Website Note: PFB Will be Down for Maintenance Starting Wednesday Night

I woke up this morning at 5:30 a.m. in a sweat. Part of it might have been a room that was a little too hot, but at least some of it was because I was thinking about flipping our site over this evening.

We have been thinking toward this and planning for it for a while, but if I’m honest, it’s not going to be as robust a flip as I would like. It will definitely look a lot different, but there are a variety of smaller things that I wanted to have ready that just aren’t. We will sift them in over the next month or so — which might be better anyway — but the OCD in me is running on full.

The new site is a little stronger, a little faster and a little sharper looking (like Dax to Justice?). It is mostly ready (?????), and we need to pull the trigger before football season.

We’re shutting this one down at around 4 or 5 p.m. on Wednesday to turn it over. I asked our developer to give me the percentage chance we lose it all. He said 999 times out of 1,000 everything will be fine. Not even close to high enough! But here we go.

Here’s our intended schedule

• 4 or 5 p.m. — Shut down for maintenance
• 9 or 10 p.m. — Maintenance over, finishing touches on new site
• 12 or 1 a.m. — New site up
• 6 a.m. Thursday — Bullets ready to rock and roll

I have no idea if that’s how it will go, but that’s the plan.

I had lunch today with our new beat writer Marshall Scott. He asked me why I started PFB. What the impetus was. Talking about that took me back over the years of time and effort that have been poured in. It has taken up so much of my life since 2011. It has been my (non-human) baby, and I care about what happens to it in the future. I care about what you think about it and how good it is or isn’t. Among other things, it has driven me over the years.

And there have been a lot of years. I’m now sitting in Aspen in Stillwater writing this, thinking about how much has happened since I used to sit in Aspen in Stillwater with Mrs. Pistols before she was Mrs. Pistols a decade ago. Stillwater has given me a lot. I always think about that when I’m here, driving around, drinking coffee, discussing the future.

All I’ve ever wanted is to create something worth consuming, something that was awesome and interesting and above all, fun. Sometimes I think that has happened. Sometimes I think I could not have been a bigger failure. Most of the time I’m somewhere in between.

So here’s to nothing. I feel like an astronaut strapping in for whatever the next few weeks hours hold. Hope we’re still here tomorrow morning. Catch you guys on the other side.