It’s been a long day for me working on the Balloon Juice site. What did I miss here?
Besides the obvious loss of all our history (sob!) I can now mostly talk about what’s still missing on Balloon Juice as opposed to listing what I have been able to get going.
I will say, though, that I found catcake, which makes me happy. She is hanging out with her other cake friends, duckcake, pupcake, sea lion cake… I think we may have the whole cake family back together.
The comment system looks a little different format-wise; there are boxes around the comments instead of just a horizontal line between them. Not sure if that’s because they installed us on a later version of their theme or because we are missing the plugin they created for just for us with a bunch of specific stuff we wanted. This isn’t the week to ask them about details, so I am just busy putting things back together in the environment we have.
We don’t have the rotating tag submission form or the site feedback form, but I’m sure those can be recreated again in time.
It is nice to have Balloon Juice looking like Balloon Juice again, and it won’t be long before we pack up camp to head back home.
Yesterday I planted the hydrangea I got in honor of my sweet Tucker, so I made sure to water that today, and I watered everything else in that bed because lots of stuff got moved around so that could get center stage.
What’s going on with you guys?
I’m trying to figure out if we REALLY have to be masked in the damn house for another 5 days!!!
Hydrangea photo, please!
@ raven: Do you want to guess wrong?
I am sitting here at my desk listening to golf on the radio. It is actually more interesting and exciting than it sounds.
we’ve got the back screened porch set up so we can be 6ft apart with a oscillating fan going. I think if we are out there and watch some tv together we can still sleep in separate quarters.
@debbie
It’s still pretty little, but one tiny little flower opened yesterday. I’ll take a photo of it when it’s really in bloom.
@raven
The people I know whose spouse had Covid, but *they* didn’t get it… they did not mess around and they were super careful the whole time.
All the people who were “pretty good” but maybe bent the rules now and gain… the spouse always got sick.
Sharing that as data, not telling you what to do, obviously.
Yeah I live alone but still sticking with super careful, tyvm
WG thank you for all the hours and care to get us back going again!
I’ve been playing Elder Scrolls Online, getting up a bit earlier to get synced up with early summer sun, and trying to lose some of the weight I gained in the last couple of months of depression 🙏🏻
WaterGirl Roger that. I know people with every possible combination of outcomes from every kind of behavior.
Listening to it drip on the roof, have bread rising in the other room. Combination means I legitimately have an excuse to loaf and do nothing.
(Water Girl et al are clearly better and far more productive people. All Thanks to them!)
It’s been five days since we returned home from our super-spreader trip to NJ/NYC and we are still symptom-free so I am cautiously optimistic we avoided getting Covid. Though at this point, I am resigned to the idea that eventually our luck will run out.
I decided I am tired of the beat-up living room furniture and since this is high-season on FB marketplace and Craigslist I have been combing through them. I answered five ads for couches today but no one replied back. Stuff moves very quickly apparently. Well, except for the overpriced stuff, that lingers. If I wanted to spend $2,000 dollars I’d just go to a store.
Finally, very excited that Balloon Juice will be returning and deeply grateful for all the work WG and others are putting in to make that happen.
Oops, typo in my email again! Sorry, WG, official retriever of all things stuck in moderation.
Hey, Republicans, shiny bug!
“Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, was arrested in Napa County on suspicion of driving under the influence. Pelosi, 82, was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers at 11:44 p.m. Saturday and booked into Napa County custody at 4:13 a.m. Sunday, according to Napa County Sheriff’s Office booking information.
“Pelosi was booked on the misdemeanor charges of driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08. He was released on $5,000 bail later in the day. The news was first reported by TMZ. Little more information was available. Napa County sheriff’s officials directed queries Sunday to the CHP. A CHP official in Napa said a statement on Pelosi’s arrest had not yet been released. The Speaker’s office declined to comment on the “private matter” Sunday. “The Speaker will not be commenting on this private matter which occurred while she was on the East Coast,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said.”
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article261927160.html#storylink=cpy
Just going to give a general suggestion to any and all 82 YOs: do not be driving in the middle of the night, even when you haven’t been drinking Carneros pinot.
@Ohio Mom
Is the site not remembering your nym? There is a checkbox where you tell the site to remember you. Are you still on a phone?
DIL tested positive a few days ago, so Memorial Day plans are off. Both grand imps are testing negative so far, but are not vaxxed so fingers crossed.
They were to celebrate at my house tomorrow, but that’s not happening. I did bring food down for them today though.
What happens to this site?
Does it go away or do we just abandon it and let the raccoons move in?
So I never participate in the garden chat, but that might change soon. We have one area in front of our house that was essentially bare-ass naked when we moved in. I had pros put in a mulch planting bed. Then we planted three knockout rose bushes (pink and red) and three hydrangeas. The roses have just exploded and they look amazing. So I ordered another one in yellow. The hydrangeas look like they are about to bloom any minute. These knockout roses are good for a dumbass like me.
Having been set up, I think it makes sense for the site to stay in place as a backup, but without posts being put up or comments being added.
Who knows, if we plan the next Woodstock as a surprise in John’s hometown, we have to have somewhere to plan that, don’t you think? 🙂
I think we’ll keep the mailing list, also.
@Suzanne
Not sure how old you are, but I didn’t get the gardening bug until I was about 30.
I am in LA Conner, Washington, an utterly wonderful little town about an hour or so north of Seattle. Today’s highlight was the Quilting and Textile museum. Three exhibitions, all of which blew my mind. These are not quilts you put on a bed, but compositions you hang carefully on a wall.
Older folks hereabouts who were hippies back in the day may find the name La Conner rings a faint bell. Tom Robbins, the novelist, hailed from this town (and may still live here, I’m not sure) and made it the main location of “Another Roadside Attraction.”
@Suzanne, Not a gardener but my roses look great and I use this
BioAdvanced 043929293566 Bayer Advanced 701110A All in One Rose and Flower Care Granules,
This year I hired a lawn service and the person asked two questions, one being what I was using on my plants, the other telling me how the previous person wasn’t trimming the hedges properly. yup both would be me.
Am just here to send great big Thank You to Ms WaterGirl, and the rest of the BJ crew! Hope we can recover the ‘archives’, but we’ll persevere regardless.
Wintertime projects approach completion here, mayhaps will take out into sun, take photos, send to BJ picture section.
The future lies ahead …
@WaterGirl:
You should let this be the Time Out site. When some commenter isn’t playing nice with the other children you could arrange to have them redirected here for a week.
ETA: Change the name to Bad Jackal.
@CaseyL
Highly recommend the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. These are not your grandma’s quilts.
I picked a good week for a Monday to Friday Deschutes river camping trip with old friends. We went on our first river trips together in 1981. Back then we ran ourselves ragged searching out white knuckled adventure. Now we look for comfortable campsites and play Stacks. The game is reverse Jenga. You each add a stone to the stack in turn until it collapses. Only the first stone can touch the ground. Simple camping game for all ages. Setting your stone as a booby trap is core to the fun. That’s me in the hat.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kGxjnw1Ko3NTFGAp8
Que sera, sera.
😉
@Math Guy
Did someone say Paducah?
https://youtu.be/wjTwtvMzOoI?t=162
🙂
@WaterGirl
I’m 42. Still don’t really have a bug for it, but I like that my house has the best roses on the block! It really has done so much for the curb appeal. I have really enjoyed getting different things to grow here. My house in AZ had some nice barrel cacti and we had citrus trees that I really liked, but you can’t really do a traditional flower garden.
I also put up some bird feeders, and the birdwatching is great, but one of the hydrangeas gets pooped on a lot.
@kelly
Lovely cairn!
re: Suzanne
I laughed about the hydrangeas. Fun that your roses are so happy. I have never done roses because they were always so fussy, but I do hear that the knockout roses are not fussy at all.
WaterGirl; Is there a way to archive our camping posts to BJ? So we still have the memories of a crazy camping week at hand?
@Water Girl
Some of the older roses are as tough as boots too.
@WaterGirl
These knockout roses are moronically easy. They bloomed a bunch of times last summer after we planted them. After their last bloom of the year, I was supposed to “deadhead” them, but I didn’t get around to it. SuzMom did it this spring. Whatever. They are fuller and gigantic-er and with even more flowers than last year. I am excited for a yellow one.
Also Mr. Suzanne will be repainting some of the accent areas of the exterior (concrete sills and wood trim) this summer and it will just look great when it’s done.
@NotMax – Zooks, she had some strong abs, didn’t she?
And those shoes!!
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
I also had an extra-juicy yoga session this morning. I weighted myself, drank a bunch of water, went to yoga and drank more water, and then drove home while drinking more water. Weighed myself again, and I was 2.2 pounds lighter. My joints felt A M A Z I N G.
Beautiful day here in the northeast, so I washed, vacuumed and polished the Miata and went out for a spin. Great day for top-down driving.
@Another Scott
Yup yup. Everyone remembers the outrageous hats and resplendent bangles but most don’t recall that vertigo inducing clogs were also part of her signature attire.
Water girl, thank you so much for finding this temp space for the blog and then using what you have to get it home again. Like most, I really really missed this place while it was down. Bigs hugs and I look forward to seeing pics of Tucker’s hydrangea in the coming years.
ETA WaterGirl. This place keeps correcting nymes
JPL, Get the antiviral? My gp sent the script to Wallgreens and I had it in an hour at no cost.
Suzanne 42?? Sheeeetttt
FWIW, I just left a comment on the new old site. I’m in moderation. Will all of us commenting for the first time go onto moderation?
@japa21
I didn’t have a problem.
@Baud Everybody knows you get preferential treatment around here.
Started off the day with an exhilarating bike ride, then after lunch the kiddo and I cleared the yard of the debris from Friday’s storms. Kiddo will be 15 this summer, and though he’s so skinny it looks like he’d blow away in a high wind, he’s gotten surprisingly strong, and pretty much took over the heavy lifting parts of the job, which I was happy to relinquish.
In between bike ride and yard work, and after yard work, I sat on the deck, enjoyed the glorious weather, and tossed an occasional comment into the mix here.
Between the bike ride and the yard work, though, I’m gonna need a shower before bed, otherwise my wife won’t be keen on letting me share it with her.
I like the old roses. They all smell different, not the modern “apple blossom” scents, but heady perfumes.
The new/old site is back up and looking all bright and shiny. 😊
Sweet!
@Jackie
We’ll have to see, but I am hoping we will be able to pull the posts and comments here into the real Balloon Juice, perhaps as a trial run. In case we get our data back (which might be a miracle at this point, but I’d take it!) or being able to scrape BJ stuff from the internet and put it into WordPress. As I said, we’ll have to see, but I think there are possibilities.
@Jay
These knockout roses definitely do not have a strong scent. So there are tradeoffs for sure. But they work for my skill level!
WaterGirl: re: “being able to scrape BJ stuff from the internet and put it into WordPress”
There are tasks under that rubric you can (ahem) farm out. Like, say, extracting comments into a database table format of a particular shape. Or extracting all the rotating tags that can be found in an archive of web-pages. Etc. Some of us are skilled programmers, albeit not skilled with WordPress. So while we cannot do what you’re doing (just as, one presumes, you couldn’t configure Websphere (but then, why would you want to ?)), maybe we can work on subtasks for you.
Just a thought.
I’ve hated the Celtics my whole life, but here I am rooting for them to beat the Heat. Life is funny.
I guess that rebuilding a new version of the old blog is a clear sign that it’s not likely to be recovered as it was, but considering how it was lost and for this long, who knows if whatever could be returned wouldn’t be loaded with all kinds of malware, backdoors, surveillance code, etc. Clean slate and all that.
Chetan Murthy May 29, 2022 at 9:18 PM
WaterGirl: re: “being able to scrape BJ stuff from the internet and put it into WordPress”
According to this there are 3rd party ways of getting stuff back from the Wayback Machine. You may have already explored these and it would probably lose a lot of content.
https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/backup-and-restore/how-to-recover-your-content-from-wayback-machine-internet-archive/#:~:text=Visit%20each%20page%20in%20the,text%20editor%20for%20later%20use.
No matter what it will cost something so a fund raiser is probably in the cards.
@StringOnAStick
We may still get our data back, but we certainly can’t count on it, so we will be trying to get back what we can in the meantime.
@JaySinWA
We will have to pursue many different options in order to get as much back as we possibly can.