Housecleaning for Entrecard

Well, I’ve done a little blog housecleaning and spruced up the sidebars a little, for Entrecard droppers’ sake. This blog was taking far too long to load, and I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized that a few plugins were clogging up the works: the Archive Links plugin, and the Ajax Calendar plugin. I had so many posts, that the plugins had to load them all before displaying. Ugh. I have noticed a phenomenal change in blog load time since disabling these two plugins. And I did it for you, dear Entrecard droppers. I hope that dropping your cards is less frustrating now.

The Arte y Pico Award!

I was surprised and so gratified to learn that I am the latest beneficiary of the esteemed Arte y Pico blogger award. Wowee! It was my good pal Matt from Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta. who awarded me this great honor. Thank you so much, Matt! I will cherish this award!

The rules for passing this honor on:

1) Pick 5 blogs that you would like to award this honor to.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award. http://arteypico.blogspot.com/.

Choosing who to award the Arte y Pico was tough. I know that several bloggers have received it already. But I also know of some favorites of mine who haven’t yet received it. It is my great honor to be able to award them this. Here they are!

The Eleanor Blog
This was one of the first blogs I discovered through Entrecards. It’s a wonderful blog created by a young tourist guide of a castle in Scotland. Eleanor’s Blog is filled with history, photos of Scotland, and interesting glimpses into life in the UK. Plus, she’s a good friend.

The Ben Spark
People love him for his P.A.D. (Photo A Day)– and they photos are neat– but I like Ben’s blog for it’s friendly and informative narrative. He lives in New England (just north of me, and from where my ancestors hail) and travels for his job. Therefore, his blog posts are always filled with a variety of delightful short stories and personal glimpses.

Travels in the TenForty Window
I love learning about other places. TenForty is one of my favorite blogs, because the blogger, Deb, is such a colorful and descriptive writer and photographer. She works for a missionary organization, so it is of great interest to me (as I am very interested in missions). I love this blog.

The Modern Historian
I love history! Enough said. This blog has some outstanding posts on world history from every era. I enjoy reading this blog!

Jenn Was Here
I love this blog! And in every photo of Jenn, there she is, smiling this incredibly beautiful smile. Her bubbly personality and love of traveling really shines through. It’s another blog where I learn so many new things about the other side of the world.

Congratulations, award winners.

Thanks to My Top Droppers

I am so thankful for all the adoring fans of my blog. Thank you thank you, lol. [bows]

Really, I do appreciate all you Entrecarders who consistently drop here. I’d like to give a special THANK YOU and some linky love from a Page-Rank-2-Blog-Although-It-Used-To-Be-A-Page-Rank-4 Blog to my top twelve droppers. Muah!

WorldWide Travel Blog, home of the hilarious Cowasaki post and more!
On the Bricks, my pal from Hell, Georgia!
Mommieshome.net, that brainiac of a mom whose talent for mathematical statistics scares me!
The Path to the Pegasus Letter, with the way cool blog theme!
Technically Easy, a great and readable techhie blog with outstanding posts!
Carl G, a great blogger from Spain whose terrific blogger template creation I use for my other travel blog!
Meltwater. Torrents. Meanderings. Delta. by good buddy and wonderful blogger, Matt! How do you find time to blog, Matt?!
Juuust a Bit Outside, a sports blog by Chris, the maestro of sports if there ever was!
Parisukat, who has such a variety of interests!
Matt’s Blog, a young guy from Scotland who has me amazed that he likes my old-fashioned style of blog!
Under Heavens! that features a cosmos of tech news and programs in a very readable style!
Humane Blogging Tips, a blog of blogs with thoughtful posts!

Thanks folks for your support!

Entrecards Down Due to Datacenter Fire

Ouch. Many of us bloggers who use Entrecards to generate traffic have no doubt noticed that the website is unavailable. Many other sites are down, too. I got this in my email inbox this morning:

Greetings,

Unfortunately, there has been an electrical fire at the data center housing Entrecard’s servers. The servers have not been damaged, but the site may be down for as long as 12 hours.

Entrecard is hosted with ThePlanet, and this fire has effected over 9000 websites, as many of the world’s most popualar websites are hosted with ThePlanet. They are working around the clock to get their data center back online, and we are hoping that they get it back online fast.

Thank you for your pateince and understanding with this rare and frustrating problem. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing we can do but wait for The Planet to get their datacenter back online.

Please check back with Entrecard in 12 to 24 hours.

Thanks,
Entrecard Team

I did some searching around, and apparently, ThePlanet Datacenter in Houston, Texas, suffered a severe fire when an electrical transformer exploded. It seems that the database servers may be all right (Statcounter.com is up, for the most part), but the damage extends to a few walls in the compound. My sympathies to those who have websites on or rely on the down servers. Hope they get them back up for you soon!

So, no dropping cards today! It’s Sunday here in the U.S., a good day to go to church service! Today we can get outside and relax on lovely teak furniture while sipping tea with the family. Have a blessed day!

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