Light & Dark

The more things change...

It figures that the first person to comment as I slowly start making time to get back to blogging here would be Mike. He was also one of the first way back nearly 6 years ago when Light & Dark first started. In fact, his first contact was a trackback, not even a comment. That came a couple of posts later when we got talking about Acidman, the burgeoning TypePad beta community (TypePad had just launched in limited release) and the Toledo Mudhens (Klinger's team on MASH).

While I have some cleaning up to do in the old blogroll, I'm quite impressed to see that so many of the stawarts that been over there in the sidebar so long are still blogging actively. Hardy folks with impressive longevity!

Looking forward to getting back in touch with a number of them. (Hi De! Hi Mike W!) I've stayed active in some comment sections, but have missed talking to a few of those folks. As someone who now specialises in Social Media and web marketing, it's pretty cool to see how well my old blogging community has held up over the years.

Typepad ugrade messes up blog display **Updated

Looks like TypePad has got some of the mess they made of people's formatting during this weekend's upgrades corrected. If you're a Typadder who still has sidebars messed up on your blog, follow the instructions below to reset them.

To fix the sidebar display, you need to resave all your Typelists.

1. Log into your Typepad admin page.
2. Go to the Typelists tab
3. For your first Typelist, click on the Edit Configuration button.
4. Click on the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
5. Click on the Typelists tab at the top of the page to take you back to the list of your Typeplists.
6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each of your lists.

That should reset your sidebar display. As one final step, you may benefit from republishing your whole blog (to correct archives etc.) by going to the Weblogs tab in your admin panel, and  then clicking Edit Design in the Your Weblogs section that references your main blog (link on the right  side). Once in the Edit Design page, click the button at the bottom for Republish Weblog.

That will clean things up as much as possible, given the changes TP has made, and assuming they don't break anything else in the meantime.

Can ya tell I'm not too impressed with how they've handled this? Gonna do some major bitching about it later.

** Update: If you have photo albums also displayed in your sidebar, you will need to resave them to correct their display as well. On your Typepad admin page, click the Photo Albums tab, and for the first  album, hit the Edit Configuration button. On the following page, scroll to the bottom and click the Save Changes button. DO this for each of your Photo Albums.

Teasing Teresa

Finally get back online after 6 days after my ISP screws up YET AGAIN, and I've been too freakin' busy to post.

This is a quickie for Teresa at Simply Divine, who has been roasting my retinas with more pics of her 'girly shit'. Aiiieeeeeee!!!!! (Honey, get the damn print framed already.)

Well, T... just thought I'd mention why I don't have time to blog this evening. I'll be trotting up the hill here in a few minutes to our cozy little theatre to see Aron Ralston in person, and hear him discuss his new book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Ran into him briefly earlier today as he was in between media interviews too. Very cool, down-to-earth guy. Might even get to chat with him at the pub after.

Is that green you're turning m'dear? I'll try to get a quick pic of him for you.

For those who don't know, Ralston is the guy who last year found himself alone in a remote canyon, pinned under a boulder. After several days of trying everything he could think of to release himself, he finally did the unthinkable - sawed off his own arm with dull, cheapie Leatherman-style pocket knife.

We're in the middle of our Mountain Film & Book Festival here; one of the largest & most prestigious in the world. It's a little unnerving walking around the halls meeting one icon of the mountaineering and literary worlds after another. I just wish I had time to get to more of the events!

TypePad tribulations

I have no idea if folks are even able to read this today, as pretty well all the TypePad sites I visit are still having loading problems or are DOA. It seemed to have been resolved an hour or so ago, but is back with a vengeance again.

Come on TypePad... I'm trying to be patient, but you don't have much longer to get your shit together before you burn through the good will you've built up up until now. This problem has been showing up repeatedly since the end of last month. It's no longer just a minor annoyance.

Find a solution and implement it, quick.

I got smoked.

If Instapundit causes Instalanches, and a link from Gut Rumbles gives an Acid Bath, then having Smoke on the Water refer to a post means ya get Smoked. (He was expressing his well-founded concern about my continuing to help him with tech. support after my episode with the microwave.)

Geez, Jim. I helped ya get set up at the very end of November, so I know you've only been at it 3 months and you've already built a huge readership. I've had a couple hundred visitors swing through here from your site. Great going, and thank you sir!

I've been made an example of.

You know that feeling when you walk through a crowd, and lot's of people turn to look at you as you go by? And you're thinking, "hmm... guess I look good in this shirt." But then you immediately start wondering if maybe it's because your fly's open, or you've still got lunch smeared in your moustache?

Light & Dark has been included among several blogs to be used in the writing of an essay for an English course called Writing Purposes and Research at Park University (Kansas City, Missouri.)

What a strange feeling! I'd love to read some of what was written and am going to contact the prof. now that the assignment is over, to ask if any of the students who referenced this blog would willing to allow me to read their essay. I'd also love to know how I came to be included in the blogs to be considered for the essay. The curiosity is killing me!

I was particularly fascinated, when I found the referrals in my log, to read about the course itself. (I studied English at University too) It turns out that blogging is actually a core component of the course. The students have a class blog, and must post at least 4 times a week. The blogging accounts for 25% of their course mark!

So, I've become fodder for institutions of higher learning. And blogging has become a legitimate area of study, and bona fide means of communication and expression at the university level.

Very cool. Maybe I should go back & finish my degree... Bachelor of Blogging has a nice ring to it.

Another brought into the light.

Well, Jim's new blog at Smoke on the Water is up and running. Lots of readers of his comments over at GutRumbles had been hassling encouraging him to start, so I offered him one of my TypePad discount codes along with some help if he wanted it. (Still have more codes if anyone's interested.)

We've had lots of fun working together to get him set up & tweaked, and prepare some custom graphics for him. Only via the Internet could a guy in the Canadian Rocky Mountains meet and collaborate with a fellow living on a 30 foot sloop in Galveston Texas to create a means for him to present his writing to the rest of world. He's got a fascinating background and gets 'bitch-slapped by the muse' frequently, so I look forward to lots of great reading. Welcome to your newest addiction Jim!

In the course of the collaboration, he mentioned that, while not a particularly difficult process, the extra help definitely made things faster, more enjoyable, and less frustrating.

He suggested there might very well be a number of people out there who would be willing to pay for some help getting set up, and since I'm definitely looking for more freelance work, I've decided to hang out my shingle.

So if you're thinking of setting up a blog, and would like some help choosing a service, getting set up, having a banner made, and/or getting the most out of the features of your service, drop me an email. I can give you a list of folks I've worked with for reference, and we can talk about your needs, wishes and budget. I'm an excellent, patient teacher, and rates are reasonable. And did I mention the 20% discount available on TypePad?

My specialty is TypePad, but I can also help with Blogspot if you prefer a free service, and can give you some options for Moveable Type as well. Note though that I am not in any way affiliated with any of these products or the companies that provide them. All terms of use of the respective products will be honoured and enforced. How's that for mumbo jumbo?

If ya want a hand... let's talk!!

Blog family.

Family has been on my mind for most of the day today. The main reason is that today is my Mom’s 70th birthday, so I’ve been thinking about her, and also about all the things that go into being a family.

Because everyone is so far away, communication has to be by electronic means. Unfortunately none of my sisters or my parents are frequent users of email, so the telephone is the only choice left. My sisters in particular, however, all seem to have a real dislike of the ‘phone. Understandable, given that they have busy households, and a phone call requires immediate attention whether it’s a convenient time or not. So all 3 just don’t answering their phones, and allow an answering machine to record instead. The down side is, they hardly ever make time to call me back, so often I go weeks of leaving them messages before I ever get to have a visit.

I find this really frustrating, especially after my visit home, during which everyone made it clear they really missed having me around. I have to chalk it up to the fact that their lives are just too busy, even though they might wish to keep up. Fortunately, my nieces & nephews are all into IM with their friends, so I’ve started using that as a way to keep in touch with them, however briefly. And of course, the inevitable happens; chatting with my niece, who is relaying questions from her Mom over her shoulder to me while we chat.

Ruminating about family also brought to mind one of my favourite quotations by Richard Bach (of Jonathan Livingston Seagull fame) from his book Illusions:

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

Given that frame of reference, it occurred to me that I have my own little family right here. If I could create my own family tree, here’s how I think it'd look. (disclaimer: ages are irrelevant)

Trackbacking and Pings

Stevie has been getting confused by all the talk of pings and trackbacks on blogs. I was quite confused by the same thing when I started, and was glad to finally get it figured out. It's a question most bloggers want answered fairly soon after starting up. In fact, it came up in one of my earliest posts while beta-testing TypePad.

So, Stevie, lets see if i can help clear this up for ya.

Toe Porn for Roscoe

Acidman's gonna have a coronary. He of the acute red toenail polish fetish linked to a Broad a few days ago, and in retaliation thanks, she's posted a pic of her dainty feet. And a beautiful pic it is. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at the Crackerbox when he sees it. He'll be backwashing his White Zinfandel for sure.