To any of you out there with a blog run by the WordPress platform, here’s a warning to all of you: Keep your WordPress software updated. I was taking the “it works fine” mentality on my software and not updating for at least 6 months. Big mistake. One of the fixes that I did not install was a vulnerability in the database. This vulnerability allowed a hacker to hack into my blog, create a new user account, and create about 40 spam postings. Not comments, but actual postings. The postings were posted-dated and did not show up on the “front” of the blog so I never noticed them.

My only clue to their existence came in the form of an email from Google saying my site had been removed from their index because of spam. I thought it was spam comments that slipped through the spam catcher but was horrified to see the damage that was done. It took sometime to sift through my blog and delete the offending posts.

Worse though, was that after being removed from Google index, it took about 2 months to get back in. The old adage “A website not in Google’s index practically does not exist” is very true: Removal from the index all but makes your site invisible. Traffic from keyword searches was cut by more than half.

But alas, a happy ending. Last week I finally got back in the index, this time with updated WordPress software and a changed password in my court. As a soapbox moment, I can’t help but to point out the absence of ethics of spammers who hack into people’s blog, and get the blog banned from a search index. That is pretty damaging. Thankfully I don’t make money off this blog. If I did, it would have done serious financial harm to me. My guess is if this done to a bigger cat in the blogosphere, like one of the many blogs owned by Time-Warner, these spammers could be facing litigation seeking damages. That said, the offenders are probably in Africa, Russia, or other place outside of US government reach.

Obviously, there has been little activity on this site this summer. Working in college sports is a crazy life. I have gone through months that were so busy that I didn’t have time to get food from the grocery store. November and March are usually these months as Fall-Winter and Winter-Spring sports collide respectively in these months.

Winter season around the Triangle is usually bad as that is also basketball season (not to mention NHL). With UNC, Duke and NC State playing games 2 times a week at time, it can be overwhelming and non stop work. I guess I can think of worse things than sitting on the floor, photographing ACC Basketball games. But between January 1st and the end of May, I didn’t have a single weekend off except Easter.

I was in Baltimore with the Duke Men’s Lacrosse team for the NCAA tournament in the end of May. I can’t recall a weekend I have been busier. The weekend wore me out but once I was back, it was as if someone shut the lights out. Suddenly, there were no more games to photograph and I was faced with something I’ve not had since August 2006: Free time.

Other than one baseball game, I’ve not really picked up the camera since the end of May. I can’t complain really. My personal life was beginning to suffer from the non-stop work. I’ve used my free time to visit my family and friends. In Wilmington I have the cutest 5 year old little cousin you will ever meet. I also have an adorable and precocious 5 year old (soon to be six in 6 days) niece in Greensboro that I don’t see enough of.

Another thing I’ve used my free time for is to teach myself Russian. I’ve always been interested in Russian culture and Moscva (Moscow-not the true spelling of “Moscva” by I’m not sure how to get a little “B” in Cyrillic to work on this blog) is a city I can’t wait to visit. I’m not expecting to become fluent. Once football season hits, I’ll be photographing so much college and NFL football that I’m sure I won’t have time to continue my studies. But in the meantime, I’m having a blast learning something new. Even though I work in academia in my “real life” beyond photography, I miss learning in the classroom so this learning experience has been rewarding.

Long story short: Don’t expect many postings this summer. I’m enjoying my free time too much and I’m not taking any photos to post anyway.

I’m doing some work on my homepage to try and make it easier to update and keep current. My old site was a bear to update; everything had to be coded by hand to make changes. It was such a pain that I often neglected it. Now, however, I have made some changes that will make it easier to update. If I can stay motivated enough (still a question) the updates should be more reqular. We’ll see.

Check out the still-in-progress new accphotos.com.