This is a semi-regular compendium of thoughts, observations, and events from the Chippewa Valley. 

You may have noticed that the site has been down off and on for the last couple days.  You may also have noticed this afternoon that it is a good deal faster than it used to be, or at least it appears that way at Chateau Cruiskeen. I've made some rather serious changes to the way the site is run on this server, and I'm hoping that this will fix some long-standing performance issues.

As I am sure has been clear, WisCommunity has been very slowly updated for the last few months. Those of you who know me personally have been aware that my wife has had serious health issues over the last nine months. I am sad to have to report that my darling Lorelei died on August 25th at home with me and our daughters.

As has probably been apparent, posting and maintenance at Wis.Commuity has been more than a little slow lately. It's one of the problems with having what is essentially a one-man operation (not for lack of trying to spread the work through the community). The gist of it is that if I for one reason or another cannot work every day, things suffer. 

We have made some changes to commenting policy on the site. In the past no comments could be made on the site unless you have previously created an account with us and signed in. For at least the time being, comments can be made by people without accounts, but they will be held for moderation until an editor approves them. We hope this will promote a lively discussion in the community without allowing a free-for-all of spam and other problems.

Winter continues to unleash upon us. More stories are coming on about barn collapses, accidents, and more caused by the incredible weather we have been experiencing. Today almost all of the area schools are closed due to water covering the roads, making them impassable. I am at the moment sitting out at the farm and wondering if I will be able to get into town tomorrow for the Red Cedar Watershed Conference.

Lack of resources strikes again. Rather than being at tonight's Menomonie School Board Meeting, we will be videotaping the 67th District Candidate Forum in Bloomer. If you're going, stop by and say hello to the guy with the video camera.  Details of the candidate forum (Wren Keturi and Rob Summerfield candidates) are below, as well as a link to tonight's Menomonie School Board agenda.

A few other items of interest this week:

Thursday:

We've been working on new ways for our readers to send articles on the web that they find interesting.  We did a little test of this quite a few months back, but I'd like to put this out to more people. We're using some software called Pearltrees. Basically the idea is that you can sign up with a Pearltrees account, and ask us to join in as a contributor. 

Wis.Community will be offering an opportunity to see the new PBS/POV documentary Dark Money before the national showing of the film on PBS.