Don’t Be Sad Little Chicken

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Well then, OK… hummm. There are many problems both big and small that plague the birds and animals of Yellowstone. There’s freezing cold and wildfires and big hairy scary things that jump out at you and eat you. There is sometimes little food or else there’s too much and you eat until your size 2 is a size QQXXXL that is only made in certain parts of rural Russia which was the Union of Soviet Socialists Or We’ll Kill You Republic.

But one of the biggest hardships of all is when for some reason they do not have access to BigShotsNow the blog, which is published by The Institute and is the sole source of news and events for all the denizens of the park. Without it they don’t know the results of the annual park inspection report that determines where the individual animals will be stationed within the parks borders, or how much they’ll be making, or who’s baby was just born, or if you’re an elk or buffalo, whose baby was just eaten. Or of you’re a wolf and/or wolf pack, where the best place for elk and bison to hang out. So having the blog is a really big deal for them.

If you read the announcement a few days ago explaining our tale of woe then you know we’re having problems with our image storage system. We’re still having trouble. Big Trouble. NASA kind of trouble. Tesla kind of trouble. Third or Fourth ex-wife kind of trouble. Not mid-east kind of trouble that’s just over the top, but sometimes it feels like it.

We have double shifts working around the clock on it but even with all the help we have, it’s still slow going. We can’t do anything about the current or future news we report on but we can lead you towards our archives where we keep the news of the past. There are literally hundreds of articles and poems and handwritten prose, over eight hundred to be exact, and they are rollicking tales and ripping yarns filled with adventure and mis-stated fact, and thoughts that I bet you haven’t thought your ownself or even could if you tried. They’re all there just begging to be reread. Just go to the calendar and find a blue day, hover your cursor over one and it’ll tell you its name. What could be easier than that. Or you could scroll down under the search box on the far right hand side of the page where it says Archives and see that each month with its corresponding year is listed below and you can poke around in those until you feel funny and have to quit for a while.

We’re working hard and not just screwing off like we do sometimes when there is a problem but really working, so the best we can say is “Don’t be sad, little chicken. We’ll be back up with new pictures and words real soon.”

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas to you all. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best of the holidays with the hopes that you truly have Peace and Contentment in your lives. The holidays all mean different things to different people and no matter how you do, or don’t, celebrate them, it is still a time that draws people together.

The blog has seemed to do that even more so this year. The drawing people in part I mean, as we have had thousands of visitors from here in the States and in 2014 we had over 66 different countries visit the blog. This year we are ahead of that total. So a special thanks and Holiday Greetings to all of our International readers. If I could say thank you in each of your languages I would. However, because of the holidays The Director of The Institute and I, gave our entire Linguistic department plus the rest of the staff, even the interns and other minions, the entire holiday season off. Clear into next year. Yes I know, that is unprecedented, but we just felt the spirit of fellowship and good will this year and let sentiment run away with us.

The gorgeous landscape above is actually from where both I and the imaginary Institute are located. High above the plains in the mountains North of Ft Collins, Colorado. This is where I live and where the more trustworthy of our interns from The Institute pass by everyday when we go down the mountain to get the mail or head out on one of our many incredible adventures. It is a real pleasure to be able to share this beautiful sight with you.

I am Dwight Lutsey the blogmaster, and along with The Director of The Institute, who as always will remain nameless, would like to say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the very best wishes to you and yours. Make sure you visit us regularly throughout the rest of this year and the next so you don’t miss a single extraordinary event that happens here at BigShotsNow the blog.

Merry Christmas everyone!

OK That Wasn’t Funny

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For those thousands upon thousands of loyal readers from all over the globe who noticed that BigShotsNow, the blog, has been off the air for several days we want to announce, we’re back…..

We were hacked. (*Note: For those of you on a time budget go to the end of this post for a quick summary) Yes just like a big phlegm ball we were hacked and spat out on the miserable roadside of the internet, unable to get to our site, unable to fix it, left with nothing but a screen declaring that “This website is currently unavailable. If you want to know why call this number. 1-8OO-oh crap!” which we immediately did.

Upon reaching our tech support we learned that thugs, despicable internet gangsters, lowlifes of the worst sort had some how gotten into our server and left despoiled files all over our html coding like little piles of puppy droppings. Of course our host, the folks who allow us to have BigShotsNow, the blog, on their servers, had to pull the plug on us. I mean, who wouldn’t. We’re not mad at them. But we are mad at those miserable, misbegotten, worthless pieces of humanity who defiled our home.

We’re not sure why they did it, that pond scum. It was probably some nefarious plan to attain world domination through thru the access of our loyal readers, or maybe they were just screwing around. In any event, that wasn’t funny.

When we saw the extent of the damage we had no recourse but to hire the best technicians available who went into the bowels of our site, as it were, wearing hazmat suits, carrying tools of reconstruction, and sparing no expense, clean, repair and reconstitute BigShotsNow, the blog. It took them nearly three days to complete this task before they came out weary, coated with the unmentionable residue of the their job, but they were successful. Fortunately not one of our readers was ever at risk of being effected or even infected in any way except in being denied the wit and wisdom they come here to find and that is the true evil that these slime-covered mental mutants do.

The technicians were successful, but worried. “This could easily happen again” they said in a voice weary but determined “These are bad, mean people. They are loveless, craven souls who exist only to bring misery and sorrow to others. They are so mean many of them bite themselves if they have no one else to torment. You should hire protection.”

So we did that too. We found the hardest, strongest, most morally superior jackbooted digital Stormtroopers around, who exist only to help keep this kind of evil at bay. They live to fight evil like this, gnashing their teeth, glaring, they make short work of any net trash looking for trouble. They will stand guard at the portals of our website keeping ever vigilant, and ruthlessly meet any challenge to the integrity of our home. So battered, bruised and bloody we return undeterred to keep publishing BigShotsNow, the blog, for you our loyal readers. The truth will always be available even if it is sometimes tarnished and barely discernible . We shall not be silenced.

Thank you for your patience and your support during these troubling times. The Director thanks you, The Institute thanks you, and free people everywhere thank you. Watch for a new post soon.

* We got hacked. We fixed it. We’re back. Mean people suck.