Waiting for version 2.0

Finally fixed the site by reverting to my old template and reposting the html section by section until I found the problem. It appears the Feedburner ad code got messed up during the upgrade, and then stayed messed up after I reverted.

I'll be avoiding the upgrade for a little while, until I'm persuaded the problem won't recur.

By the way, thanks, Dyre, for the suggestion to switch templates and then switch back. That got me started down the right path.

politics, midtopia

Still in upgrade hell

I have been unable to fix the display problems with the blog, and Google Support has been entirely unresponsive. This weekend I may strip it down to the basics and see if it will display properly, then build it up slowly.

Thanks for everyone's patience as I work through this. Ain't technology grand?

politics, midtopia

Upgrade hell

I spent the morning upgrading the blog to the latest version of Blogger so I could take advantage of some widget functionality. The upgrade automatically reverts the site to its original "vanilla" version, so it took a lot of time to tweak the colors, fonts and various badges and counters back into place.

I think I've got it squared away now, but if you see something that doesn't look or work right, please let me know.

Also, let me know what you think of the italic blockquote style in this post. Do you prefer it, or the previous bold-type style, as in this post? Or do you not care?

Might have some substantive posts later, but this took a lot of my available time.

Update: Putting up this first post-upgrade post apparently screwed up the site pretty well -- notably by malforming the post itself and dropping the sidebar to the bottom of the page. Deleting this post didn't help; it simply malformed the next post in line. Working on it....

politics, midtopia

The return of Sean

Hey everyone,

I apologize for the nearly three-month absence here at Midtopia. I'm not dead, but I have been very, very busy with other things -- and not Halo 3, as has been rumored....

I was simply overwhelmed by a tidal wave of real-life commitments:

1. The start of another school year, which meant both more volunteering time and time spent helping the kids with homework;

2. My wife launching a new business, for which I've provided technical support and graphic-design help, as well as picking up more domestic duties;

3. Serious flux at work;

4. Getting ready to return to school for a Web-design certificate.

I've still got all of the above, but I've gotten something of a routine down now, so I can squeeze in blogging again.

I don't promise to be as prolific a poster as I was before, but there shouldn't be any more three-month breaks.

On to the good stuff!

politics, midtopia

Still breathing

Hey all! I'm still here, but as noted in an earlier post, I've been really busy getting ready for the start of a new school year, planning some end-of-summer vacation and running a fantasy-football draft.

Speaking of which, my team for this year looks like this:

QB: Carson Palmer
RBs: Steven Jackson, Brandon Jacobs, DeAngelo Williams and a bunch of backups
WRs: Reggie Wayne, Hines Ward, Calvin Johnson
TE: Antonio Gates
K: Matt Stover
DEF: Denver Broncos

It's a 10-team league (really sort of a 9-teamer, since one of our owners went nuts and drafted all Patriots this year). But I like my chances.

In addition, this week a whole bunch of daycares were on break, so we had a neighborhood full of kids at our house -- on the days we weren't looking after sick daughters.

And on top of all that, my wife just quit her job to go into business for herself. So we've been scrambling to work through all the steps to set up an S corporation and get her going.

Phew! Tomorrow we leave for the aforementioned vacation, a weeklong camping trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Four adults and four kids in a 12-passenger van.... we'll see how that works out.

Anyway, I'll be back and posting after Labor Day. See you then!

politics, midtopia

Dog days of summer

BTW, I'd like to apologize for the slow pace of posting this week. Besides preparing for some upcoming camping trips and the start of a new school year, I'm currently in the midst of running a fantasy football draft. Time and brainpower usually spent blogging have been diverted to deciding whether Reggie Wayne is worth a high third-round pick (answer: yes).

It might be slow next week, too. And in three weeks I'm going on vacation to South Dakota and won't be posting at all for a week. So bear with me until a regular posting pace resumes in September.

politics, midtopia

Guest blogging at Stubborn Facts

I've been invited to guest blog over at Stubborn Facts for a couple of weeks while they're off getting their toes manicured. Or something like that....

My first post -- on the difference between "what's fair" and "what's legal" -- is up now. I'll post the full thing here at Midtopia tomorrow, and will probably cross-post simultaneously from here on out.

Thanks to Pat, Simon and Tully for the opportunity!

politics, midtopia

Going to D.C.

Blogging will be pretty light over the next five days. Me and my family are flying to Washington, D.C. for my grandmother's burial, followed by a few days of sightseeing.

The kids are pretty young, so while we'll make a visit to the Capitol Mall I probably won't be able to satisfy my inner political geek and watch a Congressional session. Mostly we'll be visiting things like the National Zoo, Colonial Williamsburg and (if my wife is feeling generous) a Civil War battlefield or two.

We're getting back Wednesday, so look for posting to resume Thursday.

Meanwhile, feel free to treat this post as an open thread if you've got something you want to discuss.

Update: Bumped this to the top of the blog so it wouldn't get lost.

politics, midtopia

30,000

Midtopia had it's 30,000th visitor today, thanks largely to a link from Salon's BlogReport to my rant about gay linguists being drummed out of the military.

The site is averaging nearly 3,000 visitors a month, which breaks down to more than 100 visitors a day during the week (they spiked to nearly 200 on Wednesday) and something less than that on weekends when I don't post.

Some unknown other number of you (thousands, I'm sure....) haunt the site's RSS feeds.

Thanks to everyone who finds my musings worth reading, and make Midtopia part of their day.

politics, midtopia

Donklephant hacked

Calling all tech types:

My other home, Donklephant, has been hacked by a brainless script kiddie. A vanilla version of the main site is available, but the admin controls are blocked, meaning none of the contributors can post.

If you've got tech skills that could help resolve the problem (WordPress knowledge would be particularly helpful, I gather), please e-mail Justin Gardner, Donklephant's maestro.

Update: Justin got it back up. Justice and humanity are safe once more.

gutless worms, politics, midtopia

Thin on the ground

I'll put up several posts later today, but in general posting will be light this week. It's spring break for my daughters' schools, so I'm going to be home playing with Barbies, going to the zoo and other parental things.

I'll make sure to keep my picks list in the sidebar updated, so feel free to check out the fine posts I've highlighted there. And I'll be back up to my usual posting pace next week.

politics, midtopia

Free speech update

Over the past few weeks, I've been going through the archives and adding tags to older posts. Along the way I've taken the opportunity to update some of them with new information.

For instance, this one from June 2006. A librarian in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., Michele Reutty, was castigated by the library board for requiring that police get a search warrant before she turned over circulation records to them -- in other words, for doing her job.

The update: After six months of wrangling with the board, Reutty submitted her resignation in October and took a job as library director in nearby Oakland, N.J.

Way to go, Hasbrouck Heights. You've set a new standard for how not to stand up for your rights.

Reutty also received the 2006 Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award and is currently vice president of the New Jersey Library Association.

civil liberties, politics, midtopia

New ways to keep up with Midtopia

Today I added Feedburner to the site. It's a feed aggregator that makes it much easier to subscribe to Midtopia's RSS and Atom feeds using the reader of your choice. It also keeps track of the number of subscribers, giving me a better idea of how widely read the blog is.

There's also a new option to subscribe by e-mail. Check 'em both out in the Networking section of the sidebar.

Once I get comfortable with them I might start using their ad service. But I promise not to make it annoying. Money's nice, but it's not why I write the blog. A pleasant, uncluttered presentation is more important to me.

politics, midtopia

Happy Birthday, Midtopia!

I'm as amazed as any of you, but Midtopia turns one today! Break out the party hats!

It's actually a tiny bit older -- about a week -- but I didn't get Sitemeter installed or get really serious until March 1. The first week was spent tweaking the site and uploading some basic content.

In the past year Midtopia has had about 22,000 visitors, and now averages 2,000 a month. We've been linked to by more than 100 blogs. And the site ads have earned me about $12. ;)

Thanks for making Midtopia part of your day.

politics, midtopia

Technical difficulties

My Internet connection has been down for most of the day, so posting has been impossible. Hopefully I'll get some stuff up later today. A lot going on: Padilla found competent, Kerry grilling a Swiftboater, the U.S. agreeing to attend talks with Iran and Syria, the Baghdad body count down significantly.... A lousy day for technical problems.

politics, midtopia

Back in the swing

My apologies for the sparse posting of the last week or so: holidays and family took precedence blogging. Things will remain spare for the rest of this week, but I should be back in full swing by Monday.

While several notable things occurred over the holidays -- the deaths of Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein, for example -- there's not really much to say about either of them. Ford was a decent guy that history will treat more kindly than his contemporaries did; Hussein was a bad guy who will not be missed (except for his brutal ability to hold Iraq together), but whose death doesn't change anything on the ground or begin to justify the invasion that toppled him. He's dead; good. It wasn't worth $400 billion or 3,000 lives or the scattered wreckage of U.S. foreign policy.

I hope you all had a good holiday season and are looking forward to 2007.

politics, midtopia

Beta Blogger

With some trepidation I've upgraded the site to Blogger Beta. I'll have to put a lot of work into the site at some point to take full advantage of the upgrade. For now, you should notice some little things, like the "Labels" links at the bottom of each new post (and old posts, too, as I get around to updating them). Let me know if things aren't working like you'd expect.

politics, midtopia

Milestone

Right around Midtopia's 9-month anniversary, the 15,000th visitor has popped in.

Activity peaked at 2,400 visitors a month soon after launching, then fell as low as 1,000 visitors over the summer. Now visits are climbing again in what appears to be a sustainable trend toward and through 2,000 visitors per month, though we'll see what happens now that the November elections are past.

Beyond that, I have no idea how many people have the site on their RSS feeds.

It's just a humble little blog, but I like to think it's a quality one. Many thanks to everyone who has stopped by, particularly those that make Midtopia part of their daily routine and especially those of you that take the time to comment, making this more of a conversation than a publication.

politics, midtopia

New look

I've finally taken the time to tweak the overall look of the site, for the first time since launching back in February. Nothing huge: just took off the background screen and replaced the title bar with something a little more professional looking.

Let me know what you think -- especially if something (like the title bar!!) doesn't load correctly in your browser.

politics, midtopia

Camptopia

I'm heading off on a camping trip with the family, so I won't be posting for several days. Meanwhile, check out the excellent posts at sites like Donklephant, the Moderate Voice and the Reaction.

politics, midtopia