Hi Everyone,
Tony has been kind enough to share another picture, this time showing the now completed interior with cushions on the bunk bed and Jessica's pink and white "coconut ice" box over the methylated spirits container (for the stove).
So far, Colette has confirmed 6 March for the dinner. If any of you do have a problem with this date, I am sure we can work around it.
Cheers
Jonathan
02-15-10 @ 15:07
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan,
I’m really impressed by the workmanship, the detail is flawless, the cushions on the bed, the stove, the freshwater and saltwater spigots (faucets) are fantastic. You have to truly love your work to be so exact. Plus the fact that this is not a ’kit model’ but made from scratch!!! Nice job Tony.
Loved the “Jessica touch” the pink and white ‘coconut box’.
Could I push my luck and request a picture of the ‘port’ side of the cabin?
Have a good day,
Michael
Tony, Excellent workmanship!
ReplyDeleteAre you making the plush crew in miniature for the starboard shelf above the setee?
( Just kidding, that would be above and beyond the call of duty!)
Richard Weills
02-17-10 @ 15:54
ReplyDeleteHi Richard,
I had a good laugh at your suggestion, not at you, but just thinking of what someone would have to go through for something like that. I guess you could compare it with building a ship in a bottle. But nothing is impossible, a little difficult maybe, but not impossible.
It's been kind of quiet here lately, everybody working hard or traveling?
Have a good day,
Michael
Great Tony, it will be an outstanding gift to Jessica. By the way all her postings have been great, but her last was simply outstanding. Loved the photo of her motley crew.
ReplyDeleteBruce
Greetings all,
ReplyDeleteThe model's looking good! :)
I have to bid you all farewell for awhile. I'm going to the country to help a lifelong dear friend care for her dying husband. We're both nurses - (I'm now retired)- and his wish is to die at home. I'll be offline for awhile, so until I return, I wish you all good health and happiness and continued enjoyment as you plot and plan to meet and greet and the gathering for Jess' return.
I'll be back when I can.
Cheers ..... Soldier's Mum in SA.
Hi Soldier's Mum
ReplyDeleteThanks for the compliment. This note is really to wish you well in your caring for your long-time friends - both husband and wife - now and in the future. A Nurses work is never finished!
We will no doubt all catch up when you return.
Tony L
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteTony, love the boat. Thanks for the photos.
Jonathan, I'm OK on the 6th for the dinner.
Cheers,
Ailsa
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteSoldier’s Mum, you’re an angel. I can relate to what your friend and her husband are going through. My heart goes out to them. My thoughts will be with you and your friends.
Michael, it sounds like you and so many other bloggers are still being hit hard with snow. I hope your car hasn’t been buried again. We’re experiencing unseasonably warm weather in our area. Tomorrow could reach 60°F (15°C) and there is still a lack of snow for the Winter Olympics. I feel sorry for all who have worked so hard for years to prepare for the games. Vancouver, British Columbia is a beautiful city with many wonderful people and I hate to see them get a bad rap for weather conditions that they have no control of. Just the opposite of what you’ve been experiencing, Michael.
It sounds like the Victorians get together is coming up soon. What a great plan that is. Sounds like a lot of fun. Seeing the progress on Tony’s model really is fascinating. I sure can appreciate your talent, Tony. I hope everyone is doing well.
Best Wishes,
Mark
Hi everyone!!
ReplyDeleteTried several times to write but it kept getting 'wiped' so in the end I gave up...too much else on lately, and soon off to a work dinner meeting.
Tony, the model is fantastic, you are obviously a perfectionist. And Thankyou for being so.
Cheerio Soldier's Mum , our best wishes are with you.
Yes, Salty, looking forward to the Vic gathering...gald you will be there Ailsa.
Hi Michael, your posts are always oozing with genuine warmth.
Must run, fondest regs to all other bloggers...catch you all again soon
Hi Soldiers Mum,
ReplyDeleteWarm wishes to you. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your loved ones and as Tony points out, a nurses work is never done. Truly an angel.
Good luck
Jonathan
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteYes, that is unfortunate. I'm trying to think of what sort of contingency they may have if it stays this mild. Relocate to Park City, Utah?! Not sure if there is any major winter sports area in Eastern Canada?
I agree, Vancouver is a great city and BC is a very pretty state.
Cheers
Jonathan
Dear Soldier's Mum in SA,
ReplyDeleteYou may or may not get to read this before you head off. Sorry for the late entry but I just got home from work, 2200hrs in Perth.
It's not always easy to know what to say to people in times like these but please know that I'll be thinking of you and, from one nurse to another, I empathise and wish you and your friends a gentle, comfortable and peaceful journey.
My kindest regards,
Sam
02-18-10 @ 10:39
ReplyDeleteHi everyone,
Soldiers Mum, your friend and her husband are very fortunate to have a friend such as yourself. That's the sign of a true friend, and they are very rare these days. I couldn't praise you enough for what you are about to do, it's not easy. God Bless You. Take care of yourself and my condolences to your friend.
Yeah SaltyDog, we’ve got a lot of snow here, but when I think about you and your brother and what Soldier’s Mum is about to do…What do I have to complain about???? An old saying that always comes to mind: “I used to complain because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”.
Take care Mark and good luck to you.
Hope all you ‘Vics’ have a good time at your meeting, dang, I’m jealous.
Just wanted to mention that I’m not a true West Virginian, in the sense that I wasn’t born there. I was born in Sussex County, Northern New Jersey, which is very ‘country’. So in all my travels when I came across WV I knew I had found “Home”. I do love WV and the woods, hills, valleys, rivers, streams and the people, but my feet are starting to ‘itch’ so it seems like it’s time to move on. Don’t have to many moves left so I would like to make this a good one. Sounds so melodramatic…lol…
Tony, keep up the good word on the boat, you’re doing a great job. I’m sure Jessica will be gobsmacked!!!…lol…
Everybody have a good day,
Michael
Thank you all for your kind words.
ReplyDeleteI'm just glad to be able to be of some help at this time.
HooRoo for now and I'll be in touch once I'm back.
Stay safe and well one and all.
02-19-10 @ 13-28
ReplyDelete@ Soldiers Mum,
Hooroo!!!
Michael
Hi Friends,
ReplyDeleteWooo...we're on the new site now...that's likely to give me a little grief as I'm not a computer wizz...my son is but he speaks another language in bits and bytes. He works for IBM.
My heart is filled with such joy for Jesse, the weather has been kind to her (no doubt with Bob's expert advice). But her mettle is made of steel...pardon the pun. Of most significance though, Jesse also has an engaging personality, a flair for descriptive writing and a willingness to reveal her emotions, strengths and weaknesses. She is the proverbial 'sum of the whole'.
The Vic get together is nigh, I am excited but can hardly believe it has come around so quickly. Nice choice of venue fallas!
Michael,just for your info, Australia's favourite car was at one time (1970's) the 'KingSwood'. It remains an icon of 'Ozziness". As you are in Kingwood, it's a quirky type of coincidence don't you think?
Fond regards to all,
Collette
Hi Collette,
ReplyDeleteYour entries always bring on a chuckle or two. Nice comments about Jess - you encapsulate her personality and the person she is very well.
Tony and I met over the weekend at his place in Mt Martha and I was in awe at how well the EPL model is coming along. It requires a very special talent to construct a scale model with just a few pictures and diagrams.
Well, I'm off to see the newly integrated blog on Jessica's website.
Vics, I'm looking forward to March 6th.
Cheers all,
Jonathan
02-22-10 @ 15:22
ReplyDeleteHi Collette,
Yes, that was interesting, if it remains an icon of 'Ozziness" then it must have been a reasonably decent car. Yes????
Just finished sending a post to Jessica, and sometimes I get lost for words, then I read your descriptive post of Jessica, and thought that was very well put together. Well done.
Cheers
Michael
Hello again!
ReplyDeleteI don't like the new blogsite! I hope time heals this dilemma for me.
I feel quite chuffed at recieving your kind comments Johnathan and Michael...thankyou very much.
Yes Michael, the Kingswood was a 'beautie', but it was superceded by the 'Commodore'. It remains every 'hoons' heavenly charriot.
(no irony in it being Commodore, is there)? Nothing to do with yachting, sailing or boating or water, oceans etc etc....
Enough now, cheers to you all,
Collette
Hello everyone, long time no see. I hope you're all well. How's the boat coming along Tony, looking good so far. Hi Collette, I saw you finally made it at Voyage Art, well done and congratulations :-)). I do know what you mean now 'though, 'cause it happened to me too. But, if at first you don't succeed...
ReplyDeleteSo pray tell, what is it you don't like about Jessica's new blog site hmmm?? :-)) For my part I must say that I really enjoyed the little individual pics of everyone. Ones I've particularly enjoyed have been Mark's (SaltyDog) because they are always so vibrant in colour. Another thing I'm going to miss very much and I'm sure a lot of others will too is Sally's artwork. I don't know how she'll manage now that the site doesn't seem to accept different paragraphs and stuff. Everything appears just like this as I'm typing now. It doesn't appear to have anything more than word-wrap. Even typing what you want to say on a word document first, as I always do anyway, then pasting it into the comment box doesn't help. Everything still comes out like this. Nevermind, as you said Collete, no doubt time will heal this dilemma for us. If I may be so bold, I'd just like to add that I will continue my endeavour to capture Jessica's "moments" and post them on Voyage Art at www.jessicawatsonsvoyageart.blogspot.com
My kindest regards to Jonathan and to you all. Take care and bye for now...Sam
Hello all,
ReplyDeleteSam, welcome back.
Re Jessica's integrated blog page, yes, Collette, as Sam says, the "word wrap" function kills any semblance of paragraph separation. Another thing I found was that I took a while to write the post after which the blog rejected the entry. It appears to have a time limit for responses.
My quick fix is to take my time making the entry and once I have finished, I then highlight all that I write, copy it all and should the post go crook on me, I just reload the page and paste what I copied earlier back into the box and go ahead and post it again and that seems to work.
Cheers
Jonathan
02-23-10 @ 11:43
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone,
Good to see some action here, I missed talking to you guys. I guess we’ll have to get used to the new site, I miss the pictures per poster. I was making a collection of them and had quite a few. I like the fact that all comments are on one page, but the ‘wrap around’ doesn’t allow you to give it any ‘punch’ (if you will).
Jonathan, as for losing the post, I always compose my post in ‘word’ and then copy it to the comments. I always seem to lose that first entry and then the second one goes thru. I have lost two (2) complete letters and had to re-enter them, even though they were accepted.
Yes Collette, we also had a ‘Commodore’ I don’t know who manufactured it but I don’t believe it was a big seller, like the Ford ‘Edsel’ it also fell by the wayside. Ok Collette, I have to ask for my Aussie Dictionary, what are ‘hoons’???? I kind of thought it had something to do with ‘cool people or people inside the circle’.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m in contact with so many “nautical” people,
but it seems to me that Sydney could be classified as the sailing capitol of the world.
Cheers to all,
Michael
02-23-10 @ 12:19
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone,
Forgot to mention that if you don't type in your name, you go in as anonymous. The code also is not case friendly. I can't think of the phrase for that.
Cheers,
Michael
Hi Collette, Sam and everyone else,
ReplyDeleteI too am not impressed with the new format. In particular I consider long single-paragraph-style entries become very difficult to read, especially when the writer wishes to convey a number of thoughts. My own first entry in the new style contained four thoughts in four paragraphs. Translated by the new format it came out as one single long paragraph. One possible effect of this could be that many people will cease reading the writties of those who write the more substantial and often more worthwhile responses to Jessica’s reports.
The second aspect I don’t like is the loss of the illustrations that used to accompany the entries of some writers. I used them as a means of quickly selecting what I thought would be worth reading because I often don’t read all entries and generally skim over a lot of the very short entries. The new format means the loss of Sam’s illustrations so I am very glad to hear from Sam that she will continue to build her series of illustrations on her voyageart blogspot. Sam, it is not only your illustrations that I value. I think the words you have used to accompany them are well chosen and make the whole entry – illustration and words – a worthwile project. Please keep going with these, they are appreciated.
I also noticed that I could not enlarge the photo on Jessica’s most recent entry by clicking on it, etc. I had to save or copy it into photoshop to obtain an enlargement. This will very likely not be convenient for many readers.
I wonder why Andrew and Co. thought they needed to make these changes. They won’t kill the responses but in my opinion I think they have made the comment section less inviting than it formerly was.
Tony L
You people are way too tolerant!
ReplyDeleteThe new format is a disaster!
I firmly believe that if Jessica knew what was happening she would have a fit!
I submitted a few comments expressing my dislikes but not a single one saw the light of day. Posts by a few brown noses were published so I figured I was alone. The comments here indicate otherwise.
One or two of you have hinted at having an in with HQ? Why not put it to good use!
Or are you a bunch of gutless wonders afraid that if you criticize the team they wont let you near Jessica when you rendezvous in Sydney??
Hi all,
ReplyDelete"Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.".....The Dalai Lama
Sorry, I don't mean to be a smart-ass! :-))
I have been in contact with Andrew and have voiced my opinions, which were not dissimilar to what has been expressed here. He assured me that he understands and appreciates the input and said..."Sam – I need this feedback which is very useful – please send any of this through to me!"
If you hae anything constructive to offer Andrew, I'm sure he'll appreciate it.
Have a great day everyone and bye for now.
Cheers,
Sam
Hi Sam,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice. I have copied what I wrote above and have sent it to Andrew. If we don't say what we think no changes will be made. So, I have now stopped whingeing and will get on with the rest of the day. Back to work!
Tony L
Sally in Melbourne by the Bay here
ReplyDeleteSorry for using your sit for this comment Jonathan
...Thanks Sam and I have been following the comments and am truly amazed at the graphics Sam.I am very disappointed in the format which does take away a lot of individuality to the comment site.It is not as much fun to read for us let alone Jesse if she ever does read the comments????I have had terrible trouble even sending just written comment as my letter verification gets rejected over and over.
So I will give up and just wish you all well in your reunions on Jesse's arrival back as I am sure she will.It has been a fantastic opportunity to go long for the ride with both Jesse and all the commenters I have come to know and follow...I shall miss everyone as well as the chance to make a contribution...
Best wishes all and it's been nice knowing you on Jesse's blog.
GO JESSE WHAT A GIRL
Sally in Melbourne by the sad and lonely Bay
Sorry '^' me again.What I was trying to say was that I made a promise to myself that I would send a picture for each day Jesse sent a blog and in changing the format that desire is now unfulfilled.Sorry I'm just feeling a bit let down at the thought that I couldn't see my promise to myself completed .I was hoping to stay with her till her return.
ReplyDeleteIt makes no difference to anyone else and the main thing is that Jesse returns safely and I will be following every day to keep with the latest on her site.
Bye all (~.~) Sally
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteI too forwarded my constructive comments to Andrew. My feeling is that he will do all that he can to improve the blog and to handle the huge volume of comments. I’m a blogger rookie, so I don’t have a lot of knowledge as to why Andrew had to make the change. I’m taking a wild guess, but there might be some limitations on “blogspot.com” related to the volume of blogs. If I remember right, it seems like when Andrew first informed us of the change, it had to do with the storage capacity on the server for the blog account. I think he mentioned that he was concerned about losing archived comments so it might be that he was foreseeing reaching the max and therefore dropping the oldest comments. Hopefully, he will be able to come up with an alternative that will allow the blog to return to the previous format and still be able to retain all archived comments.
O.K. Michael, you asked for your Australian Dictionary so here you go. See if this link works for you. http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html
If for any reason it doesn’t, just Google “Australian Slang” and you should find it. Last year, a lady who I work with visited some people in Melbourne and Port Macquarie who she met on the internet. I found this site so I could decipher some of the new phrases that she learned.
Hope everyone is doing well.
Mark
02-24-10 06:12
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone,
Hey SaltyDog, that dictionary will be a big help thanks much. Did you watch the hockey game, I didn't, but I read about it and was glad the ref's let them play it out.
I think a lot of people are having trouble on the new website because the verification word is case sensitive.
Ok, Collette, I'm getting a dictionary now and I'll be ready for you...LOL...
Cheers
Michael
Hi All,
ReplyDeleteMichael, I just had to square this away first. A "hoon" is someone who :
1. Goes through a brand new set of tires in a month or less
2. Always has the tacho needle hovering in the red
3. If "hoon" driver and "hoon" passenger rolled down their windows and stuck their arms out of the window, the entire car would be airborne.
Ok, lets get serious. It is pretty clear that all of us and the Jessaholic world at large are not happy. Some of you have written to Andrew and he has accepted the criticisms and comments. One way to really get his attention is to point him to this blog where we now have a collection of comments. I will do the needful and hopefully something will be done.
Like Tony, I do like to break up my comments into paragraphs and was not happy to see it all "wrapped" in one single long essay. It honestly appeared like diatribe and I did not feel like reading back my own entry, leave alone someone else doing it.
More soon.
Cheers
Jonathan
Thanks Jonathan,
ReplyDeletePoint out to Andrew that when he ported the older comments from Blogger to his site all the comments from each Post (by JW) were reversed chronologically.
The time stamp was over written to the date/time of the transfer so that is not readily apparent. I figured it out because I saved each page to keep track when new comments came in.
And for some reason a lot of people's identities were changed to Anonymous but not always. Depends on which day you look at. Some Post's comments keep the original name, some Post's comments have changed the id, sometimes the id is clickable to link to the profile, other times the link has been lost. In other words A MESS! It is damn near impossible to trace one comment back to another. Now we have the situation where people are adding comments to old posts but on the new site, making for a bigger mess.
At the very least Andrew should place an explanation and a link on the Home page to the old blog. I saved it http://www.youngestround.blogspot.com/ in my favorites/bookmarks but that is not going to help other people who want to see how it all began and then progressed with all the different characters in the family.
Being able to collapse comments was very handy.
As far as reports of the site being overloaded I never noticed Blogger having a problem. If they did how hard is it for them to allocate more space? Their resources are far beyond his. The only problem I had was the first time Andrew did this and the home page link to Blogger got changed. I think a lot of people were caught out using favorites/bookmarks. Of course Andrew did not bother to tell people they would have to change their bookmarks! The problem may have been on his own server. And "he was concerned about losing archived comments"... if I can save each page of comments on my computer how challenging is that for an IT specialist?
Am I displaying symptoms of addiction? Absolutely not! Just don't mess with something I need!
@ Michael... the new verification is NOT case sensitive. It may just be a time issue. On Blogger like here make sure cookies (the web variety) are enabled. Andrew does not use cookies. But always Copy, Paste & backup, backup, backup!
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteTony that boat is beautiful! Your workmanship looks flawless. Very talented.
Re Jesse's new blog format, I'm a very positive person but I hate it. What really saddens me is the loss of the friendly community feel it used to have. I agree entirely with Grant and I really do feel sad about it. I also find the one paragraph format hard to read and I really dislike bloggers names being displayed in such small text. I miss reading the names entirely much of the time as I'm concentrating on reading the actual posting.
Elvis of Oz, Sally in Melbourne and all Jesse's talented poets will not longer be able to get the full affect from their works and where are the bloggers personal profiles?
Well thats enough of that, I hate sounding so negative and I will continue to make the most of the site just the same as everyone else but .....yeah something is missing.
All the very best to all,
Bluefin Annie, Buderim, Queensland.
Hi Jonathan
ReplyDeletethanks for the space. I too have severe problems with the format of the new Jess blog. I have been keeping a running tally and map of the locations of each individual international blogger and a full listing of their ID/name, country, state and town so I don't duplicate. I'm up to 1089 bloggers and 83 countries at present. However the new format has destroyed the IDs so I can no longer cross check. This means I'll have to give it up at this point instead of continuing to the end of the trip. I was going to present a final map to Jess at the end but that won't be possible now.
cheers
Mike-trrac (Avoca Beach, NSW)
Come on guys and gals!
ReplyDeleteGet with the new 'blog' program!
@Sally! I'm amazed you've given up so easily. What's wrong with posting your artwork here or on "inside info" samurai's post. These things are great, we like 'em so why give up?(~.~)
It's obvious the blog had to change because the traffic is going to be horrendous once this girl starts overtaking those boats with people bound for the Christmas Island detention Centre.
At the moment facebook is dealing with some horrendous postings relating to children. I don't think it's a good idea to continue with blogger when this is going on. a personal site is more bullet proof because you can shut it down quicker.
The 'wordwrap' keeps everyone's idea of formatting under control.
We're here to comment and not to show off Already we've had show ponies putting long gaps, writing 18 paragraph epics and highlighting, myself included, so it's time to toughen up!
I know people want to show their individuality, but that is the limitation of this blog. You have to convey it in writing.
I'm biased, short and sweet suits me....Usually, I feel your pain, Hoo Roo ☺☻☻☺
02-24-10 @ 20:28
ReplyDeleteHi Fellow Jess-A-Holics,
Jonathan, your description of a 'hoon' was hilarious. That had me laughing.
Anonymous, I tried the verification in lower case and it kicked it back, so I tried it again and it went through ok. I guess I was just rushing it. Thank you. I also miss being able to collapse comments, and it’s hard to catch a name the date stands out more than the names do.
I agree with Bluefin Annie, there's definitely a loss of the camaraderie that we had shared, plus I believe that we have lost a few of the regulars. There are a few names that I have not seen for awhile unless they are coming in under anonymous. There just doesn’t seem to be any class, no pizzazz there anymore.
Sorry about your map Mike that would have been nice.
Catch you all later,
Michael
Hi all, thought I'd pop in and say hello. As usual been working lotsa shifts.
ReplyDeleteNot too happy with the new format like many of you, but what can we do about it. We just read each post when we can but it does seem different.
Tony L, what you have put together is fantastic and I'm sure will be appreciated by Jesse. The flag/banner is still not finished but coming along nicely. Hopefully ready for a photo soon.
Anyway, for everyone meeting for dinner in Vic, have a wonderful night. Wish we were coming, however do hope to meet you in Sydney.
Cheers,
The McGraths, Nowra NSW
Hello Jonathan, hello everybody, I hope you're all well, as I am.
ReplyDeleteThankyou so much Tony for your support and encouragement of my illustrations, I do appreciate it more than you know.
Sally, have you tried creating you artwort on a word document first then pasting it into the comment box? Interestingly, my previous comment to WorkerBev in the appearance of musical notes was done that way and it seemed to work.....Just a thought. For what it's worth, please don't go, I'll miss you too much.
SaltyDog...hello Mark, are you well? How's your brother doing? When you get a chance, would you mind emailing me please? There's something I wanted to ask you. No biggy. :-))
Take care everyone and have a great day...Sam
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteI guess everyone is still scratching their heads regarding why Jessica’s blog format was changed, and I am too. I never blogged in my life until Jessica’s blog, so I’m trying to learn and my following comments are just my stab in the dark so I apologize if I’m not correct. I mentioned earlier that I thought that it might have to do with some sort of limitations due to the volume of comments. Her old format was on blogspot.com which is hosted by Google. Of course their servers can handle the volume, but Google does place certain limitations on each blog account. Something that I have heard but I don’t know it for a fact is that on blogspot.com you can only access the last 5000 comments. If that is the case, I doubt that the older, archived comments would be eliminated but we wouldn’t be able to go back and read all of them. Many of the features that we have enjoyed are built into the format on blogspot.com by Google, for instance blogger profiles, pictures, bloggers names at the beginning of each comment, collapsible comments, etc. By moving Jessica’s blog to her personal web domain, we lose those neat features that Google has supplied, but Andrew doesn’t have Google’s limitations to deal with. Whether Andrew can or will modify the blog to provide some of those features, I don’t know. Of course now, you don’t need to sign in with a password. You just enter your comment and if you want your blog name to appear at the beginning of the comment make sure you type it in the “name (optional)” space. It will show up in black. If you leave that space blank, the name will show as “anonymous.” If you would like people to be able to click on your name to see your profile, just pull up your own profile and cut and paste the link from the browser into the “website (optional)” space. Or as Samurai has done, you can enter the link to your own blog or website if you want. When you enter a link into the “website (optional)” space, your blog name will appear in the magenta color. Like I said, I’m just trying to learn a bit, so don’t take my conjectures as the gospel. Good luck everyone and let’s keep the energy flowing on Jessica’s blog.
Mark
P.S @Samurai: I'll be flying to Arizona a week from this Saturday to see him, so I'll have a better idea when I get there. I'll email you now that I got this long winded comment done
A blog is written by an author or blogger.
ReplyDeleteCommenting on a blog post does not make a person a blogger but a commenter.
Gmail/blogspot is FREE, can disappear at whim and you have no control. All good websites w/blogs are build under" one umbrella". Jessica Watson now owns the rights to all material on her site. It cannot disappear, nor can OTHER PEOPLE PROFIT FROM THE words ON IT! After her first few posts at sea--they should have moved the blog to the website. They had other blogger options to monetize, sell wart remover, have URL directed elsewhere.... instead it appears that they choose the standard for popular blogs. OWN YOUR MATERIAL.
The timing was in the book announcement and a very good move.
Andrew sounds like an amazing person to handle all this complaining. He has a very BIG job managing JW website and clearly lots of comments are still getting in.
Practice the positive outlook/flexibility that you admire her for. I think Jessica & her team are amazing. They owe no one but their sponsors ANYTHING. So cheer up and cheer loud for me as she enters the harbor! Aloha