Still a few minutes left before November 1 is over. I don’t have ideas or a good strategy for success, and I’m always short on time in the fall months. But I’m in once again for NaBloPoMo after a rather lengthy hiatus from blogging.
I didn’t complete the last few NaBloPoMo months I’ve attempted, but I’m going to give it another try. I want to make time to enjoy reading and writing again.
(NaBloPoMo | November ’11: 1 of 30)
I’m guest blogging over at Rodney Lee’s Midlife Crisis Hawaii today! Go and see, as I talk about a long-ago time when I thought I was going to grow up to be a journalist.
If you’re of a certain age (as in old enough to vote and/or drink in the ’70s) and if you ever lived in Hawaii, go and check out Rodney’s blog. Even if you aren’t as old as dirt and never came closer to Hawaii than watching “Hawaii 5-0″ – go and check it out!
I apparently spoke too soon when I said that WordPress was back to normal. I’ve had some ongoing problems with 3.1.1 and some plugin or combination of plugins. I’m still not entirely sure what the magic combination is, but I think that this time, things are really, finally, back to normal.
I’ve still been trying to keep my April NaBloPoMo going offline, so you will be seeing back posts appearing as I transfer them over.
The latest WordPress upgrade to 3.1.1 is the first time I’ve ever had any problems updating, so it really took me by surprise. On the scale of bad technology moments, it was still pretty low (maybe 2 out of 10). I had two very recent backups of both database and files, one at work and one at home. I ended up not needing either one.
What happened is that all of my admin functions slowed to a crawl. The site itself was loading fine for viewers. But it took forever to publish a post, open a post for editing… or to do anything at all. After googling to see whether anyone else was having similar problems, I disabled all of the plugins and re-updated. Everything was back to normal speed, so I started adding back plugins one by one. When I got to the last one, I added it back to verify that it was the culprit. It wasn’t. Everything was still back to normal speed. It still is. So I guess I’ll never really know for sure what the problem was.
(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 7 of 30)
I’m thinking about using Joomla! 1.6 for a major reboot of a website I maintain. So I’ve been wrestling with it all night. I just popped over here to make my daily post, and I see that WordPress 3.1.1 is waiting for me.
I’ve been a little lax about updates and stuff, so I’m going to make this short and take care of my updates and scans and backups and such before heading off to bed. Good night, and hope with me that I don’t break anything!
(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 5 of 30)
Foolish doesn’t even begin to cover it, but I’ve decided to take another shot at NaBloPoMo and post something every day in April. I’ve got a lot going on this month, and I hope that will translate into “lots of things to write about” rather than “not having time to write.” So you can look forward to reading about the Rottweiler Klub of North America, Total Rottweiler Magazine (and if you are a Rottweiler owner, I’d like to think that you are not only reading about TTRM, but that you are reading it), Susan Garrett’s 5 Minute Formula to a Brilliant Recall, and Kent Weakley’s Photography eClasses.
See you all month!
(NaBloPoMo | April ’11: 1 of 30)
The deep feeling of relief that my family and friends in Hawaii and on the west coast of the United States were not affected by last Friday’s tsunami was soon overwhelmed by the horrible news and images from Japan.
I don’t talk about it very often here, but I am of Japanese ancestry. I’m sansei (third generation, or second generation born in the United States) and way more American than Japanese. I speak very little of the language and I’ve only visited Japan once. But there is still a real connection for me, as I believe everyone has with the land of their ancestors.
Many years ago, my brother and uncle were looking into our family tree. As it does for many Japanese-Americans, some of our branches break off with the records lost in Hiroshima during WWII. It is sad to think that there is a part of my past I’ll probably never be able to find, but the records were lost so long ago, long before I was born. It doesn’t even compare to the man I saw interviewed on television earlier this week. This Japanese man has been living and working in the United States for quite some time. He saw the village where he is from completely destroyed. He said he doesn’t believe he will ever go back, as he wants to remember it the way he last saw it. I can’t even imagine how it would feel to lose my hometown like that. Nor can I truly imagine what it would be like to be separated from any of my family members, two- or four-legged, in such a devastating natural disaster.
That brings us to today’s Paws for Japan, spearheaded by Pawcurious and BlogPaws. Human lives are important (and yes, I am donating to help people as well). But because animals are important to so many of us humans, the animal rescue teams now in Japan need our help as well. Please consider donating to World Vets to support that goal.
(may contain profanity or non-p.c. content)
