phoenixwiz: (When He Smiles)
(The feed begins with Harry sitting on a bench at a local park in Blackthorn City with Aura the Altaria sitting happily next to him, looking really excited today. A few days ago, Harry was able to conquer the gym challenge against Clair to earn his last Jotho badge. And he couldn’t wait to share the news.)

Hey everyone. It has been a long while since I have posted anything on the network and I have been very busy with life and fostering my current photography skills for some time now. And it turns out that what I’m about to share to you is going to be a great one.

(He then pulls out the Rising badge out of his jacket pocket for those on the network to see while Aura is making joyous bird sounds as he does so.)

I finally got to beat the Jotho gym challenge and got the last gym badge of the region! That means I was able to defeat the local gym leaders here and I am looking forward to take on the gyms in Kanto real soon. I am a little nervous though, I haven’t been to Kanto that often aside from a few times so I haven’t fully assessed what the gyms in there are like, but I’m hoping to do my best and show what my team is capable.

(Aura nods in response, knowing well that her Trainer will lead the group to victory, even with a couple of obstacles along the way.)

Right now, I’m in no rush to get on the first ferry ride or train ride to Kanto but I should be able to go there within the next two months or so if things don’t go awry suddenly. Either way, wish me and my Pokémon the best as we plan to train hard for Kanto.
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)

Happy Wednesday!

I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!

Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!

Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.