![](\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/TheBradBlog_NoPic_url_1000Square_Est2004_NewFont.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nWe’re off this week from both The BradCast<\/i><\/a> and Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, for a much-needed breather. <\/p>\n Of course, we never really<\/i> take breathers around here. Especially these days. And, especially nearing what I’ll call “the end” of my year-long background project transitioning 22-years of BRAD BLOG stories, reports, programs and more from our really old WordPress software (v2.0.2, for those of you who track such things), up to the very latest, much faster, and much<\/i> more secure version of WordPress.<\/p>\n It was no easy trick updating the database and<\/i> the customization that we’d built in from the beginning, from v2.0.2 to what we are now, finally running here. That, of course, was the biggest problem. A brilliant coder, longtime colleague and friend of mine had done the original customization to the core WP files for the site, and then passed away suddenly a few years later. I was left clueless as to the location and the code used to make the actual changes. The result was that any regular ol’ upgrade of the software to a newer version essentially broke the entire blog. <\/p>\n It took about 20 years until I found a few heroic folks willing and able enough to figure out how to overcome all of that. It then took me another year to figure out how to replace that customization (that was still needed!) with modern tools that now exist, allowing us to avoid hacking into the main core files that had prevented me from being able to update entirely for so long, since any update to the software system would overwrite all the customization! I also needed to learn how to design for the modern WordPress engine, which allows for design that adapts on the fly to mobile and tablet views along with the standard desktop design. It’s all very different than the original HTML world that I had become fairly adept at. The new stuff was (and is) way above my pay-grade. But I’ve learned just enough to be dangerous. <\/p>\n This is all some pretty geeky, low-level stuff. Though I suspect there may be a few nerds like me who may be interested (and\/or wondering why the hell it took so long for The BRAD BLOG to join the modern world in the first place!)<\/p>\n In any event, we finally made it over the transition a few weeks ago<\/a>, as I suspect you’ve noticed, and I have been stunned at the lack<\/i> of problems or complaints! Perhaps folks are just being polite. Though politeness never stopped readers from screaming in my direction when something simply didn’t work. <\/p>\n But, I think we’re successfully over the hump (which is unspeakably cool to me, on a personal level), and now I’m working through a number of things….<\/p>\n Anyway, with a bit of “time off”, I hope to both look away from the news, where and when I can (wish me luck!), and probably tinker with some of the stuff that still exists on my still long transition ToDo list. Much of it will be far more valuable as we get closer to the 2026 midterm elections. In case you were wondering. <\/p>\n While I’m<\/i> “gone”, I hope ya’ll will continue to tinker with some of the new features and\/or cup-holders here. Especially a few of the things I created from the ground up, like the Comments system and the totally cool new Media Player that now makes listening, sharing, downloading (and even embedding elsewhere) all of the audio content we’ve got on the site going back for two decades, whether its BradCast<\/i>, Green News Report<\/i> or other random audio stuff going back years and years. <\/p>\n As always, I am tremendously<\/i> grateful to those who are able to support our work with a donation<\/b><\/a>. They continue to be needed now more than ever! <\/p>\n\n