Blog Update: Correct Images Installed Back through November 14

I’ve begun fixing bad image links on my weather-related and non-musical posts, working backward from recent to older articles. You’ll find the correct images now in place through November 14, 2010 (thoughts on leaving your vehicle and taking shelter in a ditch during a tornado).

The ugly white tabs are unfortunately still taking the place of thumbnail images, and I’ve gotten no response so far from NexGen in my search for a cure. But the tabs are at least active, and when you click on them, the correct, full-size image will appear. From November 14 forward, no more clicking on a tab and getting a picture of an old boot instead of a radar image. Instead, you’ll get a weather map where you’d expect a weather map, and a photo of a woodpecker where you’d expect to see a woodpecker.

There are a lot of NexGen images to sort through and I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to piece together the entire puzzle as I move farther back in time. But this is a promising start, and I feel particularly good about the progress I’ve made with my weather maps and radar images.

Look for further updates in the near future.

February 9, 2011 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Update: Mesoanalysis Maps Once Again Operable

A quick update of interest to storm chasers and weather weenies. The F5 Data mesoanalysis maps are back up and running on my Storm Chasing page. You want meso data, you got it.

Take note:

◊ With NexGen acting screwy, all you’ll see are white placeholders in place of the normal color images. The placeholders are active, though. Just click on them and you’ll get full-size images of the maps you want.

◊ The map for sea level pressure isn’t updating properly. I’m not going to bother with it now, but it’s on my to-do list.

February 4, 2011 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Stormhorn Subscribers, Please Re-Subscribe

If you have subscribed to the RSS feed for Stormhorn.com and haven’t received any recent posts, there’s a reason: the feed URL has changed.

Fortunately, the solution is easy. Just resubscribe by hitting the orange RSS feed button to your right or, if you choose, the email subscription button just above it. It only takes a second or two to get yourself back into the loop, so do it now, now, now, NOW, while it’s hot on your mind!

Thanks!

Bob

February 2, 2011 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Update: Music Posts Now Partially Restored

To those of you who follow this blog: Thanks for your patience as I rewire it following a recent and important transition. While I’ve experienced some setbacks, I’m nevertheless making progress and want to let you know where things presently stand.

The current status will be of greater interest to musicians than weather weenies. In a nutshell, my music posts dating back to November 19, 2009, are now all properly linked to the correct images. When you click on an active link for a particular exercise or solo transcription, now the enlarged image that appears will be what you’d expect to see rather than a photograph of a tornado or a wild orchid!

I know you’re not seeing the image thumbnails! But you can still click them and view the full-size images.

Something appears to be screwed up with my image plug-in, NexGen. The past couple of NexGen updates, rather than improve the plug-in, have degraded its functionality, and the last one evidently stripped the image thumbnails from my pages, leaving white placeholders in their place.

Fortunately, the placeholders are active. So if you click on them, you’ll get a full-size image. Obviously, that’s not a satisfactory long-term situation–the thumbnails need to be restored–but one thing at a time. Right now I want to focus on the things that I can easily fix on my end; then I’ll tackle the NexGen issue. My hope is that meanwhile NexGen will release an update that fixes the problem.

My plan: first fix all the music posts, then the weather.

I’m taking this approach for three reasons. First, the music posts get more traffic through the entire history of the the posts. The exercises, transcriptions, and articles deal with information that doesn’t get dated, and since there seems to be a strong, ongoing interest in those posts, I want to get them restored as quickly as possible.

Second, the music posts aren’t as image-intensive as my storm chasing posts, so they’re easier to fix, and I can have them back in shape relatively quickly. I’m already MORE THAN HALFWAY FINISHED with them.

Finally, this is the off-season weatherwise, and while I know that the weather never takes a break–as I write, an intense winter storm is shaping up for much of the CONUS for tomorrow and Wednesday–nevertheless, we’ve got a ways to go before the spring storm season kicks in. This isn’t to say that I’m not anxious to get the storm chasing stuff–not to mention the other aspects of this site such as my photos page and CopyFox page–hooked up with the correct images. It’s just that I’ve got to tackle this job in an orderly fashion.

Bear with me, because I’m hammering away on this thing as best I can. Getting this blog fully restored and coasting along with all sails catching the wind is a huge priority for me. So stay tuned. My next update will probably come soon, once all the music posts are fixed.

January 31, 2011 by
Filed Under: Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Uncategorized

YAAAAYYYYY!!!!! Life in Stormhorn Land Is Lookin’ Up!

What I thought was going to take several weeks of work, maybe a month or more, manually restoring my blog images and broken links one by one now has been drastically reduced to a much more manageable project.

My sweetheart, Lisa, is the absolute Bomb, and today her inner geek came through like a champion–with, I might add, considerable patience and supportiveness for technically challenged me. That combination of her knowledge, helpfulness, and gracious attitude has made a huge difference today, on a morning when I woke up feeling depressed about life in general and Stormhorn.com in particular.

I still have my work cut out for me, but the amount of it has been reduced astronomically, and a big, biiiig, what appeared to be majorly headachy part of it is already taken care of with the complete reinstatement of my NexGen image galleries and a simple correction that has fixed a bazillion broken internal links just like that. Within a few hours this morning, this site has gone from a basket case to well on the road to recovery.

On the reader side, though, Stormhorn.com may still appear to be pathetically busted. You still can’t access most of the images, whether solo transcriptions and jazz patterns or radar grabs and weather maps. You may notice that I’ve even removed my CopyFox page from public view. I mean, who’s going to hire a copywriter whose own business site resembles the victim of a shark attack?

Relax, though. I can say, with confidence and a good deal of relief, that everything will be back soon and once again chugging merrily along.

Here’s What Needs to Be Done

I need to reorganize my NexGen image gallery, which won’t take terribly long. Then I need to go into my posts and pages, one by one, and replace bad image links with good ones. That will takes some time, but you should start seeing the beginnings of the restoration today. I’ll be starting with my most recent posts and working back from there into my older posts until everything is as it should be.

Some other, less pressing details also need attention, but all in good time. What I’ve described above is my first priority. It’s now largely a matter of grunt work, but as I’ve said, the workload has been greatly reduced and I feel far better about things than I did last night.

Thanks so much for your help, Lis! You’re awesome, babe!

ADDENDUM: Yes, I Know That Lots of the Images Are Wrong!

Again, I’ve got some messed-up links to correct. So if you find yourself looking at a weather map where a musical exercise ought to be, take it in stride. It’ll all get sorted out in due time.

January 25, 2011 by
Filed Under: Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Uncategorized, Weather

Don’t You Sometimes Wish Life Were a Whole Lot Easier?

I do, and right now is one of those times. It appears that restoring broken links and images in this blog–including a whole slew of articles, exercises, and solo transcriptions for sax players and jazz musicians–is going to take considerable time and grunt work.

I’m frankly a bit depressed about the prospect. I’ve poured so much of myself into creating these articles over the past several years, and now a huge amount of my work is gone. Not gone irreparably, but gone from present view, which means that until I’ve got a bunch of files back in place, people who come to this blog won’t find what they’re looking for. Aaaarrrrghhh!!!

Well, it’s time for me to learn a lesson from the Amish. When a tornado blows through their farmlands, taking out barns and homes and destroying everything they’ve worked hard for, they don’t wallow in self-pity. They set about rebuilding. So that’s my plan, friends, and there’s no better time than the winter time.

If you’ve benefited from my articles on jazz, I’ll be restoring all the practice material (thank goodness I have it all on file!) and fixing the broken links on my jazz page. If you’ve enjoyed my posts on storm chasing, I’ll be downloading as many photos, weather maps, and radar images as I’m able to. And of course, I’ll also be doing my utmost to repopulate my photo page with images.

So be patient and please continue to drop in. One discouraging thing about this situation is knowing that it will result in a loss of traffic, but I’d like to think that Stormhorn.com has offered enough quality articles to maintain your interest and keep you coming back even when the going gets rough.

Goodonya,

Storm (aka Bob)

ADDENDUM: I’ve begun fixing my jazz posts, starting with the most recent and working back. The exercises on the pentatonic scale mode 4 and a diminished whole tone lick are now restored, and also appear properly linked on my jazz page.

January 25, 2011 by
Filed Under: Life, Uncategorized

Update and Gig

The Latest on Stormhorn.com: Navigating the Move

This is my first post after changing my Web host to Dryline Hosting. The transition has been a bit bumpy, largely because I’m not familiar with the details involved in Web hosting and have had to deal with the learning curve. My friend Karina Myers, who with her husband, Mitch, operated the now-defunct Tablox Web Solutions, was gracious enough to move my files for me, and as I look at how many of them there are, I realize how overwhelmed I’d have felt if I’d had to handle the transfer myself. That kind of thing takes infinitely longer when you don’t know what the heck you’re doing!

Anyway, right now you’ll notice that the header and all my images are missing. That includes all the practice exercises and solo transcriptions I’ve developed over the years.

RELAX! (I’m saying that to myself as well as to you.) The image files all still exist. But I’ve obviously got a bit of work to do in order to get them back to where you can once again view and access them. Trust me, doing so is high on my to-do list. I want to get my Stormhorn blog site fully functional as soon as I can, so stay tuned, and please bear with the current, stripped-down look, sans images. It’s only temporary.

Gig Saturday at the Cobblestone

A reminder that my jazz trio plays again Saturday night, January 22, from 6:30-9:30 p.m. at the Cobblestone right here in Caledonia, Michigan. The place is an ideal setting for jazz. The room is such that you can hear the music anywhere while at the same time being able to carry on a conversation. The food and wine are great. And my fellow musicians, bassist David DeVos and keyboardist Paul Lesinski, are some of the best in West Michigan.

Tomorrow is our last booking, and while I hope that the owner will  extend our stay, I don’t know at this point whether that will happen. Ben loves jazz and really wants to make it happen at his place, but he needs an increasing customer base in order to make it work for him financially. So come on out, show your support, and enjoy an evening of  live jazz with the Stormhorn Jazz Trio  in the warm, relaxed, and inviting setting of the Cobblestone Bistro.

• Date & Time: Saturday, January 22, 6:30-9:30 p.m.

• Place: The Cobblestone Bistro & Banquet Center

• Address: 9818 Cherry Valley Ave. SE (M-37), Caledonia, MI

• Phone: (616) 588-3223

Reservations are recommended, but walk-ins are welcome.

January 22, 2011 by
Filed Under: Band, Entertainment, Event, Jazz, Michigan, Saxophone, Storm Chasing, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Stormhorn.com Is Switching Web Hosts

Hello, friends and readers of Stormhorn.com! I want to make you aware of a change that’s underway with this site. Hopefully it won’t create any temporary hiccups in service, but I want to alert you just in case any down time arises. Not being technically astute, I figure it’s best to let you know what’s up, if for no other reason than to reassure myself, in the face of my own ignorance, that I’ve covered as many bases as I can!

My old Web host, Tablox Web Solutions, operated by my friends Mitch and Karina Myers, is terminating their service as of tomorrow, January 19. So I’ve made the move to Dryline Hosting, operated by David Drummond. Karina has greatly eased the process by graciously transferring my files for me. Thanks so much, Karina! I really appreciate your assistance!

As the name of his company suggests, Drummond is a well-known storm chaser based in Lubbock, Texas, in the heart of dryline country. The process of shifting to David’s service has allowed me to get acquainted with him over the phone, and our chat just naturally drifted into storm chasing, including speculation about what it would be like to capture video of one of those monster West Texas tornadoes chewing its way through a windmill farm. It’s bound to happen, and I can only imagine what it would be like to watch a blizzard of those 100-foot blades go sailing through the sky. That’s not a spectacle I’d care to view at close range, and it’s bound to happen. With a swarm of enormous wind farms already extant in Tornado Alley and more mushrooming up all the time, I have to wonder how safe it is to live near those things.

But I digress. Back to the move: So far, so good, but I won’t know for sure until Tablox pulls the plug tomorrow. Cross your fingers and hope for the best, which would be uninterrupted service and no broken internal links to my old b2evo blog.

January 18, 2011 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Christmas Meditation, Revisited

Good morning, and Merry Christmas to you! Thank you for spending a few minutes of your day with me. I don’t take lightly the fact that, amid the helter-skelter of this Holiday, you’ve taken the time and interest to drop in. I’d like to offer you something of real worth in return, and having checked my traffic stats, it seems that my readers have already been pointing the way for me.

My readers are wise. They’ve been finding their way to a post I wrote a year ago today, in which I shared a still older writing of two years previous. I was 51 when I wrote that piece, and dealing with a broken heart, singleness, and loneliness. Yet, sitting alone in my apartment, I experienced a deep comfort and contentment that transcended my circumstances.

That was in 2007. Last year was different. Two years had elapsed, and my beloved friend, Lisa, had entered my life. In the midst of a new set of circumstances, I added a prelude to account for the time that had passed and then shared my original writing for the first time on Stormhorn.com.

Another year has now come and gone. Lisa and I have weathered a lean financial time in the face of what some have called The Great Recession. Since our needs are simple and Lisa has a practical attitude that flexes with life’s realities, we’ve managed to stay afloat and feel grateful. Along the way, we’ve made choices concerning each other and ourselves that have demonstrated our love for one another. It hasn’t always been easy for either of us. But it has been rewarding, and the gift of who Lisa is continues to shine more brightly in my eyes. What a unique, brilliant, talented, good-hearted, godly, and most beautiful woman the Lord has blessed me with!

Yet, knowing her heartaches as well as my own, more than ever I understand that the words I first wrote on Christmas Eve of 2007 are relevant today, and will remain so through the long years. Today, I reaffirm that Christmas–not “The Holidays,” as political correctness now insists that this occasion be called, but Christmas–is not about warm traditions, wonderful though they may be, but about a living, deeply invested Love that has reached out, and continues to reach, to those of us for whom this time of year seems anything but warm, or rich, or wonderful.

I cannot add to what I wrote three years ago; I can only introduce you to it from the context of today and hope that you will find meaning and encouragement in its message. Without further ado I now direct you to that writing, together with its preamble, in last year’s Christmas Eve post titled “A Christmas Meditation on Jesus.”

Whatever the realities of this season may be for you, may the great grace that is the driving force of true Christmas touch and uphold you in ways seen and unseen.

Your friend,

Bob

December 24, 2010 by
Filed Under: Christian Spirituality & Inspiration, Church Worship, Life, Relationships, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

First Day of Meteorological Winter

Some of you will greet the news with glee, others with a groan, but either way, today is the first day of meteorological winter. Right, we’ve still got another three weeks before the winter solstice, when the year’s shortest period between sunrise and sunset marks the arrival of astronomical winter in the northern hemisphere. But it sure looks like winter right now to me, and that’s what matters to meteorologists. For them, winter begins December 1, just as each of the other three seasons commences on the first day of its three-month block. Why? Because that arrangement corresponds better with how we experience seasonal weather in real life. Here in Michigan, we often get a pretty good hammering of snow in November, and by winter solstice on December 21 (or sometimes 22), we’re already usually pretty well socked in. It seems almost laughable when someone announces on solstice that it’s the first day of winter. Really? Could’a fooled us. We thought it began a month ago.

dec-1-2010
I woke up this morning to be greeted, very appropriately, by the year’s first snow accumulation. Yesterday temperatures opened in the low fifties, but they began dropping and the afternoon grew downright chilly. Today snow is falling, and out in the parking lot a woman is brushing the white stuff off of her car. It’s almost like winter has been consulting its watch, waiting in the wings and then entering the stage exactly on cue with a bucketload of lake effect. The snow will be with us for a few days, now, and the radar will continue to look a lot like the image on this page. Click on it to enlarge it, and get used to it, because you’ll be seeing a lot of similar pictures from now until meteorological spring arrives on March 1, 2011.

December 1, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Uncategorized, Weather, Weather Radar Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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