I have aged 10 years today. For several harrowing hours GLDC hovered at the edge of a chasm, teetering on a single rock, ready to tip with a wisp of wind.

In other words, I almost lost it. All of it. 10 months of work lost to a void. Like Harry Potter hearing his godfather’s voice beyond the veil, I could see my files, but could not actually access them.

I believe HolyWarrior’s comment best expresses my sentiments:

WTF happened to you blog?

WTF, indeed. Well Holy, this is what happened…

Remember a few posts ago, I spoke about how I learned how to drive in Miami by getting lost. Following my sterling learning method, I am now an quasi-expert on domain and blog transfers. Wanna move your blog from one host to another? Need to know how long a domain transfer will take? Can’t figure out what a name server is? Don’t fret, after today, I am your girl!

Let’s see…what have I learned?

• If you are going to transfer a blog to a new host. Don’t wait UNTIL after the domain transfers to the new registry to do your wordpress export. Make sure you do it as soon as you know you are swtiching. It is located in your dashboard under Manage: Export.

• You think, naw, it is all good, I have my database backups that I get each week in an niffy email. Guess what bucakoo? They may not work. That’s right. My new phpmyadmin doesn’t recognize my backup extensions and thus could not decompress them.

• Contrary to your own belief, when you transfer your domain, but still have the web hosting at your old provider, you will NOT be able to access your files from your ftp server or even be able to download your files.

• As a last resort offer your first born to your pals, and then watch the webfairies work their magic. Specifically, name servers. Name servers are the little guys who give your IP addresses clothes and send them off into the world with pretty tags like google.com, yahoo.com and so forth. If you redirect your domain back to your original server, you can access your old site again, thus allowing you to rush to the export button and download.

Key Points

• Wailing at the computer and cursing won’t make the 010101 reappear.
• While it is good to have backups of your databases, they may not always work.
• Export (do you guys get the hint) your site and upload it on the new host.
• Transfer your domain. This process will take 5-7 days.
• Install WP on your new host first, before you do anything else.
• Upload your export file
• Wait for the domain to switch and you should be good to go.
• If all else fails, bring in the experts!

Thank you Yahoo.  Even thought for the most part, our relationship has been cordial, we have had our dark times.  Much like everything else, it is time to move on, and I say good bye.  No, no, no tears…this is best for both of us.

Why make the move?  Yahoo is good for someone who doesn’t know anything about web servers, like I did almost 8 months ago when I started GLDC, but it has increasingly become apparent that the server can no longer meet all my needs.  And if you heard the live show on Saturday, you might now, I am having some embarrassing issues with my RSS feed on my new personal site TMI site.  Kes, I promise I am trying to fix them!  For everyone who is going there, thank you for your patience.  I hope to have everything repaired very soon!

Sometime this week GLDC and TMI will be making a move to a new host.  Please excuse our dust!

How does Bre feel about tackling all this web crap and taking the plunge:
more cat pictures

‘Nuff said

Anna from Too Many Anna, just wrote the lyrics to a great song parody, detailing the woes of the hybrid class during a raid, entitled “Should I stay, or should I go?”.

Also, Twisted Nether is going to be LIVE tomorrow night!  I don’t know if I ready for that, but go here for more details!

Over the last year, I have been talking about WoW non-stop. And it has been great, but as I become involved in more project the urge to discuss things outside of the WoWsphere has been nagging me.  Because of this, I have created a new personal site, which will house all those musings that would deter from GLDC.  If you are interested, click here.  Thanks

Also, on another note, Blizzard has announced Player Accomplishments for the next expansion.  This is actually something I like want to see.  Not so much for the record of accomplishments, but for the small goals the game can give you, which will help with those moments in Shatt, when you don’t want to farm or do anything else. 

The accomplishments will range from the absurd to the epic, and offer players personal goals. Go and check out the official WoW page for more details.

Me likely!

Do you what to know how I learned to read directions in Miami?

When I was sixteen, I got my driver’s license.  This was just after Hurricane Andrew and the days before the cell phone craze.  I couldn’t wait to drive.  To just get behind a car without having to ask my parents to take me to the library or to a party.  To be able to say, in all earnest, “Can I borrow the car?”

The day after I got that shiny bit of plastic, I asked my dad to take me to the library, which was only a few miles from our house.  He just looked at me, and handed me the keys to his beat up 1985 Ford Ranger and said, “Go by yourself.”  Just as the cool metal touch my palm I could hear him talking about avenues and streets.

I nodded in the appropriate places and pretended I understood what he said.  Really, how hard could it be?  I knew where the library was, I practically lived there.  Closing my hand, I gave him a hug, grabbed the pile of books I was going to return and headed off into Miami.

It started okay.  I drove to the major avenue I knew the library was on, and then, the fatal moment, I made a wrong turn.  I went left when I should have gone right and what followed has stayed with me since.

Fear and panic are great motivators when used properly.  You have two choices, either to run around and scream or to narrow your eyes, grit your teeth and buckle down. As the numbers when up and down with that beat-up white truck coughed along, I tried to visualize my father and what had he said.

Hours passed and I was stuck somewhere near US 1 and 104th Street.  This was a LONG way from my house, which was on 1st Street and a moment of clarity slammed into my head.

When the Street numbers go up, I was on an Avenue, going north and south, depending on the abbreviation.  When the Avenue numbers when up or down, I was on a street.  That was it.  I forced myself to stop for a moment and think, where was the closest major intersection? I remember I had just passed one, and then drove back, made a right and slowly made my way home.

On the way, I found the library.  Shaking,I dropped off my books and made it home.  My dad, just finishing fixing our garbage disposal, looked up and said, “Hey, you were going to for awhile, I was starting to get worried, “ then preceded to flip the disposal switch.  Amidst the loud grinding noise, I quietly placed the keys on the counter and went upstairs.

I haven’t gotten truly lost, since that day. 

Same can be applied to healing.  Many new healers, don’t actually heal until they are very late into their 60’s or just hit 70.  If they are established in a guild or if the healer is a person’s alt, their pals might run them through instances, not really demanding much from the new healer, just a Renew here, a Greater Heal there and watching as their OP group just devastates everything in sight. 

This is a bad idea.

If they want to be a healer, they actually have to heal at some point.  And when that time comes, do you want it to be in a raid, where they are lost in the number of people and are attacked by Fear and Panic when their tank is about to die and don’t know what to do?

What they need is a solid healing foundation.

What they need is Healer Boot Camp.

You must be tough to be kind.  Just like my pal Saak.  When I hit 67, he thought it would be great time for me to start healing.  Now, mind you, he was a Holy Pally and our main healer at the time.  I was close to hitting 68 and he suggested we start to get ready for my Kara key.  Off we went to Durnhold and instead of Saak healing, all he said was, “Mana?  I don’t have mana to heal.  You take care of the group.”

So there I was, taking control of my first true healing assignment and Fear and Panic choking me.  Then it hit like a PoM.  I can do this.  Just calm down and focus.  All different tid bits about healing I had casually read over the past few months became a visual manual in my head.

· Keep up renew

· The tank is your target

· Watch your own health

· Use downranks of Greater Heal

· Flash Heal only when you must

We ended the run just fine and after turning in the quests,  Saak grinned and said, “ Since we are here, Let’s do Black Morass!”

Black Morass. At 67.  Not once, mind you, but twice.  Scared and trembling, I couldn’t get my father’s voice out of my head, “if you see the street number go up…”  . I kept saying to myself, I can do this, I can do this and forced the panic into submission, using the fear as a cleanser.  We got through it and then we went again.

At the end of the night I hit 68.

Over the next three nights, I found myself the main healer in all the heroics and Kara attunement groups.  During that time, Saak had made me heal:

• Heroic Slave Pens
• Heroic Ramps x2
• Kara 
• Durnhold
• Black Morass x2

Terrified, electrified, and thrilling all at once,  It had been the most exciting time I had ever experienced in-game. 

Believe it or not, those instances have built my healing foundation, and it can do it for you too.

This is what I mean.  In all the groups mentioned above, I was with friends, all aware this was my first healer and inexperienced.  We always took a veteran healer, Saak in this case, to give me tips as we went along, and help out as a off-healer at major “Oh Crap” moments, like when there was a bad pull or unintended aggro. The important thing is to push the new healer to their limits.  It is important for someone to understand their limits. Often it is farther than they believed.

Case in point, while running Heroic Slave Pens at 68,  I thought for sure I couldn’t heal the damage from the Bog Lords.  Saak told me to relax and just try it.  We did, and while the tank did get dangerously low, we didn’t die.

Now, the water elementals were another story and I realized I had make sure I used fade and healed myself.  Lesson learned.

And that is what the healer boot camp is all about.  Lessons.  Everyone expects you to know what you are doing, but honestly, were are you suppose to train?  All new healers should go through this.  Like Tanks, we are all expected to know how to heal, but no one thinks about how you learn.  Instead of a chaotic heroic or thrown in to a raid with no healing experience, wouldn’t you rather have a controlled environment where you are allowed to suck and learn.The boot camp requires 4 main things:

• Four friends willing to help you
• If one of them is an experienced healer, ask them to come.  A mentor is important, someone who can help guide you through. If you don’t know of one, read up as much as you can before you go in. I recommend Ego, Matt, Kestrel and Plus Heal as sources
• Your pals need to be at least appropriately geared. If they are undergeared, your controlled environment is going to turn into chaos. This is your boot camp, not theirs.
• Be willing to die.

You will wipe, but not as often as you may think.

Use the fear and panic to help you focus. You are not the only healer ever to wipe a raid, or kill yourself.  Enjoy it. Revel in it.

I highly recommend this experience.  At the end of the three nights, I absolutely feel in love with healing.  And even if you already have a healer and you are leve
ling another healing class, I still recommend doing it with your new toon. 

Healing styles are different depending on the class you are playing and even if you are know how to heal on your priest, doesn’t mean you are going to be comfortable on the shammy or pally. Won’t it help to honing your skills to another healing style.

Trust me, it will be the best thing for you.

Healers?  Did you go through your own version of Healer Boot Camp?  Any other suggestions on how a healer can get their healing foundation?

Amazing. I have posted on three sites today….that is right, count them THREE.  And you do you want is even more awesome than that? I have finally added part 1 of chapter 1 for Volition.

You all thought I abandoned it, didn’t you?

It is alive, I promise and if you are interested, you can see it here:

Also I am working on building a personal site, because I know you guys don’t really want to hear about my anime rants, romance novels and how to make a fart smell authentic in a story, but I need some place to talk about them, hence the new site.  Having said that, I would like to extend a big thanks to Nib from BA gave me the name for the site and Kes, who indirectly inspired it.

Oh, just so your heart can stop beating, I actually have a post to write for GLDC tomorrow.  A real one, with meat and everything.

Aren’t you all so impressed!  I know I am!

Wordpress 2.6 offers some great new tools, like image caption, post revision history and even a word count in your post screen.  So, me being me, I jumped off the cliff and upgraded this morning and quickly encountered a problem:

If you use Firefox 3.0+ you may not be able to log-in into the control panel. If you use IE, you should be able to log in.

Here is the WP forum post: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/188870?replies=20

Editor Note: On Kes’ excellent advice, I cleared the cookies from Firefox and now am able to access the panel.  Please let me know if you can’t even after clearing the cookies.

Also, like Matt mentioned if you use WLW or another remote editor you may have to enable your XML files.  Without XML enabled you will not be able to upload posts through a remote program.  To do this go to the Settings tab, then Writing and scroll down until you see:

Just make sure it is checked off and you are good to go!

You know you are bored when you change a spec that you love and are comfortable with to go Survival.  No, no, that is not true, actually, I have been meaning try it for a while and now since my priest is my main raider, I feel I have the luxury to experiment. 

Survival is the one spec I have never fully tried. Prior to going BM in my late 60’s, I have only been MM/SV and BM/MM and really, what hunter would I be if I didn’t at least try a real Survival spec at least once.

This is my question for you great survival hunters not afraid to Expose yourselves, what spec would you recommend?  Chain Trap and Survival Hunters Anonymous, I look at you two especially, give a dwarf chick a hand and direct me to some specs I can try as Survival. 

I would love to have a couple to choose from, like a pure raiding spec, DPS spec and PvP spec, since I would like to try each to get a feel for them.

Oh any tips you would like to gives to make this a viable as possible would be greatly appreciated (I am willing to change gems and what not)

Also, completely unrelated, Ep. 8 of the TNB is out.

Thanks,

Bre

Back from vacation on Monday and had Shmooz coming down to visit us for the first time ever.  The boy had only one night between a two day meeting and wanted to spend a couple of hours meeting everyone. No problem, I assumed.  A simple dinner, let all the Miami guildies know of the arrival and just pick him up.  Easy right?

The lesson learned here?  Your mother tired to warn you, you shouldn’t assume, because it makes you look like a…well you know.  Why am I saying this? Let’s list the ways:

1. If your pal tells you he is going to be staying at the “Intercontinental” in Miami. Don’t try to act all-knowing and assume that he means the hotel in download.

2. Don’t assume that you don’t need the actual physical address.

2. When your pal calls you at 6:15pm, don’t rush him through the conversation so you can get in your car and drive downtown.

2. Even though we are living through financially difficult times, don’t tell your husband the week before, with a great air of certainty, that you don’t need a cell phone.  Since, honestly, you are always in two locations.  Work or home.

2. Drive to the hotel, with no cell phone and try to locate totally unknown guildie through a sea of tourists only to find out your pal isn’t staying there.

2. Freak out and think he must be lost in Miami.

2. Try to find a payphone in Downtown.  Okay, that part wasn’t hard, let me rephrase.  Find a working payphone.   For those of you who have ever been to Downtown Miami after 5, this is not a good idea.  The streets are pretty empty, people keep looking at you and a real fear of getting mugged hangs heavy in the air.

2. Call your pal (thankfully you have memorized his cell, but to continue your reign of stupidity, you didn’t actually bring a hardcopy of the number) and find out he is by Doral, a good 30 minutes away from your current location.

2. Tell everyone who was going to meet up at your place for dinner to be there by 6:30, because of course, you would be there LONG before that.

2. Freak out on the highway heading to your pal’s actual hotel, that it is already 7:00pm.

1. After you finally get to your pal, pile him into the car, and start to drive back, realize once again that you can’t call anyone to tell them the changes and die of shame when you realize your poor father, who has been looking forward to meeting your pal, had come and gone.

Outside of my misadventures trying to actually get to Shmooz, the night itself was wonderful and it was really great to finally meet him in the “flesh”.  After almost three years of gaming together, I am very happy to have a face to the voice. Saak, his girlfriend, her daughter and my dad all made it and ate my bland spaghetti.  I would post the picture of the event, however, in one last great assumption, I assumed my camera could take a picture.

Instead what I got was a blurry image of Shmooz holding a beer.

/EPIC FAIL