Hello, PN Readers!
Thanks for inquires and patience the last week in November 2021 when many hometown holiday activities were launched, Santa Claus paused to listen to kids’ wish lists at Nichols Library and North Central College Cardinals advanced to the quarterfinal round NCAA Division III football playoffs. (Note: Kick off at Benedetti-Wehrli Stadium is at noon on Sat., Dec. 4, against the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Engineers.)
Not only were we busy enjoying all those Thanksgiving weekend festivities, celebrating several family birthdays and preparing PN for December’s publication, our website was undergoing restoration to expand its width to better serve the community. And our readers noticed some irregularities. To our surprise, online stories posted on Nov. 23, Nov. 24 and up and running on Thanksgiving Day did not back up and were deleted.
One reader wondered about our Thanksgiving story featuring the November “Lasting Impression,” a photo representing the Edward Hospital Gratitude Mural and how the large mural had been received by physicians and frontline professionals at the hospital.
“Thanks for sharing my art from the heart!” emailed artist Sangeeta Pande. “I know I read it while in California, now I’m finding an error page landing, can you please forward me the link once again?
A post about the KidsMatter Volunteer Fair that is set from 5:30PM to 7:30PM Thurs., Dec. 2, (today!) at the Fort Hill Activity Center also was deleted after running for 24 hours. The folks at KidsMatter had requested that we let them know when the post went live. We did. But a couple days later when they clicked the link, event also landed on an “error page.”
Embarrassing and Frustrating Technology
In addition, local power outages created production issues here and there from 2PM to just before 9PM on Tues., Nov. 30. We shuttered to think what if that outage had been a day earlier. What if when we’d planned to transfer our files for our run of the press on Monday, the internet had been down?
As if those thoughts weren’t enough, our reliable web press printer text messaged our designer that PN’s December issue on schedule for Dec. 1 delivery to be distributed where readers pick-up in PN racks had been delayed.
Door-to-driveway delivery, however, was already in progress.
We’d been going bananas about our December issue, in pursuit of life, liberty and good-natured news, trying to provide stories and a few chuckles readers might not see in other media. The news about the delivery delay didn’t greet us with much appeal.
Low and behold, mid-afternoon on Dec. 1 the delivery arrived and soon after distribution began to local supermarkets and popular pick-up locations such as Quigley’s Irish Pub.
Again, many thanks to folks who inquired about last week’s stories that appeared to vanish after they had seen them online. Our small, independent local family business will keep trying!
Meanwhile, we plan to enjoy the holiday season by supporting local businesses whenever possible, wishing plaid tidings to you and your kin. —PN
