It ain’t easy bein’ gone.

Yes, PRS was offline for almost a week.  To be a bit more specific, the site down, as in, The White-Screens-No-One-Reads Down.  That stinks, but at least everyone knows there is something wrong.  (I’d like to thank the Legion of Peeps three of four folks who write to ask me what’s up.)  Shortly after the site went down, I put on my Sorry-Ass – Techno-doofus-begging hat and wrote to Craig asking if he had any idea what was going on.

Given that nothing was awry with his site, he initially figured that it was probably just another day over at the madcap Laughing Academy hosting company.  After the problem persisted for a bit longer, Craig sent me a short e-mail suggesting that I go over to the Domain Guys and change the names of the servers from one mix of letters, dots and numbers to another mix of letters, dots and numbers.

Wanting to feel my techno oats, armed with my new mix of letters, dots and numbers, I dug out my customer number and password to the Domain Guys site.  When I arrived there, I spent a late-night hour searching around for someplace where I could insert my new mixes of letters, dots and numbers.  No dice.

I had hit techno-rock-bottom.  Yo, Jimbo.  The guy took the time to tell you where to go and what to do, and you still can’t get it done.  Hell, Jimbo, when it comes to cyber-stuff, you’d make a steaming pile of horseshit seem brilliant.”

The next day, I returned to the Domain Guys and, with unbridled fury, I searched around until I found the place that was ripe for the insertion of my magic mix of letters, dots and numbers.

I plugged them in and hit “save”.  Bravo!!  Fat City!!  Hell, I even got an one of those e-mails from the magic person who sends those things telling me that I had successfully inserted the new mix of letters, dots and numbers.

The site appeared!  ”Jimbo, you’re a regular Bill Farookin’ Gates.”  Sure, the comments didn’t work yet, but the Magic Domain Guy’s e-mail said that it could take 48 hours for things to take hold.  One of my favorite bloggers openly rejoiced at the reappearance of the site.  My rejoicing ceased when I realized that I couldn’t get to the magic place where I write the stuff that even more magically appears here.  This was even more frustrating than seeing the The White-Screen-No-One-Reads, because the site in its pitiful non-updated state was there for everyone to see, leaving the few stalwarts who stopped by to wonder whether I had packed it in, caught a case of the epizoodic, or, worse yet, thrown the sixes.

About then I was reminded of an old episode from one of those black and white TV shows such as The Twilight Zone or One Step Beyond.  Specifically, I recalled the episode in which the main character, played by Joseph Cotton, was in a car wreck, and when he was pulled from the wreck he had no apparent vital signs, and everyone assumed he was dead.

Of course, he was very much alive, but he couldn’t move – not even an eye blink. And, he couldn’t speak.  (Remember, this was fiction.)  The TV viewer could hear the people speaking around Cotton, and could hear Cotton’s thoughts becoming ever more panicky as those around him were talking about him as if he were a corpse.  The viewer could hear his thoughts, ”No, no, no!  I’m alive!  Can’t you see that I’m alive!  I just can’t speak, dammit.” Finally, when they were about to prepare his ass for burial, someone noticed a tear forming in his eye, which resulted in him being descended upon by doctors and his being saved from being buried alive.

I never got around to weeping over my online paralysis and my cyber-inflicted silence, but I still felt a little like that guy.

So, last night I heard from Craig.  It seems he had the unmitigated Moxie to be out of town for ten days making a living, when he damned well should have been sitting by his computer to take care of my pissy problems.

As you now know, he had to convert the site to WordPress.  Wanna know why?

It was because my site was literally spammed to death.  The truckloads of spam I was receiving triggered all the Movable Type spam zapping shields (a technical term), which showed up on the radar of the Merry Men at the Hosting Company.  Accordingly, in a display of their boundless customer friendliness, they flipped the switch on the site.  I figure if the hosting business craters, these guys have a future in used car sales.

So, in order to bail my sorry, spam-busted ass out of a jam, Craig broke his ass (and is still breaking his ass) to switch PRS to WordPress.  Now, all I have to do is figure WordPress out.  For all you geeks out there, going from Movable Type to WordPress would be like changing shoes, but for me this is like being dropped into the middle of Moscow and trying to find the shithouse.

It ought to be quite an adventure.  Stay tuned.

I can’t thank Craig enough for his infinite patience and friendship.  By now, I owe him a truckload of beer.

I’m going to be presumptuous and hijack Jim’s blog for a moment.

Of necessity, I’ve converted PRS from Movable Type to WordPress, and it seems to be about 95% back to normal. Of course, we’ll be finding glitches as we go. Please let us know if something doesn’t look/act/feel right.

If you are reading via RSS, you’ll have to readjust the URL for the feed.
The finishing touches need to be put on the sidebar, including the resurrection of Mr. Blogroll, as well as a few other items. Everything else seems to be hunky-dory.

I’ll let Jim fill you in on the gory details. It’ll be far funnier if he tells it, trust me.