I just spent the better part of the last week bringing Erik’s… Hmm.. back from the grave. However, I’m not sure how long this blog had been dead. The last post was about where to eat BBQ in Texas, from the summer of 2017. Some time after that my web host was hacked and prior to that the site had been overridden with spam comments. My web host alerted me to the hack and with personal disgust I just deleted the WP instance without understanding how it occured.
Back to the digital resurrection… It was a multi-step process. First I had to install a new WordPress instance and choose a new theme. Then I had to go find my content. The content revival was a lot harder then getting WordPress installed because I didn’t have a good backup.
Eventually, I got my WP posts loaded, but I was missing some of my more interesting, and earlier posts, from when I used Movable Type. Those posts represented my first 3+ years blogging and had some extremely memorable content. I eventually found an old backup with that content and was able to get it loaded into the MySql db used by my WP instance. Victory!
The victory of getting all my content back on-line was sweet, but that wasn’t the end of the story. I’ve now spent the better part of the week reviewing every post and every comment. Wanting to ensure the hackers hadn’t left behind any land mines you might stumble upon. That process, while lengthy and monotonous, was highly enjoyable. I re-experienced new friendships forged online, as well as relived fun memories I’d blogged about (I’ll write a follow-up with some of my favorite old posts).
This screenshot I grabbed from my WP Dashboard says it all…
Lots of good stuff in this blog over the last 17 years and I’m happy to have gotten it back online. Enjoy websurfers. All 2-3 of you wasting time here. Maybe I’ll convince my kids to go back and read some of the nice/funny stuff I had to say about them (first birthdays, diapers, little league sports, etc.).
Looking forward to spending time with you.