Big Sky Blog

Senator Baucus (D-MT) stated that one reason why the asbestoes bill was stalled was for the simple fact that Libby is in a remote location. I would have to venture out to ask: “wtf does that have to do with anything?” Those of you who haven’t been to Libby, it’s a small town and it could almost be anytown, USA.

KPAX: Baucus – Libby remoteness is one reason why bill stalled

This reminds me of the movie, Civil Action, starring (shudders) John Travolta – involved the same company. W&R Grace, I doubt, they’re going to get away from this one w/o doing jail time. In CA – they basically had to pay a large settlement fee. But even in that case, Grace, fauxed innocence.

I do agree w. Senator Baucus, when he says that people don’t understand the severity of the problem in Libby. I mean how often does a single disease wipe out almost an entire family with a slow and painful death?

Does anyone know where Dave Budge went to?

In the recent years, Flathead County has grown at an alarming rate. The area north of me, Hwy. 93 is almost all developed in some form whether it’s for Retail, Hotels, expansion of Flathead Community College and the new Glacier High School (hisses) but recently there’s quarrels over our proposed gravel pits.

One is owned by the valley famous Tudvedt family, who owns a farm here, is going to get their gravel pit out in West Valley (a section of town that is west on Farm to Market Rd)., and then there’s this pit – proposed in West Glacier:

Let the lawsuits begin!!

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For those who aren’t aware of who I am, I’m Jen, Kalispell’s highly conservative blogger – you might have heard horror stories about me and perhaps they’re true (*winks*).

Sarpy Sam has a scoop: he got a sneak-preview of the four contenders for the “Montana quarter” design. Apparently Montanans will be able to vote for their favorite design over at the Governor’s site soon. I’m partial to #2 with the cow skull, but then I’m biased because I live in “Russell Country,” and I seem to recall hearing that Charlie Russell is the one that created (or immortalized?) the cow skull as an unofficial state symbol. Also posted over at Ed’s City Lights.

Don’t forget to take a look over at the sidebar on the right side of the page and check out some of the Recent Comments…many of them are on older entries that have long since scrolled off of the main page.

I have recently relocated to Big Sky, MT and I have to say that while I’m upset it fails to carry on a town-ish feel in that it doesn’t have a town square or any centralized location like other resort towns such as Jackson, I have found my refuge for relaxation as well as unbelievable dining. I’m talking specifically about the Rainbow Ranch Lodge and Restaurant located officially in the canyon, about five miles south of Big Sky.

Most of you are familiar with The Monkey – arguably the funniest blogger in the state. He’s always pointing out humorous things, or coming up with hilarious parody/satire ideas, or regaling us with his naughty Monkey nature. But The Monkey also has a softer side, and like us, he surely appreciates this place that we call home:

Today’s blog is dedicated to Montana; not my home state, but the state I’m proud to call home. The other day I was driving along the highway and I pulled over to watch a young coyote pup playing in a field, with beautiful snow-capped mountains in the background, painted by a clear blue, huge Montana sky. I turned down my radio and just enjoyed the moment and the beauty of this state. At that very moment a beautiful, huge American Bald Eagle soared in to take a look at what the Coyote was playing with. It’s hard to look anywhere in Montana and not see something beautiful in this state, and that includes her people, who I’m proud to call my neighbors

Some of you may be familiar with my Great Falls blog, called GreaterFalls.com. It focuses solely on events, people, and news going on in my beloved community of Great Falls. Well, it looks like some folks from Butte are doing the same thing for their community: go say howdy to the Butte Talk blog! They’ve already started a page of “Butte-isms,” which will surely be handy for tourists. Related: also just discovered Mike Able Xray, another Butte blog.

For those who don’t know, I’m Kimbear; the person responsible for Revolving Duck (the blog that takes a licking and keeps on ticking). And because I’m a lightning rod for everything bad related to servers and hosts, lightning has stuck again. For the fifty billionth time. Before there’s mass pandemonium, here’s the reason why the Duck is well, broke (or will be for some ISPs):

1) My former host cancelled automatic payment of my hosting account without reason and without warning.
2) I emailed them to ask what was up.
3) Email bounced back.
4) Saturday I decided to get a backup of my stuff. Now, I figured my site would be being obliterated at some point, but I didn’t know when. My billing cycles run to the 26th of each month. I thought I had that long, but apparently I didn’t. Saturday morning comes, and FTP access is not working; neither is access to my Control Panel so I can make a backup of the database.
5) I get Wordpress to show all 115 posts so I can save the RSS feed in a vain attempt that I can salvage my blog. Worst case scenario, I do have a Database Backup, which is current through 12/27/05. ::sigh::
6) I’ve gone with a new host, paid my dues, and redirected my DNS. Now I’m waiting on login information from them so that I can resurrect RD.

So. In this huge debacle, my former host has vanished all form of communication. I never once received notification that I would be losing my website, or reasons why they cancelled my autopay. I had no idea when I would lose access to the site. All the stuff that I’ve put on Hekhet in the last three years, is now gone apart from RSS feeds of the blog and picture-saving. While there’s nothing that can’t be replaced up there, it’s still really freaking annoying for this to happen.

Anyways, once the DNS stuff finishes and I get my account information; I’ll start work on getting things back together. RD will still be located at it’s usual location, but check the main site for RD status.

For fun: last year I had the Great Server Outage of 2005. Now, it’s the Great Host Crisis of 2006. Hopefully the new host will cut back on the occurances of Great Negative Thing Here of Any Given Year. :???:

edited to add
Well, she’s up and running. Complete with all the posts. For me, the DNS has already resolved; but I don’t know about the rest of the civilized world. I did lose all my comments in the process; but thank God for WordPress’s RSS feed importer. *hugs WordPress* SO! Come and enjoy the quacking here!!