First the story, then the lessons…

A friend that I follow on twitter is a writer of erotic short stories. Late one night a couple of days ago, I saw her post something on twitter, and because I hadn’t talked with her in a while, I asked how she was doing. Turns out, not good. She had a blog that was part of a larger site that was owned by someone else. A few days ago she tried to get on to the site, only to find the site was gone and so was all her work, including three stories she considered her best work to date. The pain of the loss was apparent and I felt I could do something to help her out. I told her that nothing truly goes away on the Internet, and that I would do what I can to recover them.

The first thing I did was to go to the Wayback Machine at Archive.org. This is a great site for finding older versions of other sites; it states that it has 150 billion archived web pages. There are many ways to use WayBack machine, but I just wanted to see if it had crawled her site sometime in the past.

It had not; her pages were not there..

The next thing I did was enter the site in Google search. What I got back was a list of pages for her site, which of course, when you clicked on them, got you to the default page of the web host.

But that’s not what I was after. What I was hoping for, and indeed what I did see was that Google had cached the pages. I clicked on the “Cached” link and immediately the text version of the main page of her blog came up. Success! I DM’d her and explained to her how to pull the rest of her pages from the cache. She was happy, and so was I that I could help her out. I logged off and went to bed.

The next day I DM’d her in the afternoon and asked her if she was able to get all her work back. She told me that she got everything except those three stories that she wanted the most. I went back in and was able to find one of the missing stories, but the other two where nowhere to be found. I told her to try posting to her Twitter followers to see if anyone of them had downloaded the stories while the site was up. In the meantime, I would try to find the missing stories by other means.

I honestly tried everything I could think of, other search engines, deep web searches, other relate blog sites, everything I knew to try. No luck.

So then I thought, why not just ask the web host if they keep archives? Duh!

I got on the host’s site at around 9 in the evening and opened up a support ticket explaining the situation, and asked if they keep archives. I sent the ticket, closed everything down and shut off my computer. I figured I would not get anything back from them until the morning. Later on, I went to sleep hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

The next morning I checked my email. Chris, a support tech from ATCIHosting (the hosting company) responded to my email an hour after I sent it, the night before.

He wrote:

That account is set to be removed tomorrow.
It is currently suspended due to non-payment.
I can enable the site for a short time before deleting the data.
I suppose if you can find the blog posts then you can try and copy and paste the posts.

I read the last two sentences twice…I was floored.

I also freaked because the email was written the night before and the site was scheduled to be removed TODAY! I fired off a quick response thanking them profusely and asking if I was still able to access the site today. He responded:

The account has been enabled.
It will probably be up for 6 hours or so before being removed for good.
Please let us know if you area able to find the posts within the next 6 hours.

Freaking Awesome! I immediately entered the site address and sure enough, I was able to see it, and the missing stories. I immediately DM’d my friend and told her the good news. I also pulled the pages from the site just in case she was not able to access it herself for some reason. It turned out not to be a problem because Chris emailed me later telling me they were running behind and the site would probably be up overnight. It was a good thing because my friend was offline most of the day, but came online later in the evening and was still able to get her stories. She was, to say the least, ecstatic.

This story illustrates the following four important lessons:

Lesson #1: There is always a way…

No matter what it is you are trying to accomplish, I assure you that 99.99% of the time there is a way to do it. It may not always be pretty, it may not always be easy, and it may not always be obvious, but I assure you, there is always a way to do it, just be patient, and persistent, and it will come to you.

Lesson #2: Ask…

I have blogged about this before because this lesson has server me so well in the past; If you need something, ask for it. What is the very worst that can happen, the person says “no”. Knowing this in advance and understanding that this may happen, what’s stopping you from asking? Pride? Fear? Get over it. If I let that get in my way I wouldn’t have asked the bank to accept the short sale that eventually got me a very nice rental property, or my wife of 21 years for her hand in marriage.

Ask…

Lesson #3: If It’s Important…Back it up….

This goes without saying, but I assure you, many of you reading this don’t have backups of your important information. There are a lot of excellent free programs for every computer platform out there. There is no excuse not to have backups of your important files.

Lesson #4: Be Kind…

I have saved the best for last. I have told my daughters countless of times, if you learn just one thing from me, learn this…”Be Kind”. Kindness is the grease that lubricates the gears of human interaction. (…you may quote me on this… )

Picture yourself in Chris’ shoes. Some guy, who is not even a customer, sends him an email and tells him that a friend who was technically also not a customer, lost all her work when the true owner didn’t pay their bill and oh by the way is it possible to recover said work?

He could easily have said no, sorry, the data is lost, you are out of luck and my friend and I would have been truly out of luck

But he didn’t.

He kindly offered to bring the site back up so that the lost work could be retrieved before the site was permanently removed. (My eyes are welling up as I type this) (and now also as I proof this). He has truly earned any and all good karma that comes his way. I sincerely hope that if your are reading this, and if you are in need of a hosting service, that you give ATCI Hosting a look. Customer service like this is truly hard to find. It was this one act of kindness that prompted me to write this post.

So there you have it, Four Lessons that should help you through life. I welcome any comments, and any important Life Lessons you have learned.

Please forgive the detour I took on my blog with this post.

Those of you who follow me regularly on Twitter may have noticed my absence for the last few days. The picture above explains it quite nicely (Not a great one of me, but the wife and kids look fantastic).

The last couple of weeks leading up to my daughters graduation from High School have been hectic to say the least (didn’t even have time for a desperately needed haircut as you can see above ) ). The day after her graduation we held an open house for friends and family. I am only now recovering.

Out of 533 students in her graduating class, Samantha was ranked at 19; she graduated Summa Cum Laude. To say we are proud of her would be an understatement. She is a smart, witty, and well rounded young woman (okay…this is her father saying this, so yes I am slightly biased, but others have told us this time after time). I blogged about her a couple of years ago in my post “Reflection” when I was teaching her how to drive (It seemed like only yesterday). Very soon, she’ll be leaving us for college; the tether, fully cut…

We were over at our next door neighbors house last night. They have an only son, Lewis, who also graduated, and who basically grew up with our daughter. They considered Sam the daughter they never had and we have always said Lewis was the son we never had. Lewis’ father, Rick, showed us a video he made which was a compilation of video footage and pictures of their son growing up. There was a section in the video of Sam and Lewis; watching them grow up together in the span of minutes, it took a lot for me to hold it together; my wife, of course, lost it – it was a good thing they had a box of tissues nearby.

This is a tough time for a parent. All the late nights, the sacrifices, the joys, the tears, and now your child is about to be launched into the world, in a kind of second birth, a rebirth. All we can do is sit back and watch it happen, and be there if she ever needs us.

The comment that the poster made (in part) was this “I’m risk averse, so quitting my job to do something harebrained is not an option for me.”

In response I said that “I am still at my job, but I am laying a foundation for my transition. By leveraging technology, it is easy to test the waters with minimal investment of time and money.”

But let me take this a step further…I ask you (the reader), in general, what is the absolute worst that can happen to you if things ever go wrong…seriously?

I have given this a lot of thought and I have come up with two core worst case scenarios:

Scenario #1: You are somehow incapacitated (medical issue, injury, accident, etc…) and cannot physically do anything.

Scenario #2: You are reasonably healthy, but BAD happens to you. I mean Job Bad, Country Song Bad (lose the wife, the kids, the trailer, the pickup, and yes, the dog).

In Scenario 1, this can happen to you regardless of income level, social status, or career aspirations. It sucks, but it happens every day and there is little you can do to prevent it. The fickle finger of fate is giving you the bird…But on the plus side, they have this handy little thing called insurance. I have mitigated this risk to the best of my ability by investing in short and long term disability insurance.

In Scenario 2, in the extreme form, I am homeless, penniless, alone.

But I am breathing, and I have a functional brain and two relatively strong hands. I will do what anyone does in a survival situation. I will take stock of my assets – physical and mental, and I will put them to work in best way I can to survive. Yes, it will be hard; yes it will be very painful. I will shake my fist at God and say “Why Me?”, but I will endure; just as humanity has done for thousands of years; just as people now are now surviving day to day. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

I approach Scenario 2 as the ultimate do-over, with the added benefit of life experience. In my younger days, I have waited tables, washed dishes, stocked inventory in a department store, and tutored in math and computer science. I have torn down both of our bathrooms (one literally down to the subfloor) and restored them nice and pretty. You cannot tell me that a person does not have at least one skill (other than their current occupation) that they can rely on if the s**t ever hit the fan.

Do this now, go to Google, and enter the following “+Skype +English” without the quotes (or Spanish, or Italian, or whatever your native language is).  There are people who will teach a language, or translate over the Internet full time or in their spare time, all you need is a computer (If you are reading this, I assume that you have one), Skype (free), an email address (free), and a paypal account (free). Opportunity is all around us if we open our eyes to it.

In addition to skills, what about a social network? What about friends, immediate family, church groups, charities? Yes, they exist in this day and age, but few people are truly hermits.

In my heart, I believe that at our core, we are a self reliant people. It is in our DNA. Not to wax on patriotic, but it is a lot of what makes us the envy of other countries. We seem to be at our best, when things are at their very worst.

So all that is left is the fear of risk, but let me ask you, what in life that is worthwhile has not come without risk (and overcoming the fear of it)? How did you feel when you proposed to your spouse (or when they proposed to you?) How did you feel when you sat down at the closing table to basically sign away your life to the bank to get your house? How did you feel in the job interview? Ok, so maybe you are reading this single, renting and jobless, but you get my point.

Ok this has gone way longer than I intended, and I am sure I am going to get a lot of comments, pro and con to my point of view (which I welcome!). The point of my post is this, once you see that it truly takes a lot to totally mess up your life, and if you shed that fear, it is a truly liberating experience.

I am not saying if you are unhappy at your job, jump ship immediately without a Plan B. What I am saying is that there is always a Plan B, and a Plan C, and a Plan D ad infinitum, and there always will be.

I am up here with my two daughters, my wife could not make it up because she had to prepare for the upcoming school year (she is a teachers aid). My brother, sister, and her two kids are here as well.

I make the trek here each year to recharge my batteries. Everyone should have a place like that in their life. It is so far removed from the world; my father can only access the Internet via dial-up! It is both a blessing an a curse.

This morning, my brother and I hiked one of the many mountains. It was overcast and the fog shrouded some of the higher peaks of neighboring mountains. I’ll post some pictures later on. It really is beautiful here.

I am not going to post any links for the time I am here. No productivity tips, no cool sites, nothing. I am going to be designing a couple of web pages for my parents (they are putting the house up for sale and I am going to help them market it), but that is the full extent of my work here. Instead, I am going to make reservations for tea and popovers at the Jordan Pond House, sea kayak from Bartletes Landing, and maybe get a few more hikes with my brother and kids in while the weather is nice.

First, my wife had it in her head that the hall bathroom needed to be redecorated. So, she tore down all the wallpaper and left the rest to me. She wanted me to re-prep the walls for painting, and re-tile a section of the bathroom where the old vanity was standing to prepare for the new vanity.

So much for my weekends…

I mentioned in an earlier post how my daughter has begun driving. Well, we are now encountering the next milestone of growing up – the college visit. We started the trip last week, looking at the University of Georgia.  We then drove from Atlanta to Miami to visit the University of Miami. Finally, we went up to Orlando to visit Universal Studios for some fun (although we did take a side trip to Tampa to visit the university there as well).

Yes, I know; what kind of idiot spends the week of July 4th in the Florida heat…It actually was a fun trip. I try to make time for the kids, but scheduling is hard with my kids doing schoolwork and hanging out with friends and me with my job. Summer is a great time to re-connect.

Anyhow, one of the things I have been doing to move to an location independent lifestyle, is to teach myself web design. I found a phenomenal site called Skout that is just too good not to share… Those of you interested in Web Design should find this an indispensable resource; enjoy!

For a while now, I have wanted to move off of wordpress.com and get my own domain. I would have a lot more freedom to do stuff and, hopefully, eventually find some way of deriving income from the site. The problem was, every time I would look for a domain relating in any way to “ProjectNomad”, it was taken…until yesterday.

I had this really great idea to create a site called “RentMyDomain” where people who had good domain names, but no inclination to develop them would be matched with people who had great creativity and skills, and could develop the site while paying “rent” for the domain name (logistics to be worked out later ) ). Of course, both “RentMyDomain.com” and “LeaseMyDomain.com” were taken. (Interestingly, they both are parked).

But, on a whim, I checked “ProjectNomad.com” for the umpteenth time, and to my amazement, it was available. So now it is mine…

No grand unveiling…just head on over there when you get the chance and you will see all that is in this blog. It is, like most things in life, a work in progress. I tried to clean some things up. I am exploring wordpress unchained – especially all the incredible templates, plugins, and widgets available for it. For blogging, I think this is the best application available hands down.

The pictures on the headers are from my various trips to my second home – Mt. Desert Island, Maine.

I know I mentioned another site I was moving to in an earlier post, but now that I have the domain name I wanted, I am sticking with the new site and have deleted the old one.

The partial downside is that, in leaving wordpress.com, I will pretty much disappear from sight as far as search engines and social bookmarks go. Google likes wordpress.com; Google couldn’t care a less about projectnomad.com…So the pressure is on me to provide better content, build a greater readership, and get a little higher in the rankings, which I am committed to do. I am still experimenting, trying to find a way to leave the corporate rat race and work on my own terms, wherever and whenever I want. I am still looking at ways to incorporate the principles in “The Four Hour Work Week“, and ways to leverage Internet Marketing and Freelance Web Design into this mix. I will continue to post my progress, as well as any useful resources I find along the way.

And I welcome any comments you have.

I have seen some really interesting resources, and I will continue to post them here. I have gone back on my list of resources and found that it is huge. I tend to just clip sites that seem interesting and put them all in an email that I then send to myself. I looked back on the emails and there were hundreds of links to review! Yes, some sites kept coming up with great info, but a lot of these were the sites I already had on my blog roll (although there are some new ones that I will add later).

The best advice I can think of is to do what I do and use sites that employ user recommendations to find subjects in which you are interested. Go to sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, or Stumbleupon, to search for topics like “Freelance” or “4HWW”, and you will find quality sites that have been vetted by others. This is the direction that online search engines taking – instead of blindly finding every site relating to a subject, good or bad.

While I have pretty much finished work on my rental property, I have not really made any effort to market it or get a tenant into it. I don’t know what is holding me back. Probably fear. I have heard horror stories of tenants from hell and I am afraid that when I do get someone in, the nightmares will begin. Still I faced my fears when I bought the house in the first place, and I still want to try being a landlord to see if it is right for me. I guess I just have to face this fear and ride out whatever adversity that comes my way.

As I mentioned in my last post, the Thirty Day Challenge is back, and I am going to participate in that as well. In July, it will be a year since I first started my effort to leave my current job and become a freelancer. I have learned a lot in that time, but it is a humbling experience, and it is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Life has a funny way of coming in and interfering with your plans. Still, I have not given up and I will continue to try different things until I find the solution that feel right for my goals.

As for my next post, you will get it when it is worthy of publishing… )

Yesterday, I posted a link to Catherine Lawson’s excellent collection of resources for entrepreneurs. She saw it and came to my blog and read my Escape! posting from last week. This prompted her to make the following comment:

“I know that motivating yourself because you want to leave your job seems like a good idea at the time, but it’s a good idea to set yourself a list of goals and motivate yourself towards them. It’s a lot easier that way and you’ll be concentrating on something positive instead of something negative.”

She is, of course, right.

My job has been grinding away at me, eroding my moral, and all I could think of was pain avoidance. I have seen this happen to my coworkers, where they basically can’t take it anymore, jump ship and take the first available job offer that comes along. This inevitably ends up in something similar to a “rebound relationship” that most every one experiences at least once in their lifetime, after breaking up with a significant other. It rarely works out in the end for either party…

I have been focusing on the obstacle, instead of what lies beyond it. I do have a list of goals, but I have not looked at it in a while. Between my day job and getting the house in shape, I have been too preoccupied. So I am setting aside some time tonight to go back over my goals and get myself back on track.

Thanks Catherine…