Category Archives: Website News

Historic Highway 99 Association of California

After doing a bit more research and speaking with other groups, I have decided to move forward with my plan to create a new Highway 99 group. This will be a great opportunity to be more active in helping revive US 99 as well as historic businesses along the route. Some of the goals include historic route signage, events, tours, and public outreach.

I will be submitting the paperwork for incorporating the association next week as a California Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation. Once the documents are accepted and certified, I will begin the process to obtain tax-exempt status from the IRS and California FTB. This process may take a while.

A new website has also been created for the association at Historic99.Org. The site will be updated as this progresses. If you want to get involved, please head on over! Keep in mind that, until tax-exempt status is obtained, no monetary donations will be taken. In the interim, all are welcome to subscribe to the website.

A request for Visitors

I know this is a bit of a different post, but I am asking for a bit of help with the website. As this site has been up for a long time (25 years now), it has gone through many changes. In the late 1990’s, I had to shrink the size of the site, which resulted in images being cropped or otherwise made smaller. Some of those images persist today. Other times, full size images didn’t quite move over as I had hoped when I changed formats or framework for the site. What I ask is this – If you find an image / map / whatever that when clicked on is still small, please let me know! Include a link to the image and the page it is on, so that I can track it down and correct it. I would like to have full size images, when possible, as they may help illustrate what I was trying to show a lot easier. I have most of the original images in their original size, so it won’t be tough to do.

Contact Information

New Page – Fire Resources

With all the fires going on, it is important to get your information from the right sources. I’ve found that going to the agencies actively involved is the best option. A new page of resources for fire information regarding mapping and fire departments has been added to this site. The new page can be found under the Civic Information menu. If you know of other pages that should be added, please let me know!

Southern California Fire Resources

New Instagram Account

So far, my foray into social media has been just Twitter. I have used the account, partly as a means to promote the site, but also as a means to help distribute information regarding highway projects, wildfires, earthquakes, and a lot more. So far, it has been working well and has come in very handy during some events, such as the Ridgecrest earthquakes and the recent fires.

As an extension of the Twitter account, I’ve also been experimenting with a new Instagram account. I figured, why not? There are a lot of interesting photos on there from Caltrans, USGS, and other sites of interest. The account is not a personal one, per se, as it focuses on this site and what it covers. I’ve been posting some images there of varying interest. Come check it out!

https://www.instagram.com/michaelfballard/

Site Problems – Corrected for now

Well, it looks like my site was at least partially hacked this morning. As a result, the site was down for an extended period. There hasn’t been any loss of data, but it was quite annoying to deal with. I have also taken additional measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again, so hopefully it doesn’t.