More canning today so don’t expect many posts.

I’m home but still recuperating. Regular blogging should resume tomorrow some time.
In the meanwhile, a few photos from the trip, including this favourite. I can’t recommend this city too highly – so much to see in a comparatively small area, reasonable prices for my accommodations in the theatre district and the best food I’ve ever eaten — easily half the price one would pay for a comparable meal in Canada. (It helped that my friend turned tour guide is a third generation resident of the city.)

We visited Peterhof, the Hermitage including the Treasury and Diamond Room and their endless galleries with works by DaVinci, Rubens and more; The Winter Palace, along with a couple of cathedrals and Peter and Paul Fortress. And then there were the front row seats for The Nutcracker at the Mariinsky Theatre. What a place. That is all I can say.
I did trade photo quality for ease of walking the streets and seeing the city through my eyes and not a camera lens. In coming days I’ll probably post more as I sift through what I have.
Just a few of my shots chosen at random, in no particular order and without processing;
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Now I must try to catch up on my life and shake the rest of this jet lag.

Blogging’s likely to be slow until month’s end, as I’m leaving for Russia later this morning and won’t be spending much time on line. The guest bloggers may drop by now, and don’t forget to check out the blogroll. I’ll be back March 2nd. Try not to break anything.

It has come to my attention that complaints have arisen here that SDA is not covering every shooting incident in a fair and balanced manner. To save readers from wading through the thread, here is my response, posted again here:

If I reported on every Islamic-linked mass murder, this blog would be called Jihad Watch, and there’d be no room for other content.
If I reported breaking news on every mass and not-so-mass shooting, this would be CNN and I”d be making a few million a year as a network news anchor.
This is neither.
However, I will concede that these explanations may fall short of satisfactory. So, if you wish, you may file a formal complaint to the higher-ups: COMPLAINT PROCEDURE.
Thank you.

I left Sacramento on Monday morning around 4:30am Pacific after getting a client’s dog on the plane, stopped in at Great Falls, Mt to ship another dog at 4am this morning, and walked in the door about 4 hours ago. 1,560 miles, the last two hours on ice. I’m a little numb.
It’s been a long three weeks on the road. Many thanks to Lance and the guest bloggers who do such a great job keeping the place rolling along in my absence. For those who sent private criticisms suggestions (a very few): while I enjoy entertaining you all for free, I must also make a living and keep my feet planted in the real world (as do the volunteer guests and administrators.)
This is not – to quote Lileks – a public utility.
Regular blogging should ramp back up sometime tomorrow.

Continue reading →

I injured my eye a couple of days ago, and screen work is just a little bit painful. Accordingly, I’m going to try to rest it as best I can this weekend, so blogging may be slow.
(Happy Halloween!)

Greetings from Pennsylvania, as we wind up the last leg of a very wet, cold, windy and successful Montgomery county weekend. Despite inches of rain and mud up to their knees, we’ll be bringing home new American Champion Minuteman Up With The Birds, and some nice wins for his older brother and sister, AmCanCh.Minuteman Justified and AmCanCh.Minuteman Sweet Justice.

The view from inside, and outside, our grooming tent on Friday. The Saturday show was cancelled outright.

I’ll be on the road tomorrow evening and blogging should return to normal by the middle of the week. Thanks to all the guest bloggers for helping out!

In its decision, the three-judge panel ruled that copyright holders must consider fair use before asking services like YouTube to remove videos that include material they control.

There will be an update tonight. (Thank you Trevor) Expect downtime, expect things to not work. Fire, floods, sharknados.
You know, the usual.

After pulling an all-nighter on I-15 to beat the heat – greetings from Los Angeles, where the air quality and furniture tied to the roof of cars reminds more of China each time I visit. Many thanks to Lance, and the rest of the SDA Nation for holding down the fort during my absence. 3,400 km, 6 days of sunny Idaho fairgrounds, hairspray and ribbons – much fun was had by all. I’ll be another week or so here in Little Beijing, where I again have net access and should be checking in periodically before normal blogging resumes.

Nobody knows why.

I’m working on the theme (fonts, font sizes, colour, masthead, images, sidebar). Everything will go back to the way it was. The old theme was a customization of a supplied theme, and so, on the upgrade it was overwritten with the standard supplied theme.
I may go back to the old site for a bit to export it, rather than rebuild it. As I noted yesterday, upgrades have a way of mucking up the best laid plans.
Part of the issue is the size of SDA. 29k entries, a touch shy of a million comments. The vast majority of SDA is static because using a database for all of that is ridiculous when there are no changes to the content. Due to that size, rebuilding the website takes a _lot_ of time, like greater than an hour.
So it isn’t a simple, change once, rebuild, change something else, rebuild kind of exercise.
FWIW, the reason for the change. We knew about the update and had plans to implement it, but not the reason. When the exploit was published that forced my hand.

I’m sure there will be issues. Let me know in this thread if you see something, please. Obviously there is theme related stuff that needs to be tuned and I’ll get on that.
Cheers,
lance

Small Dead Animals will be down tonight after 22:00. I don’t expect it to last too long, but you never know.
Cheers,
lance

Only YOU can help the Bloggies go horribly wrong.

The Unique Visits represent a 6% increase over 2013, and a 13% increase over 2011 – despite a decided lack of backscratching linkage from high traffic American blogs. Thank you, all!

Too much time at the computer doing digital design has brought on some rather painful back spasms (day three and counting…). So, until those resolve, things may slow down here a little… Guest bloggers are welcome to drop by if you’re so inclined, otherwise – check out the blogroll.