The Daily School Bus: Okay, I believe I have just about got it

I did succeed today at really sleeping in, like when I was younger. I didn't get up until almost noon. I couldn't even eat breakfast at Abby's, because they close the breakfast grill at 11, but I needed the sleep. It was good to get it. I was so exhausted I think I was on the verge of physical collapse.

I have made some decent accomplishments today, including putting up a few experimental, not for publication, posts in Squarespace 6. I have much to learn about the broad capabilities of the platform and there are many, but I do have enough basics down to where I can make blog posts in close to the style my readers are accustomed to.

I have yet to try out the Squarespace 6 iPhone app. Before I can do that I must purchase and activate this trial version, which means I must then also quickly import my old blog into it and target it to my current address. I'm a little nervous about that. So I am going to wait until tomorrow when, hopefully, I can have the tech who has promised to help me stand by to be sure nothing goes wrong - or if it does to help me quickly correct it.

As for this schoolbus, I snapped it right after I stopped at the stop sign at the corner of Wards and Selden I was on my afternoon coffee break, coming home from Metro Cafe the long way with a coffee in my hand. Actually, I had pretty much drank all the coffee by the time I reach the stop sign. There were maybe three or four drops left in the cup, that's all. I wasn't holding the cup anymore, either. It was in the cup holder. So the coffee was not in my hand at all.

I am truly, truly, hoping that this post will be the last I ever do in Squarespace 5. Anyone who dropped in here in the last 15 or 20 minutes would have found a title over an empty post. Yet, I had tried to post it from my phone twice, and both times the picture had failed to appear. I finally had to email the image to myself, open it in my computer, resave it and then upload it into the blog and resize it.

So, you see, even the Squarespace nightmare is theoretically over, it has hung in there to this, which, one way or another, I intend to make my final post in Squarespace 5.

The Daily School Bus: Well, it didn't quite happen today

I got a bit into Squarespace 6 but a lot of confusing things happened, beginning with the fact that the instructional video would not play and Squarespace had no idea why. Squarespace did lead me to another very long video recording of an online Squarespace 6 workshop with quite a bit of good information. Before I could apply very much of it, Margie put Lynxton down for a long nap and then took off for a long time to do some shopping but Lynxton woke right back up and I had to care for him for a long time.

Now I must drive Margie and Lynxton to Anchorage. Then Margie and I will go to a movie and I afterward I will drop her off to babysit for the next couple of days and I will come home again.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will get this. I saw enough today to make me believe there are some real advantages in going with Squarespace 6, even beyond my daily phone posts. And I believe the phone post process will truly improve. I sure hope so.

The Daily School Bus: hopefully, this is the last time I will have to post using this technological Squarespace nightmare

We will soon find out if the Squarespace nightmare is truly over. As I have already noted, right after I got to Nuiqsut, I received an email from a Squarespace tech informing me that they were dropping the defective Squarespace 5 app I had been using to post my blog from my iPhone and are moving away from Squarespace 5 altogether. He informed me they have to Squarespace 6 iPhone apps they claim are very, very, good. I was given the option to start a new Squarespace 6 blog and to import this blog into it, or to start the new blog and keep this blog as a separate archived entity.

Either way, I was assured I would have amazing capabilities in the new apps to post on the fly from my phone. I could not make the transition while I was working in the field and so decided I would try it after I got home. Based on his assurance, I dropped my long-running Squarespace protest, illustrated each day with an image of the Daily School Bus. Tomorrow, Tuesday, is the day I have designated to give Squarespace 6 a try. I am hopeful, but not totally convinced. The tech said he would personally be there to help me every step of the way with whatever assistance I might need. He said to let him know when I was going to do it. So last night I sent him an email and told him it would be tomorrow. I have not heard back from him. For the moment, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt as there could be legitimate reasons – perhaps he has been off for the past couple of days, or maybe he has come down with the flu.

Lots of people seem to have come down with the flu.

This is the last post I will put up until after I have either succeeded or failed at making the transition - hopefully sometime tomorrow. Either way, my address will be the same. The option I am choosing to try is to import this blog into the new Squarespace 6 format and to keep the same URL. 

The Daily School Bus: Working on the ice roads

Here's that little school bus again. It just might be the last time you see it or another on this blog for awhile, for a few different reasons. The most important reason is because my internet connection here is very slow and, couple this with Squarespace problems,* my posts take more time to put up than I can afford to give them. So, for the remainder of my time here in Nuiqsut, my goal will be to put up just one post a day, at the end of the day. I can't have the rest of my posts all on one little school bus. Second, while this is a school bus, it is not being used as a school bus. For the moment, there are no roads that reach beyond the village but every winter a series of ice roads are built to link the Alpine oil field and its satellites to Prudhoe Bay and the haul road and Nuiqsut gets linked into the network. That process is under way right now but is behind schedule due to the prolonged period of unusually warm weather. That, I am sure, is why the fellow yesterday was complaining about how "too damned hot" the -1F temperature was. They want cold weather to build the ice roads. This little bus carries workers staying in the hotel to the places where ice road construction is under way from here. There is a separate school bus to serve the school but it is not being used right now.

*Well, you can see one of the Squarespace problems I refer to - all that gray. This has been happening to almost every post I have put up since I arrived in Nuiqsut and to several in Barrow, occassionally in Wasilla. To correct it, I must email a picture from my iPhone to my computer and then upload and place it in the old-fashioned way. I just don't have the time for this. I'm going to leave it now as an example of the kind of headache Squarespace has been for so long. Hopefully, their new platform will be as good as it is touted to be and these problems will disappear. If not, then I will disappear from Squarespace.

Logbook: Barrow to Nuiqsut, entry 3: The Daily School Bus - nap

We land in Nuiqsut where I find the The Daily School Bus parked at the Kuukpik Hotel. I am exhausted. I take a long nap. I was going to end the Logbook entry with some very cold looking pictures but to decided I would include The Daily School Bus instead. I do have some more pictures from Barrow to post yet, including a small series I shot last night that will be perfect to commemorate the personally important anniversaries of this day, ranging from as sad and tragic as sad and tragic can be to as happy and joyful as happy and joyful can be.