I just wanted to share a few quick updates before getting back to work. It seems this site has reached a critical mass of readers. That fact has its positive and negative points which I would like to address a bit here.

The positive side is that there are a lot of readers out there from all over the world who know a lot of things and have been kind enough to offer supplemental information and help us get our facts straight. I would like to urge loyal Pigtails readers who have joined us after November 2012 to take another look at our site and review all the old posts that have now been reinstated from the old site before the shutdown. Pip is now in the process of categorizing them in a logical manner for easy access, but I know with all the new readers out there, there are a lot of updates, corrections and other resources to inform us about. I will do my best to have such useful information published in a timely manner.

The negative side is that there are probably more people gunning for us and as a result, I am seeing some unusual behavior out there. Thankfully, there are others more experienced than I who can help advise us on what may be going on and how to proceed. Also, I am in information overload. Once Pigtails began to gain serious credibility, I have been amazed at the generosity of fans sharing information and images that I had not been aware of, despite my fairly intensive efforts.

Given the unpredictability of our lives, I am going to refrain from making any specific projections about the future and just give you a general sense of what is coming up. I wish I could dedicate all my energies to this site, but that is not practical. Both Ami and RJ have confirmed their interest in continuing to contribute, so we will see more of their work to come. There are still a handful more “Soviet” postcards to publish and I will do them whenever I need a break from some of my more arduous projects. I am currently working on major pieces about Aurelija Čepulinskaitė and Michael Otto. For those unfamiliar with Otto, he has over 80 years experience [My apologies. There was a misunderstanding because of the language barrier.  In fact, he was shooting his subjects during the 1980s.  -Ron] shooting young girls for naturist magazines and has a treasure trove of experiences and images to share. Also, sometime during the year, you can expect about 12 major updates or additions to old posts. I am especially excited about some research I have done on Joseph Cornell and will be doing a supplemental post at some point this year accompanied by some exciting video footage. I am also going to do something about this incredible backlog of information so readers will know better what is in production and what gaps we may have in our knowledge that should “get out there”.

Thank you all again for your wonderful comments and support which help us keep focused when facing the almost endless pile of leads and possibilities. -Ron

PS – I forgot to mention that our security certificate has been operating slowly so it has been temporarily disabled for most operations on Pigtails so that Pip can more quickly complete his classification system without so much hassle.  It seems with the traffic on Pigtails, the system cannot handle the volume of “handshakes” needed to confirm a secure connection and sometimes readers (and we) get a connection error.  You can still access the site using the security protocols if you wish, but you will have to manually enter the “https” address.  Otherwise, the default is the standard protocol.  At some later point, we will consider the options regarding a full security certificate.  Thank you for your patience.