Category: General

Yes, medically and otherwise I am still trying to prepare to move to the Southwest. Now, pretty much have a green light from the medical side. I’m trying to get creative on the actual move, and even on finding a place to live when I get there.

One option I can’t afford to do lump sum is to buy some land, maybe payments though. So, I’ve been keeping an eye on land around the area I’ve narrowed things down to, and have found the price ranges interesting. Right now, anything with even a trailer on it is expensive, while undeveloped land varies wildly.

The other day I found a listing for ten acres at a price that I couldn’t believe. Now, this one was different from the $1 million listing for a 3-Br house, that only after you dug down did you find out that it came with 100 acres of land and was a working ranch. This is just the ten acres, and the price was well below normal. So much so, I want to visit it just to be sure it doesn’t glow in the dark or that I’m going to find Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Arnold Vosloo running around shooting and creating sand storms.

Renting a place for a few months to explore and shop is in many ways the best and smart thing to do. That said, to get out there and get going, nothing is off the table. Maybe find a Bubba Yaga-style trailer, tow it out there, and live in it for a bit. Find something that needs work I can do, and build up. Main thing is, get out there and get started. I really don’t want to deal with another Indiana winter, especially with how good I felt out there when I visited earlier this year.

I’ve about got expenses pared down as much as I can. The one thing I know I will need to do/get is Starlink. Your suffering via reading me must continue.

The search continues. I really need a lump sum to move, but again I’m willing to be creative. Onwards!

*****

If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, feel free to hit the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo. Getting hit by lightning is not fun, and it is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

One more reason to get out of here: been up since about 0330 hours when, once again, shots rang out nearby. To my ear, it sounded like the same gun, same area as last time, but no yelling. Just two shots, then about five more. I swear it sounds more like a .380 (.25?) than a 9mm, but after the lightning strike and the loss of upper frequencies completely in one ear (as well as general loss of hearing in both), both my triangulation abilities and my identification are off. Good thing was a neighbor (Marine) heard it too. Despite his calling it in this time, nothing. Saw cops race by in both directions, but none stopping in our area. I’m working hard on a nest egg to get moved, hope to add more to it soon and get out of here.

*****

If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, feel free to hit the tip jar in the upper right or the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo. Getting hit by lightning is not fun, and it is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

Things have moved fast since all of you helped make it possible to switch hosting providers last week. As I may have mentioned previously, I had actually decided to go with a different provider, but was reminded of why I left them before (major attitude/snottiness and slow/poor service). Instead, there were a number of recommendations for Nexcess that seemed to check out. So, I decided to give them a try.

First up, I will state up front they are pricey. In fact, their basic package was not only higher than the similar package at the people who talked themselves out of my business, but significantly more than similar packages at other peers. That said, more than one review pointed out the amazing service you got from them for that fee. So, I decided to go over-budget and give them a try after talking with them.

The migration from Dreamhost went fairly well overall. For most things, I don’t think I spent more than ten minutes per issue (and there were very few issues) as we moved the site over. The responses were fast, professional, and the net result was that we had a functional site up and running very quickly. Admittedly at one point there was an issue on some WP/database files that took far longer than I expected to resolve as over the weekend the great support went away for a time and I didn’t hear back from them until Monday not near the start of the day. That was disappointing. Before that, my largest complaint was that I wasn’t getting enough feedback on what, if anything, I needed to be doing to help the migration and get things set-up. As it was, the missing files created a behind-the-scenes/under-the-hood issue that in no way impacted the public viewing of the site. On the migration overall: A-.

Steady traffic seems to be handled well. Pretty much as expected from any decent provider. Spike traffic is the issue for me, and one reason I went with them was a guarantee they have regarding resources to handle spikes. Yesterday put that to the test as I got an Instalanche (augmented by a link at Victory Girls and a Twitter link from Leslie Eastman of Legal Insurrection) sooner than anticipated.

Okay, the site did slow down and was down for a minute or two a couple of times in the next few hours. I did not open a trouble ticket immediately as Nexcess seemed to be handling a good bit automatically and I wanted to see how they did. I did eventually open a ticket and this time we were open well beyond ten minutes as they worked to handle the traffic. In fact, there was a pretty good silent gap at one point. I will add this: even when the traffic was handled, they were not happy with the slowness and worked to mitigate it.

Net result: the site was down for a minute or less twice that I know of; the site did bog down badly a couple of times, but bounced back; and, when slowness was detected, Nexcess worked to speed it back up. As a result, more people got through in the first 30 minutes than got through in 24-hours (on average) under Dreamhost. To top it off, a new traffic record was set with app. 3,700 visitors coming in from the referring sites and some 4,300 page views. I’m going to give the response a solid B. It would be a B+ but for one thing and that goes beyond just this incident.

Holy cow these people are into upselling. Anything and everything gets an upsale pitch. I got my first upsale pitches when talking to them about their service and my needs. I’ve gotten upsale pitches pretty much every flippin time I’ve talked to them about anything for any reason. Wondering if it is new because it is NOT mentioned in any of the major reviews (almost all of which seem to be a year or more old at this point, and prices have gone up quite a bit). Given that their prices are already significantly higher than their peers, this is not a good thing from my point of view. In point of fact, it already has me looking around for other options for either now (30-day money back) or when my paid-for year is up.

If it were not for that, I would probably be giving them a solid A at this point instead of a B+/A–. Initial contact and migration, with the one period of silence, was good and fast overall. The response to the link from Insty was solid, and so much better than Dreamhost (which took literally days to resolve tickets) it was/is not funny. Instead of being down hours, the site was down around two minutes total all day.

Oh, a note on Dreamhost: when I told them I would not be renewing my account was terminated immediately, not on the date I was paid to. Nor did they offer to refund any difference. To my mind, once they knew I would not be continuing, I got the big FU. Not that their service was that good to start with, to be polite. Put them on my highly NOT recommended list.

If it weren’t for the upsale, upsale, upsale routine, I would be extremely happy with Nexcess. As it is, if it weren’t for the upsale, upsale, upsale routine I would be giving more consideration to a possible upgrade as I can see some benefits. Just a hint to them, whoever decided that high pressure was the way to go is an idiot and a long-term detriment to the company. It may work in the short term, but it never works out well long-term.

All that said, solid. A huge improvement over Dreamhost. If you decide you are interested in trying them, let me know. Other than the upsale, upsale, upsale thing it’s been a pretty good experience so far. We will see how it goes.

*****

If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, feel free to hit the tip jar in the upper right or the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo. Getting hit by lightning is not fun, and it is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

Okay, maybe this time we are on. 🙂

First up, thank you all! Your kind gifts have just made some really great things happen.

Yes, the monthly bills are covered. Even better, we now have a new host, Nexcess (part of Liquid Web), and so far I am extremely pleased with them. I had actually been looking at a different hosting provider who talked themselves out of the gig. I had used them once before, and was reminded why I left them (snotty responses and slow service). So far, I’ve had extremely good and fast customer service, issues are resolved while I am on with them, and I think the most we have spent working any issue was less than ten minutes. If they can handle the traffic, all is good.

While it ended up costing more, it’s been worth it for the service and the huge increase in speed I’m seeing. I did go over the budget I set, but again appears to be worth it, and I’m paid up for a full year. They have a 30-day guarantee, so let me know of any issues you see, and hopefully we will get an Instalanche in that time to truly test the system.

I’ve put the focus on the blog, and dropped hosting for my photography/professional site. Which has also dropped an e-mail addy, possibly two. Not too worried about that for now, site needed to be re-done anyway. 🙂

I also, thanks to your help, do have the new shoes I so desperately needed. I am walking for exercise and more, and while I hit a personal best of 7.48 miles the other day (best since being hit by lightning), I also had problems of which blisters were the least. So, I went shopping for new shoes. I hit the running store, the zebra store, and more. The running store used the super-scanner and every effort to get e-mail, upgrade, upsell, etc. The zebra store ignored me, and when queried said they didn’t have my brand in stock despite their own site saying they did. The other stores, well, they had limited stock and proud-of-this prices.

Something told me to check out Stout’s southside location (oldest shoe store in America according to them). Walked in, Ally (sp?) looked at my shoes, recognized the model, recognized that there have apparently been some significant upgrades in the four years (I think) since I bought them, asked me about use and other factors, discussed budget, and then measured both feet mechanically. A few moments later, two sets of shoes (one my brand one another) were out, we tried, I stayed with my brand, and stayed within the budget I had set. The difference in the skill level, customer service, and product knowledge was amazing. Highly recommend them. Oh, and if we do need to do extra orthotics to handle where the lightning exited my body through the ball of my foot, they can handle that in several ways, including 3-D printing. Nice. Feels weird having all the support…

And, that is true here too. Thank you so much! You have kept me going in this crazy year plus since getting hit by lightning. Your gifts have kept me afloat financially and are letting me work on trying to get moved. Your prayers have sustained me. Your kind comments and interesting responses have added to the food for thought here nicely. I can’t say thank you enough, and right now pushing to get some cushion to put towards moving. The problem is just getting enough at one time and in one place to get me out there. Working on it, and looking at ways to get creative so as to sidestep some issues and get on with it.

Thank you so much! Sound off if you see any hosting issues, and do sound off if you see speed and other improvements. Good with the bad. Now, to write something worthy of a link at Instapundit and see how they handle that. 🙂

Onwards!

*****

If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, feel free to hit the tip jar in the upper right or the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo. Getting hit by lightning is not fun, and it is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

The other day, I posted a plea for assistance, and I want to say thanks to all who responded! Today, I have a brag and a minor update to that article.

The brag is simple: Saturday saw me take a 7.48 mile walk, a personal best since I got hit by lightning. Really enjoyed getting out, stretching the legs, and pushing the cardiac recovery. Glad I did it when I did, as it has been a bit soggy since then.

Which is letting the feet feel better. Definitely moving shoes up the priority list, as Saturday’s walk left me not only tired and sore, but with blisters on my feet. Knew they needed replacement, but didn’t realize how bad they had gotten. Can’t complain, got 3+ years out of them of almost constant wear. Just hope the next pair don’t cost too much more and will last about the same.

Any serious posting may be delayed until this afternoon at the earliest. I’m scrambling on several fronts, not including bills and other delights.

The other delights. Well, they are interesting. I rent a room in an older home. In fact, when my landlord bought the home I was asked if I wanted to move with him to the new place. I did, though I really wasn’t thrilled with the location but it is larger, inexpensive, and overall the landlord and I get along okay. Perfect, no. Good enough, yes.

However, I mentioned older. As in we discovered that the sewer drains were original terra cotta. That the relative he bought from had done a lot of “repair and upgrade” work themselves. I will simply note that even if buying from family getting a reputable inspector to look the place over is a good idea. We’ve had flooding issues in the basement where my room is located because of the drain issues. Thankfully it only got into my room once, but that was once too many in my book. Replacing the line out to the property line was pricey, but along with an emergency sump pump strategically placed (outside) to handle rain/flooding we’ve not flooded since.

Monday saw flash flood warnings in the area and the weather was indeed interesting. Since then, we’ve had kitchen sink drain issues that may or may not be related. The long-needed sealing/resurfacing of the driveway is underway. There are some other minor things going on as well. As in I’m having to make some hard decisions on a couple of different issues. One of which involves social security in light of some of the ongoing issues from being hit by lightning. I will admit to being very pleasantly surprised at how nice and friendly the lady at social security I spoke to was during our talk. One of her suggestions truly surprised me, as it was not what I expected. The good plumber my landlord found will be out today to work on the drains.

And before I forget, there has been concrete work done (much needed) on an exposed porch and some other repair work as well. All in all an interesting week that has us parking all over the neighborhood (can’t use the driveway until Saturday or Sunday) and other delights. Also, I really need to go take a good walk today while the weather is nice. In fact, may take a long walk as I’m not getting enough exercise thanks to the weather, and I can’t afford the gas to go walk at a mall.

So, more soon. Just not sure how soon.

UPDATE: This is likely it today. Went on my walk and decided to explore a trail I’ve not been down before. One thing I will give Indy (and it pre-dates the current admin FYI) is that there are a lot of urban trails that follow old railroad lines. Instead of my normal 3+ mile walk, I ended up doing between 7-8 miles (forgot to cut on my walking map app until halfway through). I feel good, though body is letting me know I have not been doing this enough lately.

*****

If you would like to help me in my recovery efforts, feel free to hit the tip jar in the upper right or the fundraiser at A New Life on GiveSendGo. Getting hit by lightning is not fun, and it is thanks to your gifts and prayers that I am still going. Thank you.

Sorry, but am still not feeling great. More soon, promise.