Changing web hosts is hard to do

Isn't that an old song title? Anyway, just needed to vent about the terrible customer service I've been receiving from aplus.com. They've hosted my www.statonr.org site (and personal e-mail) for well over a decade, but this year when the autorenew messages started arriving, I began wondering why I was still paying them twice what godaddy would charge. Checked their site and they had lowered their prices to be more competitive--except it appeared that they were going to keep charging "legacy" customers like me the same old rate: double! So I e-mailed their billing department and asked them to confirm what my rate would be. When they did not respond in 24 hours as promised, I e-mailed them again. After a couple more days without a response, I decided that was it and I was switching to godaddy. E-mailed aplus technical support for an authorization code to switch the domain. Two days later, I finally got a response telling me to e-mail or call their DNS department. What? Does one department there not even speak to another? Finally I called and got the auth code, but now I'm still stuck because I don't know how to "accept" the transfer and have to wait five days.. Meanwhile, aplus billed me for another year of domain registration. Of course I e-mail billing again, and have gotten no response, which shouldn't surprise me since they haven't responded to the first e-mails sent over a week ago.

Aplus has the worst customer service I've ever encountered. I should have left them years ago!

The Good Life

As difficult as technology can be, I have to admit that for the most part these computers work pretty well on my behalf these days. Business at PC Liferaft is good, the job at UTC is smoothing out as I adapt to its boundaries, and despite weeks of rainy weather I can see clear skies ahead.

Doggone Flash driving me nuts.

Thought I had my little Flash intro playing nicely on the PC Liferaft website, and then it started getting weird on me, working sometimes, not others. Had to take out some cool code I had snagged that paused the timeline, and that fixed most of the issues, but there's still something wrong with the swobject.js (I'm guessing) that won't allow Firefox to play my little video. It works in I.E. and Chrome.

No time left to struggle with it tonight!

PC Liferaft is the new thing

First I was too busy fixing computers to work on the website. Then I was busy working on the website but broke because there were no computers to fix. Now, on the advice of my spouse, I am officially announcing the birth of www.pcliferaft.com. I still want to do a lot of work on the site to make it look prettier, but I suppose it's good enough for tonight.

To be honest, the humble venture known as pcLiferaft LLC is the most exciting thing I've done since we got back from our cruise. As a small business owner (ahem!), I now have a new perspective on big government, bailouts, and taxes! I'm happy to pay them, of course! (applause from crowd.) But seriously, folks, it costs a bit to set up a new business, so when you encounter people with broken computers, send 'em my way. We'll fix 'em and keep 'em smiling, as they used to say.

The New Thing

The new thing is a computer repair business, to be called PC Liferaft. We now have an address (711 Mountain Creek Road #151, Chattanooga, TN 37405) and a phone number (423-208-9695). There are lots of forms to be filed with the state, county, and city. There is an entire website to be built, with information yet to be decided upon, policies and prices to be dtermined. There will be business license fees, sales taxes, excise taxes, and more taxes to be paid to every possible arm of government.

But as the saying goes, nothing difficult is ever easily accomplished.

Surrounded by Rhus Radicans!

Brady and I made another hot but pleasantly philosophical hike today, this time up the Whiteside Road trail on Lookout, starting from Ochs Highway just above St. Elmo. The Whiteside trail follows an old roadbed dating back to the 1850's. Above the picnic area on Sanders Road, we reached our objective: the "billboard rock," which advertised the hotel at the top of the mountain to weary travelers. The black paint was still there, but mostly covered by moss. Fifteen years ago I knew what the words were, but I couldn't remember even with the clues there in front of me.

After scouting the rock for climbing possibilities, Brady continued up the old road, which was now parallel to Scenic Highway. The poison ivy, which had been bad, got worse. I was in shorts and running shoes, legs bare, picking my way along. All at once I reached the end: blocked by poison ahead. Behind me, the poison had closed the gap, and seemed to be creeping in from the sides as well even as I stood there, frozen like a man on ledge. Trapped! I imagined I could feel the deadly urushiol oil in the air...did I dare even to breathe?

I have a theory that rubbing alcohol will keep the urushiol from binding with the skin. Once it binds, my body's t-cells will mistake it for a toxic invader, and the allergic reaction will run wild.

Did my skin touch the ivy? Will the drinking water I poured over my legs wash away the oil? Will the rubbing alcohol used at the truck prevent binding? Stay tuned! We'll know in about 24 hours.

Pleasant Hiking

And now for something completely different. No, I shall NOT spend my time here blubbering about my lack of a meaningful job, speaking of which....

Ahem. Today I hiked the 3.5 mile Point Pot Loop in the Tennessee River Gorge with my friend Brady, and it was a very interesting walk. The trail allegedly climbs 1,000 feet from the Tennessee River to Laurel Point, but Brady and I doubt that figure. It was an easy climb for the most part, leading to a wonderful rock city with the real bluffs still above us. A nice winter day when the poison ivy, serpents, and spiders were all gone would be a great time to visit this spot, and perhaps to scale the rest of the mountain, but today we headed down the jeep road that provided the descent back to the river. It was a long walk through the thick woods and weeds to the Point Pot House, where had begun, with memorable stretches of mud and waist-high weeds. Again, winter might be the time to visit.

We washed the mud (and any chiggers, I hope!) in a handy stream before speeding off into the sunset.