It is hard to believe another year is nearly complete. 2008 has been good to me overall and while I have done many things and gone many places, I have not often written for this site. For those of you who visit now and then only to find the same essay posted and no new content, I hope to make it more worth your while in 2009.

There are several new articles I will start working on after the start of the new year. The topics for these articles, based on recent and not so recent events, include the following.

• The Japan Trip: Days Five and Six
  The long-awaited and overdue conclusion to my comprehensive vacation report.
  


• The New Car
  After my clutch left me stranded, I decided not to repair my car and instead purchased a brand new one.
  


• The Christmas Wedding
  On Saturday, 20 December 2008, I officiated the wedding of my good friends Erik Patten and Lauren Gleason.
  


• The Capitol Trip
  The tales of my first road trip in the new car up to Washington, D.C.
  


• The Conch Republic
  Trip report and photographs from my November 2008 trip to Key West.
  

Just yesterday, I upgraded the software running things to improve performance and fix several nagging bugs. As with any upgrade, there may be unintended consequences—especially since I run a highly-customized copy of WordPress with my own theme—so please let me know if you find anything broken. There does seem to be an issue with the RSS feeds which I will fix in the next day or two. I apologize in advance if subscribers receive duplicates.

I am also entertaining a suggestion made by Erik to post more "blog" style items, to keep things fresh and current in between the lengthy essay and report articles. Exactly how this may be implemented is still up for debate, but I think I will at least try the idea and see how it goes. I never intended to make this site a daily update of every mundane experience, but I think I can find a happy medium to keep my friends from nagging me and stop the all-too-common month-long dry spells.

Finally, as a reminder to my friends in Tallahassee, I am hosting my annual New Year's Eve party starting at 2100 hours. I hope to see you here tonight.

Happy New Year!

Critical Updates

1. Upgrade CMS to WordPress 2.7.


2. Upgrade third-party add-on scripts to improve performance and increase security.

Code, Theme and Feature Updates

1. Based on some reader feedback, there are some changes planned for the near future. Stay tuned.


2. Updated RSS feed redirections to correspond with new permalinks. No subscriber action should be required.

Outstanding Issues

1. This upgrade cycle has corrected all known outstanding issues, certainly making room for all new bugs.

Critical Updates

1. Upgrade CMS to WordPress 2.5.1.


2. Increased server security filters to block spamming IP addresses.

Code, Theme and Feature Updates

1. Add "Lunch" and "Dinner" categories to Delectation panel.


2. Corrected redirection issue interfering with permalinks.

Outstanding Issues

1. CMS upgrades cause RSS feed to reset. Subscribers may receive old articles showing up as new in the feed. This annoyance is under investigation.

Critical Updates

1. Upgrade Gallery to Coppermine 1.4.18.


2. Repair/replace files compromised by Coppermine SQL injection vulnerability exploit and enhance security.

Code, Theme and Feature Updates

1. Create new Gallery theme to incorporate customizations outside the core Coppermine code.


2. Fixed issue with RSS hyperlink backward compatibility. Although older RSS links should work, it is recommended you update your subscription to a current feed URL, available under "Feeds" in the Article Archive window.


3. Create Changelog template, category and hyperlinks.


4. Add trailing slashes to Features URLs (e.g. The Big Block of Cheese).


5. Create The Japan Trip Series template and update the Series menu include.


6. Add "Web" category to Delectation panel and update hyperlinks (name now linked, Amazon links removed).

Sutro Tower fans are invited to visit sutrotower.org, the new gateway to my comprehensive feature article on all things Sutro. In addition to updating the information and links, I have reorganized and rewritten much of the text. Check it out and while you are there, feel free to share your Sutro Tower news, blogs and photographs.

In other news, things are back to normal after the web server suffered a hard drive failure on 01 February 2008. You may have noticed some downtime that day and night as the server was rebuilt. In an unrelated problem, I have disabled the search term highlighter because it was coloring text without a search performed. A fix for that and other issues are on hold for now, as planning for my vacation in March takes precedence.

That's a full lid.