My apologies to readers who were unable to access the Peoria Chronicle this morning and early afternoon. The company that hosts my site, BlueHost.com, decided to do server maintenance today without any warning. As far as I can tell, the site finally came back up around 2:30 or so. I suggested it would be nice if they would notify me (and their other customers) next time they schedule this kind of maintenance.
Anyway, the site is back up now. Thanks for your patience.
I’ll be on the 5:00 news on WHOI tonight talking about this post. The reporters there have been doing some follow-up, including efforts to interview District 150 representatives, so it should be an interesting segment.
Councilman Bob Manning and I are Jonathan Ahl’s guests on Outside the Horseshoe tonight on WCBU (89.9 FM). I won’t actually be wearing my “blogger” hat for this interview, but rather my “Heart of Peoria Commission” hat, since that will be the main topic of discussion. Depending on how the council votes tonight, this may be my last day as a Heart of Peoria commissioner.
The Journal Star editorial board today came out in favor of keeping the Heart of Peoria Commission. My thanks to them for their support.
I’ll be a guest on WHOI’s 5 p.m. newscast tonight. That’s channel 19 for those of you with rabbit ears, and channel 8 for those of you with Insight cable. I have no idea what we’ll be discussing, so it should be candid. I also hear it will be “interactive,” so maybe they’ll have some way of including viewers in the discussion. Tune in to find out.
Hi all. I’m still on vacation, but will be back soon. Just a few odds & ends I wanted to mention:
That’s enough for tonight. Talk to you more later when I get back in town. By the way, are you all enjoying the Duany presentation I’ve been putting up on the site?
This afternoon during my lunch I was interviewed by HOI 19 News for a follow-up story on the effect of blogs on the media. Scott Janz was also interviewed for the segment. It will run tonight at 6:00, and maybe a shortened version at 10.
Tomorrow night, Jonathan Ahl of WCBU 89.9 FM has invited me back into the studio to comment on the results of tomorrow’s general election. I’ll be one of a four panelists (besides WCBU reporters): A Knight in Dragonland (who will be covering Pekin politics), councilman John Morris, who is not running for reelection, and H. Wayne Wilson, host of WTVP’s “At Issue” (although he’s on hiatus currently).
Also I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Billy Dennis is also going to be on the air tonight on the 9:00 news on channel 59. Be sure to check that out, too!
Note: This post was updated at 5:50 p.m. to correct erroneous information and add info that I should have included originally.
HOI News on Friday produced a short feature on how blogging affects news coverage. They interviewed Scott Janz and also referenced the Peoria Chronicle. My thanks to them for a very nice story. I thought of all the local media, they had the most accurate and balanced coverage of the Beachler incident.
Incidentally, I was totally surprised by all the news coverage — and especially the news conference by the police chief — that resulted from my post on Terry Beachler’s run-in with the police. I normally get around 300-400 visitors per day; on Thursday, my site meters recorded over 2800 visitors. For one day, I felt like Billy Dennis!
I just discovered to my horror that my spam filter (called “Akismet”) has been blocking several comments that are not spam at all, including comments from Karen Carter and Peoria Heights Mayor Mark Allen. I know that it is frustrating when you write a long comment and then it just disappears; it makes you feel like you’ve just wasted your time writing the darn thing. I sincerely apologize that you’ve experienced that on the Peoria Chronicle.
I don’t know why these comments got caught up in the filter. Akismet’s algorithm for identifying spam is a secret; overall it’s pretty good at catching things — a little too good, apparently. I have “de-spammed” your comments and they now appear in the comments sections of the appropriate posts with the proper timestamp. I would encourage all my readers to go back over the comments of some recent posts to see what may have suddenly appeared.
I will be sure to check the spam filter regularly from now on, as I certainly don’t want to miss any more comments. Thank you all for reading and for taking the time to share your thoughts.
I’m going to take a couple days off from blogging before I end up having to go into rehab for internet addiction. So, please, feel free to use this space to comment on whatever you’d like. I’ll put up a new open thread post each day I’m gone, but nothing else, unless something really dramatic happens to pull me back.
Yesterday, I received my new Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop, and it’s a big step up from my old Inspiron 1100. My favorite feature is the built-in wireless card. My old laptop had wireless via a PCMCIA card which was prone to getting bent. The new laptop also has a bit wider screen, which is nice for certain applications, like Photoshop. I was able to migrate all my important files from my old hard drive to my new computer, so it looks like we’re back in business.
Of course, I was up until the wee hours last night uninstalling the software I didn’t want (AOL, Google Desktop, etc.) and installing the software I do want (Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Access), getting my e-mail back up and running, configuring the wireless card to communicate with my router, copying files, and just exploring the new Windows Vista operating system. I’ll tell ya, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Macintosh should be deluged in flattery. Windows looks more and more like a Mac with each successive operating system.