So, it's been a good, oh, 4 months since this site has seen ANY activity.  Oops.  It will be interesting to see if anyone still subscribes to this poor excuse for a blog.

My wife and I left for 2 weeks in Italy in early May and you haven't heard from me since.  I had grandiose visions of posts such as "Top 10 Coolest/Lamest things about Italy" and some live trip-blogging.  After just a few hours in Vernazza, I decided I was having too much fun to waste time surfing the web while in Italy.  And I haven't posted since.

There's another reason for the lack of posting; I've been too incompetent (and lazy) to figure out why I haven't even been able to log into my own blog site since July.  You see, I re-imaged this machine, and in hoping to secure the server, I ran IIS Lockdown, which inadvertently ran URLScan, effectively blocking any scripting from running on my server.  Oops.  No wonder I couldn't do much of anything.  I finally got around to a little investigation and everything is running fine now.

A lot of life change in the past few months - hope to blog a little more often in the near future with more details!

The word is out on Engy's Experiment.  Yes, my policy of not advertising the blog has been compromised.  I've decided to broaden my horizons a bit, as the blog's address has been cited in our annual Christmas letter which has gone out to 90 or so households around the US.  So, technically speaking, the "experimental" aspect of the blog has officially ended, to the tune of what I believe is 2-3 subscribers reading my site.

To answer the age old question, it would seem that "they will only come if you build it and its worthwhile."  However, I'm going to keep the site going, mostly for my own personal enjoyment.  If you are here as a result of reading our Christmas card, lemme know by leaving a comment!    Does this mean I have to change the name of the blog?

This brings up another question...is there any way to determine exactly how many readers are subscribed to a blog?  I've seen two indicators giving me some idea...for one, the Bloglines crawler that hits my site each day indicates I have 2 subscribers (one of which is me!)  In addition, my site tracks the aggregator activity of my posts, showing about 3 hits per post.  So, at least I know 2 people beside myself are subscribed.  Is there any other method you are aware of that tracks subscription counts?

The saga all began late September, when I noticed that my SBC Yahoo dsl rate jumped from $29.99 a month to $49.99.  A quick call to SBC informed me that my year contract with SBC, which provided me the discounted rate of $29.99/month, had expired.  I was given the option to renew for $24.99 a month for another year worth of service.  Hmm...I quickly declined the offer and figured now was my chance to explore the market.

My research of ISP's in the Chicago market lead me to the "Big 3", namely, SBC Yahoo, Comcast, and RCN.  RCN's offer especially intrigued me, as they would provide me with Cable TV and Cable Modem service (at a BLAZING fast 7.0 Mbps) for $45/month for the first 6 months, no contract or install fee.  I figured hey, great deal, right?  They came the next week and everything was installed, including Showtime free for 6 months...sweet!

I was quickly blown away by the speed, seeing downloads of over 1200k per second!  Woohoo.  Life was good, especially when my SBC connection could rarely top 60k/s.  My podcasts were downloading in record time, and I was able to move my wireless router to a more central location in my home, speeding up my TivoToGo transfers.

My joy quickly faded when I realized that, alas, Engy's Experiment was no longer pubicly viewable.  WHAT?!  The site was still configured properly and all the pc's on my home network could see it.  What was going on?  Well, apparently, there are still some ISP's out there that block port 80.  ARGH!!  I hadn't even thought of asking that question, and by this time, my service with SBC was disconnected.  For a while I toyed with the idea of setting up the site on port 81, but a URL like http://www.jasonengstrom.com:81/blog just wasn't working for me.

Back to the drawing board.  I looked into Comcast service, for how could I part with my blazing fast cable modem connection?  I signed up online for service at a much higher rate of $58 per month.  By now Engy's Experiment had already been down for a week, and they weren't able to come for an installation appointment for another week, on 10/14.

The fateful day had arrived, my beloved blog would be back up and running with only a couple of weeks downtime (ugh!)  The appointment was set for Comcast to arrive between 1 and 3 pm.  1 o'clock rolls around....I wonder if they will be here by 2.  2 o'clock passes, and 3 pm rolls around.  WHERE were they?!  It was like being a kid again, waiting for mom and dad to wake up so we could open Christmas presents!  I called Comcast, and was "assured" a technician would be arriving soon.  3:30.  4:00.  No technician.  I call again, and an "escalation ticket" was opened up.  5 pm.  5:30.  NOT COOL!

I called 2 or 3 more times, at times NEVER getting through to someone, and finally I talked with a new customer service rep, gave her my escalation ticket, and she says, "is this Maria Gonzalez, 3538 N. Karlov?"  NO, it's not!!!  "We don't have any record of your escalation ticket."  By this point I was peeved.  I had waited 3 hours PAST my delivery window, and I wasn't about to sit around all night to get my service installed.  Again, I was assured that someone would be here by 6 pm at the latest.  In fact, the woman was "nice enough" to offer to call me back at 6 to make sure the tech had arrived.

6:05 pm.  No tech.  No phone call.  Finally, she does call back, and was "apalled" that the tech hadn't arrived.  "Let me call the tech and get back to you as soon as possible" she says.  No problem.  I can wait 10 more minutes, right?

6:25 pm.  Phone rings.  "I'm sorry sir, I have some bad news for you.  The tech has gone home for the evening, and won't be able to make it to your place until Monday."  Allright, I'd had it.  I explained I was leaving for vacation Sunday the 16th and absolutely needed service by then.  I was told it wasn't possible.  I told Comcast they had lost my business.  Sidenote: looks like I'm not the only one not happy with Comcast...one of my college roommates, Westy, doesn't seem to be all that happy with them either!

At this point, I just wanted internet service again.  Luckily, RCN hadn't disconnected me yet, but since I would be gone for a week, I needed something quick.  Reluctantly, I made the phone call to SBC and signed up with them once again.  $24.99/mo for 1.5 mbps.  Gone was my beloved 7.0 mpbs, but, at least I had internet service that was cheap and allowed me to host a site on port 80.  It only cost me a month of downtime and a lot of headache!!

Well, in the off chance that I have even a SINGLE reader left after my untimely departure from the blogosphere (almost a month!), I wanted to inform you that I am indeed still alive and fully intend to start posting as often as possible!  Thanks for hanging in there despite the [!] that has probably been showing up in your aggregator for the past month. 

The site was down for a number of reasons; you can be sure when I find time to write my next post that the details will be included, especially the names of the internet service providers that have lost my business!

Well, it would appear that the experiment has officially become a success!  In looking back at some comments that had been posted, I noticed this one from my sister Annie!  Congrats on finding the site!  How'd you come across it? 

Ok, so I may have "cheated" just a little bit by sending my dad the URL to this post in an e-mail.  I'm guessing he told my sister about the site.  But, hopefully I'm wrong and she was just sucked in by the incredible content I'm offering up, for free, right here at www.jasonengstrom.com/blog!

In other news, I am going to shamelessly add my name to this post.  I noticed that Jason Engstrom is nowhere to be found on the site, so if someone googles me they'll never find the experiment.  Hopefully this will push me up in Google's results!

Well, I hate to do this, but I moved the experiment to its new, permanent home.  It kills me to think how I've hurt the experiment; I mean, seriously, my readership was blowing up! 

However, a URL like jasonengstrom.com combined with the ease and flexibility of using a platform like dasBlog on my own webserver should make for a better site overall. 

So, I hope you don't mind updating your blogrolls and links to the new site.  Meanwhile, the blogging continues!