Year: 2001

Ack. I am still getting a pop-up ad. I am sticking the banner ad code back in for now, will try again after lunch.

Ads should be gone from this front page. Just modified the template. Let me know if you are still seeing pop-up ads on this page. I’ll fix the other pages tonight.

I was hosting this site with Hypermart for free. But those pop-up ads were killing me, I couldn’t take it. So out of *love* for those of you that visit the site, I upgraded my service. No more stinkin’ ads for me! Now I can have cool things like tiny windows for pictures and stuff, so I am happy. $25 a quarter, I can’t complain. I have used Hypermart for years for hosting and have always been pleased with their service.

Today’s useless bit of trivia information: the ZIP in Zip-code stands for “Zoning Improvement Plan.” Just in case you were ever wondering.

My uncle Terry sent us an e-mail updating us on the balloon release that they held on the 26th, the one year anniversary of my cousin Tyler’s death. It was too moving not to post here. No one can tell me that there is no heaven, that there is no life after death… (grab the kleenex now before you continue if you are a “cryer” like me.)

The helium balloon launch was a great experience. We probably had 70+ people standing in our front yard and released about 100 balloons with messages in/on them.

Other people came until about 8:00 PM. The last one to show up was a neighbor that we hadn’t met before. She brought a small rose bush and released a balloon and left. She said the letter would explain everything.

She said she had thought of us every day since last April as she drove by the house. On Valentine’s Day she bought the rose plant to give to us. She forgot about it on her way home and left it in the car. Needless to say it froze.

She took it in the house and watered it and put it in the sun. Nothing happened to it for several weeks. Finally she trimmed it back and said: “Kid (meaning Tyler) I am trying to do something nice for your family here, and I screwed it up. You have got to help me out here.”

Three days later she saw new shoots coming out of the ground. She now knows for sure that Tyler is in Heaven.

She wanted to drop the plant off at Easter but the weather was too cold again. Yesterday she read my guest editorial in the Winona Daily News and decided yesterday was the day she wanted to come by. She came by late to avoid the crowd of people that were at the house. She feels our pain everyday by imagining it could have been one of her kids who could have been hit and killed at the intersection that they use daily. She also thanked us for having the strength and courage to have the dangerous intersection ‘cleaned up’ by pressing for a stop sign.

Even though I miss Tyler so much, I guess this is one of the silver linings I am able to find in such a dark cloud.

My cousin Kristen (aka my cousin Ken’s wife) also sent out this on the 26th, and I had to ask her if I could share it too:

One year ago, my thirteen-year-old cousin was hit by a car and killed in the street right in front of his house. He was in a crosswalk. A bus had stopped for him, but the girl in the other lane continued driving and hit him. To this day, at every crosswalk I stand at, I have trouble understanding why people don’t know the law.
(snip)
Pedestrian law varies by state so please know the laws in your state.

I’ll post the Minnesota and Texas laws later on a separate page, but for now just wanted to leave you with that to think about. Know the law for your state.