Our newspaper chain’s “content management system” was offline Thursday, and virtually offline Wednesday, which made producing the last two issues a challenge. It doesn’t seem to be back up today.

I had an items column more than half-written prior to all that, but I couldn’t access it, nor did I think I could recreate it from memory and scattered notes. Thus, no column today. It was all the editors could do to get a newspaper out, so my column’s absence wasn’t an issue. An editor managed to infiltrate the system and retrieve that column yesterday afternoon, after my deadline, as well as my draft of Sunday’s column, and emailed them to me.

It’s enough to make you wonder if we wouldn’t be better off returning to the typewriter era, when all reporters had to worry about was typewriter ribbons and correction fluid. (And their livers and lungs.)

I busied myself Wednesday writing blog posts ahead, and on Thursday by writing items on my desktop and replying to emails. In a way, I’m now a little ahead for a change, even though in another way I feel behind.

So, sorry for missing a day, and cross your fingers for Sunday’s column.