On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m excited about the new blog.
(And BTW - the title of this post? That’s a paraphrase from National Lampoon’s Vacation. Clark Griswold says something along the lines of: “I can’t believe it. I’m on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Hallelujah, holy shit!”) 
In case you hadn’t noticed, some things have changed. I started this blog in March of 2007, wondering what this whole “blogging” thing was really about. I’m still not actually sure. But I’m having fun, and that’s what’s important.
For more than a year friends and acquaintances have been espousing the advantages of switching from a Wordpress.com blog, to a self-hosted blog using the software from Wordpress.org. More customization options, more control, and a better overall experience. I dragged my feet, hesitated, waffled, experienced anxiety coupled with ambivalence, generally procrastinated the switch. Then, one Wednesday night, I decided to just do it. I contacted GoDaddy, bought a hosting plan, set up a Linux server, installed a database, and installed Wordpress 2.6. I would have gone with 2.5 because I’ve heard it’s more stable, but there was a one-click install for 2.6. So there you have it. I changed my DNS, and re-set my MX records. I exported my Wordpress.com posts in an XML file. I imported that same file into my new blog. And guess what… fail.
Much to my consternation, my posts failed to transfer. I only got about 3 months worth, taking me through to June of 2007. Not acceptable. I re-imported, and more posts showed up. I repeated that process 6 or 7 times, and got more posts imported each time. But then I hit a wall. After around December 2007, I couldn’t import any more posts. I emailed for help, checked the forums, no luck. I started manually recreating my posts, which truly sucked. The posts themselves were not so hard, though I had to remember a lot of details (trackbacks, tags, date/time stamps, etc). But the worst part was recreating all the comments. Ughh.
However, last week I caught a break. Nick, one of the AWESOME people in the Wordpress.com support group responded to my request for help. He offered a number of suggestions, and then actually did some testing himself. We decided that the import was timing out for some reason, and that the XML file was too big. He helped me split the file into four smaller chunks, and when I tried to import the most recent posts, we finally met with great success. So let me say it now, loud and clear, for the world to hear:
Thank You Nick, from Wordpress.com on 12seconds.tv
So, here we are. My buddy Justin is helping me to learn a teeny bit of CSS, and I am trying to customize the sweet theme I picked. (Simplish 1.7.3 by Simplish Project, K. Pitt, J.A. Hardy) I want to develop a logo / header soon too, but I am a terrible designer. So I am trying to figure out how to get something put together. But, I am enjoying playing with the new setup, and I hope you enjoy it too.
thanks for reading,
David
