Yeah, I write too much. Cope.

First off, I’m talking about the comment spam that ran my hosted server through the roof today. I got home and had a message stating that I had used nearly 100 times my normal daily server cycles, and while that doesn’t put me anywhere near my limit, it does make me want to find out why. I did some searching and it turns out that a new, sneakier, more annoying version of blog comment spam has hit the net, and it attacked several of the sites that I maintain. More on this in a minute. It’s been a day, and I’d like to post about it, if only for me. Feel free to skip bits.

Today was a really long day, even though I really didn’t get going until 10 am. I spent most of it with The Cheerleader as she combed through the wreckage of her dreams – which I have to tell you, is exhausting. I love her with all my heart, and today was really hard to watch. I will miss Richard deeply, but mine is the depth of a tablespoon next to the ocean compared to her. She’s been amazing, really, because while everyone else is either falling apart (like me) or becoming automatons (those who stare blank-faced asking what they should do, which is also sometimes me), she’s chugging along, arranging everything as best she can, and only stopping to break-down when there is no other option. I, however, am a complete mess. I’m supposed to be there for her, to be strong, to be supportive and anchor-like for her, but I haven’t been able to get my wits about me enough to stand for myself, let alone be there for her as much as I’d like.

Hell, today I was scared of my phone, not because it might include a bill that could wipe me out, although that’s always a possibility. No, today my fear came from a phrase that I kept hearing in my head, over and over and over again. A phrase that the so-called ‘helpful’ around me had offered up as a sort of verbal talisman, when instead it was almost an invitation for the universe to stop on by and take another friend. I kept hearing “these things always happen in threes” and, I’m sorry for saying it this way, but SHUT. YOUR. PIEHOLE! Three I cannot take, and I know this because the thought of a third tragedy shut me down for a good portion of the day, and continues to make me dread answering the phone.

Unless I don’t recognize the number, them I’m all sorts of chipper. Like that’s some sort of safety? Yeah, I never said I was sane. Truly.

Anyway, so I have one real task to accomplish and that’s make the DVD of all the pictures of Richard. So I’ve been going through the incredibly-deep-yet-thankfully-digital stack of photographs that I have, some of which I deliberately swiped from The Cheerleader. In doing so, I realized that about 99% of the rest of the world will not have seen these yet, and there is a good portion of you who won’t be able to make it to the funeral to see them there.

So I did two things. I removed the ability for content spam to affect my sites, which didn’t take long, but still was a hateful thing to have to deal with. Spammers suck.

The other thing I did is place a slide show at Richard & Janna’s site, of all the pictures I have of Richard. I figure that even if you get to see the DVD presentation that you might want to see more, maybe pause and really get a good long view of a particular pic. I haven’t really gone through them, so there may be duplicates or blurry ones, but I’ll update the slideshow when I’ve edited down the pics for the DVD. If you have any questions or the slideshow isn’t working for you, please let me know in the comments here.