One of the advances of moving to my new host has been the ability to reinstall and significantly enhance the Photos page of this website.  The plugin I use for this page is a data-intensive, database-straining plugin that overwhelmed my limited capacity on the old host and had to be disabled.  Now, I’m able to use the new version which implements some fairly snazzy JavaScript animation to make it look extra cool.  Check it out!

Note also that all of my pictures are covered by a Creative Commons Share Alike license.  That means that my pictures that appear on this website are free to use - even commercially - so long as any derivative works are released under the same license and so long as I’m given credit for the original photograph.  Use them in good health!

DFE has now switched over to it’s new platform.  Of course, it’s not as though you’re really going to notice it, looking at the site.  But the switch from one platform to the other has happened and we can get on with providing Rochester with all the commentary we have been known for!

Some things are, of course, a little shakey.  But otherwise, the switch happened remarkably easily under the circumstances.  In the next weeks and months, look for the News Updates to pick up considerably, including original content, a new facelift and a new home on the site.  My friend Jamie Piazza, who has been authoring Inner Space here on the DFE Network for the last few weeks, is going to be filling in as DFE’s new editor.

I’ve also gotten some interested parties looking to become featured bloggers.  So hopefully, we’ll have a whole new set of bloggers, plus I’ll be gently but frequently needling those who’ve already been writing, in the hopes that they might write a bit more often.

And of course as always, more things are in the mix that I’m not going to start blabbing about now.  Just keep your eyes glued to DFE and find out!

It’s web host changing time here in DFE land, and I couldn’t be less thrilled.  True, there will be some significant improvements to the site going forward that won’t be possible on my current host, but the transition is not fun.

For example, changing registrars takes about a week or so, during which any updates to this current version of the site will be lost to the new version until it’s updated, and there’s no warning when the switch happens.  So, if you see this same post here in a week or so, you’ll know the switch has happened and I am frantically trying to pull together the updates for the site in the meanwhile.  Or maybe I just say “the hell with it,” I haven’t decided yet.

Beyond that, the challenge for me will be making sure that the new site and databases exactly mirror the old, otherwise there could be some complications associated with the move.  Yeah, that’s fun.

So, wish me luck, people.  The site will continue to be updated, albeit sparingly, over the next week and then the good times start after that.

Over the Fourth of July weekend and the week that followed, this site has been - with the exception of a few Twitter tweets, just for fun - on hiatus.  It seemed like a good thing to me to take some time off and regroup, gather strength and inspiration, before settling into the long, hot summer of presidential politics.  So, what did I do whilst I was gone?

Well, for one, I completely screwed up my website.  Many of you may have noticed that some of the links to the other blogs aren’t working, and that the news hasn’t been updated in a while.  That’s because I fucked up.  I installed a new version of WPMU and discovered a problem no one else in the WPMU community seems to be having.  Lucky me!  So, whilst I trundle through fixing my mess and reporting my findings back to Donncha, I will likely remove these things from the front page and posting may be a bit sparse in the meanwhile.  Sorry!

But on the upside, my wife and I traveled back to NYC for another vaction.  We stayed at the Hotel Empire, whose classic red neon sign burns high above Columbus Circle on Broadway.  Very, very small rooms, but a cool, ultra-modern vibe throughout the hotel.  In the wee hours of Saturday morning, while I snapped photos of the cool decor, the radio played a very strange dub-esque remix of Riders on the Storm by The Doors.  Nothing but bass line with occasional flourishes of guitar and keyboard trippiness.

We took in a show on Broadway called Passing Strange, which has been getting a lot of advertisement here and on other local blogs for a month or so.  As you might imagine, a show advertising on lefty blogs probably isn’t doing so well, and indeed, we got second-from-front row seats for Row F Balcony prices.  It’s unfortunate that this show is doing so poorly, because that means a lot of people are missing out on a great production.  This show explores the various illusions people impose upon themselves for the sake of vanity - not merely the kids in the play, but also the mother figure who regards herself as so grown up.  If you get a chance to support this one before it goes away, definitely check it out.

And of course, we spent lots of money on food.  People go to New York for lots of reasons.  For Sarah and I, it’s all about the food, shows and shopping.  We spent $160 on our first meal, and while that was certainly the most expensive meal of the trip, other meals weren’t off by all that much.  In fact, we paid $80 for breakfast on Central Park South at a place called Sarahbeth’s, making it the single most expensive breakfast I’ve ever eaten.  But it was good.  We also visited Anthony Bourdain’s Brasserie Les Halles again.

And then we went to Naples wine country and sampled the local flavour.  Upstate New York wine keeps getting better and better.  They’re even developing their own voice in the red wine department, a genre of particular challenges for northern, short season hill country.  We went to Sonnenberg Gardens and tasted a bunch of wines there, but I have to say that the Sonnenberg home itself is the most depressing place I’ve ever been to.  There’s something about the place that says, “these people only just died. Please be quiet.”

And then we went to the Seneca Park Zoo, checked out the new baboon enclosure and the elephant pool, and that was about it.  Fascinating, eh?

Just wishing all of you in the blogging community a happy and safe Fourth of July.  This here blog type thang is going to go dark for a few days while my wife and I visit New York City for our holiday.  What could be more American than a road trip on the Forth, right?

It’s been a long week.

Without going into too much pointless detail, suffice it to say that a comedy of errors kept this site dark for two full days while I worked out a number of problems.  Hosting issues, the threat (happily, all in my head) of potential hacker mischief and a lamentable choice to upgrade in the middle of a crisis left me scratching my head and itching to go back and blog.  There were moments in there that I questioned why I was working so hard.  What am I doing with this site, anyway?

But I was also left practically getting hives without an outlet for expression, so I guess I found my answer.

The site is now upgraded to WordPress MU version 1.5.1, and that’s a good thing.  However, I’ve discovered that some critical plugins will need to be recoded to work with the new platform for reasons I don’t yet fully understand.  It’ll all get worked out eventually.

In the meanwhile, thanks to all of you who wrote me.  Everything’s fine now.  We now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.

I’m not sure how well or poorly this bodes for my Memorial Day weekend or summer, but here it is, large as life in your local Friendly’s Ice Cream parlor:

I’ve had a particularly successful morning’s-worth of photography, this morning and decided to adapt one of my better photos to the header of the site.  Those of you reading this via RSS, have a look directly at the website!

I’m going to be posting more photos later on to Flickr, where they will appear on the photos page.  I don’t think I’m done just yet.

I’ve been busy lately and haven’t been able to pay the blog the attention it deserves.  Sorry to those of you who have been looking for more posts.   For one, I’ve been doing some contract work for a major news outlet who is adopting a blog space based on my specialty, WordPress MU.  This is a very large newspaper and a great opportunity for me, but I don’t want to say whom it is until I’m farther along and they launch the site.

That’s about all I’ve got now.  I’ll post later, honest.

OK, after four days of silence, I’ve finally moved into my new East Rochester home and I’m back to blogging.  The new house is beautiful, right on top of the hill on Ivy street.  I actually spent some of my early childhood there and always loved it.  Now that I’m an adult, I can hardly argue with an awesome meat market (Village Fair) right around the corner, at least two awesome fine restaurants, one kick ass pizzeria (Village Way) and all the other great stuff happening on Commercial and Main.  Plus, for the big-box consumer in me, Tops, Wegmans and Home Depot are all within five minutes of driving.

Still, I have to confess that it’s a bit disconcerting to no longer live in the city.  No longer urban, I feel slightly suburban.

But I’m looking forward to spring to start cleaning up the yard and getting things looking nice out there.  The previous owner was a single mom, and I don’t think she got much of a chance to work out there.  We’ve got a nice little back yard that I’m looking forward into cultivating.

And I’ll get back to the business of blogging now, as well.  I’ve gotten some headlines posted this morning, that’s a start.  I’ll be looking closely at the goings-on in East Rochester, now, as well as general Rochester topics.  I’m very interested to see how the new Koon administration shapes up, and I’ll be sure to post my findings.