Many years ago (the 1970's!) there was a sitcom, a big hit, featuring comedian/actor Gabe Kaplan. He played a high school teacher in Brooklyn, with the students cast as sterotypes of the day, a remedial group, one step away from Reform School [1]. They were a comic bunch, a misfit or two among them, with John Travolta in what may be his earliest role of note. The show was "Welcome Back, Kotter [2]."
The program's theme song [3], which ultimately became a Top 40 Mass Appeal radio hit of the day, was called, "Welcome Back." It feature the refrain, "Welcome Back, Welcome Back, Welcome Back." John Sebastian sang it, his voice familiar to many after the string of hits he'd had as lead singer with The Lovin' Spoonful [4].
The bottom line here is that DeanLand, the blog, has been on a long sabbatical. There were some server issues, then the blogware in use (Userland's Manila) since 1999 became unsupported and unavailable, and it was time to make a move.
With a backup of the old blogware, we contacted Erin Clerico (who once ran a site hosting Manila blogs, now a thing of the past), and he converted it first to WordPress, then working with my good friend and colleague Dean Meyers [5], it became a Drupal blog. And now it is officially back. Super mega uber gandiose thanks to Erin and Dean. This was an arduous task. Without their hard work and dedicated help, I would have had to start again from scratch.
That John Sebastian song keeps going through my head as I write this post. A few others, as well, but that "Welcome Back" refrain seems most appropriate.
It feels good to be back.