January 3, 2003: The list of countries is now up to 57.

February 8, 2003: The list of countries is now up to 58.  I moved all of the updates from last year onto a separate page, so now under "old news" you can view updates from 2000, 2001 and 2002.

March 14, 2003: Updated stats for February will be posted next week.  If you are going to Florida and plan on taking pictures or videos, please contact me.  I may be willing to loan a digital camera to anyone who can help.  A few text updates have been made here and there on the site, nothing a major.  A few are just to hopefully stop some of the spam that I've been getting in the last few months.  The disclaimer statement has been updated, and I am renaming that to my terms of use.  It's not a big deal, just some legal stuff that I think is a good idea to have in place.

March 20, 2003: The email signup process is finally automated.  I updated the stats, and the list of countries is now up to 61.  Additionally, a new stats server is being brought online, this will give weekly information, with the ability to refresh to view real-time information.

April 20, 2003: I updated the stats, and the list of countries is now up to 63.  Nothing new to report right now, but if you have Florida pictures, videos, information, or anything like that, please send them to me.

July 2, 2003: Still looking for current information and pictures.  Stats will be updated soon, and look for a major announcement and preview of a new design coming before August.

July 6, 2003: Some small text changes including updates to my terms of use and information on the site.  I'm currently waiting on information for 2003-2004 and will try to get at least one or two sets of summer photos, or at least stop by a few practices so that I can be prepared for the season.

It came to my attention the other day that the drum line website is no longer in operation, so all related links and contact information have been removed.  If there is anyone interesting in creating another site, or even a site for your class/section, please contact me and I will set you up on my server for free with your own domain or a sub-domain like something.sthsband.org.  No catches, no advertising, no contracts, just has to be band related.  Any other bands in PA and beyond that are currently using a free hosting service can get free space on my server, but you'll probably want your own domain, or else it will be a sub-domain under my personal site such as something.nrs2.org.

I am presently in the process of bidding out a new layout/design for the site, and once that gets back to me, I can start making some serious changes.  There will also be changes with how the photo pages work starting this season.  I plan on using a program on the server called Gallery which saves me time in creating the pages, has a nicer look than the tables I throw together, and will allow viewers the choice of different photo sizes and resolutions.  I just finished work on a new computer and I'm working out some of the problems right now, but I plan on trying to do some work on the digital video including remastering everything, offering a few different quality streams, and fill in the missing years.  Additionally, I am going to start offering play lists that will take you through multiple years in succession.  That will take some work and planning, and is a future offering.

Additional announcements and developments coming later in the summer...

July 8, 2003: Plans in progress, and I am performing some service upgrades so that I can possibly add new features to the site, and revamp things from years past.  I'm gathering some resources and information right now, some stuff is in the works, so expect a major announcement on Friday, August 1.  Until then, as usual, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns, and content submissions.

July 10, 2003: Information on a new drum line site, or a revival of the basic information from the old site could be a possibility in August as part of the updates and changes I will be announcing.  The open offer for anyone wanting to design one still stands, and I am discussing things with Steve.  There's going to be a lot going on behind the scenes even if I don't get back to Harrisburg for a while.  As always, please continue to contact me with questions, comments, new things, announcements, requests, etc.  However, non "critical" information will not be posted until August, same with 2003-2004 show information.  Thanks for your continued viewership of this site, please be sure to check back on August 1 :)

July 16, 2003: Through the course of my work on the site, I discovered that the 2001-2002 ACCs pages were either not created, or somehow deleted.  Temporary pages have been created and uploaded, this will be fixed within the next few weeks.

July 20, 2003: At this point, I've almost finished the work with the photo galleries.  Obviously, the earlier years were not organized as well as later years due to submissions, random naming of files, directories and all that.  Even though I have been using a spreadsheet to count number of files, I have still come across problems.  In some cases, photos were in places where they didn't belong, both in collections on the site and actual location of files.  There are the mixed photos I can't identify or weren't detailed in my list, and there are still some photos that were apparently never uploaded to the site.  Hopefully the new galleries are not missing anything, and I will have to update the photo count based on whatever comes up with the new gallery software.

One of the things that I need to do yet is go through the various albums and drop in the information about where/who the photos are from, especially the different shows where the photos are from a few different sources.

July 31, 2003: The contracts are underway, and the announcement is ready to go.  Expect some big changes within the next month, but I will not be posting any more changes until the date I mentioned in the announcement.  Fixes, changes, improvements will continue behind the scenes, and always, submissions, questions and comments are welcome at any time.

August 15, 2003: Just about 13 days until the first performance of the season and the release of the new site.  The new photo galleries are in place and I will be updating them this weekend to begin the season with some band camp photos.  I am making arrangements for videos that are not on the site, and will be remastering the existing videos and offering some additional options.  Additionally, I'm working with new equipment this season and we'll see how that goes.  I'm attending a few practices here and there to get an idea of how the show is developing and to get an idea of what to look for.  As always, requests for specific shots or individuals are accepted prior to the show or game.  There is no charge for such a service, and I will accommodate all requests to the best extent possible.  Please keep watching for updates and be sure to come back August 28 for the new site and new photos, videos and information.

August 22-23, 2003: Coming down to 5 days, things are going well.  The forums are going to be deleted once the new site is online.  I am having problems with them on the admin side, and they seem to be drawing more junk than real traffic.  If you have an idea for a forum or would like something setup to replace them, contact me and I will take it into consideration.  Band members, section leaders, staff who would like a private forum may contact me to have this setup.

I've recalculated the photo counts using the counts provided by the gallery software after some reorganization of photos, and removing some extra files inserted by Photoshop and FrontPage.  The new photo gallery software is working, and the design templates are working, just some cosmetic changes to be made yet.  I finished the first set of photos for the 2003-2004 season and am uploading them now.  While the new software will reduce the amount of prep time needed before uploading new photos, the time required to upload them is going to be increased because of my new camera, and I will be shooting at higher resolutions with both cameras.

The new equipment will also allow me to record video clips which can be posted on the site.  However, since I don't own any actual video equipment, this would be for the website only, and would not be of sufficient quality for reproduction to tape.  At this point I have not decided on creating videos, but I will be testing things to see how it will work.  I should be getting the rest of the current videos and the older videos on Monday and will be working on them during the week.  I will work with what videos I have until then, and continue preparations to bring version 3.0 of the site online.

August 26, 2003: New site will be live in 48 hours, it's going to be close.  Initially, I am only going to produce 2 steams of the new videos, however I will be adding additional streams for all the videos starting sometime in September.  Additional photos from band camp tonight, they will be offered in black & white because they were taken using the night shot feature of my camera, and black & white is the best and easiest way to clean these up rather than present them in green.

August 28, 2003 (2:30am): I've been running short on time this week, and in order to get the materials needed for the new site, it's meant sacrificing evenings that I would have otherwise spent working on this.  I'm a little bit behind right now, so the videos won't be up this weekend.  Right now it's looking like I'll have them done by sometime on Tuesday.  I have additional band camp photos to add, that will be done later today or over the weekend when I add in first football game.

I will not be at Parents Night, too much to be done and too much driving and other things going on.  However, by not being there, I will have tonight to finish up some of the web stuff, add photos, work on videos and anything else that might be missing.  As for videos, there is a problem with the 2002 tape which will prevent me from copying it, if anyone has a tape and can help me out, I would appreciate it.

Just about everything is in place at this time.  I have not had a chance to proof things other than what changes I made as I was creating the new pages and applying the design changes.  If you come across errors or problems, please let me know.  I will be running the link checking script and verifying all of the files over the weekend when I have more time to work on the site.

I did not get around to redesigning the history section of the site yet.  This will be taken care of over the weekend, so please check back here for news and information.  A new splash page or site index page is still under development as well.  Due to the short timeline for the design work, this was not completed as of the release date.  I'm told that a special treat is in the works, so check back next week.  Beyond that, additional modifications, and small updates will continue to take place this weekend and into next week.  The only drastic changes will be the video clips and the design on the history section.  Following that, it will just be a matter of routine updates such as photos.  When in doubt, check this page or drop me an email or IM.

August 31, 2003: Remaining band camp photos and photos from the first football game are up.  Video work will start sometime tomorrow.

September 2, 2003: Videos from 1992 and 2001 are up.  At this time, I don't have anything else to add until I get a 2002 tape.

September 3, 2003: The National Weather Service has issued Flood and Tropical Storm warnings for Tampa, FL, which happens to be where this server is located.  In the event of a service outage that would extend beyond 48 hours, a mirror site will be brought online at STHSBAND.COM.  This mirror site will be on my development server located in Texas, which is currently not in the path of the storm. 

If you have any difficulty connecting to STHSBAND.ORG (the main site) over the next few days, please contact me immediately at 717-329-7969.  I will be monitoring the server and weather conditions in Tampa throughout the weekend until the warnings are lifted.  Thank you for your understanding.

September 4, 2003: I fixed a few problems with the marching band menus and with the different years, and went back and rechecked all of that content.  I've also decided that in the near future I am going to add videos in DivX 5.1 format, which will provide super high quality videos.  I'm going to purchase the encoding software in the next few weeks and figure it out from there.

September 7, 2003: No outages to report, so that's good.  Photos from the 2 performances at Friday night's game are up, along with some Jazz Band photos (by request).

I am aware of a problem with the guard website, though I honestly forgot to ask about it on Friday.  To the best of my knowledge, the site is currently unavailable pending relocation.

September 18, 2003: I totally forgot about the history section of the site, and I'll work on having that totally integrated with the new design over the weekend.  I found that the history pages and the 2003-2004 marching band pages were not working properly.  This was not brought to my attention, so I really would have fixed it earlier if I would have known about it.  I'm not sure what other work is outstanding right now.  As long as the Lancaster Catholic show happens on schedule Saturday, I'll be there and photos will be up sometime Sunday.  As always, any other comments are welcome.

So far things have been pretty much unaffected by storm and weather conditions, and I'm not aware of connectivity issues reported in Pennsylvania, Florida, or Texas.  I do monitor both of my servers on a regular basis and have multiple alternatives should the site go down.  I'm going to be doing more work with the backup/development server in the coming months, and the site will most likely be moved to a new server and ISP come January.  I don't have any additional news on that right now, maybe in December.

September 20, 2003: I updated the 2003 Marching Band page with the full story, and Lancaster Catholic Photos are up. 

Some strange behavior with the new Gallery software was reported to me, where the high resolution photos will only save as BMP files.  I checked this out, and tried loading photos from the Gallery software and straight out of the regular directory on the server.  This strange behavior looks like something with Internet Explorer or possibly Apache.  I will do some experimenting and see if I can come up with a solution.  I see that this produces a very large file when you try to save the photo from Internet Explorer, but it doesn't have any affect on quality. 

If this is causing any big problems, try using a different browser, or have the photos printed through Shutterfly instead.  If you are only looking for one or two files, email me your request and I can make alternate arrangements for you.  Sorry, file sizes prevent me from emailing any of the 2003 photos.

September 28, 2003: I just finished upgrading the site to the newest version of Gallery, and now have things completely up and running on the backup server.  There is still some work to be done on that end, but I've got plenty of time.  During the upgrade process, I turned on a feature that lists all of the different albums and sub albums which will help you find things faster, but could also be a bit more confusing at first.  I'll be watching the stats for the site and if I notice any problems, this feature will be disabled.

The next update with new photos might be Friday night depending on where the football game is.  I don't have that information in front of me right now, but check the home page for an announcement later on this week. 

October 5, 2003: There are a few new photos up from this week, but the large crowd at Homecoming made it difficult to get many photos and video clips.  I did experiment with video, and hopefully will have a few good clips after the Carlisle show.

I've been doing some testing after the Gallery upgrade, and that seems to have fixed the problem where you could only save very large BMP files.  This was tested with IE in Windows, and Mozilla running under Linux with the same results.

Finally, Ron just let me know that there is a new Guard website, so I updated the links and updated the awards information for Indoor Guard.  Check it out, and look for new stuff coming soon, including a new photo gallery (hosted on this server!).

October 11, 2003: Ok, Carlisle show this weekend, I hope to be a little better prepared and get some video clips in addition to photos.  At Ron's request, I'm going to feature some of the ensemble moments this time and the integration of the guard.

Regarding site outages last night... The site was inaccessible for several hours beginning around 10pm, and was still down as of 1am.  My hosting provider experienced a rather large distributed denial of service attack, and it took a few hours to contain the attack and bring everything back online.  Keep in mind that there is presently a backup server at sthsband.com and in the event of such problems I will bring this site online.  Eventually I will be moving everything to this server (which will NOT change how you access this site), which gives me more flexibility with what I can offer, more bandwidth.  And just to get technical, they have a total of 15 connections to 8 networks, which will allow me to better serve visitors within and outside the US.

Finally, until the move in December or January, I will make sure that the backup site has all of the same photos and information, starting with the updates this weekend.  Obviously, once the move is complete, the backup disappears (for a while anyway).

October 12, 2003: Photos from the Carlisle show are online.  I have video of most of the show, as soon as I get a chance to edit them I'll put them on the site.  Thanks to Harris Boyce (c/o 99, former band member) for the video.  Important note: The email address for Mr. P has changed due to a problem with mail forwarding and the STSD email system.  The contact information now reflects his direct STSD email address.

October 13, 2003: I've gotten some leads where I could possibly fill in and obtain older information about the band, so I'll be searching out these potential alumni resources as time permits.  Additionally, with the growing popularity of the site, I feel the need to mention that I have always encouraged content submissions, and am considering adding areas where visitors can upload photos to the site without having to send them to me.  If you are interested in this, let me know, and if the interest is there, I'll enable the feature.  Finally, I am also adding "chat" hours for the next few months.  All my contact info is posted on the site, and most of the time Sunday - Thursday I'll be available for questions, comments and requests between 9-11pm.  Of course outside of those hours, if you happen to see me online, drop me a line!

October 14, 2003: I posted the schedule for the rest of the reason on the home page.  Note that the Pocono Mountain show will be held at Lackawanna County Stadium, the same stadium where ACCs is held.  Also, this year we have a Sunday afternoon/evening slot at ACCs, an approximate time will be posted before Chapters, and revised once the final rankings are available.  There is a new splash page up, and I will be changing the images from time to time, starting this week.  Check it out and let me know what you want to see there.

October 19, 2003: Photos from Middletown are online.  This week I concentrated mainly on photos, it's much easier with one focus and one camera, even if you are way outside the 20 yard line. I am exploring the possibility of having a second photographer for the remaining three shows, and seeing about getting a video at Pocono Mountain or Chapters, so if you have some time to help out, please contact me.  Equipment will be provided, and you will be credited for your work.  Admission to the show will be paid and transportation to/from the show will be provided if needed.  If I have someone helping me at any of the next few shows, I will take requests on individual shots.  Please note that I do not know who everyone is, so you will have to provide information like what section and drill position, names probably won't help.

I added quite a few new links based on some of the other bands out there that were linking to this site.  I'll do a bit more digging through the stats as I get time, but right now this goes back to July.  I also updated the TOS page based on something I saw.  It's stupid that I have to even mention something like that, but I guess every major site has these sort of problems.  In short: the site is free, you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't involve harassing someone.

October 23, 2003: I added some additional links, and book marked a few pages of links to other bands across PA and other places.  As far as adding links from the stats pages, this is now current for 2003, and I will go to earlier dates as time allows.

I've been working on the new server, and I'm in the process of getting email setup over there and figuring out if and how I want to serve the webmail.  Currently, webmail will not be available on the new server unless I find an add in or purchase the professional version of MailEnable.  If and when it does become available, the signup process will not be automated.  At some point in the next two months I will post something detailing the move and the new server, and changes to this site and an overhaul of my musical site.

See you this weekend for the Pocono Mountain show.

October 26, 2003 (3am): I've been adding links throughout the week and will have an updated links section available later tonight or sometime during the week.  I added about 80 photos from the Pocono Mountain East show tonight, so enjoy.  This process took a lot longer than I expected, and I ran into a few technical issues and/or limitations with the server.  This could also be related to the fact that I am processing 175 MB of photos and the image manipulation components to the photo gallery software can't handle that.  I don't think this will be an issue once I am on the new server, as things are setup a bit differently in terms of partitions, etc. 

I also fixed the problem where the slideshow function in the photo gallery wasn't working.  I have a complete video of the show now, and I will have to edit it when I return to Reading and time allows.  Check back later in the week for news, but I will definitely have it under the streaming video section before ACCs.  I will not be posting a video from Carlisle, but thanks to Harris Boyce III former drum major & sax player (c/o 1999) for shooting both videos.

October 28, 2003: I updated the rankings based on Sunday's show so we're back in 2nd by about half a point.  Also, the updated links page has been uploaded.  Finally, I encoded the video from Pocono Mountain and added it under the streaming video section.  Higher resolution videos and changes to the older ACCs videos will be made once someone can get me tapes for the years I am missing.  I'm not sure if I can encode from DVD or not, but I will look into it.  Additional file formats will be added in 2004, and not before I get the shows that I am missing.  I just noticed that the link for "streaming video" was missing from the main menu.  That's fixed, and the videos are there (really!)

October 30, 2003: I finally went through and finished the work on the history section and uploaded all of that.  I also added an extreme high speed stream for the Pocono Mountain video, and corrected the link.  I also updated the video FAQs and corrected the link.  I'll make more of an effort to check the 404s on the stats to see if there are any problems and get them corrected asap.

November 2, 2003: All of the photos are now online.  It takes a while to clean them up and actually get them uploaded to the server so I can put them in the photo gallery.  I updated the scores, and will check on the rankings later today as the final chapters scores come in.  I fixed some bad links on the video clips, so that should be working fine.  I'll be updating the history page and various other parts of the site to reflect this year's win at Chapters.

Since there wasn't a group photo at Chapters, if you want a picture of your section (informal or in uniform), just ask me when I'm around.  There's no cost to have the pictures taken, and you can download the file for free, or have the photos printed for less than the cost of the Chapters photos.

The contest has started and I posted the guidelines and the photo.  I'll be adding to the list of entered sections as entries are received. 

November 6, 2003: I went through all of the stats pages for this site and the musical site and will post any updates to the list of countries if applicable.  I also reviewed the error pages for the last few months, and don't see anything new.  Most of the problems are search engine related due to the new design and photo management system.

The contest ends tomorrow at 7pm, no exceptions.  I extended this due to the after school rehearsal, and since I am going to post the answers right here and now, I want you to have time to send in an entry.  Ready?

1) Lackawanna County Stadium

2) The stadium is in Moosic, PA.  Montage Mountain would also have been an acceptable answer, given that the exit is Montage Mountain Road and the lodge and ski resort near the stadium.

3) I added 3 of the chapters flags around the stadium.  The trees, power lines and everything else are real.  In case you are wondering, the flags are 1995, 1999, 2003.

4) The photo was taken last year.  I rode the bus to the Pocono Mountain show, and the picture was taken from the highway, which is why you get the unique view with the power lines and trees.

5) Your name and section.  In my case, Ross Sieber, Truck Crew (96-97, season and 99-00 to present), or Contra Section (for the 97-98 and 98-99 seasons).

That's it for now, winning sections will be notified by email Friday night or in person on Saturday.  Also, if you want a group photo for your section or just a group of your friends, see me Saturday or Sunday.

November 13, 2003: Sorry for the delay in getting the ACCs stuff posted.  I've been busy, and had some technical issues with the server tonight.  I'm working on getting everything migrated and copied over to the backup server just in case things get bad.  I'll be doing some text updates as time allows in the coming months, but other than that, this is it for photos for the season unless someone sends me something.

December 19, 2003: The move to the new hosting provider will be happening at some point in the next 2-3 weeks. I will be moving this site first and will be moving the musical site once the work is completed.  There will be no downtime during this process, however, webmail will be suspended indefinitely.  I will be replacing this service with mail forwarding during 1st quarter 2004 if anyone is interested.

In addition to the move, I have selected Pair Networks (Pittsburgh, PA) to host a backup site in the event that this site would become unreachable.  Photo collections will not be available on the backup site, its purpose is to provide contact and status information only.  Starting next week, you may visit sthsband.net for status information and general contact information.

December 21, 2003: I am beginning the migration process at this time.  As a result of the process, the Gallery software has been upgraded to the latest version, and I am working on a mix of the designs.  Things look a little bit different, and the tables aren't quite centered like before, I fix this as soon as I can figure it out. 

I haven't created a full information page for the backup site, and information may not show up until January.  If you encounter problems or have questions, drop me an email.