The Petra Zone

Now that the website is back up I can see that the last time it was updated was when Bob re-released the Captured in Time and Space DVD. So, it has been quite a while.

Having kids will change your priorities very quickly.

executioner wrote:Having kids will change your priorities very quickly.

You ain't kidding, exe.

Josh has 4 kids?

He's busier than a one-legged man at an a**-kicking contest!

I told him a while back that he needs to watch more TV.

brent wrote:I told him a while back that he needs to watch more TV.

TBN for sure?

Kids are a full time job by themselves, never mind whatever else you might have to do. An advantage to being an aunt is the kids have to go back to their parents eventually.

brent wrote:I told him a while back that he needs to watch more TV.

After my first child was born, my wife and I had so little time to watch TV that we discussed cutting the cable. She went ahead and did it, and I didn't even notice until six-months later when I tried to catch The Simpson's one night after dinner.

CatNamedManny wrote:It feels like the Zone has really picked up the slack. I used to read those sites every day, but now anything that happens that is newsworthy (or not! ha!) is linked to and discussed here. Not as much need for the middleman, as it were.

The loss of those sites is one of the reasons I decided to jump in and flesh out Petra's Wikipedia page; there's a lot of history in there, and it needs to be preserved online for other people to find. Eventually, the inactive sites will go offline for good, and we shouldn't let the history they contain disappear.

+1 on that. Some of this is just how the internet has evolved over the past few years... with social media and all. Facebook was just beginning to catch on, MySpace, and the sort. I think nowadays people are less likely to follow info sites like Guide to Petra and PetraRocksMyWorld partly because of their lack of the social experience. Also true that some of the Petra interest waned a bit as the band retired, but the social element of the Zone has kept this place hopping with all the latest info.

I don't know if "hopping" is the right word. This is more a social hangout for a handful of regulars.

Hey all,

Nothing like responding way too late to an old thread wondering why a website is out of date, right?

As noted by preacherman, I have not updated PRMW since the release of CITAS on DVD.

During PRMW's heyday (1998-2006), I strove to make it the single-best source of news and discussion about the band. In this, I like to think I succeeded. Short song clips, a complete set of lyrics, in-depth interviews, and photo sets from around the world were other ways of differentiating PRMW from other fan sites in that pre-Facebook age.

For many of those years, I was unmarried and still in school. But when the band retired, I more or less retired as well, though it wasn't necessarily a conscious decision. 2005 was a year of big change: I was hired to a full-time "permanent" position at the daily newspaper in town, and my first daughter was born later in the year.

Of course over the years, my responsibilities have only increased. I do hope/intend to update PRMW, and it does still draw traffic, though nothing at all like it did in its heyday. The forums are mostly quiet, but there are sporadic posts.

As folks noted, there are simply other priorities these days. For the last year, the big thing has been dealing with the aftermath of the tornado that whacked our house last April. Thankfully that saga is nearly at an end. The contractor came back to the house today, in fact, tying up some of the loose ends. The next big project is landscaping and trying to get some good grass down.

Anyway, I am glad that during its run the site blessed a lot of folks, and I'm flattered people are still interested in it. I wish I had the time and energy to run it the way I did before. For now, I don't. But never count me out...

--Josh

Well, it's good to hear you are still out there and that you still have interest (time allowing) in bringing the site up to date. But I'm a family man myself and understand how that plus a career can take up most of your time. Thank you for all the years you dedicated to making PRMW the premiere Petra fan site. I think that's just the reason I missed it.

Hey Josh, miss ya man.