New Post: blog upgrade & existing entries

I have been getting errors in the server log like the ones included below so it was recommended that I upgrade to the latest blog version.

In other posts here it's suggested to uninstall the blog before upgrading to the latest package.

I've customized the blog by adding "categories" in addition to the tags and added new xslt functions and modified the existing ones. I'm sure I can handle reincorporating the changes to the datatypes, BlogFacade, and the xslt fns, but I'm worried about the existing entries I have.

Is there a way to retain those entries when upgrading? Or is there any recommendation for a method to back them up and re-load them once my customizations are back in place?

Thanks for your help!


blog v1.7.12 error sample:

    2/17/2013 1:47 PM
    
      System.ObjectDisposedException: Cannot access a disposed object.
Object name: 'TheadDataManagerData'.
   at Composite.Core.Threading.ThreadDataManagerData.CheckNotDisposed()
   at Composite.Core.Instrumentation.Profiler.Measure(String name)
   at Composite.Functions.FunctionRuntimeTreeNode.GetValue(FunctionContextContainer contextContainer)
    
    DataFacade | INNER
    Error
  
  
     
    2/17/2013 1:47 PM
    
      System.InvalidOperationException: Failed to get value for function 'Composite.Utils.Guid.NewGuid' 
   at Composite.Functions.FunctionRuntimeTreeNode.GetValue(FunctionContextContainer contextContainer)
   at Composite.Data.FunctionBasedNewInstanceDefaultFieldValueAttribute.GetValue()
   at Composite.Data.DataFacadeImpl.SetNewInstancaFieldDefaultValues(IData data)
    
    DataFacade
    Error
  
  
     
    2/17/2013 1:47 PM
    
      Failed to set the standard value on the property 'Id' on the interface 'Composite.Community.Blog.Entries'
    
    DataFacade
    Error