I’m home from a circuit through Colorado and Utah. Luckily we were on the road before the flood waters hit Greeley. My plans to blog in the evenings hit a snag half way through the trip when my laptop was corrupted, so thanks to the guest bloggers for filling in so ably.

The new rig.
As long time readers know, this is my prime dog show season. 16 hour days and a few thousand miles of travel leave only so much time for current events, but getting away from it all helps keep me sane!
Or not.
(More photos, click for full size)

Special congratulations to Watts Up With That – Weblog of the Year!

Voting closes at 10pm ET today.

This is a one person – one vote contest. Further details here.

A sign from Gaia;

You cannot make this stuff up…here is the CAPCHA code: ichcock fruitfly

Via email,

I am Revnant Dream’s sister. I just received word today that Revnant Dream
is in ICU, in isolation at the University of Alberta Hospital. His prognosis
is not good. I request that you say a prayer for him. He wanted to let you
know as he considers those at SDA and BCF a part of his extended family. I
know that he was one of the very early commentors over at BCF and is a long
time poster of comments at SDA. I ask that you keep him in his prayers. The
prayers of your readers are very much appreciated at this time.

Here’s hoping for the best.

How blogging battles the left.

Let me know in the comments.

11:25am Update – things went very late last night, so this is still a rough draft. There’s lots of tweaking to do, and we’re just getting started on that. Thanks for the feedback!

– Okay. I’ve made a few changes based on Kate’s requirements. A few things though, captcha stays. It will help eliminate the 20/hour spam comments that SDA got on a regular basis. When we have that many spams, we don’t even look at the spam comments to decide if batb’s (as an example) is clean because the url had the word ‘ban’ in it. We just delete them all. So, the captcha will help you too.

See below the fold for up to date changes.

Cheers,
lance

Continue reading →

The long awaited platform upgrade is ready and tested and (barring unforeseen circumstances) will be initiated this evening. During this time, SDA will be offline.
If we run into problems that result in extended downtime, I’ll post updates via @Katewerk. With luck, all will be back up in the morning.
A few factoids: Since inception, 21,714 blog posts and 757,177 comments have been posted to SDA. We’ve pushed 1362.82 GB out the server so far this year.

Thanks to everyone who’s helped make it possible!
(Note: Any resemblance between the timing of this post and apocalypses, Mayan or otherwise, is hopefully coincidental. )

In my case, nothing got done until I threatened to sue. Not Wikipedia – the lowly “volunteer” who kept restoring the page. I tracked down his real name, his address, where he went to school.
That’s when I got their attention.

Yes, I’m aware that certain aspects of SDA, in particular the loading of comments, have been slow to load in recent weeks.
The server has been under heavy pressure due to waves of spam attacks – it’s the price I pay for having an open comments policy. I’ll be looking at a blog platform upgrade soon, which may alleviate the problem.
Until then, I’ll remind readers here that this is not a chat forum and that your comments should be relevant to the topic. Every comment you post requires a page rebuild, which consumes server resources, which slows loading of the site for others. So, if your comment is a one liner, a retort to a troll, or something equally pointless, please keep it to yourself.

Sorry for the slow posting this weekend. I was busy.

I’m back, though my return to the blogosphere a little delayed. I got in at 2am yesterday, and woke up with a migraine that kept me in bed until, well. now.
But on to happier things. Denmark is a beautiful country. If you get the chance to visit sometime, take it. I spent most of my stay with friends in the small village of Højby, in what might be considered “cottage country”, with trips to Copenhagen, Herning (dog show) and the castles at Kronberg and Frederiksborg. I’ll post more photos when I get caught up on life.

Your hostess filming swans at Kronberg Slot.
Thanks to Robert, EBD, Lance, and the many others who have helped keep this place humming during the past few weeks and months. SDA has evolved from personal blog to a monster who must be fed, and your assistance is deeply appreciated!

I’ll be leaving Denmark shortly and for most of the next 24 hours will be incommunicado over the Atlantic. Go take a breather, and allow the bread and circus community a few hours to celebrate.
Yes, I know many are disappointed, if not downright concerned on behalf of our friends in the US who still retain the ability to do math. But look at it another way – the next four years are sure to bring blogging gold. Remember – he inherited this mess.

We’ve cracked half a million visits here at SDA for the month of October, and the day is not yet over.

One of these days, I’ll have to add a Facebook button here for you to “like”. Or not. Heh.

Greetings from Copenhagen. No Y2Kyoto conflab this year, so no icebreakers were required.

I was under the weather last night, so we’re off to a slow start this morning. Blogging should be back to normal in a few hours. (And no, it was not self-inflicted.)

CKOM is going to be interviewing Vivian Krause of Rethink Campaigns at the bottom of the hour. (10:30 am CST)
Should be interesting listening. Podcast available here.

Good news: @katewerk linked to my photo site. Bad news: The avalanche killed it. Currently rebuilding. Thank gawd for backups.

— Sean McCormick (@mccormickphoto) March 21, 2012

I try to use my power only for good.