Much like the Cobler who's children go barefoot, often times the Software Consultant is the one who's websites need the most updating. You may have noticed that I've been a little quieter than normal both here, and on Twitter. Mostly that's been because I've been busy at work, planning a wedding, and also... updating my websites. I'm not completely done yet, but I've put a pretty big dent in things. If everything has gone smoothly, you actually shouldn't notice much of a difference to the following websites in the Nick Schweitzer Network:

• Drinking Right - I've moved Drinking Right to a new blog engine, and migrated the post. The template should look largely the same, but its a little cleaner and hopefully faster.
• The Coding Monkey - My technical blog also got moved to a new blog engine, and the content was migrated over. I also moved the hosting service which it was on, and updated the theme a bit.
• Nick Schweitzer Photography - My photography website got an upgrade as well to a new CMS engine. I tweaked the theme a bit, but not much. However, it should be much easier for me to add new photographs, and the Silverlight Gallery is vastly improved.

What's coming next you ask? I still have to do some migration and updates to The World According to Nick. The changes here will be more drastic... so keep an eye out. Until then, I hope you enjoy the updates I've made so far, and if you run into any problems, please feel free to let me know.

Alright, so I've already shared the Best of the Bans, and the Best of Flickr Friday.  Here are my favorite blog posts from this last year:

• Unity Over What?
• What is "The Church"?
• Blog Series: Thought for the Day
• Good Ideas Don't Fit on Bumpers
• Sarah Random Quotes
• On Judicial Activism
• The Separation of Business and State
• Sobriety Checkpoints Are Not the Answer
• Paul Ryan Harms His Own Constituents With the Bailout
• More Media Crisis
• The Nonexistant War on Christmas

VodkaPundit Stephen Green called my post from Thursday on the Media Crisis "Required Reading", and made me Number 8 on the Blog Week in Review on Pajamas Television, if you want to check it out, along with other great commentary to wrap up the week in news.

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Elliot?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

How do you describe a blogger like Elliot?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

For those of you who have an Amazon Kindle, did you know you can subscribe to this blog and read me on the go?  Here is the link to purchase your subscription, which currently is a bargain at 99 cents a month.  That's right folks, I'm a cheap date.  If you've ever thought about buying a Kindle, now is the perfect time too.  Because it's currently one of Oprah's "favorite things", you can get $50 off a Kindle purchase through Halloween.

My hosting provider is having email issues right now.  Any email sent since last night to nick-at-nickschweitzer-dot-net has not gotten to me, and may be lost.  I still don't appear to be getting any email sent to that address.  If you're trying to get a hold of me, try sending to schweitn-at-gmail-dot-com.  I'll update this post as the situation changes.

Update:  Email is being delivered to my normal email addresses again, but I'm afraid anything sent last night until mid morning today was more than likely lost.  If you emailed me something during that time frame, please send it again.

Blogging is the 21st century's version of the telephone game.

So for a few weeks now, the Wisconsin Republican Party has been emailing me their propaganda press releases... incessantly... usually a couple a day.  I have no idea how I got on their list... Lord knows I didn't sign up myself since I haven't considered myself a Republican in at least 8 years.  Finally I got sick of it and replied to one instead of simply deleting it without reading it.  I later found out from the sender that I was on her "media list" because I was a blogger.

I'm not in "the media"... I am not a reporter... I am a blogger... and not a very popular one at that.  I blog about thing that interest me, and believe me when I say that your worms of wisdom that you somehow expect me to regurgitate like a bird aren't it.  Who knows... maybe that explains my lack of overall popularity.  Maybe if I just parroted talking points for people... said "me too" to other bloggers all the time, then I'd be more popular.  But that's not me.

The reality is... I love it when I get email from my readers.  I also hate it when I get emails that are sent en masse to a huge list with no personal thought or care for me.  Hey... I'll take one from a friend every now and then... but if that's all I ever get from you... then believe me when I say that you'll get marked as spam so fast your head will spin.

Well folks... I'm off to the west coast for a little while.  Blogging will be intermittent at best.  Stay well, and leave the light on for me.

Do you have any idea how hard it is sometimes to not swear and call some of you really ugly names?  But I restrain myself... because Google Cache remembers forever.

So along with the recent news that I've joined Facebook, you can also follow me on Twitter.  One of the things that I kept hearing at Deeper in .NET a couple weeks ago was, "So what's your Twitter name?" and "Aren't you on Twitter yet?".  I heard it from so many people, that I finally decided to give it a try.  And if you're on Twitter and I should know about, feel free to drop your Twitter name in the comment thread so I can add you too.  Some of my blogs also feature my latest Twitter updates in the sidebar.

I've temporarily removed Elliot's blog, From Where I Sit, from the blogroll as a penalty for "illegal punning" in his post regarding the news that the US Bowling Congress is leaving Milwaukee for Arlington Texas.  Sorry man... some things just can't be tolerated.  I won't even link to his post.

Wow... I totally spaced, and forgot my own blogiversary.  It's been four years since I started this blog.  Hard to believe huh?  Well, I'm declaring unilaterally that this blog will continue, and I refuse to debate this issue, nor hold any sort of primary.  Of course in this time, the number of blogs I write has increased, even if my influence has not.  So don't forget to stop by my other spots, including The Coding Monkey, Blog Critics, and Tosa According to Nick.

I've also taken this opportunity to clean up my blog rolls a bit.  I still occasionally get requests from people to get a spot on my blog roll.  Please be assured that I take these requests seriously, and then ignore them.  My blog roll is mine.  You can be sure that if your blog is on my list, that I also have you subscribed in my RSS reader, and therefore read your blog on a regular basis.  If your blog isn't on the list, then I might still be reading it... but no guarantees.  I have over 130 blogs in my RSS reader, and they aren't all going on the list.  Though I have paired down the number of blogs in my reader in the last few months.

How many more blogs can one person have?  There are never enough I say, which is why I now have a blog at WauwatosaNow.  It's called, appropriately, Tosa According to Nick.  I'll be blogging there occasionally about issues in the city where I live, as well as personal musings about the city.  I figure most people don't necessarily care about Tosa politics or issues unless they live in the city, so I thought it more appropriate to segment my blogging appropriately.  You can subscribe to the feed there if you are so inclined as well.  And the left side of my blog here features the latest five posts if you only like reading me here.

Mostly because I've been blogging in my comments thread.  If you haven't been keeping up with the debate, my post from yesterday on the Catholic Church has a very active and passionate comments thread.  It hasn't quite hit the magical 35 number, but its getting there quick.  Although passionate, it is still respectful, and insightful.  Take a read.