Stormtroopers located (Omaha Fan Force). -- posted by JohnPaul on Saturday, April 29, 2006 1:06PM
Looks like we have a plethora of folks from the Star Wars universe right next door!

http://www.tb751.com/501st/

Now to see if I can talk them into a project... [more...]

Hanlon Lees Action Theater - jousting! -- posted by JohnPaul on Friday, April 28, 2006 10:40PM
Years ago, our favorite jousting troupe was the Hanlon Lees. They seemed to do all the events in the area (such as Salibury Faire, Southern Illinois, Wybreg Village, etc.). We saw them everywhere. Willa and I got to know many of the members and hung out together (all those weeks in Bonaparte, IA mostly). But, time marches and and, while the Lees were still out there (they are the jousting troupe at Bristol and Arizona, for instance), they haven't been seen in Iowa for awhile now. But... They are scheduled to return during the Des Moines Renaissance Faire later this year.

And, oddly enough, I received my first Lees mailing list update today so I thought I'd pass it along... Enjoy...


What hath God wrought?! A Hanlon-Lees newsletter?? Yes! BELIEVE IT... OR NOT!

Your old pal and H-LAT webmaster Christian has scraped the dust off his
keyboard and, having recently returned from the Arizona wilderness, has
concocted a update of sorts for your edification and enjoyment. So enjoy.
Or else.

SEVEN NEW SHOWS ADDED!

Yes, it's true. Seven new shows, including a Wild West show! Most of the
new additions are one-weekend gigs in the Midwest (places like Kansas,
Iowa, and Missouri, to name a few), so check out our spiffy new 2006
Schedule page at www.hanlon-lees.com for more info and links to each
event. Maybe we'll see you at one or more of them...

SECRETS OF THE KORAN REVEALED!

You may recall a brief blurb about our working on a History Channel
special entitled SECRETS OF THE KORAN. What? You don't? Well, we did --
Kent Shelton, Rick Croft, and various other company members provided
horses, weaponry, costuming, and choreography for the special, which aired
recently as a two-night event. If you missed it (like I did), fear not:
it's now available for sale at the History Channel Store --

http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=75595

-- so check it out, if you're interested. Please note that it's only
available on DVD; apparently the History Channel isn't fooling around with
VHS anymore, so if you don't have a DVD player yet, now's the time. (And
boy, are YOU behind the times! Even Kent has a DVD player now!)

TASO WORKS FOR JACKASS!

Ha! Like that's news... Sorry, was that my outside voice...?

Yes, the rumors are true. Fearless Greek demigod Taso Stavrakis has been
wrangling livestock for JACKASS 2: THE MOVIE. See midgets bucked off of
rampaging donkeys! See Steve-o get branded! See ferocious camels --- okay,
I'll try to preserve some of the suspense. Anyway, it's due out sometime
this year (I think -- that's what the website says, anyway; check it out
here: www.jackassmovie.com), so watch for it.

LONG-HAIRED SNIPER STRIKES THIS SUMMER!

While we're on the subject of Taso, you can see him this summer in the new
MIAMI VICE movie directed by Michael Mann, creator of the original TV
series. Taso plays the coveted role of "Long-Haired Sniper," and though he
has recently shorn his long locks and donated them to cancer, they've been
immortalized on film, so watch for it in your local megaplex or visit the
official website at www.miamivice.com.

NEW STUFF UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

I know, I've been talking about this for a while, but it's true. I'm just
a lone webmaster who leaves home a lot to sell swords and things. *sigh*

Anyway, new sections coming soon to www.hanlon-lees.com include:

- A snazzy F.A.Q.!
- The vaunted CLUBHOUSE department!
- A photo-riffic PRESS section, complete with downloadable PDF brochure!
- New pics in the GALLERY! (Okay, new OLD pics, unless you want to send me
some new ones.)
- A new PAUL NEWMAN QUOTE! (Not really. Just a new pic of Paul Newman.
Kent's idea.)

There's probably a buncha stuff I'm forgetting, too, so don't hesitate to
drop a note and remind me. For instance, "HEY CHRISTIAN! What about that
nude calendar section you've been promising to build??" Or, "HEY
CHRISTIAN! Where's that Lee Morrison T-Shirt you said you'd be selling?"
Or even, "HEY CHRISTIAN! Where's that $10 you owe me?!"

Okay, don't remind me about that one. Faire's over... I'm tapped.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled 2006 season, already in
progress. More news soon, here on WHLT... All jousting, all day.

- Christian
Ye Olde Itinerant Webmaster
www.hanlon-lees.com

Des Moines area Hy-Vee supermaket goes Pirate themed? -- posted by JohnPaul on Friday, April 28, 2006 6:22PM
Each year, Hy-Vee grocery stores in my area have some sort of decorating contest. The Hy-Vee store near Southridge Mall in Des Moines...

http://www.hy-vee.com/storefinder/storefinder_detail.asp?store=51

...is doing a pirate theme this year. For the next week or so, this store is themed to the max -- pirate flags, pirate shaped cutouts, a soda-pop display in the shape of a large pirate ship (with three pirates on it), staff wearing pirate vests, head bandanas and eye patches, pirate baloons, signs, "Dead Men Tell No Tales" banners, etc. It's very surreal, and the decorating even extends backstage. The breakroom continues with pirate posters, and even their staff checklists are using skull-n-crossbones instead of checkmarks right now.

Pirate music plays, and certain areas of the store have "wave" decorations with wave sound effects playing. Very interesting.

So, if you are in Des Moines, and need some groceries, and like pirates, how 'bout making a drive over to this Hy-Vee and check it out? The official "Captain Morgan" for the Iowa area was even on hand this Thursday and Friday for photos.

Star Wars "Stormtrooper" needed near Omaha. -- posted by JohnPaul on Wednesday, April 26, 2006 1:04PM
If anyone out there is in touch with someone with a Stormtrooper outfit (preferably two someones) in Iowa or around Omaha, have them drop me a note. I've got a short video project in mind that could use them.

Music video filmed at Bristol Ren Faire. -- posted by JohnPaul on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 8:00PM
Check out this fan-video taped at the Bristol Renaissance Faire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIaTmEA526A [more...]

Iowa Ren Fest TV ad on YouTube.com -- posted by JohnPaul on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 7:55PM
I uploaded a TV ad for the upcoming Iowa Renaissance Festival to YouTube.com. You can view it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnyv6Zgqrog
[more...]

More server woes. -- posted by JohnPaul on Monday, April 24, 2006 6:01PM
For the past four days, the partition ATF is on (and most/all of the other sites affected by the recent hard drive/backup hard drive crash) was out of space. This caused counters to be reset and various other problems (and would have screwed up the message board if it were in use). As you can see, the dust is still settling from the "Crash of 2006" but at least the photos are still there.

The photos are still there, aren't they? :(

Renaissance Banner Exchange - 4700 per day! -- posted by JohnPaul on Monday, April 17, 2006 8:10PM
Wow, thankfully the banner exchange wasn't affected. While checking it out after the server crash, I noticed it's continued to pick up. Currently, there are 130 members (four or five not active, still waiting on their banner to be uploaded), and it shows over 4700 banners per day rotated on those sites.

It's free (and worth every penny). Your site can join at:

http://www.renbanner.net
[more...]

Photo gallery (almost?) restored! -- posted by JohnPaul on Monday, April 17, 2006 6:38PM
After generating and uploading for the past six days, it looks like the ATF Photo Gallery is pretty much restored. Unfortunately, the new program I am using (JAlbum), generates completely different filenames and such from PhotoToWeb which I've been using for the past five years (something like that). This means that every photo page link anyone had bookmarked or linked from their web page is probably broken now. (Well, except for a few test directories that were made using this program last year.) I don't know if there was much I could do about that, so... apologies for those who land here looking for where the photos "moved."

I have now moved over to working on the 30,000 photos at my DisneyFans.com website. This will be the first time I've had all those photos available since I moved to this server a few years ago (2002, maybe?). In fact, for the longest time I didn't even have all the Disney pics online there so this will be the first time everything has been uploaded there, too.

(I suddenly feel like I am "blogging"...) So, I'm actually kinda happy I've finally been "forced" to get the photos online. After DisneyFans.com, I then look into restoring my podcast site. This may be the most time consuming since I don't think I have backups of all the 3-D Video podcast episodes, and may have to go back and reprocess them (VERY time consuming). I think most of the audio podcasts (old episodes) are back now -- including all the episodes of the Rencast -- but I haven't actually gone in to verify they are loading for people. (It's on the list; I've started to get e-mail from podcast listeners wondering what is going on over there.)

Next stop will be the vids.disneyfans.com which used to house a bunch of QuickTime format home movies from Disneyland and Walt Disney World. I have all of the video files, so it's just a matter of uploading 3.98 GB of video files (or, more likely, doing what I formerly did and uploading just the small versions -- 424 MB -- and storing the rest on my home server hooked to the DSL line).

I'm starting to hate all the work left to be done, now that I actually stop a moment and think about all the work left to be done ;-)

http://9thvalkyrie.com/ has also had to re-upload her entire site (hundreds of megs of photos and such) -- ack -- but beyond that, I think the only other site affected (other than all of my big ones) was a Boy Scouts site that RenRadio.com sent over to me for hosting. They are still offline right now, probably due to being phpNuke based and being in the same boat as me (no backups of the script-side databases).

Slow and steady.

I will have more updates to follow. To those who have written and have yet to receive a reply, hang in there. I have about 50 unanswered (and many unread) e-mails still to go in the ATF inbox. I've tried to pick out the ones from people I hear from often (that said, go to http://www.siouxlandrenfest.com/ and read up on this year's Siouxland Ren Fest; will that work, Mel?).

Slow and ... oh, said that already. So...

end of line

All-new Photo Gallery now online! -- posted by JohnPaul on Friday, April 14, 2006 8:07PM
For the first time in about 3 or 4 years, the entire AtTheFaire.com photo gallery has been regenerated and uploaded complete. There are still some cosmetic things I'd like to fix (uploading some right now) but by tomorrow, I think 100% of the photos should be there.

According to the generator program, this is 30,280 photos! Wow.

Photo gallery update. -- posted by JohnPaul on Wednesday, April 12, 2006 6:28PM
After running all night, the gallery generator has done 11,000 out of 30,290 images. It now estimates 30 hours remaining. Meanwhile, the upload is underway of the galleries that have been made so far. Very slow going, but the end result will be getting the ATF Photo Galleries back to how they used to be years ago, when it was small enough to do a consistent regen after every event.

I have no idea how I'll handle doing updates this year, but maybe using the new gallery program will offer some help. It's the same program I experimented on a few galleries with last year (Jalbum). We shall see.

No decision has been made yet about the message board. After I get AtTheFaire.com and DisneyFans.com back online, I'll look in to the future of The Pub. I've gotten quite a few e-mails showing support for keeping it, so we'll just see how I feel about the work involved in a days or weeks.

Regional Renaissance Reporter #7 goes to the printer this month, with a new full page color advertiser, so I'll be tied up with that in the near future, meaning alot of other side projects (such as the podcasts) are on hold, too.

This was so much easier when Willa was around :-)

ATF Status Update: Photos coming back, better than ever... -- posted by JohnPaul on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 11:47PM
Wow, this is actually a real cool thing -- the server crash has caused me to regenerate all the photos so now, after years of neglect, they will all be back up in a new and consistent format. W00t! I am currently generating 30,290 images, which will take about 16+ hours according to the program. Then I have to spend a day uploading them. Hopefully I can have this done in a day or so.

SERVER ERROR -- posted by JohnPaul on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 10:55PM
Okay, server got hosed in a power outtage and everything was lost. Give me a bit to get it all back up, including (maybe) an all-new message board.