The Crooked Path Transferring A Blog

When I woke up very early Saturday (15th) morning after very few hours of sleep, I hear the pounding rain on the roof and the trees outside my bedroom window blowing hard enough I could hear the wind. It doesn't matter to the hounds who are dead to the world at 5am. It did matter to me because I had another of those "few hours of sleep" the day before and the day before that.

With open eyes it felt like a hangover from 40 years ago. It was that bad as I staggered to the coffee machine, stepping on that hard, shocking Nylabone that Stella had left right in the middle of my path. With no shoes, or socks on .. that bone sent shock waves from my foot to my brain ... the yell I let out was one word.

I knew from the 70's and the Biorhythm fad, I might be starting what they called a 'critical day' .... no doubt it was.

Where should I begin.

Last Sunday, the 9th, I decided I would do my main blogging on this blog, something I started in November 2017. Every thing went smoothly, no issues and I knew it would take a lot of data and time to get where I wanted the blog to be.

I knew with the free Wordpress .com site there were be a few advertisements. Perfectly okay since Wordpress needs to make some cash off those advertising clicks so I can have the free server, templates etc they provide me. Even trade off in my mind.

What I did not know was that the amount of advertisements were much more than I remember or expected. Plus it was starting to bother me personally a little as I would look at different blog themes and that one advertisement on the top of the page was in the way of the top of my blog ... when I looked at my blog on my iPhone. Or the ones at the bottom.

The shocker came yesterday ... I wanted to check the new blog theme I had moved to while logged out of my Wordpress account so I can see what the advertisements looked like from YOUR point of view.

I think what I said outloud was staring with the world 'Holy' ... I lost consciousness after that.  (joke) Later my friend told me "I didn't want to tell you this but ....."

I was seeing advertisements plastered on my post about every two paragraphs. I grab my iPad Mini for a bigger view ... same thing. I instantly thought, if I were a reader of my blog I'd never come back ... I'm not an 'ad' man, I don't even like billboards mounted along the side of the road ....

I knew the fix, the solution.

I stated in the past few weeks I deleted or stopped buying domain names a couple of years ago, unless I was generating income off the blog. That would be either through advertising or affiliate links. BUT, if I would buy the Wordpress Premium Plan, all of those advertisements would vanish.

As they should be as you read this or if you opened my blog sometime after 7am on Saturday. That is not where all the frustration was. The blog highway was not a straight flat 100mph highway across Nevada ... no, the path on getting this blog moved to a domain name that I bought was hilly, mountainous, curvy, narrow, wide, fast and slow.

I ended up going a 100mph during the week to the 6th car back, following a slower than slow tractor and combine on a fall day and nowhere to pass them. Not even one car at a time.

My unlimited phone minutes were soaked up with conversations with GoDaddy Techies last night and first thing this morning.

A blogging friend was helping me. The problem was our emails were crossing paths with gaps in between. They are busy and away from the computer while I was wanting to get all of this done. I knew the process ... or I thought I did. It's simple and easy to do. Especially with the "1-Click" concept of transferring blogs or getting new domain names to match.

I found out in the fast paced life of high tech that if you have not done something like this since February 2016, a few months shy of THREE YEARS ... you are WAY BEHIND the new way of doing things. I found this out Friday night about midnight as I straighten my ballcap with the team name "Frustrated" on the front.

What I thought would take less than an hour to do around 9pm Friday night, based on personal experience, I did not sort things out to a final solution until Saturday morning after receiving a GoDaddy refund at 9:40 am.

The problem was I received a helpful email from my friend AFTER I had done the damage.

The first step was to buy a domain name, I headed over to GoDaddy, whom I had worked with since 2005.  Simple purchase, we were good to go. I go back to Wordpress and become confused looking at their Premium Plan and the email Wordpress had sent me that same day 'suggesting' I move my blog to the Premium Plan.

Why wouldn't that move result in my Wordpress .com blog data, photos etc moving to Wordpress .org. It had always been that way before years ago. The lack of sleep the previous three nights started to play a role. I forgot the process I did in January 2016, when I bought five domain names at GoDaddy and a hosting service at DreamHost, used their "1-Click" transfer that worked flawlessly ... five different Wordpress blogs were up and running soon after.

THAT is what I thought was going to happen at 9pm Friday night.

While talking to the GoDaddy rep to fix the billing in the shopping cart to reflect the discounts they advertised, I still kept thinking why was the Wordpress Premium Plan in my way of the simple act of changing the DNS Nameservers in my GoDaddy account so my new domain name would point to and work with this blog?????????

It's wasn't that way from 2005 to what I remember in 2016.

But damn Steve!!!! That was almost THREE YEARS ago ... things change!!!

Sitting here Saturday morning at 5:13am I understood it perfectly. I'll go on.

I read all the instructions from both sides, Wordpress and GoDaddy. For a cheaper price and a few less Gb's of storage I bought GoDaddy's 'Basic Managed Wordpress Website Plan'. It should be simple as they also had the "1-Click" transfer.

Strangely I was warned soon in the process after telling them my blog url, user name and password, etc ... something along the lines of it cannot 1-Click transfer a blog that comes from Wordpress .com .... DUH????? Where did they think that all of the millions of blogs were coming from to do this transfer?

I call the GD Techies ... no ... not goddamn ... godaddy.

He thought it was strange it wasn't working so we'll tried something else. We are getting close to midnight and I am past my 'planned' bedtime. We go to the 2nd option, follow the instructions .... Blank screen ... nothing to choose from. He sees the same thing on his computer out in Arizona while I sit here in BumF*** Egypt, Indiana.

He forced fed my computer the screen I needed. I sneak through the bushes, down the alley's of the internet ozone and step into the Wordpress WP-Admin site. Things look familiar ... and ALL the files are not there ... THEY THINK ... that I will enjoy starting from scratch even with the same exact theme I have now right in front of me.

I'm not doing all that shit to transfer a blog just to get away from advertising. It's 12:45am ... but I am too tired to be pissed. I'll try one more thing before I scream "Uncle - I Give UP !!!"

I go to Wordpress, look through their instructions for mating a domain name from GoDaddy to my Wordpress .com blog.

Step 1 ---- tells me for the millionth time I HAVE to buy the Wordpress Premium Plan

Step 2 --- shows me the DNS Server Names I need and cannot get unless I BUY that plan in Step 1. All three of them are in front of my eyes. NS1, NS2 and NS3 ... just like "the old days"

After a pee break at 1am and constantly mumbling to myself while I hear a snoring bloodhound off in the distance ... I decide screw it, I'm going to bed.

Oh ... this story gets better.

Still with me??

Saturday morning before sunrise I think to myself "this is going to be easy" .... I'll go into Wordpress and export my photo file and my blog data file to my hard drive. Then go to GoDaddy's version and import those files into my blog that would show up in the GoDaddy Basic Management Wordpress Website Plan.

Simple stuff.

NOPE .. not so quick ... go get your cup of coffee, I tell myself.

There is a maximum of 33Mb to import a  file I want to upload. My small blog that just started is only 550Mb. Yes you see that right .... 33Mb ... who has a blog data file that small ???????

But I'm game ... let's continue on.

I call my old friends at GoDaddy Tech Serives  -- BTW GoDaddy has FANTASTIC phone customer service and have since I started with them in 2005. I am very serious when I say that.

He asks me to look to see of the exported file is a .xml file ---- Of Course, It's NOT! He doesn't know about the photo download. EVEN BEFORE this call I was finished with the Wordpress Management Plan ... I was going to get a refund because to me it was always the "1-Click" plan or nothing at all.

I wasn't going to do the the hard options from "the old days" when the fastest easiest option was anywhere on planet Earth. No way!!

No problemo.  He understood and if he didn't work at GoDaddy he would have agreed with me. He did go ahead and email me a few articles that would instruct me how to do the hard options. Before I even opened those articles I had already bought the Wordpress Premium Plan, got rid of the advertising, and let me readers know that later on I would be changing the blog domain name from bhoulds3blog.wordpress.com to houndsandotherstuff.com ... a little more professional look in the address bar and still get all the features of the Premium Plan.

Besides I had already bought the domain name like I thought I had to. My friends email had not been received yet answering a question I had.

To end this long rambling verbiage ... I called GoDaddy  and had them cancel their plan for a refund, then headed back to look at all the new customizing things at my fingertips that I did not have 24 hours ago.

The pictures I included today were taken early Saturday morning. They proved to Stella that all walks today were cancelled until further notice or drier ground, whichever comes first. No worries for those wondering ... her first trip outside this morning in the dark she ran out into the field under heavy rain and dumped her tanks.

She hates rain and getting wet. If she could have licked her back to dry herself off, she would have. Instead I towel dried her off.

How do I know she was out in the rain while it was still dark?

I had to wait for her to show up at the door to feed her instead of her waiting on me to open the door for her. Plus .... she doesn't whine as loud as she did when I woke up a little before 5am to start my day.

Oh the photos ... just proves it's been raining harder than normal with another inch on the way.
Perfect weather to 'veg out' in front of a computer until basketball starts or I need to be fed.

Wet times Saturday in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.