangle appeared that would be the submenu. So I put my mouse where Log Out should have been but that didn't work. I tried the keyboard shortcut too to no avail. So in the end I had to resort to pressing the button and hoping for the best.

Much to my surprise it started back up normally, thank goodness!

Hopefully that never happens again... It was quite scary to think I may have to travel on Tuesday for 2 weeks and not have a laptop with me all that time.

Twittervated

2008-07-05T13:46:06Z

I was hoping to be twitterpated like most Twitter fanatics seem to be, but instead I'm twittervated.

Twittervate (twi-tər-vāt-ed)

Inflected forms: twittervates, twittervated, twittervating, twittervation

Etymology: A combination of the words twitter and aggravated, which is not at all like (and quite opposite of) the Disney-derived term "twitterpated". Middle English twiteren; akin to Old High German zwizzirōn to twitter. Latin aggravatus, past participle of aggravare to make heavier, from ad- + gravare to burden, from gravis heavy — more at grieve

Date: July 5th, 2008

1: to be aggravated by the malfunction of Twitter.

2: to feel displeasure or anger by persistent misbehavior of Twitter.

3: to become annoyed with "tweets" by the users of Twitter.

If you laughed at this at all, you can so relate!

Twitter hates me

2008-07-05T12:17:33Z

I've tweeted from twitter's home page in Firefox 2, Opera 9 and Safari 2. None of my tweets today are showing up.

Now its "over capacity".

Ugh, as a twitter newbie I'm so not impressed...

Happy National Regex Day - 5 Tips for working with Regular Expressions

2008-06-01T08:11:01Z

Happy National Regex Day!

To celebrate I'd like to share some tips for working with Regular Expressions that have helped me over the years I've been using them. I've got 5 tips to share today (#1 is already in the post on Ben Nadel's blog that I linked to but thought it worthwhile to repeat here, sorry if it is a dupe for you...)

Tip #1, for Dreamweaver Users: If you're a Dreamweaver user and need to build a regular expression, start learning about the Server Behavior Builder. When you create a server behavior, Dreamweaver generates a regular expression to match the code block(s). If you're in a hurry (or especially if you're just learning regular expressions), the regexes Dreamweaver generates can be a good starting point. You'll find the regexes it generates are in your user's Configuration in .edml files (which are XML files).

Tip #2, for CFEclipse users (assuming this works in other flavors of Eclipse as well): When you use the Search dialog (ctrl+H on the Mac), there's the obvious Regular Expression checkbox. With your focus in the Containing Text field, press Ctrl+Space to get a handy regex cheat sheet.

Tip #3, a Workflow Tip: When trying to come up with that perfect regex, take the time to build a static page or two that has what you want to match in it. Essentially, create a use case document. Then use your favorite regex capable Find and Replace tool to work up to creating the perfect regex. For instance, if you have a huge string to match, start by trying to match only the first 5 characters then add on to your regex and test again. When you've got it matching your use cases, then go ahead and plug it into your ColdFusion or JavaScript code (you don't use other code right? ;-))

Tip #4, Debugging Regular Expressions: You'll most likely find yourself debugging a regex at some point or another, and for me its usually because I missed a use case. (That's when its time to update the use case document.) Any time I've got a regex that isn't quite working right, I trim it back. In other words, I do the opposite of what I described in the first part of my workflow tip above. Stop trying to match what you really want to match in its entirety, take a bit away from the regex at a time until it starts matching your use case file. (If you didn't make a use case file, now is the time to do it!) Then build that regex back up again little by little until you have it matching everything you want.

Tip #5, Application Comments: In the case of using a regex in an application (versus in Find and Replace), always, always make a comment on what that regex means in plain English terms and why you need to use it in the first place. Sooner or later, someone will look at the regex and quite possibly have their eyes glaze over -- it could be you! So do yourself and others a favor and take a couple minutes to comment it. If you're extra geeky you'll have your comment refer to your use case file so they can actually see exactly what the heck that fancy string of characters is supposed to match.