I like to send you amusing stories about lessons I’ve learned as I make my way, but frankly I haven’t had much in the way of sage realizations recently. It’s mostly been curiously interesting explorations into social media and nightmarish tech problems.

You probably know that I am drawn to the the mysteries of the web and have been barely understanding but falling down its rabbit holes since I accidentally learned rudimentary html in 1994. Over time I’ve learned that while it may give me satisfaction now and then to futz with websites, I’m not particularly skilled at it and it’s not a good use of my time. I had made a decision recently to get outta the website business, but to paraphrase Michael Corleone they pull me back in. 

Over the past month or so strange and horrible issues started happening to my hobby sites. I spent hours trying to determine the source of the problems, then more time trying to hire someone to take it over for me. The tech support people I turned to were disappointing. I finally found a solution to one issue and somehow in the process managed to delete my main professional website and all of its backups. 

I was in shock so I never actually felt the full extent of how awful that was. Meanwhile I did manage to find a 2-year-old copy of the site so I was able to restore that and reconstruct from there instead of build it again from scratch.

I’m still shaking my head as to why this is happening. And it’s not over yet. Some of the ways I rebuilt the site were sub-optimal and it’s running poorly. I can’t tell what part is my error and what is GoDaddy’s. I will most likely switch hosting providers but that again would take a big chunk of my time and energy when I wanted to be done with it. Oy.

On the other hand, I’ve been having a surprising amount of fun on Clubhouse, the drop-in audio chat app. I first became interested in January when I heard about this invitation-only app and wanted to be in with the in-crowd. It seemed a strange fit for me because I’m not only introverted but also feel shy about speaking extemporaneously. I’m more comfortable in writing or with a script. But it drew me in.

Fortunately I could spend the time to learn my way around. There are a number of sessions dedicated to helping newcomers feel comfortable. There are also discussions on subjects I’m interested in, particularly podcasting. I’ve been getting lots of good advice on how to improve my sound and increase my audience. 

I’m also networking in a wonderfully painless way. I can sit on my couch in my sweats with my Covid haircut and share my insights about aging gracefully, expat life, and productivity for the rest of us.

I’m even hosting my own room this Friday called Song In Your Head. We’re going to talk about earworms and how to get rid of them. Maybe it will end up just being me and my co-host chatting by ourselves but maybe it will be a hoot. Care to join us? I have invitations.