January 2, 2002:  I finished scanning the photos from 2000-2001, and I'm starting to add the 80 new photos.  Most are from band camp and ACCs but there are a few Chapter Championships photos in there too.  Expect to see them on the site in about a week.

January 5, 2002 (3:30am):  The historical section of the site has been expanded and updated.  Check out the new information including the history of the music program in the district.  Additional materials will be added as the information becomes available.  A big thanks to Mr. Frank from STHS for the document on Miss Sara Lindemuth and the beginnings of the music program in the district.

January 10, 2002:  I finished adding all of the new photos to the site.  If network conditions here at school permit I will try to have them online by Monday.

January 31, 2002:  If somebody could lend me a 2001 ACCs tape so I can update the streaming video, I would really appreciate it.  I will be in attendance at all four performances of this year's musical.  If you can get me a tape then, I will return it the following night.

March 5, 2002:  I'm still waiting for an ACCs video.  There will be no streaming video for 2001 until somebody loans me a tape! The edited photo galleries from this year's musical: The Sound of Music are now online.  Please visit www.sthsmusical.org to view them.  The indoor guard schedule for the rest of the season is now posted under "band news".  A new guest book and new forums are under construction, but I am having a lot of trouble getting them setup, so it could be a while until these are active.

March 20, 2002:  Over the weekend, my sites will be moving to a new server.  This applies to all of my websites, projects, photo galleries and everything.  This includes streaming video, forums, musical photos, this site and others.  Email service will be disrupted for a few days, and all email users have been notified.  I expect that the disruption in access to the site should be minimal if any.  Please contact me with any questions.

April 3 2002:  The move to the new server was completed over the weekend, and I know that I have to check to make sure that all areas of the site are functioning properly.  If you find a problem, please let me know.  All email for the site will be temporarily unavailable until email service is setup on the new server.

April 16 2002:  Email has been restored.  If you previously applied for an sthsband.org email address, you will need to apply again.  Currently, the only service available is mail forwarding.  Web based email should be available again in the coming months.  The forums have been restored, but I have not had time to look for a new guestbook script.  I do have something in mind and will try to get that setup soon.

May 9 2002:  Over the next few days I am going to start working on fixing the menu effects and add some information that I have about Cape May.  Updates will hopefully include a new guest book and fix a problem with the streaming video.  I am still looking for a 2001 ACCs video, so if you can help out, I would greatly appreciate it.  I can pick this up from you during an evening practice if you contact me ahead of time.

June 3 2002:  My free time has been limited, I am continuing to make corrections and design fixes as time permits me to work on the site.  There are a lot of pages so this could take some time.  I have some jazz band photos from Cape May, and may be able to get my hands on a video of Arts Fest and some recordings of the concert band and jazz band that I can use for streaming audio.  I still plan on re-recording the streaming video of the marching band, but this is a low priority until I get a 2001 ACCs video from someone.  What will it take for someone to loan me one for a few days?? Information about the 2002-2003 Marching Band will be posted as information becomes available to me, for the moment, this is limited to the summer practice schedule.

June 5 2002:  I received a request to remove the anti-proxy links for some of the sites hosted outside the sthsband.org domain.  These links have been removed, so if you have trouble accessing some of the sites that I link to, please contact your network administrators or network support staff.  If you run a band related site that is blocked by a filtering program, or is hosted on a free service like Angelfire or Geocities, I will host your site on my dedicated server for free.  If you're interested, please contact me, and I'll get you setup right away.

I've made changes to how the streaming video clips are accessed, this should change how the videos are launched.  If this does not correct the problem, I will continue investigating alternatives.

June 16 2002:  Work is progressing slowly.  So far, I've made the changes to all of the main pages, boosters, concert band, jazz band, and 1997-98, 1998-99 marching band pages, including the thumbnail galleries.  Although there are some shortcuts with FrontPage that will allow me to speed up the process, this site contains several thousand pages when you include the photo galleries, so please be patient while I am working on this.  I hope to have everything finished and tested by the end of July.

Due to the responsibilities and requirements of the Resident Assistant position at Penn State, my time to attend shows this fall will be limited, as I am only permitted a certain number of weekends off.  Once the full schedule is available, I will make a decision on when I will be able to leave, and if there are other shows that are within a reasonable distance from Reading, I may be able to leave for a few hours in order to see the performance and leave immediately afterwards.  I would greatly appreciate it if there were any individuals out there that might be able to photograph or video tape some of the shows for me.  Digital photos are preferred, but videos I can at least screen capture if it comes down to it.

As usual, please contact me with any questions, problems, errors, or content contributions.

June 20, 2002: I fixed an incorrect link on the 99-2000 Marching Band page.  Seems I had the STHS Preview linking to the fall preview pictures.

June 24, 2002: By now, I would estimate that I'm about half finished with all of the updates.  Due to the size of the site and limitations to my free time, things don't always get done as fast as we would all like.  There are some editing shortcuts that are allowing me to speed up the process and save a considerable amount of time.  The update process is still on track for a mid July completion date.  Updates to the streaming media are still reliant on getting a 2001 video, because it is important that I be able to work from a single master tape.

June 30, 2002: So far, the work has been completed up to the 2000-2001 season.  I fixed a few problems with the Middletown and Band Camp pages while I was working on the design changes.  Since I have a break from classes with the holiday this week, I'll see what work I can get accomplished on the design changes and start setting things up for 2002-2003.

July 2, 2002: Work on the 2001-2002 pages will be complete tonight, and if I am not able to get things setup for 2002-2003 tonight, it should be done by the end of the week.  After this is done, I will be working on large scale updates to the rest of my sites, including applying the same design changes and fixes to my collection of musical photos.  Because of the methods used to create my web collections of the musical photos, that will be a fairly quick process and I expect to have that work started and finished by next week. 

After briefly reviewing the statistics from June, I realized that last month there were quite a number of international visitors, and the list of countries has now grown to 31 countries outside the US, along with a number of visitors from the US government and military. 

August 8, 2002: First, the usual news.  The list of international visitors is up to 36 countries as of today, and this does not include US Government or Military.  I'll be updating the 2002-2003 pages this weekend to include the competition schedule.  At the moment, I plan to be at Pocono Mountain, Williamsport, Chapters and ACCs.

Additional security measures and operational redundancies in the works.  Further updates and information will be posted as it becomes available.  Please direct questions, comments, information, and other inquiries to the webmaster.

August 19-22, 2002: Again, the usual news.  No, I did not get to the 2002-2003 pages yet, that will happen as time allows.  Honestly, I don't see much free time before September, and I now have my entire semester schedule including weekends booked up until Christmas.  Oh, and classes don't start for another week.  Thanks to Chris Post, I finally got the 2001 ACCs video, this is coming soon.  I am in the midst of a number of projects right now, and most of my time legitimately needs to be devoted to my RA tasks until the start of classes. 

September 5, 2002: I will really *try* to get the 2001 video up this weekend, it's been crazy working for the school and working outside jobs.  If things are quiet this weekend and time allows, I'll get the videos up.  I may still do some experimenting with the video, so let me know if something doesn't work.  I might be around for the game next week, if so, there will be photos.  If not, no photos, but as always, please send me anything you have, I'll post it and give you credit for it!

September 11, 2002: I found my master tape for ACCs dating back to 1994 and I've also been experimenting with the new Windows Media Player 9 and tools, as well as ATI's options for video capture.  I would like to overhaul things a bit, and I'm thinking about offering videos in several different ways.  I realize I'm behind and that the 2002-2003 pages are still under construction.

Please have patience with me during the season, I have many concurrent projects and jobs that require my attention, and obligations that may prevent me from traveling and/or leaving campus whenever I so desire.  With the exception of Chapters and ACCs, there are no guarantees of where I'll be or when, but I'll see what I can do to keep the site updated.  If you are willing to share your pictures, I'd appreciate that, and you will get credit for your work.

Finally, the list of countries has grown from 36 to 39.  Wow, I guess we're famous :)

September 17, 2002: Yes, work in progress, some minor technical problems I am working out with my ISP, which should be resolved within the next business day.  I have photos from the football game and from band camp.  I'm also fixing some old problems and making some minor text updates here and there as I work on the 2002-2003 pages.

September 23, 2002: The 2001 video needs to be re-recorded, apparently the sound didn't come through when I tried to capture it.  The 2002-2003 schedule is up and I've got the basic menus and information up, photos are in progress.

September 28-30, 2002: I've posted the pictures I have from band camp as well as the football game from the other week.  I was able to attend the Red Land show, and got some good pictures, but left before awards, so they're not included in the pictures.  Speaking of Red Land, I found out they now have a website so I added it to the list of links.  Note: Red Land photos aren't online yet! Give me a few days and I'll try to get them up.

I am planning on being at Pocono Mountain next week, and if at all possible, I am going to try to take pictures from the upper deck, but obviously, I won't know what's happening until I get to the stadium.  I went to show someone examples of the high shots from the upper deck and realized that something happened to the 2001 ACCs collection.  Unfortunately for me, I don't have a backup of all those pages, and I don't know what happened.  Fortunately, I do have the photos and that's on my list of stuff to get done.  Yes, my laptop will be coming with me to the show.

October 3, 2002: Based on last months statistics, I updated the list of countries, we're up to 45.  Not all of the stats for September are accurate due to some of the server changes, so if something looks strange, ignore it. The Red Land photos are up.  At this point, I don't have a second photographer for Pocono Mountain this weekend, but looks like I managed to line someone up for ACCs.  Depending on the show schedule, I might be able to have the Pocono Mountain photos up by Sunday morning or a few hours after the show.

October 7, 2002 (1am): I was able to get started on some of the photo work during the few hours of extra time at the Pocono Mountain show, but there is still more to do.  I will really try to get everything updated by Wednesday night, but this is not a guarantee.  I did generate some of the high resolution photo galleries, so if you can't wait to see them, you may contact me and I'll give you an address where you can view them.

October 8, 2002: Football photos were updated, and some various text updates around the site.  I updated the scores for this season and I am working on the different Pocono Mountain collections.  I will make note of my progress when there is something to report, but Wednesday night is not going to happen.  In the meantime, to view the high resolution galleries, simply contact me and I'll give you the info.

October 10, 2002 (3am): All Pocono Mountain photos are up.

October 20, 2002: I finished the photo work for the 2001 ACCs photos that are missing from the site.  I will start to add them to the site soon.  I received a photo submission for the Mechanicsburg game, and they have been added to the site.  I haven't been able to travel lately, but I updated the scores from information available on the Middletown, PA band's website.  Visit them at www.bluewaveband.org for interactive scores, rankings, and information on all TOB bands.  I might not be able to get to any other shows until Chapters, but might have a photographer at the Cedar Cliff show.  More information will be available later this week.  I corrected the photo count, this is now based on an Excel spreadsheet so I will always have accurate numbers and statistics.

November 6, 2002 (3:15am): Very busy, I haven't even looked at all the Chapters photos yet.  I saw many people with cameras and camcorders, send me some of your stuff, or drop it off at my box in Harrisburg! I'm going to try to get through things as soon as I can, but I can't make any guarantees.  I posted the chapters scores, and we are ranked #1 in TOB, our performance time for Saturday is expected to be 2:41pm according to the TOB website.  I should have a second photographer to do high shots for me, I'm in the process of working out the final details as information on Saturday's schedule comes my way.  Fortunately, I do check my email quite often, if you have a photo request, send it my way before 4pm on Friday, talk to me at practice or something.  Emails sent after 4pm Friday may not be read before the show.

November 9, 2002: Well, the marching band came out tied for second with Pocono Mountain West.  That is still the highest finish to date for us, and quite possibly for chapter 6 group 2.  Congrats also to Camp Hill, winners of the group 2 invitational.  My thanks to Erik Steigler for helping with the portraits during warm-ups and for taking high camera shots at the show today.  Once I get all of the photos from ACCs copied over and sorted, I will put high resolution galleries up and go back and start working on the pages for chapters and ACCs.  The high res galleries will be up sometime tomorrow afternoon.

I'm looking for the 2002 video as soon as I can get it from someone.  If you have it and can part with it for a few days, get in contact with me.  Although I did get group pictures at the show today, I might be looking into licensing formal pictures taken by Champion Photo if the price is right (like free or almost free).  More updates coming tomorrow.

November 10, 2002 (4pm): I'm still waiting for the photos from Erik, I'll probably have them within a week or so.  In the meantime, the ACCs galleries are up.  I didn't update the photo count yet, I'll do that after I combine everything and redo the high res galleries.  I took a look at the statistics for October and the list of countries is now up to 49.

November 23, 2002: I updated the high resolution galleries with the rest of the photos, as well as the photo count and the list of countries.  We're up to 52 countries and 2,697 photos! I'm working on the other pages, but I don't have an estimate on when they'll be up.  Right now, all the photos are up and available for viewing, so it doesn't really matter when the other galleries are completed.

December 15, 2002 (6am): I've been working on the Chapters & ACCs galleries throughout the past two days.  All work is now completed, everything has been updated and uploaded and the correct index files should be up there.  If you run into any problems, let me know.  I will continue to investigate changes to the streaming video, and would appreciate it if anyone could lend me a 2002 video for a day.  I'll be in Harrisburg for the next few weeks, so please contact me if you can help.  Otherwise, look for 2003-2004 coming in September of 2003.

December 26, 2002: Over the next few weeks I am going to be checking over all areas of the site and making some text revisions, checking for broken links, missing images, menu problems and things like that.  Any errors will be corrected and noted here. 

December 27-28, 2002: Due to the large amount of content of the site, I've started my work with a link checking script and I am sorting through the 25 page report to determine what is actually a problem with the site, and what is being misread by the web server.  In either case, I am working to correct this and this will continue for the next few days.  It's my hope that I can narrow it down to 0 errors, and from now on I'm going to be making some changes in how I do the site just to avoid problems like this in the future.  And as always, if you run across a problem, I would really appreciate a notice so I don't end up with tasks like this again.

Many of the problems I've come across were just errors on the server .jpg instead of .JPG.  I fixed problems with the 1999-2000 Chapters pages, 2000-2001 Middletown pages, and apparently the 2001-2002 ACCs pages were missing and there was a problem with the high resolution gallery for senior recognition.  Also in 2001-2002, for whatever reason, the Cedar Cliff galleries were missing from the server and I don't have them stored locally either.  I don't know what happened to them, so I pulled the original photos off the CD and I am working on them.  As soon as I get them finished, I'll upload them and post a notice, as well as update the photo count if needed.

There are a few other errors I came across such as files that never got uploaded to the server, various typos in links and some stray bits of HTML.  Besides creating the galleries that are missing, the only other work that's left to be done is visual.  On many of the pages, the menu on the side does not display correctly.  All I have to do is add one line in there to set the width of the menu, but there are a lot of pages on the site.  I'll start on that later and post a note when the updates are complete.

December 29, 2002: In the process of updating the site, I found that the 2001-2002 ACCs photo galleries were never created, even though the photos are viewable.  I uploaded the Cedar Cliff gallery and some other fixes for 2001-2002 and I will be working on the ACCs galleries.  I really didn't know that so many of these problems existed, and this is pretty much what I'm going to be looking for as I continue to work on the site.  During my visual check, I'm going to check for menu problems, test all the pages, look for missing information and galleries and try to fill them in.  And then starting next season, I should be able to go through everything without any problems and avoid errors like this.