I am close to freaking out! The semester starts Monday 8/30. One of my classes is fully online, and the others extensively use online materials as supplements to the primary on campus delivery method. On Thursday, the university did maintenance to Blackboard, which is what we use for the online component. Having the courseware unavailable for a day this close to the start of the semester was a hassle, but not that big of a deal. However, since the maintenance, I have been experiencing browser errors when I try to design. It happens on all of my machines, with different set-ups, browsers, IP addresses, and even providers. The "helpdesk" seems to be stumped...they recommended a bunch of time consuming things to try which didn't work and haven't responded since Friday. What compounds it, in my opinion, is that they operate with a 9-5, M-F approach, rather than 24/7, especially this close to the start of the semester. This has been my chief criticism since we switched to a new model back in Spring 2008. I will need to troubleshoot this myself if I don't hear from them with a solution very soon. AAAAHHHHH...

We spent the weekend in Samsonville. Teddy/Theo traveled like a dream! What a good kitty. It was cold on Saturday, and rained all day yesterday, so no swimming :-(. I think the weather forecast is muddied in the Capital District because of Saratoga. They don't want to discourage people from going to the track. I have been "anecdotally" observing this for years. Early in the week, the forecast always predicts the weather will be lovely for the weekend, unless there is a hurricane or something brewing that would make people suspicious that it was wrong. Then late in the week, the forecast mysteriously transforms.

I hoped to take a picture of Cinderella to post here (as promised), but the weather was so crummy I've decided to wait until this weekend. It will then coincide with Travers weekend, which is perfect. But Travers weekend is one where an inaccurate forecast never fails to be in evidence. So I wonder if we will have buckets of rain this weekend?

Yesterday, coming home, the southbound lanes of the Thruway were backed up to Catskill. Those silly folks who believed it would be sunny...

Update: BLS problem is fixed! YAY.