It certainly has been a while, but I think, hope and pray that I am back posting on my own website. The transition from WordPress.com to plain old WordPress on my BlueHost server has been interesting, frustrating and sometimes downright horrid, but I think it is on the way to becoming the site I want it to be and that I hope you will like. There are still a few things we are working on, but once I found a new software solution called Divi, things got better. Mostly due to their amazing tech support from a (sorry to type this) AI named Fin (Divi is made in Finland, thus Fin).
I know we're not supposed to love AIs, but I believe that helping with tech support is one of their best functions. One of the things I dislike most about human tech support via chat or voice is that if you don't understand something on the first try, they start thinking, "This guy must be really dumb." When you ask them for the third or fourth time how to do something, they really seem to think you are a total moron. I don't usually have to ask three times, but sometimes, when learning an entirely new way to do something, it takes that many repetitions. And human tech support, being paid by the hour and the number of people they assist, truly just wants people like me to go away so they can go on with answering calls and helping people with a computer IQ over 10.
An AI, on the other hand, doesn't care how many times you ask it a question. It will review the problem with you, again and again. And its AI is great at that. It even tells me it understands how frustrating it is to try to work through something and think it works, only for it to revert to the problem when you go back to it an hour later. Believe me, that has happened to me. And that's when I start to scream, cry, or both. Thankfully, I have a wonderful wife who puts up with me and an amazing dog who knows when I am stressed and gives me as many snuggles and kisses as I can handle when things go wrong. And in this journey to start the year, lots of things have gone wrong. Again and again and again.
Which brings us to here. My "new" website. Please take a minute to look around and let me know if you find anything that needs attention. I have had Kathleen and my buddy Bob looking at it this week and I think I have fixed most of the things they mentioned to me and the other thing is what Divi's tech support is working on.
It is pretty much the same content as before (other than this post), but in some ways a better design and in some ways worse. For instance, do you remember all those cool galleries that you could click and turn into slide shows of my photos? Well, it took me forever to figure out how to get those to work in the new format. But as you will see below, I have recreated it. Now I just have to figure out how to make the captions bigger and more readable when you click on the photo to see it. But that also means that if you look at past posts, those galleries are gone, replaced with just thumbnails of my photos that you have to click twice to see. For them to look like they used to, I would have to go back and change each one individually. As much as I love you, my readers, that's not going to happen.
So, as my first post on the new site (we haven't really been traveling), I wanted to update you on what we've been doing in the first 2.5 months of 2026.
January was all about the usual stuff. Seriously, for some reason, January always feels like a boring month. I just looked back at our calendar, and the most exciting thing that happened was that our dishwasher broke and was out of commission for nearly the entire month until the warranty company agreed to pay for the repair.
But February was a bit busier. I went down to Olympia a couple of times to see the kids. I saw Maylee in a play (Frozen) and attended a basketball game where Mason's high school band was performing. I also met his girlfriend, Kyleigh (who is amazing), and caught up with the Olympia group in Gig Harbor to celebrate Mason's 15th birthday by playing Laser Tag (I LOVE LASER TAG–photo below).
At the start of March, we both traveled to Olympia proudly to be there when our son-in-law, Joel, was promoted to Lieutenant in the Washington State Patrol. This is a pretty big deal, and there is a picture below. I would have added these photos here, but I wanted to make sure the gallery/slide show module worked correctly, so that's why you get to see them.
The other three photos in the gallery are from walks I took this month, along with a photo I snapped outside our front door yesterday (March 13). Yes, we had snow on March 13, which isn't supposed to happen in Western Washington. We compared the weather with my brother and sister-in-law in Southern California, and they were unseasonably hot (mid-80s), while we were getting snow. Of course, the current regime running our government claims there is no such thing as climate change, so we know we will be OK.
My next post will return to travel topics as I share details about our upcoming trips. We have three planned between now and the end of June. Stay tuned. Don't forget to let me know if you see any issues by commenting below. That will also help me verify that comments are working.
To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focused on the outcome, not the obstacles. — T.F. Hodge
Thanks Jim. I’ve missed your photos and commentary.
Yes we are having nice warm weather in SoCal; my favorite!!!
Looking forward to hearing/seeing about your upcoming travels.
I’ll be heading for France in May…
Take care and “hi” to Kathleen.
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Welcome back
Welcome BACK ! Missed the pics.
I received the notification, which came in the form of a clickable link/graphic. Great news that you have mastered this with AI assistance. The post itself is very neatly laid out. The bad news is I am not seeing a gallery. There appears to be another image, upper right, that also hasn’t loaded.
Are you using the block editor? I have a plugin that overrides the Gutenberg Editor called Classic Editor that I use on my desktop, which I much prefer, but when I travel, I use the WordPress app, which uses the block system. They both seem to work okay in tandem for the moment, but I suspect over time, I might need to ditch the classic editor plugin. The block editor does allow you to create a gallery, and to complement this, I use another plugin called Responsive Lightbox & Gallery, which works as I need it to, so I leave it well alone.
I am travelling again at the end of the week, so look out for some notifications in your mailbox.
Traveling again. YEAH! Can’t wait.
Haven’t had anyone else missing the gallery. You might want to do the whole “clearing the cache” thing. There is also a gallery on my first portfolio page. See if you can see that one.
I’m getting a gallery on your portfolio page, but not on this post. I am using my Android phone at the moment but will check the PC a bit later.
Somehow, they all came unlinked and were removed from my media. Just gone. Not sure how that happened. Should be back now.
Welcome back! The first two emails came in a language I had no idea what it was. Thankfully the third was perfect.
I’m glad Kathleen and your precious dog got you through the rough start of your new website. Congrats on your son-in-laws promotion, that is huge. Always nice to see your grandkids, I know that feeling first hand.
I look forward to any and all posts. March will be a better month with Easter soon ahead.
~Eileen
Yes, I can now see them ?? I have noticed that the images are not as big as the full-size ones you had on .com, I used to be able to click on the preview image, and it would open a larger version. Now it just goes to the next image.
When I click them they open in full screen and fill the entire screen. When you mouse over them, they do seem to enlarge but you have to click them to get the full screen image.
Blonde moment, I’m not making excuses, but the first three are portrait orientation, so they are only filling the screen top to bottom. Now that I have checked the fourth and turned off my Bookmarks toolbar and Menu bar, I can see them in their full glory.
One other thing to mention, the cursor while writing a reply is very tall and doesn’t always behave itself, I struggle to determine which line of text it’s on.
I couldn’t see the photo of products that was one of your top ten of the year. I also do t see any here.
Thank you for all you do to treat us to your great photos and commentary!