Posts Tagged ‘Site News’

Just in case you were wondering, I have not abandoned the Gate this week.  In fact, I have been working harder on this joint this week than I have in months.  Unfortunately, all of that work has been behind the scenes…

…for the moment.

Let’s just say that I am taking advantage of the current off-season lull to make a few changes around here and to do a bit of remodeling.  Let’s just call it “Gate 21 — 2.0.”  Hopefully, all of this work will not be for naught.  Hopefully, I’ll be done with this marathon soon.  Hopefully, there will still be more than three people around to read once I bring the changes live.  Who knew this whole “blogging thing” would be so much work?

In the meantime, I’ll just leave you with this little visual representation of where this ship is headed.  Trust me, this is but one very small part of what I have in store for everyone in the near future:

The Changing Face of the Gate…

November 2007	February 2008	?? July 2009 ?? (I sure hope so)

Hopefully, I will actually get a little chance to write a few things here this weekend which I have had to put off a bit.  Yeah, yeah … excuses, excuses.  At any rate, please bear with us—there are exciting things to come in the near future.

In the meantime, just try to remember that Gate 21 does exist, and check back with us soon…

– So it goes…

Gate 21 is Currently Experiencing Server Problems

(a/k/a Lawvol must have screwed things up)

For anyone out there who reads, views, rips-off, hacks, or otherwise visits the Gate, please be advise that we are experiencing rather massive technical difficulties at present which intermittently result in the site simply not appearing.  Thus, if you attempt to visit the Gate and instead are greeted by an offer of hosting services from Host-I-Can, then you know that the problem is not yet fixed.

I am in the process of trying to figure out what the issue is and to fix it.  Until then, however, please bear with us as we try to sort out the mess that is my creation.  We appreciate your patience and (hopefully) I will have them resolved soon.

Until then, if for any reason Gate 21 does not appear when you attempt to navigate to the site, please try again a few minutes later. Sorry for the inconvenience.

With any luck, we’ll be back up to our usual low standards as soon as possible (we really, really, hope)…

» Updated:  9 June 2009 — 2:30pm

The problems appear to have been fixed.  Thus, you can return to your regularly scheduled aimless wandering throughout the Gate.  Thanks for your patience.

– So it goes

Well, after taking the better part of two weeks off here at the Gate, and enjoying a little vacation in my “real” life, I am back once more.  If anyone noticed that I was gone, that is.

At any rate, now that I am back I am hoping to get a few features back up and running while we wait for football season to finally get here.  Apparently the mainstream media is feeling the same pressure to find something … anything … to write about at present.  Hence the News Sentinel’s in-depth focus on some old Tennessee football photographs (which are pretty cool, I must say) and observations on Lane Kiffin’s meteoric rise to prominence in the world of college football.

Slim pickings…

Since my other team, the Carolina Hurricanes, lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL Eastern Conference Playoffs (ouch) I can’t even talk about hockey anymore.  I guess we’re just going to have to depend on HSH for any real substance until the season rolls around (no pressure or anything).

The good news is that, as the little tell-tale countdown in the right sidebar ticker confirms, we now officially have less than 100 days until kickoff.  Furthermore, things are heating up in the race to win the Fulmer Cup.  Still, football season has a ways to go before it arrives.

Needless, to say I am counting the days…

So, you might ask, is there a point to this post?  Well, in short, no.  Then again, I have never been one to sweat the small stuff such as accurately and succinctly conveying a message.

Minor details, minor details...

Sometimes we all fail, no matter how hard we try.  I think this is one of those times, not that I tried all that hard.

Anyway, go check out the old Tennessee football photos I mentioned above.  Oh, and make sure you go to see the new Star Trek movie, it rocks!  Other than that, I’ve got nothing for you today.

Yeah, this off season thing is a killer…

– So it goes…

Image(s) Courtesy of: The Fail Blog

To both of you out there in internet-land who read the Gate, I just wanted to send out a quick FYI:

Those wild and crazy folks over at WordPress have rolled out the newest offering in blog publishing software culminating with the release of WordPress 2.7 earlier this week.  In case you didn’t realize it, WordPress is what makes Gate 21 possible, and it is an absolutely unbelievable testament to the power of open-source software development.

This, however, is a sports blog, not a tech blog…

Thus, I only mention all of this to let you know that, after playing around with 2.7 on my test blog for a day or two, I will be upgrading the software here at the Gate sometime this weekend.  More likely than not, it will come off without a hitch.  That said, since I am the one minding the wheel it could lead to some sort of meltdown.  Do not be alarmed if things seem out of place (but feel free to send me an email saying that the blog has crashed or looks funny).

You may now return to your web-surfing activities…

– Go Figure …

It has just come to my attention that there is an error in the display of this site when using Internet Explorer, which causes the comments to float to the right.

I am trying to figure out what is going wrong and apologize for things looking odd.  As usual, everything looks fine in Firefox.

If anyone out there has any ideas as to why IE refuses to play nice, feel free to let me know.

– Go Figure …

In case you haven’t noticed by the temporary header…

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I am in the midst of remodeling here at Gate 21 in preparation for football season.  Bearing that in mind, I am currently adjusting the color scheme here at the Gate, changing from the brownish “off-dirt” family of hues to more of a “light-black” (as if there were such an oxymoronicly named color — oh yeah, there is: “gray”) direction.  I’ve also added a few minor touches: such as the “shinier” checkerboard pattern, and the little “21” logos down the page a bit.  On the whole, my goal is to make things a bit darker near the top to improve visibility and make it more likely that some one might read my drivel.  If things look exactly the same, just hit refresh in your browser to see my coloring project.

Once again I have my coloring book out…

A Coloring Book for Lawyers ( PDF)

Anyway, let me know any thoughts either of you two folks out there who read this rag might have about this — including any complaints about how brown is your favorite color, how you hate my mascot “Gus,” how you can’t understand why I insist on having that infernal checkerboard across the middle of the screen, and how  you liked it better before I started screwing with it.

Seriously, if you hate it, just tell me…

– Go Figure …

Coloring Book Courtesy of: Office Spam

Here in the lull, I have made some fairly substantial updates to the masterpieces on display in the Tennessee Home for the Visually Offensive. Including these amazing works of art:

For those of you who truly appreciate beautiful artworks, slide on over to the THFVO and give it a look, and for any of you who have works you’d like placed on permanent display, or a site which you think has the quality required for placement in the permanent collection here at Gate 21, send me an email by clicking on my signature below, and fire me a link or a file.

– Go Figure …

Images Courtesy of: YMSWWC • LSU Freek • Loser With Socks