Lost in Space

Somewhere between 'tossing toilet paper' and 'writing Greek wills' -- both topics on which I wrote this fall -- it appears our Travelnwrite became lost in space.

Lost in space, blogosphere-style, that is.

Lost in space - or the blogosphere

While I've been sitting in Greece writing blogs and pondering a recent drop in readership, apparently many of you were wondering if I had quit writing because the posts weren't arriving in your inbox as they had been.

Lost in space - blogosphere-style.

Space the final frontier or it is the blogosphere

I have to admit that it took until this week for the lightbulb to go off in this old boomer brain and realize something was seriously amiss. Those of you receiving the blog posts by email hadn't received any for weeks.  I'd been busy having fun with October houseguests, completing olive harvest and then jetting off to Hungary. . .so, I wasn't paying attention as I should have been to stats and other things that blog writers monitor.

Let me stop here for a moment to say, that one of the best parts of writing a blog is having so many friends as readers.  On the flip side, over the years many who began as readers of the blog have, over the years, become good friends.

And after having three reader/friends in a short period of time write us to ask about our well being as they hadn't gotten blog posts, I finally figured out there was a major malfunction going on. Thanks to those who wrote ~ you know who you are!

As a result you are now reading a 'test post'' as I've done some troubleshooting to see if I can fix the 'feed' (blog lingo for the distribution of emails to those who signed up to get them as emails).

Getting lost in space

Stop! Something is wrong - the light bulb went off

Looking back, our disappearance from the inboxes seems to eerily coincide with an unreal few but frustrating weeks when I found myself unable to get into the inner workings of my blog. In order to pay the annual fee I pay for use of the title, Travelnwrite, I had to get into my Google account.  If you don't pay by the deadline you lose your rights to your title and access to your blog.

You ever tried to reach a human at Google?

Through some miracle, I stumbled upon a real human named Matey.  All I had to do was to convince him that I really was me, author of Travelnwrite for the last decade. He and I talked on the phone and wrote numerous emails to each other on nearly a daily basis for several weeks.

But I couldn't find the documentation I needed to prove I was me. In the end I had to complete a security test - it took three tries before I provided what they were looking for (I won't bore you with details but let's say it was right up there with applying for a Greek residency permit on the high blood pressure barometer.)

Lost in space 

Finally just days before the title was set to expire, I convinced Matey and the Google Security Team (who'd become involved along the way) that I was me.
I got into my account.
I paid.
The domain Travelnwrite renewed.
I sighed with relief.
I began writing posts again. . .

They just didn't get emailed.

Today we will see if the distribution is working.

Hoping the lost in space has been found

In addition to emailing posts, we have some who follow the blog in their readers and I post them on my FB page as well as the Travelnwrite FB page.  So for those who've already read these, please bear with me while I provide links to those who didn't get them. Click the highlighted link for the article.

Heading to the olive press - another harvest in the history book

In November I told you about this year's olive harvest at The Stone House on the Hill.

Then I wrote about being Hungary for adventure and heading to Budapest.

Yes! Me at a Christmas Market - Budapest

And of the joy in finally getting to visit a 
European Christmas Market

Budapest Noir - the city's darker side

Last week I looked at the dark side of that wonderful city in
Budapest Noir

I am signing off this post with a huge thanks to all of you who take the time to read Travelnwrite. Your time and interest means a lot! Let us hear from you if you have found this one in your inbox.

As always wishes for safe travels to you and yours ~