So today was my first day back to school in a few months. I can’t believe that Summer passed by so quickly. I feel like I got all of 3 hour sleep the entire break and still got nothing done. Oh well.

My classes look like they’re going to be pretty okay. I’m taking Philosophy 335: Plato’s Republic, Math 461: Combinatorics, and CSE 341: Programming Languages.

It’s funny that I’m taking two 300-level courses in my very last quarter at UW. They are usually taken in the first couple of quarters within the majors, but I jumped into higher level courses eary and now that’s all I have left. They seem like they’ll be interesting nonetheless.

Anyway, I’m pretty exhausted and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I have a big order to complete and I’ve still got to transfer all my webspace over to a new server. So much fun.

Stupid webhosting providers. I got an email from my hosting provider (orystes.com) two days ago informing me that they are closing up shop. That means I have to find another reselling provider and transfer all my domains over to a new server… again.

I switched to orystes.com a few months ago on the recommendation of a friend that had been with them for some time. Actually, I’ve been pretty happy with them. Sure, there have been some technical problems - but they always responded quickly and things got resolved. Nothing I couldn’t live with considering the price. All that is beside the point, however, as they are no longer in business.

Anyway, I’ve spent the past two days reading reviews and browsing discussion forums looking for a new provider. After spending considerable time on WebHostingTalk.com, I had narrowed it down to HostGator.com or HostingLite.com. I submitted questions to both and both responded pretty quickly. Taking price and features into consideration, I’ve opted for HostingLite.com.

I just set up an account a few minutes ago and things seemed to be going pretty smoothly. I found their automated telephone verification system interesting, even though it couldn’t pronounce things correctly. I was really excited to have immediate access to my reseller control panel so I could get right to creating new accounts and getting things moved.

That’s when I hit the first bug - the system wouldn’t let me create new accounts. I got onto the 24/7 Live Chat support program and was talking with support within 30 seconds. After a little discussion, they advised me to submit a trouble ticket and provide more detailed information. I got the impression that this was a problem that others had been experiencing today, so the solution should be quickly coming.

At this point, I’m waiting for support to let me know what’s up. Given my interaction with support thus far, I’m pretty hopeful that this will be corrected soon. I definitely hope things will get taken care in time for me to do the transfers this weekend. With school starting next Wednesday and all the printing orders I have to fulfill, I don’t want things dragging out.

Hopefully, the next time I post it will be from the new server. If you don’t hear from me soon, I’m lost in irritating cyberspace.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day! This post is for my wife - and a fine lass she be!

I don’t know if I mentioned it here or not, but Penny and I are in the early stages of creating a promotional products business. We’ll be designing and selling a variety of imprinted marketing products. We’ll have three main business fronts. First, we have TheLibertySource.com - through which we’ll sell campaign supplies and political products. Next, we have Heebie Jeebie - which will be used to sell screenprinting services to bands and tattoo shops and the like, as well as our own line of clothing. Finally, we have Little Fish Promotions - which is our general small business promotional product front.

Anyway, we’ve been having a tougher time getting the business into full action than I expected. I knew there was a lot to do, including getting our supplier and distributor channels set up and setting prices as stuff. That’s been tough, but mostly I’ve been frustrated by tedious technical problems. Lot’s of little stuff, really - the washout booth needed drainage hooked up, the oven needed a specific and hard to find plug, the printers have been a consistent pain, and getting the film positives to come out right has been a real challenge. We did manage to get a small batch of shirts printed the other night, but the quality was less than satisfactory. We think we’ve got that figured out, but we haven’t had the chance to try again because the of the lagging problem of getting a good film positive printed.

To top it off, my friend Sean has been in town for the past week. It’s been nice visiting with him, but it has also thrown my schedule off because we have a habit of staying up really late talking. During the day, he’s been travelling around the area visiting friends so I should be able to get more done. Unfortunately, however, I’ve been sleeping in a little too late to get much done.

To top it off, Penny has been working 10 hour days to complete a project by mid-September. While she enjoys getting things done, it does make it hard for her to do anything else once she gets home. About the time she’ll go back to a regular schedule, I’ll be starting school. That means I have to get things smoothly operating in the next week so we can switch to maintenance mode.

And now I must go. I have a lot to do and very little time to get it done. I just wanted to post something to keep anyone out there up to date.

Just in case you’ve gotten the impression that people are all selfish and would never help each other out if the government wasn’t there to force them to - check out the list of people willing to share their homes with victims of Katrina. Better yet, if you have the space post your own offer.

I’m going to see if there’s any IT support I can offer. I know there are people working on projects to help reunite loved one’s and there are certainly other communications needs. Quite frankly, I also find myself wanting to put my old Navy training as a Preventive Medicine Tech to use - I just have to figure out if I can offer that kind of help without putting myself and Penny the position of needing help ourselves. Probably will turn out that I need to stay here and just get our business going so we’ll better poised to help more a little down the road. It’s just that human suffering pains me and I hate being unable to do more.