Time Marches On

Somehow it’s been over five months since my last update. Well, that’s only somewhat true. It’s been over five months since my last NEW update. However, there have been updates. About 490 of them. And I would’ve much rather have not made them.

Not too long ago, it was brought to my attention that my blog had once again been hacked. I will refrain from ranting about hackers of this nature at this time. Suffice it to say the rant would not be favourable. At all. Which I’m sure would be a great concern to hackers around the world (seriously, there needs to be a “sarcasm” font). Anyway, much like the last time it was hacked, I found my blog littered with links for certain pharmaceutical products. The last time this happened, I spent several hours cleansing my blog of such material and then created an archive of the entire blog so that I wouldn’t have to go through the “cleansing” process again. That seemed like a good idea at the time. However, as is often the case, things were not that simple.

After a couple of failed test attempts to restore my archived blog, I was faced with a dilemma. What will take more time, figuring out how to restore the archived version, or manually removing all of the unwelcome links that had been added to EVERY update I’ve ever posted? In addition to the time element, there was also the question of which would be the least damaging to my sanity.

Manually removing up to three spam links from every page could very well be the very definition of monotonous but it would be a generally simple monotonous task. Did I mention it would be monotonous? On the flip side, troubleshooting the technical aspects of restoring an archived WordPress blog would be significantly less simple. I say that based on the aforementioned tests which were entirely unsuccessful. Add to that the risk of wiping out my entire blog and, well … I opted to let the monotony begin.

Several hours later, I once again had an untainted blog. Not to mention a lot fewer brain cells (none of which I feel I was in a position to spare). I also once again created an archive of said untainted blog … although, I’m not sure why since I still have no idea how to restore the archive – a task that will inevitably be needed at some point down the road.

All of that is just a long winded way of saying that I haven’t been COMPLETELY neglecting my blog since October. That said, yes, there has been some serious neglect of my blog since October.

I have been asked on more than one occasion what my next adventure will be – cycling or otherwise. Sadly, I have no specific answer to that, well … at least not re: my next cycling adventure. Ideas? Yes. Plans? No. I’m currently under a bit of a time constraint as the plan to return to Africa this summer is still a go. And that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, it somewhat limits my options in the weeks leading up to my African adventure … for which dates are still being determined.

Now that I’ve dealt with all of those disclaimers (i.e. excuses), I can get to the matter at hand. It had been FAR too long since I’d been on the move. Something needed to be done. That “something” ended up being a somewhat spur of the moment road trip. At one point I had hoped to spend most of March in Florida because escaping the cold of winter always seems like a good idea. However, work projects, car repairs, and more car repairs and, oh … more car repairs kept delaying my departure. With March rapidly nearing its end, my window of opportunity for escape was closing – equally rapidly. Plus, I wanted to meet up with a friend at Quest before she departs on a Mt. Everest climb (which is more than a little awesome).

So, all of that led to the events of last Friday (the 17th) when I decided it was now or never. The official decision to depart was made around 2:00 PM and by 6:30 PM the car was packed and I was on the move. A mere 25 hours, four tanks of gas, and about 2,100 km later, I was parking my car at Quest Air.

I’ve yet to do any flying because, well … I was only at Quest for a couple of days before continuing another hour south to where my aunt and uncle have kindly let me stay at their snowbird haven despite their absence. THANK YOU Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Jack. Did I mention it’s been over 30 degrees the past two days?

Sadly, I need to return north next week. As such, the current plan is to head back to Quest for the weekend before embarking on the long drive north on Monday.