Where have I Been?

Where have I been for the last two months? Packing. Moving.

I got my house and we closed at the end of January. February 2008 in Iowa has been one snow or ice storm after another. We've had blizzards, freezing rain, and more. Let's just say I've been feeling a little persecuted by the "powers that be" lately.

I moved furniture on February 5 - the day of a predicted snowstorm. The good news is that most of the day it rained so I beat the storm and got moved. I spent the 6th sitting in my new home watching the snow blow outside.

I figured, well that's the worst of it. Wrong. I had to be out of my rental house by February 29th so I had to finish moving and cleaning this week. Monday, February 25th was an all day marathon. Guess what the weather forecast was? 60 degrees and sunny? Guess again. Another snowstorm. Again, rain first then snow. It took ALL day to move. If not for the help of my friends Robin, Brad, Cara and Deana (and those people they brought along to help) I would not have gotten done. This has been the week from hell.

Monday - I fell twice in the snow. Fortunately, the falls weren't too bad. Happily we got done. I can barely move in my basement but most of the stuff got moved. Then Robin and I were set to move some leftovers from the basement and clean.

Wednesday I fell...again. This was not an "easy" fall. I was carrying a box down the front steps of the old house (cement steps) and fell...hard. When I landed I wasn't sure I was getting up. In fact I was wondering if a call to 911 was merited. A trip to the emergency room revealed no broken bones, but I was told to go home and elevate my leg and ice my knee. Since I could barely walk, that's what I did. A twisted knee hurts. Believe me.

Thursday - nope - no more falling. A little snow - but not bad. I spent most of the day sitting, but I was able to go over to do a little cleaning. I moved slowly and carefully.

Friday - YES! We got done. Warm temps. Sunny. And we got done with the cleaning and the moving then I turned in my keys. I am now all moved. Now comes the fun task of going through decades of accumulated stuff so that I have more than a narrow path through my basement again. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Software Upgrade? New blog location!!!

I can hear you asking, why are you on blogger instead of your old location? You had a perfectly good location before! In two words?

Software Upgrade…

Didn’t blogger recently have a new upgrade to their systems? Yup. I logged in, created a google account with an existing e-mail address I had, then the software did the upgrade. No fuss, no muss. I like those kinds of upgrades.

My old blog was maintained with WordPress. I like WordPress, you can do some cool stuff with it. However, they recently instituted a system upgrade. Now I could stay at the old version indefinitely, but then I wouldn't get new capabilities and possible bug fixes. So I checked out the upgrade instructions.

First do a backup. Now this is always good advice, but I haven’t done this kind of backup in years. I’m not a technology librarian for a reason! So I get the backup done - I think. Then I read further. Go to the FTP server and locate such and such a directory. Delete these named files (which I’m not gonna name here) then upload these other files.

Huh?

Now, I may have been a technogeek back in the late 80s/early 90s. I could scoot around MS-DOS like Harry Potter can fly a broom, but it’s been years! And years… And years…. You get the picture.

I looked at my blog. It was pitifully short. I didn’t have tons of entries to transfer. However if I stayed there too much longer, I would. I already use blogger as a public services librarian. My library has a blog (which I created - tooting my own horn here). I know how to use blogger and damn it’s simple. Not only that, but it looks good. The designs are somewhat limited, but manageable. So I switched.

However, I didn’t want to abandon my other blog entirely in case someone had bookmarked the location. (If you did, thank you). I left a redirect. A compass for the directionally challenged (of which I am one). Yes, the directionally challenged is learning to fly a plane. I have a VERY brave flight instructor.

For the record, I didn’t disappear in a flash of smoke. I was not carried off by an alpha male, no matter how much I might want to be. No, I just moved. Blogger is my new home. Visit me here often. Make comments. Have conversations. It’ll be great.

P.S. If you’ve taken the time to comment on my other blog, I want to thank you. I haven’t figured out how to port comments to the new blog. But if I could figure it out, I would do it. If anyone knows how - please post instructions. Remember... Short simple sentences non-technogeeks can understand.