moving on...

Hi there.

This incarnation of Uncertain Times has passed on.

It will continue over here.

I will no longer be tracking subscribers, visitors or links, so the only way I'll know you're there is if you stop by and comment every once in a while. I'm happily dropping out of the blogos-flow while continuing to post things that I find interesting. No hurry, no pressure, no worry.

Before I go, I must give a big hug and a kiss on the cheek to all of you, visitors and blog-kin alike. You are the ones that have made this a memorable experience. I hope you all stay in touch.

See you on the other side.

Happy Spring!

I hope you all have been enjoying some lovely springtime weather. (Those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, of course.) I certainly have.

Due to a mild case of spring fever, a more pronounced case of internet burnout and a few pressing exigencies, Uncertain Times will be on Spring Break until May the 4th, 2009.

I might drop a few items over by the Tumblr in the meantime, so keep an eye out. (If you haven't been by to check out UTv.ii, now might be a good time to scan the archives - there's some good stuff buried in there.) Otherwise, I'll see you in a few weeks!

By the way, for those of you interested, Mr. Donald Roller Wilson dropped a comment on the Donald Roller Wilson knock-offs post from a few months back.

Back and ready to rock!

It's good to get off the nets every once in a while. It's also good to be back. I missed you all.

image via colABLE DANGERrev
by way of GIF Anime

Hello out there....

Real Life™ has left me way behind with my online pursuits and will continue to leave me there until after Savannah's mad St. Patrick's Day is over. (We have the second largest SPD celebration in the United States. It goes on for days and it's like a mini Mardi Gras.)

I'm going to try to sneak a few sessions in between, so hang in there with me. I hope to not completely disappear during the next week.

oh, by the way...

Uncertain Times is a full one year old today.

Thanks to all of you loyal friends and visitors who have made this an extraordinarily fun ride. I have learned a great deal over the last year and you have helped this weblog to grow in ways that I had never anticipated.

Initially, I really had no idea what I was going to do with Uncertain Times, but over the months I have grown comfortable with what it has evidently become. I'll choose not to define that too precisely and just leave avenues open for wherever we may go.

As you might have noticed, posting has been down in volume over the last few months and I anticipate that this will remain the trend. There will be stops and spurts, but I'll always do my best to pass along the finest gems I can find, as has been my hope and intention all along.

Thanks again.

p.s. Uncertain Times v.ii has become a storehouse for random items that I find along the way. There has been a fair bit of action there lately.

season's freaking greetings....

I had it in mind to do a little blogging Saturday morning, however, after being held up at gunpoint last night, with every sip of beer my resolve dwindles. I thought I could work through it but I need to disengage for a while longer.

I was surprised at how calm I was at the moment, but as the adrenaline wears off and the thoughts and emotions start swirling, it all gets to be a bit disorienting.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday. I'll see you, in force, on Monday.

belated...

I hope you all had a wonderful Festivus! Around the Uncertain Times household, Grievances were Aired in good form, but I threw my back out during the Feats of Strength, so I'm going back to bed... after I check on my payments to The Human Fund.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve, everyone!

Season's Greetings!

Square America - Season's Greetings!

As if it wasn't already obvious, posting will be light-to-nonexistent over the Christmas holiday. There will be more lightness throughout the last few days of December and then business as usual after the New Year. I'll also be dropping the odd item on the UT Tumblr, so feel free to stop by over there.

In the meantime, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy whatever else it is you celebrate, and I look forward to enjoying your company in the Uncertain Times of 2009!

a break in the action

I'll be away for a couple of days, celebrating a friend's birthday. Be seeing you all, bright and early on Saturday morning.

holiday

I'll be buzzing off for the Thanksgiving holiday. See you all Friday morning.

I AM BACK!!!!

WOOHOO!!!

Suffice it to say that I had to jump through some major hoops to get this act back onstage, but I'm here and ready to roll!

I hope y'all didn't go away.

Hello there

Hi everybody,

It has been a week since I last posted and it's about time for an explanation for my absence.

Last Thursday, I found myself suddenly and inexplicably denied internet connectivity. This was quite mysterious as my modem seemed to be working fine and my computer showed that I was online.

Comcast seemed to be unable and unwilling to help, so after trying to diagnose and repair the situation on my own - with no luck- I called some friends who are IT pros and picked their brains.

After a fair bit of doinking around, it became apparent the there was some sort of unidentified network set up on my computer. While I was unable to dial up anywebsites, this network was chugging away, pumping data through my system.

The consensus was that a reformatting was in order. I spent a good day or so backing up and early Saturday morning I reformatted. This should reset everything back to normal, right?

Wrong. When I rebooted, I found that I had no local area connection, no Network 3 to hook up to the internet - nothing. It was as if whatever had hijacked my system took a big chunk of it away when I removed it, not even leaving a bloody socket or stump.

My computer is now a glorified MP3 player and I have to live with that for now. I could have it fixed, but the quoted prices, just to get me in the door, would have me well on my way to a brand new rig. As I am a bit tight on funds right now - it's the offseason in my business and it has been a noticably bad year - any timetable for my return to Uncertain Times is a big unknown. I'm shooting for the spring, but would resume sooner, probably after the new year, if my fortunes were to turn in a positive direction.

To be frank, I'm kind of enjoying being disconnected. My brain is dialing down a bit, and even in this short of a period of time I am enjoying reading real books and catching up on my life in meatspace. It's a refreshing change. I spent a great deal of my spare time on this blog.

I won't deny that there was a degree of separation anxiety. The first three days were the worst. I still dream about blogging, but the dreams have ceased to be the Hitchcockian nightmares they were early on. This is not a cop-out to pull away - I miss it terribly.

I will certainly miss those of you who read, commented, supported and communicated with me over these last few months. You folks are truly the best part of the experience.

But this is not goodbye, or even farewell... it's more like: Hold on... I'll be back as soon as I can.

I have recently acquired a pda that I can check my email with, so feel free to drop me a line. Once I get the hang of this thing, I'll be Tweeting now and again and even making attempts to post with it. (Right now, I have difficulty staying on for more than 30 minutes at a time, but that will pick up after a while.) Regardless, I'll be popping in here at least once a month or so with updates, so keep an eye out.

Later, all.

Happy Birthday!

And many happy returns, Maud!

horseofbone.com

Weblog Awards

I was quite flattered that my good friend and veteran blogger, Nag on the Lake, nominated Uncertain Times for the 2008 Weblog Awards in the Best New Blog and Best Culture Blog categories. If you are of a like sentiment, it wouldn't hurt if you chimed in and posted your nomination, as well. I did, and I think UT might have a shot, long as it may be.

I don't really care all that much about awards, but what the hey, it's nice to be nominated.

Thanks Naggy!

btw, to make things easier, here's the links they're looking for:

http://un-certaintimes.blogspot.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/UncertainTimes

Also, in case you didn't get the memo, Uncertain Times now has a presence on Tumblr. Uncertain Times v.ii will be a slightly - and I really mean slightly - less SFW repository for material that generally won't be posted here. I like to keep UT safe, fun and edifying for kids, people with kids around, and folks in the work environment.

update

After coming home from work and finding the same problems, only worse - my connection kept kicking off - I contacted Comcast again and they helped me to reset my modem. My connection was speedier and stable, but I still couldn't upload photos.

Frustrated to the point of giving up, I figured out another possible workaround and gave it a try. I found that I had over 5000 "starred items" in Google Reader, dating back to February. I un-starred them and deleted all of my gadgets on iGoogle. I also found that I had close to 1100 RSS subscriptions, so I dropped those down to under 500. On top of all that, I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox, in case there was a problem with Java, in the process losing hundreds of bookmarks. All of this time consuming work made everything run much more smoothly, but still the same trouble with pics.

Any of you that saw my previous message - now deleted - know that I am not yet at the point of reformatting, but the option is still on the table. If you'd like to read it, it's still up on Technorati.

After a long nap, I find that I can upload photos again, but I'm not convinced that this is a permanent condition. Regardless, I'll keep trying to post.

After all of this, the only thing known for certain is that I really have no idea what I'm doing. I'm shooting in the dark. If any of these measures remedy the situation, in the end, whatever the cause or the solution turns out to be will remain unknown. One thing's for sure, my high-speed internet is now truly high-speed, so that's a bonus.

Wish me luck, and I'll keep my fingers crossed and my hopes up.

ok, hopefully this will be the last programming note...

Last night my connectivity problems flared up again. The whole time it was a major struggle. I was losing my connection and couldn't get anything to work right.

At my wit's end, I contacted Comcast to see if they could help. They said that my modem health was fine and directed me to their help section on their website. I followed all the instructions to check the connection on my end and all was well. Since then, everything is blazing. I can safely surmise that they were throttling me and when I called them out they eased up. The bastards. I can't be sure about this, but if I get home from work and have no problems, I'd wager that this is the case.

I don't download p2p all that much, although I do subscribe to a few mp3 blogs, and of course, I upload a fair bit. A short while back, some of you might remember, my connection was shut off for a day. When it came back up, my IP address had changed and not to long after that all of these problems cropped up. This is all conjecture on my part, but I wouldn't put it past them.

Wish me luck, and with any, I'll be back on the axe for some Saturday morning posting. Now I'm going to crash. Have a wonderful day, all, and thanks for the kind and encouraging comments.

a (hopefully) final note on recent difficulties

Earlier tonight, I had written a post crying my woes as I moved into day four of my recent struggles with Blogger. I tried Flickr and Tumblr and all sorts of suggestions concerning Java and networks and malware, basically everything short of shamanic intervention, all with no luck. I was just about to throw my hands in the air and try reformatting my computer.

After I posted this missive, I tried one more time and wouldn't you know it, it worked fine and continues to do so. All I can hope for is that this smooth sailing maintains and the sargasso I found myself in over the last few days is now behind me.

In the process, however, I found myself in the midst of passing a kidney stone, which leaves me in moaning agony for hours at a time. Time when the pain had subsided was spent cursing at my computer. Hopefully, this too will pass and I can get on with my life. So, in the balance, posting will be sporadic and when I'm capable of any sort of clear and painless thought.

These last few days have been rough.

Oh, btw, I guess I have a Tumblr now. I'm not sure how I'm going to use it yet, but it's out there:

http://uncertaintimes.tumblr.com/

third day in a row

This is getting to be a bit frustrating. I still have a rather large backlog of material and I can't get photos to upload. I have been trying off and on since last night. On top of that it takes about thirty tries to get a post up. If this keeps on I'm going to consider moving to Tumblr.

Check back later. Sorry.

and again...

Today, my internet experience has been like trying to draw an elephant through a cocktail straw. I'll try again later after they announce a winner.

Programming Note

It seems that Blogger, and everything else Google-related is crawling at a geologic pace. I have spent the better part of the last thirty minutes trying to upload a photo, which is a bummer because I have a boatload of material to post.

I'm going to keep trying, but if it keeps up like this I going to bag it for the day and try again tomorrow.

Anyone else having problems?