I noticed late last week that the dotnetkicks image service is failing to respond to requests containing URLs for unkicked stories.  Not sure when this behavior started, or if it's newly defined behavior, but I've submitted issue 233 through the dotnetkicks google code bug tracking system.

If you're noticing this issue as well, please star the bug (and kick this story).

Update

thanx to gavinjoyce, this issue appears to be fixed as of 2008 Dec 08, 19:30 UTC.

I just finished updated the site - no major additions, just updated BlogEngine and added some niceties I've wanted for some time like addthis and twitter.  If you can read this, then I guess it's a good sign that things are working!

Summer's been a musical blast so far.  About a month ago I got to experience Tom Waits live at his show in Atlanta's stunning Fox Theatre (you can listen to the entire 2.5 hour show here thanks to NPR; you can actually hear me - I'm the one screaming, clapping, and singing along).  It was my second live Waits show, the first being the Asheville, NC stop of his Orphans tour in 2006.  Seeing Waits live was a life goal I had written off until two years ago; that I've been able to experience him perform over five hours of live material I consider a true blessing (and now I know where my lost luggage ends up, thanks Tom).

More recently, I returned from a family gathering in Pigeon Forge, TN.  On the way we passed through Gatlinburg where I got to meet Mark Edelman at Smoky Mountain Dulcimers.  I'd never played an mountain lap dulcimer before, but I can play a lot of guitar and a little banjo so I was a quick study.  If you don't know, they have four strings - three tuned to A and one to D - and they're fretted to the major scale starting at the 5th.  Two of the A-tuned strings are positioned close together, like the strings on a 12-string guitar; they're used for the melody.  The other two strings (AD) serve as harmony.  The effect is something like the chanter and drones on a bagpipe.  Once you get the physical aspects of playing the instrument down, getting it to make music is pretty easy and a lot of fun.  I liked them enough to pick one up - the traditional hourglass beauty you can see in the picture for this post.  It's as much for my girls as myself.  I think it will be a great way to expose them to stringed instruments.  In fact - and this is no lie - I've got my 3-year-old strumming out "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "You are my Sunshine" while I help her little hand hold the noter down!

After a day of false starts, dead end meetings, project management goose chases, and vaporous bug reports, it's nice to have a success.

The blog is up, the site is live.  Welcome.