Disclaimer: This post contains a lot of "blogging" jargon.  My apologies.  It’s just a defense for my migration.

So this is the new yeti home.  (I know I’ve tried this before, but this time I’m serious!)  Still in my "free trial period" with Typepad I’m pretty sure that I’m officially making this move.  There were a couple reasons that I decided it was time.  (The sad irony is that now I’m actually paying somebody else so that I can blog.  It’s a sick world, I tell you.  Sick.  Oh well, half of this year’s subscription was earned by giving that speech.  Two speeches a year and this will pay for itself!)

• Blogger (the tool I was using) had become too bulky and time consuming for me.  While it seemed that the service was improving often there were many things I didn’t like about it.  There were some really annoying quirks that caused me to lose posts or which required me to constantly refresh my pages to make my post listing line up correctly.
• I couldn’t actually see my blog pages on the Internet from here in China.  Through my VPN (virtual private network) I could access the site, but otherwise it was blocked by my ISP.  Typepad isn’t.  For this reason before I couldn’t share the blogger site with expat friends here in China who might be interested in tracking with our journey.  Now I can.  Plus, using the VPN always slowed things way down as well.
• I like the photo album feature on Typepad a lot.  This will save me from having to post 25 pictures on the main page.  Posting pics always took a lot of time and caused my site to be very slow when loading.
• I like the TypeList feature that TypePad offers because I don’t have to mess around with the HTML in my sidebar.  I just plug in the name of the book or CD I’m currently enjoying and it gets the graphic and inserts it for me.  Brilliant!  This is a great time-saver!
• I like having the ability to insert a file!  Very cool, but I haven’t tried it yet.
• I like having the ability to categorize my posts by topic.  This may have been available with Blogger, but I didn’t know how to do it?  Now for those of you who only appreciate my "navel gazing" posts you can just go specifically to those types of topics.  (Or more realistically, for those of you who just want stories about the girls you can go to their respective category…)
• Generally, so far, Typepad seems to run quicker and more smoothly.  You get what you pay for.  It’s also a one-stop shop for the types of features that I am interested in.
• I think it looks a little slicker, too.  But you are welcome to disagree with that statement.  I guess I’m just a sucker for a few more bells and whistles.  (And I still have 32 days to change my mind and cancel my subscription.)

As for the downside it seems that I don’t have as much leeway to change the template as I had with Blogger.  If I upgrade to one of their more expensive plans I suppose I could, but for now that doesn’t seem necessary.  You just won’t see a waving yeti in the margins.  (Go ahead, dry your eyes…)    I also was not able to pull over all of my archives from the old yetispeak.  They are still out there if you want to see them.  But I figured the last year is plenty enough archiving for the modern man.  There are probably other "drawbacks" that I have yet to discover.  Just give me a few weeks to break the machine and I’ll get back to you.

For now, this is where you’ll find me.  Please point those browsers this way.  You’ll need to update your "link" to me as well (for those 3 of you who are linking to me.)  Sorry for the inconvenience.  I know it’s "mafan" –to use a good Chinese phrase, but it’s all for the best.

A happy blogger is a consistent blogger and that’s what it’s all about, right?  For those of you who were a bit more inconsistent (absent) in your recent posts, I didn’t carry your link to the new yeti cave. No offense.  If I see you blogging again (or if I perhaps misjudged your devotion), I’ll add you to my new blogroll here at Typepad.  Just let me know…

As my last disclaimer, I’m in the process of categorizing my posts from the last year.  That’s not completed yet, nor will it be for some time.  I also have many other things that I will be adding to the site to make it cuter and sassier.  So you’ll see more changes in the future.  You should check out the archives.  It’s pretty crazy looking back on the last year of our lives "outside of the U.S."  I found it a bit weird. 

Happy reading, folks.  I’m doin’ it all for your love and entertainment. 

Cheers,
The relocated Yeti