I don’t mind, really. I like September 1st. It always speaks to me of the start of fall, and to me, fall has always been more of a beginning than New Year’s Day could ever hope to be. January 1st might begin a new calendar year, but it’s stuck in the middle of winter.

Fall, on the other hand, marks the start of school, the end of vacation, and harvest time. The air becomes cooler and crisper (though, unfortunately, we’re in the midst of a heat wave as I write this), the sun’s angle gives everything sharper edges, and there’s the smell of change in the air.

Call me crazy, but I like fall better than I like summer. I’m no fan of the heat (or humdidity), and the cooler, crisper weather gives me energy I could never hope to drum up in the dog days of summer. The only real down side to fall is that it leads directly to winter, of which I’m not such a huge fan.

So it is with fresh starts and changes in mind that I write this, the first official post of the new, improved, streamlined, redesigned, and rebooted Faltarego.com.

I don’t know how the hackers got access to my website, but they did. They managed to get ftp access, create a subdirectory, and put a whole whack of malware files in it. I have my suspicions about what allowed this—there were a couple of things I had recently started to do differently—but I don’t think I’ll ever really know for sure.

What surprises me most about all of this is how calm I’ve been about it. I can chalk this up to two things: First, this website has not been a source of income for me, just a place to express myself; and second, there’ve been a number of other stressors in my life over the past month or so that really make a website hack look like a Christmas card from Aunt Tilly.

Anyway, enough said about that.

Perhaps it’s fitting that I should start this thing over again. After all, I wandered all over the map during my first year of blogging, and I’ve been—shall we say—a trifle self-indulgent in many of my posts. I think readers might be a tad more interested in reading about things I’m passionate about rather than just reading about… well… me.

So, when I read Trevor’s comment on the placeholder post I put up a couple of days ago, basically suggesting that it might be time for me to reinvent myself, I didn’t just dismiss it. I started thinking about it, and that thinking turned to action. As you can see from the page you’re now reading, I’ve done a redesign of the header and the color scheme of this blog, and with that, I’ve begun to narrow my focus.

So… Thanks, Trevor! And I’m assuming you’re the same Trevor that I know from Twitter and Facebook. Oh, wait. I know three Trevors on Facebook. Now I’m confused.

Anyway, it’s time for me to put up or shut up. There are things in this world that I believe in, and—gee, will you look at that?—I have a forum right here where I can talk about them. I have a set of skills, and if I don’t use them for promoting things I believe are worthwhile, then I’m basically just building castles in the sand.

Oh, I’ll still throw in the occasional movie or book review, but I want to primarily focus on doing some good and making people think. Maybe even impart some useful information once in a while. Wouldn’t that be something?

If you have a look at the blog’s “About” page, you’ll see a description of some of the things I believe are important, and how they tie into my new blog header graphic. So, rather than just take up more space by reiterating it here, I’ll point you over there.

Happy New Birthday, blog! And many happy return visitors!

Keep it real out there.

(Here’s John Lennon’s “(Just Like) Starting Over”. I’ve always liked the “airport boarding announcement” just before the end of the song. You have to listen for it, but it’s there.)

As some of you know from my Twitter and Facebook updates, my site was recently hacked. This has proven to be a powerful pain in the ass, as my web hosting provider later informed me all my files had been compromised and my account needed to be reset.

This has now been done. All my files and databases have been removed, and all my account settings have been reset back to their defaults.

Because I had no proper backup, I am basically starting this site over from scratch. I do have all my earlier blog posts saved in text format, and I have copies of all the images I’ve used, so that is some comfort.

I also had a backup copy of the theme I designed, as you can see from this page.

I have more tweaking to do, but at least the site’s look is back. I’ll mull over what to do with all my older posts, but I’m going to start blogging anew over the next couple of days.

Thanks to all who’ve been reading this blog, and here’s to better days ahead.

Stay tuned.

All the best,

–Eric (aka Faltarego)