If you had tried to access my blog over the past two days, you might have been wondering what happened as my site was down. The answer is that my web hosting company suffered a server crash and my entire web site plus email was out of commission since Thursday night. It took them almost two full days to get to the point where I could even login so I’m slowly putting things back to normal again tonight.

Baden

Now that I have some spare time again after completing my Italy 2005 DVD*, I have been able to get some additional pictures put up on the web site. I’m always hesitant to put a lot of my pictures online because I have to compress them down to be viewed online and the picture quality is reduced as a result. You can find the new pictures here. Anyway, hope you enjoy them.

* This is only partly true. Almost as soon as I was handing out copies of the DVD to friend to view, I have been working on an updated version of the DVD. I’m constantly learning new tricks with Adobe Premier Elements (my DVD authoring software) and have already started to produce the "director’s cut".

Baden

                  Jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and-a file gumbo,
                  ’Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio,
                  Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh,
                  Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou.

                   Lyrics from “Jambalaya” written by Hank Williams (1952)

When you’re making this recipe, you can’t help but think of this song as it’s seems so appropriate to the spirit of this dish. Originally a version of the Spanish dish paella, jambalaya is a spicy Louisiana recipe that I have made several times and has always been a favourite of ours.

The Pin Ceremony has officially taken place.

Just a few steps from my computer in the den are two maps on the walls. On the one closest to me is a large map of Europe which now has 26 yellow pins on it. The yellow pins mark the major locations in Europe that we have visited since our first trip there in 1994.

Update (Nov. 18): After almost a 2 ½ week delay of ignoring my blog to work on my Italy DVD, I hope to spend the next few days trying to clear up the backlog of articles that I had on the go before I started working on my DVD. I’m happy to say that the DVD was completed last weekend so I can hopefully get back to my normal routine now of spending vast amounts of my free time maintaining this web site. …Baden

I apologize for not posting anything new for the past week. I have no fewer than 6 articles in the works that are in various stages of completion but I suspect that none of them will get done for another week or so. All of my energy is currently being poured into the production of my Excellent Italian Adventure DVD.

This is not a misprint.

After only a 10 day break after returning home from our recent Excellent Italian Adventure, Barb has brought home books from the library to start looking into travel plans for next year.