The Blog is Broken
“A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.”
Mark Twain
The blog is broken. There are clicks and clacks, beeps and whistles going off with reckless abandon and I haven’t a freaking clue as to what is setting them off. Â It frustrates me, this not knowing.
I am not the sort of person who sits by and watches as things happen. I like to know how things work. I tinker. I tweak. I pull and I push. I watch and wonder if this thingamabob fits inside this tight doohickey and whether it will make things better or worse.
Smarter men than I Â would ask for help, but I don’t. Nope, not yet. I like to learn by doing. That tinkering is how I teach myself to fix things. It is how I figure out what goes where and why.
My blog is broken. I keep getting error messages. Some of them make sense and others don’t. I activate and deactivate plugins. I ask Doctor Google to provide links to tutorials and read or watch them.
Some of them are helpful and others are just irritating.
It irks me because this blog is my baby. This is my cyberhome and it is not as warm or inviting as I would like it to be. I need to fix the errors. I want to clean up the mess. I don’t have the time to read and review the way that I want to.
That is a problem. The lack of time forces me to make compromises I’d rather not make but that is life. That is how it goes. I need to write. I need to create. I want the words to fly free and thus I throw some junk in the closet. It is not a perfect solution but guests don’t visit the basement.
Time. I just need to find more time. The blog is broken.
Elena Patrice January 9, 2012 at 6:28 pm
Jack – Do I have a twin, a brother? I mean I sooo feel your pain as I’m in the midst of so much drama with the tech stuff on my blog that I want to scream!! I am trying to run a business, be a single mom and not fall off the edge. It’s nice to know I’m not alone here. I’m self-taught too in every freakin’ thing in my life and talk about hard knocks!! OK -I’ve vented and I’m off to knock my head against the wall trying to figure out why my widgets don’t work!! WAAAAH!!!
You’re writing makes me laugh, smile, think and feel connected – keep on keepin’ on because I’m following right behind you. Hope you don’t mind! 😉
Peace,
Elena
Jack January 9, 2012 at 6:31 pm
Elena,
I have 16k sisters so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I have dozen more- still waiting for the brother.
There is a lot to be said for being self taught, although I may be biased. 😉
Feel free to keep reading you are always welcome.
Bill Dorman January 9, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Huh? Looks like it’s working to me. At least I don’t have to go all the way to bottom of the page to reply anymore, right?
Jack January 9, 2012 at 5:25 pm
It is better, but there are still issues. The blog and I are engaged in a battle of wills and well- I don’t lose very many of those.
Bill Dorman January 10, 2012 at 5:47 am
No defenestration please…..
Renee Schuls-Jacobson January 9, 2012 at 4:47 am
I just told my son that this is his money making opportunity — providing help for hapless bloggers. He can use me as a model. He can usually fix me in 3 minutes, and I’d pay to speak to a human!
Like everyone else, I hate when weird stuff happens to my blog. Le sigh. It is such a time suck.
Glad you were able to make it productive.
Jack January 9, 2012 at 8:51 am
It is irritating when the blog breaks. I hate not understanding why it happens or what the cause is so I tend to try to educate myself so that I can fix and or prevent it from happening again.
It is definitely an opportunity for someone to make a few bucks.
Mitch Mitchell January 9, 2012 at 4:34 am
Good luck finding your issue. I hadn’t realized one of mine was broke until I went to a friend’s house & realized he couldn’t view it on his computer, as he still uses IE. Luckily I figured it out… a week later! lol
Jack January 9, 2012 at 7:43 am
Hi Mitch,
I always test my blog on multiple browsers. I also try to pay special attention to mobile devices.
IE renders things differently than every one else or so it seems to me.
At the moment we have some sort of coding issue that is causing some random glitches. Trying to figure out what is causing it.
Haven’t received many complaints so I don’t know how often people see it, but it makes me a bit crazy.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:28 pm
Hi Daniel,
I very well might. I am busy trying to trim the plugin list anyway. I need the pages to load faster and something is holding this sucker up.
Thanks.
Mimi Meredith January 8, 2012 at 10:21 am
Jack, I can relate. I spent about a year and a half trying to teach myself things I really didn’t want to take the time to learn, and more important, didn’t have the time to perfect. I have a great resource for you. His name is Jim Spencer. He’s in Massachusetts and his company is http://www.jbspartners.com/.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:42 pm
Hi Mimi,
Thank you for the referral, I very much appreciate it. It is sometimes hard to determine what is worth learning and what is worth paying for.
vanita January 8, 2012 at 8:38 am
I hear you Jack. Even with 20 hour days I can’t find time to do it all.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:41 pm
Hi Vanita,
I might invent a 32 hour day so that we can get out work done. 😉
Kaarina Dillabough January 8, 2012 at 7:54 am
I like Jayme’s suggestion. “Step away from the computer”. Wishing you a speedy resolution to the problem, my friend:) Cheers! Kaarina
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Thank you Kaarina. We don’t have a Winter Wonderland so I have made a point to be out in the 80 degree weather.
The sun on my back is always invigorating.
Jayme Soulati January 8, 2012 at 6:55 am
I am the same way! I refuse to ask for help and thus my 15 hour ordeal to sync iPhone to email. A simple fix no one could solve but I because I had tried ALL and even stumped Apple Care.
Hang tight. And here’s a tip: walk away. When you come back it will be solved with a few clicks because frustration gets in the way.
Mimi Meredith January 8, 2012 at 10:18 am
I just have had the exact same frustration trying to sync my iPhone and iPad to mail. Then, poof. It magically worked. Having no idea why it suddenly all clicked was nearly as frustrating as my ire over communication devices that wouldn’t play nicely.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Jayme,
Walking away is an outstanding tip and the sort of advice I often give. However if you ask people who have known me for years they will tell you that I am not always good at it.
But I have managed to avoid sitting here for too long today. Trying to take it on in smaller chunks.
Mark January 8, 2012 at 6:47 am
Sounds like you need to either slap or love that blog back into submission Jack 🙂
I feel your pain on this techy stuff… I made a commitment that this year I was going to stop telling myself I’m not a techy and actually learn how some of these tools work!
Yikes! I’m going to have to sock that ADD silly when it creeps up and distracts the learning process 😛
Happy Sunday to you.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Hi Mark,
I know enough about tech to be dangerous. I am self taught. There are a million tutorials online.
The challenge for me comes from my desire to work and read. I really should read about what I am doing first and then tinker.
It sort of reminds me of fishing. You can know an awful lot about fish but sometimes there is no explanation for why you catch or don’t catch one.
I bet you can figure all this stuff out too.
Mark January 8, 2012 at 2:25 pm
As you know Jack – this ‘stuff’ is a work in progress…
What, read then do? How does that work exactly lol!
And besides that there will ALWAYS be room for improvement.
Our work will never be done – geesh!
Todd January 8, 2012 at 1:18 am
Hi Jack,
I hate it when things go wrong with my blog. I always try to troubleshoot by going back to a time when things were working and what changed. Good luck and I hope you figure things out.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Hi Todd,
The process of going back to decipher and determine when things were last working properly is sometimes tedious but a necessary part of this.
We’ll get there, I just might kvetch about it a little.
Chloe January 7, 2012 at 11:40 pm
Jack, what a coincidence. My blog is also broken. It’s been throttled for days and now Bluehost tells me that they put it “in jail” (their words)
I’ve been so busy dealing with some heavy shit that I haven’t had time to fiddle with it. I also am not good at asking for help (or directions for that matter). I sometimes wonder if I’m not a man in a woman’s disguise.
I hope your blog gets fixed soon.
Jack January 8, 2012 at 1:10 am
Hi Chloe,
Tell them that if they don’t set you free the blogosphere mob will bust you out of jail.
Hope things settle down soon.
Kaarina Dillabough January 8, 2012 at 7:53 am
Ooooh, a jail break! Count me in to help:)
Jack January 8, 2012 at 12:11 pm
Always.