Saturday, September 10, 2005

I'm back!

It seems like something should be written to commemorate the loss, reappearance, loss again and re-reappearance of my blog. The problem is that I do not find myself overly inspired to do so, even though I'm delighted at the display of accidental technical prowess that lead to its restoration. After writing Blogger and not hearing back from them within three minutes of clicking "send", I grew impatient and began to experiment at fixing the weblog myself.

This endeavor was akin to the act of opening up the hood when my car breaks down. Do I know what I am looking at? No. Do I sometimes manage to accidentally fix something while futzing around and slamming the hood back down? Yes. That is exactly what happened here. I looked at code. I saved. I closed the window opened it, and saved again all to no avail. Then, a shaft of light shone down from the heavens, and I actually noticed that some of the code was missing.

This lead me to the idea of selecting a new template. The first time, the text of my blog came back, but the menu was still gone. So, I resaved my last post (don't ask me why, it just felt right) and selected yet another. Suddenly everything was coming up Millhouse and my blog was back. While I suspect it was the last post that was the problem, I like to think that all of my steps (including the intermittent whining and cursing) were necessary to the solution.

While some may say troubleshooting strategy is as disorganized as a FEMA response to a natural disaster, I say that I am clearly a technical genius.

8 comments:

Jen said...

Clearly! I am glad you're back up and running.

Martina said...

Thanks! Strange how when I couldn't post anything, I had things I wanted to write. Now that I can, I'm back to feeling kind of meh about it, though I do have some thoughts about that Grimm movie floating around in my head, having just returned from it. Maybe I'll post about that later.

Jen said...

I think you should, since I was there with you but far enough away I couldn't tell if you liked it or not. (I liked it because I thought it was visually pleasing and it makes me happy when hollywood actors are unafraid of looking silly or like a jackass. plus other, probably equally shallow reasons, but I'll wait for your review).

* fun future topics for when you are blog stuck:
5 things that make you happy
(or, if you are mad) 5 things that make you want to beat someone over the head
5 songs that make you... (happy, sad, thoughtful, longing for the road, etc.)
5 movies that you can watch over and over again

Martina said...

Hey man (aka Jen) - I'll have to think more about what I want to say about the movie. I had kind of mixed feelings about it. The look was great, the execution was in some ways less so for me. Thanks for the future topics. I'll have to make myself a little file of them, since it happens a lot that I don't quite know what to say.

Tyro - Thank you for the nice comments and for taking the time to read. I'll try to check out your weblog sometime too.

Jen said...

Hee! Yeah - I can see how there might be mixed feelings. I didn't have a lot of attachment to or knowledge of the actual Brothers Grimm, (although I am a fan of their work!) so one of them saying "I made that armor - it's not magic, just shiny!" was funny to me. Of course I have no idea if that's actually what bugged or not. Maybe I'll make one guess per comment until you are finally driven to post.

PS: I would like to see an actual historical biograpy, or even just a biopic of the Grimms - but as soon as I heard Terry Gilliam was the director, I knew this movie wouldn't be it.

PPS: I am making grape jelly! I hope it turns out, because it is a pretty color.

Martina said...

re: the Grimms - It wasn't so much that I went expecting a biopic, it was just that there were some things about the movie that I just couldn't seem to get past. On the other hand, "...it's not magic, just shiny" WAS funny. You don't know this, because I just deleted a whole bunch, but I almost just exacerbated by full store of commentary. I'll save it for a real post.

On to more important things, how did the jelly turn out? I want to make that gingered pear preserve recipe again. I also have a peach-cardamom jam I've been wanting to try out as well. Maybe this weekend...

P.s. Did you see how much Mt. St. Helens was smoking today? Coming North on the freeway after work it was very noticable.

Jen said...

Oooh - put the recipe for the peach cardamom jam somewhere I can see it! It sounds awesome. The jelly seems to be doing fine. I only actually made the jelly part today - yesterday was the tedious process of juicing grapes. SO, I still don't know if it will gel right or what, but it's looking good so far. (also, the inversion method of sealing the lids ROCKS and involves much less (as in zero percent) of taking bottles full of jam out of boiling water.)

Martina said...

Peach cardamom is up at the food blog. But what ever happened with the grapes? Did they gel?