Faithful readers, over the last few days, Typepad has experienced what we are calling the Siege of Typepad. Something overtook the web host and, first, made our photos hard to upload. Next, we disappeared altogether. Now, we’ve been waiting 45 minutes for a photo to post. So, we’re giving up and using a draft photo that we had stored digitally and marked as “unpublished.” It is the lights at dusk over Friendly Center. It is how we feel right now. After five years and three months, are the lights going out?

In Russia, during World War Two, Leningrad suffered an 872 day siege. To let people know the city hadn’t surrendered, they played the sound of a clock ticking on the radio. When you go inside the monument, you hear that clock ticking. That beautiful metaphor for being alive and not giving up has always impressed us. So, if you are able to see the above photo of a parking lot in Friendly Shopping Center at dusk, consider it a virtual sign that we are still here. And, please know, we in no way equate a down website with the horrific almost- 2 1/2 year Siege of Leningrad. However, this Internet situation does remind us of how and what one must go through to not throw in the towel and how hard we must work to not have our data compromised on the Internet.

For now, we’re still here, we think….. Tic, toc………