Oh ... Really?

Category: Blogging

Sunday, April 13, 2008

A Wild Blogfest!

Another Blogfest and another great time was had by all. We gathered at Wild Wings Cafe out in Farragut, and despite a packed house, we had a blast.


The wrap up: What Doug said

A non-blogging, but special guest joined us for a while ... Jon Katsiros is running for House Representative in District 18 against Stacey Campfield ... or as he says, he's not running against him, he's beating him ... heh. Anyway, Jon joined the festivities for a while before he had to leave for another engagement, along with his campaign manager, who's name escapes me. He spoke to us about his plans for his campaign and what he hopes to accomplish in the state legislature. He realizes that people are tired of the government getting all up in our business and that what most people want is less government and more personal accountability. He has a great deal of support in the Tennessee GOP and sounds like he will be a much better choice than what District 18 has been sending to Nashville for the last 6 years. It's definitely time for a change, and Jon seems to be a good candidate for that. I look forward to watching his campaign progress and wish him the best of luck. He doesn't have a web site or blog ... yet. We hope that he will be blogging and Twittering soon though!

Another hot topic of conversation had to do with a little plan we have been cooking up. Have you seen this, or this or this? We're planning something similar. Up for it? Let us know and join the team!

I failed miserably in my picture taking duties, only snapping one from my cell phone. I posted it for the Twitter folk here. Doug has a few here. Cathy's are here.

As a reminder, if you want to get email announcements for future Blogfests, you can sign up here. You won't get any spam or extraneous emails, just Blogfest announcements.

Posted by LissaKay on 04/13/08 at 01:48 AM in ~ Blogging
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Monday, April 07, 2008

Blogfest Out West!

Ii is finally officially official ... Blogfest will happen again, next Saturday, April 12! Spread the word!

The place: Wild Wings Cafe - (Google Map)

The time: Be careful asking Rich that question, his answer may be more than you bargained for ... but the festivities will start around 6:00 that evening.

The people: Bloggers of all sorts, shapes, varieties, ages, colors and heights, from various locations around the greater East Tennessee area, and points beyond, along with their significant others, if they wish ... plus a kid or two, or three or four or fourteen (depending on whether Cathy and Doug bring any, part or all of their brood). Blog readers are welcome too!

The special guest: A local candidate running for the state House may grace us with his presence. (And no, it's not the asinine one that I took to the wood shed a couple months ago!)

Let us know if you can join us in comments here or there, post at your site to spread the word and we hope to see you there!

Posted by LissaKay on 04/07/08 at 05:25 PM in ~ Blogging ~ Happy Crap ~ Local News
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Sunday, January 20, 2008

Weekend Roundup - Blogfest, Movies and More!

My previous post got disappeared when Firefox locked up. I was almost done too! So, now I will recap Friday night's Blogfest, post some pics and also mention part 2 of our weekend activities, which may or may not have included a certain highly anticipated monster movie.

Blogfest was great. Mostly. However, we were unaware that Bailey's had decided to keep their place smoke-enabled and thus had to make a rule that all customers had to be at least 21 years old. This caused a bit of grief for some that wanted to bring the family along, as had been the practice many times before. Making things even worse, Bailey's apparently has no air handlers in place to help clear the air of the smoke, so for us non-smokers, it was quite uncomfortable. So, the next Blogfest will be at another location, one that is family-friendly and with clearer air. We are open to suggestions, but are thinking next time at Calhoun's on Bearden Hill ... Yes? No? Other ideas?

Anyway ...

Everyone had a great time. We had both some familiar faces as well as a couple of new ones. In addition to Rich and myself were Cathy and Doug. Tamara K and her feller were there, and they talked up the guns with Les Jones. I think they were cooking up another shooting bloggers meet up. Making their Blogfest debuts were Craig Thomas, Johnny-Oh and Eric. Barry came in for a few minutes, but as he had the wife and kids waiting in the car outside, he couldn't stay long. However, in keeping with his reputation as the suave and debonair ladies man of the East Tennessee blogosphere, he planted himself as close to the ladies as he could, and then just waved across the table at the men-folk. He was too cute. But for his efforts, he walked away with Doug's choice giveaway of a wireless router.

Barry would also like to let everyone know that the mighty and infamous Atomic Horns will be playing at a Valentines Party at the Elks Club in Oak Ridge on February 8, and he wants even more groupies to come out and see his most-awesome Elvis impression.

I posted some pics I took with the crappy camera on my phone at Flickr. I also took a few pics with my trusty, but old and not-quite-as-crappy digital camera. Hover for details, and click to embiggen:

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Saturday night found us at a mini-Blogfest of sorts. We met up with Cathy and Doug first for ice cream at Marble Slab in Turkey Creek ... Mmm! Ice cream in frigid cold weather! Then we took in a showing of Cloverfield. I liked it. Rich, not so much. He says he will post a short review on it later. I don't want to give away any spoilers ... not that there are many - big monster stomps around in New York, people run away, military shoots at it. All told from the vantage point of a hand-hand video camera. One with a kick-as battery pack that last over 12 hours.

Half the fun of going to the movies is seeing the trailers for upcoming movies. We saw a few that looked promising. Rich, ever the comic book geek, is looking forward to Iron Man. Doug nearly pee'd himself seeing the barebones, under construction, tell nothing trailer for the next Star Trek. Yes, folks, that is Number 11. Another preview was for 10,000 BC. In just the trailer alone, I counted several anachronisms. I can't see this as being too terribly accurate, and if it was, not very interesting since the language of the days was pretty limited. There was another, very forgettable looking, insipid something with Will Ferrell in it (has Will Ferrell ever been in anything that was not insipid?) There will also soon be a sequel to Hell Boy ... Hell Boy II: The Golden Army, which is surprising given that the first one was pretty much a dud.

And that has been, so far, our weekend. Still no baby yet, but stay tuned!

Posted by LissaKay on 01/20/08 at 02:05 AM in ~ Blogging ~ Entertainment ~ Friends
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Saturday, January 19, 2008

Blogfest ‘08!

Well, I had a nice, long post-Blogfest roundup all ready to go, complete with links to the sites of all attendees, pictures and invites to two more events ... but then Firefox locked up and crashed and I lost it all. I will try to recreate it tomorrow.

We are planning to see Cloverfield tomorrow night ... if any one else would like to join us (Cathy, Doug, Rich and me), drop me a comment here or an email for the time and theater we are going to.

Time for sleep now though ...

Posted by LissaKay on 01/19/08 at 01:44 AM in ~ Blogging
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Posting a test

Or ... testing a post. The Google Reader issues "seem" to be resolved. But still much of a mystery ...

The web host tech support disabled the .htaccess file and called it all good.

I call BS. There is NO WAY that an .htaccess file could cause a server to give out an incorrect Http status code on RSS and Atom feeds, unless explicitly coded to do so, which mine is not. Only the two feeds from this site, and the one on the Designs site were failing to update. The others were still working. The .htaccess file in question resides in the www root directory, so if it was the culprit, it should have affected all the feeds on this account.

Further, there were no changes made to that file when the problems started. What did change was something in Google Reader itself, despite their massive protestations otherwise ... and other issues my server was having with ImageMagick, Phpsuexec, file permissions and Internal Server Errors. Tech support mucked around for a week trying this and that and the other thing ... never did get all that resolved. But my feeds stopped updating at the same time.

Sunday night, I downloaded all my software files, then deleted them off the server. I dropped the MySQL databases, and restored only the ones I still use and need. I cleared a bunch of old files in old subdomains, and basically started fresh. At the same time, I asked tech support (for the umpteen billionth time) to look into the Http Status Codes, and the settings changes that were previously made. That is when they also disabled the .htaccess file. Something apparently worked, Google Reader updated two posts made that day. Before declaring it all good, I am posting this too now ... we shall see.

And then I want my .htaccess file back ...

UPDATE: Holy crap. This post showed up in Google Reader almost instantly! At least the RSS feed did ... nothing on the Atom feed yet.


Posted by LissaKay on 11/28/07 at 10:27 PM in ~ Blogging
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Feed me!

I do believe that I have the crappiest luck EVAR with these dang RSS feeds ... first it was Bloglines, now Google Reader!


Not that I have been posting a whole lot lately ... yeah, you noticed that, eh? But when I do, it seems that some newsreaders are not picking up on my feeds as they should, namely Google Reader and NewsGator. I noticed this with the previous post, the Zombie Yoga one. I use GReader and the post never appeared in there. So, I started checking around ... it was showing up everywhere else that I checked, except NewsGator.

It's kinda hard to pinpoint when this issue started, since there was an almost two week gap between that post and the one before, which did post correctly. But I did upgrade my installation of ExpressionEngine during that time period. I posted in their help forums, but no one else was having the same issue, and no one had any ideas.

In the course of troubleshooting, I tried duplicating the template that creates my RSS feed ... and GReader picked up the feed with the most recent post. Huh, says I. Weird.

I renamed the two feeds so that the new one had the same name as the old, and changed the old one. Then I ran it back through GReader ... Nada. It was picking up the old feed without the newest post. Then I changed the subscription URL leaving off the trailing forward slash ... and it worked! By this point, I was tired of looking at the computer, so I gave it up for the day. Today, we are back onto it.

I have changed the URL in the HEAD tag for RSS auto-discovery to leave off the trailing forward slash. Now I am posting this to see if it picks up ...

In the meantime, check out my Anywhere.FM fav playlist ... take a peak at what kind of music gets my attention, and maybe discover something new! I am really liking Jem, The Shins and Gomez ... check them out! Set up your own Anywhere.FM profile, upload your favorite music and share too!


UPDATE: 6:12pm - still no love from Google. This post has been picked up by every other feedreader that I have checked. I did get a response from their tech support, but they lied to me, saying that something is blocking my feed from them. BS ... nothing changed since they were last able to pick it up, and their own webmaster tools show that they can pull the feed URL with no problems. I had such high hopes for Google Reader too ... disappointing and frustrating!

Posted by LissaKay on 10/17/07 at 01:00 PM in ~ Blogging
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Saturday, September 08, 2007

Uncle-lanched!

Thanks, Uncle!

I posted a comment here and almost as an aside, I mentioned that I was thinking about obtaining a defensive weapon for my home and/or person, and that I am open to advice. It was elevated to its own post, with a call to others to share their knowledge. Awesome! Oh, and my site traffic quadrupled for the day ... very cool.

Thanks to all that emailed and commented with suggestions ... keep it coming! I'll be happy to trade knowledge ... wanna learn to knit?

Posted by LissaKay on 09/08/07 at 01:39 PM in ~ Blogging
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Saturday, July 28, 2007

Blogathon LIVE!

Blogathon 2007 Giddyup for STAR has officially started in its live, online, in public venue. Come join us at Bailey's in west Knoxville. The nachos are great! We will be here until at least 9pm when the blogging torch is officially handed over to Barry. I will be providing color commentary and documenting the event with photos. But first, back to those nachos ...
Please consider a donation to the cause ... STAR provides a wonderful service for our very most special folks. Cathy can tell it so much better than I can, so visit Giddyup for STAR to find out more, why you should consider sponsoring the Blogathon and how.

Also, a special shout-out to Tish who is blogging with Mike to aid the Glaucoma Foundation at BlogsWeLuv ... go visit them, too!

imageHere's the first pic from Bailey's ... Mark Steel of Blogitude has joined us and greatly enjoying doing nothing for a time ... there will be more pics as the night proceeds. Join us!


imageThe battery died in my camera, so all the rest of these pics are from the phone ... we'll see how they do ...


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Posted by LissaKay on 07/28/07 at 03:00 PM in ~ Blogging
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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Blogathon 2007 is upon us

Just a reminder, folks ... don't forget to if you have posted a link on your site about the Giddyup for STAR Blogathon. I meant it when I said that I would increase my pledge by one dollar for every blog that links to them! Also, I will ante up another buck for each pledge as well. Cathy can give me the final head count when it's all over. So come on ... you can give to the cause without touching your wallet, just by posting a link to Giddyup For STAR. But please, consider at least a small donation ... even 5 or 10 dollars is helpful.



The plans for this Blogathon are shaping up quite nicely. The team of writers has grown to 4, with Rich joining Cathy, Doug and Barry in the effort. Also, another Blogfest has been planned in conjunction with the Blogathon ... I suppose so these guys can get out and get a breath of fresh air. Anyway, Rich will be at Bailey's starting at 3:00 going until at least 9:00, when Barry will take over. Everyone is invited to come on out and encourage these guys. Bring your laptop too, if you want! There's free wifi available. More detail is over at Rich's site.

I will be there, maybe studying for finals ... maybe photo blogging ... definitely cheering these guys on. See you there!

Posted by LissaKay on 07/26/07 at 12:37 AM in ~ Blogging
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

BlogFest this weekend!

Once again, East Tennessee bloggers are gathering to share in some good times, good food with good friends. I think, though not entirely sure, that it is this weekend, July 21, starting around 6:00, at Barley's Taproom and Pizzaria in the Old City.

The uncertainty comes from several changes that have been made to the scheduling of this BlogFest ... first it was on the 21st, then tentatively changed to the 28th, then definitely changed to the 28th, then changed to BOTH the 21st and the 28th, and now the 28th is in doubt due to the Blogathon being held that day. But the 21st is still for sure ... I hope.

Whew! And they say women can't make up their minds ... geez! Yer makin' my head hurt, dude ... you're gonna have to make up for that! wink

Anyway, be there ... let's party, have some fun, eat some good food and enjoy the company of some good people.

Posted by LissaKay on 07/18/07 at 03:48 PM in ~ Blogging
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