Iconic look restored

An act of kindness from a total stranger

Even though it’s been several weeks since I was forced to switch to a better-maintained WordPress theme, I never completely gave up on getting the old look back.  My older brother, who is a very talented programmer but not a WordPress expert, and who did all the technical work for me these past 10 years, was at least able to get the blog functioning when it blew up last month.  But it just didn’t seem like the same old blog anymore.

I searched Google for WordPress debugging services but honestly they all seemed kind of sleazy and besides I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a website that is just a hobby.

I don’t watch the current affairs in Hampton as closely as I do for Belmar…because I don’t believe I have to…but I do run a “last 24 hours” Google search on it every morning.  One morning last week the results included an announcement of a Meetup in North Hampton for the Seacoast New Hampshire WordPress Meetup group. I decided to go to it and it was this past Thursday night.

I didn’t go to it to learn enough about WordPress to fix my problem.  Even my brother couldn’t do that.  I went there to see if I could hire some young guy or gal to spend a couple of hours trying to troubleshoot the original WordPress theme for the blog.

Before the night’s presentation began I asked the dozen or so people in the room if anyone would be interested in helping me.  One man, who I presume to be retired, or at least I hope he’s retired and enjoying himself and not working his butt off like I still have to do, asked me what my problem was.  We’ll call him “Mr. C”.  I learned from him later that he’s an Australian national who emigrated there from Thailand.  He lives now though in Dover, New Hampshire.  I told him what was wrong and he said he would try to help.

The next day I took a leap of faith and sent him my login and passwords for WordPress and Dreamhost.  I didn’t even know his last name but Karen and I both had a very good feeling about him when we met him and didn’t think he seemed at all like the kind of person who would ever hurt anybody.  He worked on the problem part of the day Friday and I think the whole day yesterday into the very late night.

At midnight last night I got a text from Mr. C.  The blog was fixed.  I got out of bed and tested everything and he was right.  I don’t want to get into the technicalities of what was wrong…I don’t even understand them…but apparently there were some obsolete lines of code in the old “Very Plain Text” WordPress theme that were tripping me up with Dreamhost.  He took them out and the blog works fine.

Mr. C does not want anything from me for all the time he spent fixing the blog.  He said it gave him the opportunity to learn more about Dreamhost.

I have to be in Newark this week for a business conference but he and I and our wives are going to have a meal together in early February.  Don’t tell him but I am going to insist on picking up the tab.