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About My Family:
My family (mom, dad, brother and sister) moved
to the United States from Czechoslovakia in 1969 (now known
as the Czech
Republic). I was born a few years later. My
parents didn't intend on having 3 children so I am lovingly
referred to as the "American Accident" by my brother
and sister.
My parents are no longer with us. My dad died in July
of 1993 from lung cancer and my mom died in May of 1997 from
a heart attack. They both died at the age of 57.
I never realized how much they meant to me until they were gone.
Now that I have a child of my own I am truly beginning to understand
what they sacrificed for us. They were so incredibly courageous.
They moved from an occupied communist country to the United
States when my brother and sister were still very young.
They gave up everything they had just so they could move to
a country that was free and full of opportunity - something
that Czechoslovakia could not offer them at the time.
They are truly my heroes and I miss them terribly. How
I yearn for Camden to have my parents here with him - I imagine
my mom singing to him and my dad cuddling him. Camden
will never know my parents - his Babicka and Dedecek (Czech
for Grandma and Grandpa).
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About Me:
I grew up in Texas and still live fairly
close to my home town. I graduated from college with a
BS in Biology/Chemistry. I lived in the Czech Republic
for 3 months after I graduated, spending the majority of my
time in Karlovy
Vary (this is where my parents lived and where my brother
and sister were born). It was a wonderful opportunity
to become acquainted with my family and heritage, see far too
many hockey games, and travel through an absolutely stunning
country. I also earned money working as an English tutor.
When I returned, I began my scientific career in the food industry,
working as a research scientist, lab manager, and analytical
lab tech. After staying home with our son for several
years, I returned to the workforce. I am currently employed
as an 8th grade science teacher in a wonderful school district.
I love being a teacher and feel I have truly found my calling.
It is the hardest yet most rewarding job I have ever had in
my life (of course, motherhood is the BEST job of them all!).
One of my favorite hobbies is working on our websites.
I have become a bona-fide "COMPUTER JUNKIE" and spend
quite a bit of my free time on my computer. My husband
and I are also both tech-a-holics. If it's a new electronic
gadget/toy, he and I are all over it! Another favorite
hobby of mine is collecting Czech porcelain, specifically Zwiebelmuster
made by Cesky
Porcelan. My father was a porcelain maker when they
lived in the Czech Republic and he worked for Cesky Porcelan.
I purchased my coffee service while on my trip and received
a few pieces as gifts from some wonderful Czech friends.
I have since purchased many of my pieces off of eBay.
I also love to cook authentic Czech foods (using my mother's
recipes). It's funny, but the foods that I didn't "love"
while growing up (such as knedliky (dumplings), zeli (sauerkraut),
and kolace/kolache (Czech pastries) have become foods that I
crave. I have yet to find ANYONE that can make kolache
as good as my mom's (yes, I'm biased). A lot of places
sell what they claim to be true Czech kolache, but they aren't
nearly as authentic and they claim. And some places sell
pigs-in-a-blanket and call them kolache. I find that just
plain offensive! ;) Anyway, I'm
just a Czech-American who loves her family, her heritage, and
is a tech-junkie! Thanks for reading along.
My Current
Mood:
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Misc. Links:
Website Related Links: Here
are some sites that I have found helpful in creating our websites
and slowing/eliminating the spam attacks.
DNS
Stuff
Misc. DNS related
tools. Very cool! |
Dynamic
Drive
This site contains a library of scripts
and codes, some of which are in use on this website (i.e.
the image slideshow). |
HTML
Practice Board
This is an online resource to see the output
of your html. I don't really use it much as I already
have a WYSIWYG editor but it's still a cool website. |
mod_rewrite
Forum
A great forum to
get assistance/advice with your htaccess files. |
Project
Honey Pot
An excellent listing on the most common/recent
spam harvester user agents. A great resource to
use when banning the "bad bots" in your htaccess
file. |
Robots.txt
Files
A robots.txt file placed in your root (main/home)
directory can help guide the "good bots" through
your site and keep them out of directories that you do
not want them to index. "Good bots," such
as Google, Yahoo and MSN, follow the guidelines you specify
in your robots.txt file and crawl your website accordingly.
Unfortunately, the "bad bots" usually do not
obey your robots.txt rules (see the "User Agents
List" below to exclude those bad guys via an htaccess
file!) |
Robots.txt
File Validator
Check your
robots.txt file online to insure it's operating/written
properly. You can also Click
Here to view their online tutorial on writing your
file. |
Speed
Test
Check the speed of your broadband or DSL
internet connection. |
User
Agents List
An extensive list that
includes spambots and other "bad" user agents
and bots. I've used this information to help create
an htaccess file excluding those that could potentially
or have already spam attacked our websites. So far
so good, as spam attacks on our websites have diminished
to almost 0! |
Wannabrowser
You can use this site to verify how your
website appears using different user agents and/or referrers.
For example, if you use an htaccess file to block certain
user agents, you can use this site to verify that your
htaccess file is operating correctly. Very cool! |
WebMaster
World
A great forum with a lot of information
and resources related to web design. This is where
I learned how to implement a .htaccess file in many of
my website directories to exclude spambots and perform
a variety of other functions. They require registration
to read/post in the forum; however, it's free. |
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