Day 1

Happy New Year!

We made it to 10:00 last night. We are wimps!

A new year feels so fresh and like an unopened present. So far, so good. Coffee is strong and hot, I slept in until 6:15, the house is clean and all is right with the world.

Tonight we will be in the home of friends. We met Dave when we moved down the street from his parent's house in 1975. He practically lived with us except actually sleeping at the house. Just after William was born in 1981, Dave brought Lori into our lives. They married and had their son Joel on the same day, but a different year, as William's. What are the odds? Joel and Mindy married in 2014 so it will be fun to get caught up on their lives. Nothing like old friends.

Minor chores today. I need to water my pots in the garden and I want to quickly wash just tow windows. The rain was so dirty that we can't even see out of them. More rain expected tomorrow and the rest of the week. Thankfully.

Happy New Year to you, dear reader. Hang on, here we go.

An update on Google Friend Connect

1 week ago by A Googler

In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer