Today marks one year of blogging for me.

I had some essay going about what it all means and what I’ve learned and blah blah blah but it just wasn’t happening. I lost interest in it.

Still. One year. 185 entries in my blog.

I’m surprised. I’ve never kept a journal. I expected to stop after a week.

You know, I might just keep doing this. Or maybe not. Who knows?

Yet another reason I’m glad I don’t LiveJournal.

An unexpected power outage not only took them to their knees, but left them hopelessly broken.

A system on that scale with that vast number of users should not find a power outage so unexpected, and should have a working recovery plan that they’ve tested and drilled.

The folks working the outgage, hats off you you. I’ve done the work you’re doing now, and it’s a hard and thankless task, and I’m sure in the end you’ll get everything working with minimal data loss. You guys deserve credit you’ll never get.

But the cost to the users, the company, the reputation of LiveJournal; that’s enormous and can’t easily be fixed.

I wonder if SixApart, makes of MovableType and TypePad, are now re-thinking the aquisition of LiveJournal?

You know, I’ve had my own blog disasters. But when you host yourself or borrow space for free on friends machines, you expect that. A commercial service on the scale of LJ should know better.

Good luck to the LJ staff and to my LJ user friends; and if you’re finally fed up with LJ, come talk to me, I can suggest some other options.