So you thought I couldn't talk about history in a VHL plus vacation context? Think again. Since joining the VHL in April 2009, I have 81 different photo albums on my computer which means at least that many vacations (I think there's been a few more with no pictures). I can't think of any which were outright disasters and have fond memories of most, but how many can I tie into something happening in the VHL?
The Original Site Dies – August 2011
“Dies” is probably a slight exaggeration, that old invisionfree work of art survived for many years more, but in the fateful summer of 2011, our 4-year-old league reached the limit of allowed new threads on a basic invisionfree forum. Clearly its makers did not anticipate one of its forums lasting that long with that much activity. Here it is at the twilight of its glory: https://web.archive.org/web/20110511002839/http://forum.vhlsim.com:80/
We got our posting powers back soon enough although probably a bit later than what could be construed as good service/maintenance. But the damage was done, so we somehow stumbled across the S23 regular season finish line and swapped to a brand new experimental site which was very buggy and then got DDOSd in 2013. RIP.
Anyway, how is this relevant for the topic of vacations? Well I actually missed most of this carnage. Back in the day I went on these long summer holidays back home to Latvia and stayed out of town at my grandparents' place which meant no computer access. This was also 2011 so I didn't have a phone either, although I'm not sure that part of the country had any wifi regardless. Therefore I spent the entirety of the VHL meltdown in blissful ignorance, coming back to a post-apocalyptic world where everyone gathered in one thread in announcements as you couldn't create new posts, and living off free TPE for a weeks. The move to the new site was quite exciting though, featuring new logos and an exciting off-season... although regrettably I ended up on Vasteras.
The Time I Made The VHL Draft Location My Holiday Destination – July 2011
This article is no longer in chronological order because I came up with this one while writing the one above. Just before I went away into the Latvian abyss in 2011, I had actually gone on a family vacation to the south of Italy, Amalfi coast, Pompeii, the whole shabang. Back in this time there are two bits I need to explain to any younger readers:
We had draft threads
On the first VHL site, these draft threads had a topic name and a “subtopic name” because of home invisionfree operated. So you could add stuff like the location of the draft which is a cool feature
You can still see leftovers from that in old draft threads: (apparently not as I tried like half of the first 20 seasons)
But for a better version here's an even earlier snippet from the archives: https://web.archive.org/web/20080605074030/http://z11.invisionfree.com/vhl/index.php?showforum=28
By this time (circa S21), the draft locations had lost all touch with the VHL reality, having previously been the locations of VHL franchises. Now commissioner David Knight was putting them all over the place, in Jamaica, Africa, loads of exotic locations. So as I was setting up the (I believe) S23 draft , I set the name to Maiori, Italy which is where I was going and promptly jetted off for the off-season. A simpler time for sure.
I was going to a third section about the time Greg Clegane hit FA but everyone else decided to sign in Calgary who had a goalie while I was on a beach somewhere in Spain, but I guess that's a story for a different time.
Happy virtual vacation VHL, may we all go somewhere nice soon.
.png.ed69a7260a477fcf4feead7a0e4b7506.png)
