As you might must have noticed, yesterday the Sports Blog Nation network which is the parent of your dearly beloved Bright Side of the Sun experienced an extended system outage.

This was the first ever outage of this kind and we are very sorry that it occured. At least it wasn't on a game day. Maybe the network gods decided that we along with the Suns needed a rest day...

Details of the outage after the jump.

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When the Suns' two-time MVP Steve Nash was asked about Amare's MVP-worthiness a few weeks ago, he graciously replied, "I pass the torch to STAT". It was such a typical Steve Nash thing to say, recognizing that by stepping out of the spotlight and allowing another teammate to shine, it makes the Suns a better team. In that same spirit, effective immediately, I am officially passing torch of Bright Side of the Sun administrator to Phoenix Stan, who has done an amazing job of running things in my absence. This site has been literally transformed this month. So much fun and energy has been injected that I am literally in awe. It makes me feel 100% confident that I am leaving you all in good hands.

But before I officially enter "retirement", I suppose a brief explanation is in order. There were a lot of reasons for this decision, but the most important one is simply that I don't have time to do it anymore. Work has suddenly gotten very busy, and I'm expecting it to be that way for the next several months. It's just no longer realistic to continue trying to blog about a team that's effectively based in the Pacific time zone. Trying to keep up with both early morning workdays and late night "play" would mean doing neither very well. And so, for the sake of the team (both this one and the one I'm a part of at work), it is time to remove myself from the driver's seat of this bandwagon, take a nice passenger seat by the window, and just enjoy the view.

I would like to end by thanking Bright Side of the Sun founder Dan Hilton and SBN for the opportunity, and you the readers for making it so much fun. I'd also like to send a special shout-out to Matt at Hardwood Paroxysm, who's been enormously helpful both in regularly linking to my drivel, and as a sounding board when I needed advice. The hardest part of this decision by far was the feeling I'd be letting down our readers and all the people who have encouraged and supported me these past several months. My consolation is knowing that this is a rare win-win situation for everybody involved. Phoenix Stan truly has a special gift for sports blogging. I knew he would be good at it when I invited him on board to help out, but he has been far, far more than just "good at it". He's also a resident of Phoenix and a life-long fan of the Suns franchise--that's a perspective a recent, remote-based fan such as myself can never bring. This is one of those times where what works best for me also happens to be what works best for the blog. It's going to be a blast around here heading into what's sure to be the most entertaining playoffs in years. Even though I won't be posting as much, you can bet I'll be reading daily. For those who want to reach me via e-mail, my new address will be sbntexsun (at) gmail.com. Thanks again everyone, and best of luck to the Suns as we head into the second season.

Update [2008-4-18 18:56:38 by Phoenix Stan]:

Please join me in giving TexSun a BIG Hand!

I have been extremely fortunate to step into this opportunity and am grateful to TexSun and Dan before her for building this fantastic community! It's all you people! It's all you!

Yes my friends and loyal adoring fan (thanks Uncle Bob!), almost one year after I spent about .5 nanoseconds selecting my screen name for this site when I made my first comment I have climbed the blogger ladder from nobody to commenter to nobody commenter to full fledged blogger. And since this is the pinnacle of my blogging life, I think its time for a proper nom de guerre.

So, welcome Phoenix Stan. It has a nice ring to it and reminds me of a Central Asian country which in turn reminds me of my home town.

New name. Same crappy grammar.

Over the past few days and weeks we have noticed a LOT of new people posting here and just wanted to say Welcome!

The great thing about this site isn't me or Texsun...ok, maybe it is Texsun but certainly isn't me.

It's this great community of Suns fans from across the world coming together to share in a common purpose and bond that transcends the barriers of distance, gender, age and basketball acumen.
With crap like that, I should write for Hallmark.

What drew and kept me here and keeps me spending WAY too much time blogging is all the great comments and conversations that go on. Keep it coming!

So if you are new here and recently posted something - thank you.

If you are new here and are just lurking and thinking of commenting - do it now!

And even if you are a BSoS old-timer - thank you too.

If you are new around here feel free to use the comments to chime in and introduce yourself. I have a feeling that the rest of the season is going to take a lot of mutual support to prevent a mass suicide.

I found out one of the ads in the left sidebar wasn't where it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be directly under the logo where the Site News block was. Since moving it was going to make the Site News block more difficult to spot, I decided to finally get off my lazy duff and figure out how to implement what I originally wanted to do anyway. Introducing the new section menu at the top just under the "Commentary and Discussions..." title. This menu will replace the Site News box, which had really grown beyond just site-specific news anyway. If anyone doesn't like the location/color/size/whatever, feel free to let me know in the comments. There's also a highlighted topbar I could enable for it, similar to what Golden State of Mind has. I love it on their site, but I wasn't wild about it when I tried it on ours. But I can always put it back and leave it for a day if anyone wants a look. (Perhaps I'm just too used to seeing our site without it; someone else might have a different opinion).