So to get the new site up, we have to clone the old site, so we can work on it.
Behold the tale of UGH.
Due to the site’s size, I will open a ticket for you with our happiness engineers.
Thanks for chatting with Sam today! They’ve passed on your support request and it’s now in the hands of our Happiness Engineers. From here, we’ll investigate further and reach out again with an update as quickly as possible.
Eden here from the Flywheel team, just wanted to pop through a quick message to confirm we have been working on cloning the site manually for you as you spoke about with Sam in chat however are coming up against some roadblocks with the size of the site’s database.
Long story short, the site is too large to be cloned. I will need to rebuild it from scratch on the server and then merge the two.
::rocking back and forth::
I have writing to do. Instead I may have to do this. I don’t know what will survive on the site at the end of this adventure. This is the official notification that wonkiness may occur.
I have exported the entirety of blog posts database. I’ve been urged by several librarians to save it somewhere, because apparently librarians do not want to throw anything away. The XML was almost 300 MB, and so I had to break it down by year. It’s a certainty that old posts will have to go. In honor of this noble sacrifice, I present to you the three first ever posts on this site.
Brace yourself for the great wisdom and profound revelation of Ilona Andrews 2009.
blah blah blha – 2009-01-07 17:06
yacketty shmacketty
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
I’m testing WordPress
And you can too!
crossposter plug in test – 2009-01-08 19:32
A neutron walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender gives him a cold one. The neutron asks, “How much?”
The bartender says “For you, no charge.”
Cross poster test two – 2009-01-08 19:36
War doesn’t decide who is right, only who is left.
Nothing has changed.
But, but….you love a challenge. **covers eyes**
I’d duck as well as cover . . .
Bwahaha! Physics humor, I like it! 😉
But, but, I like your first three posts? And yes I have read your blog back about hmm 8 years. It’s a coping strategy when I am needing another of your books. Can you dump the older blog posts on a different site?
+1
I do that too! Your blog is like a security blanket right now.
Me too! I have read back through years of old posts and comments. I hope you can find a way to preserve access to them.
I am not remotely technical, so please don’t laugh. Could you take pictures of the individual pages? And then store them somewhere on the cloud?
As usual, your writing delights – no matter the subject. Good luck!
Indeed. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
I am sorry you need to spend your time not writing. (I am a greedy little horde-ster.) However, the result will probably be worth the effort. Just keep telling yourself (yourselves?) that.
Wonkiness happens.
Thank you for keeping us up-to-date on the rebuild. (And so very much more.)
It’s a fine a balance between writing and your all’s blog bot both of them are wonderful. Thanks for your dedication.
Heh.
When I hear “The database is too big to clone.” I think of multiple terabytes. 300 MB is tiny and cute!
It’s all in what you’re used to I guess. Your hosting company probably has more than one customer too.
Also, “Happiness Engineers” makes me chuckle.
Good luck with your tech tasks and I hope they are not too annoying!
I saw the size and wanted to send an external hard drive or even plug in usb thumb drive. Crossing my fingers. Hoping for the best! ????????????
@Zan, I agree with you about the small size of the “too big to clone” database. It’s been a long time (at least thirty years) since 300 MB was thought to be “big” by any experienced IT expert. Of course their engineers are experts in “happiness” and not necessarily data management. Can you get Maud to negotiate for you?
Fifteen years ago, I wrote up a procedure to expand a database size allocation to 300 *giga*bytes.
And *now* they’re telling you that 300 *mega*bytes is too big? WTAF?
(BTW: The company I worked for now has customers with *terra*bytes of data…and no hardcoded limit on db size.)
Be haha haha….love it…Maude, what a great suggestion!
Agreed. I am very surprised this is going to be such a challenge.
Sending happy thoughts your way — I hope the rebuild / merge goes smoothly!
Ilona, you have a fan base, many of whom are techy, many of whom would love to give back… create your dream team to get this done?
Vonnie, I couldn’t ask anyone to do that for me. I am already over budget – slightly, but still – and there are things I must do myself.
As a tech geek and a librarian, can we offer to pay to do it? >_>
LOL
Figured it was worth asking XD
Would you accept volunteers to help you? I would be happy to donate my time to help build the new website and with the data issues you are having.
Thank you so much for offering, but this is boring admin work. 🙂 I don’t feel right asking you guys to help. Beta reading is different, because the reader is getting the book early and has actual input. This is more like creating buy links and arranging wordpress blocks. It should be paid labor. But I really appreciate the offer.
I’m also almost suggesting the same thing about the volunteering. For newer readers, it can be quite a ride to stroll through those posts and read them while arranging/editing/etc. it.
Also, the official notification is surely unique!????
I am sure the volunteers would appreciate an ARC as compensation ????????
ARC sounds like an amazing solution. If I didn’t have a newborn, I would totally volunteer (CS degree from Stanford and work in tech).
100%
I’m sure a lot of the BDH are on team “Will work for ARC”
you know it amazes me also every single time – but there are people out there that ENJOY the boring admin work – :-0 – how they are wired and why they would no idea but i know for sure they exist!!
I’ve volunteered more than once. In fact, you could pay me by promising NOT to make me one of your beta readers. While it’s definitely something I’m interested in, I like your books too much. I think it would mess it up for me if I read them before they were finished.
Yep, bunch of us happy to help and many also happy to crowdfund it. Reading the old posts *is* the reward!
Agreed!
Hello Ma’am. Prince, from Nigeria here (no not the evil scammer guy).
I don’t see why you’re ignoring the help — except maybe pride.
Let your fans help…… please?
Hello ma’am. Prince, from Nigeria, here (no not the evil scammer guy).
I don’t see why you wouldn’t accept the help — except maybe pride.
Let your fans help…… please?
Those posts you shared are super cute and embodies the great humor we love!
I wish you luck with the website!! That company’s response sounds very much like it came from the show Upload on Amazon Prime.
Ahhh, the wisdoms from our past., sometimes I look back on my posts and just cringe.
Really? You had to say that?
Sorry about the site rebuild. I think it’s awesome as it is now.
Happiness Engineers. Hahaha.
Perhaps you could archive offline on and external DB, and put up only 1-3 years historical data online. 300mb is “relatively” small.
When Disneyland provides tech support.
You do not want disney tech support. I’ve never seen websites for a major company so prone to crashing lol
That said I was also tickled by the Happiness engineers
I feel your pain. And having to deal with “Happiness Engineers” is just adding insult to injury!
I can’t imagine the engineers are happy about it as well.
I have to.
You walk into a lab and see an experiment. What type is it?
If it is green or moving, it’s Biology.
If it stinks, it’s Chemistry.
If it doesn’t work, it’s Physics.
Happiness engineers sounds like a squad of demons on the fourth level of hell.
+1 I agree Nancy!! “Happiness Engineers” indeed!! ????????????
It seems like someone had their own evil and quirky sense of humor when they labeled them that. I would feel my jaw drop and all my hope’s and dreams of getting meaningful assistance fly straight out of the window as soon as I saw that!! I am so sorry you are suffering through all of this, and feel guilty getting a laugh about any part of it, but seriously, “Happiness Engineers”?!! Can’t help the initial disbelief, then the head shake, and finally the snickering. At least I didn’t go into full out belly laughs.
I am hoping you get this taken care of without too much more stress and eating up of your time set aside for writing. I hope they live up to their label, and give you some happiness by fixing this swiftly and without a lot of agony.
PS
You don’t want to accept the offered assistance of techie members of the BDH because you feel that would be taking advantage in some way. That is incredibly thoughtful of you. But, I just have to add my two cents and say that if you were experiencing a problem in an area I have expertise in, I wouldn’t hesitate for an instant to offer any assistance I could. You have (and I hope will continue to) given me so much pleasure through your works and through this blog. I have had a lot of medical problems just in the last 7 years or so, which have included 3 times my doctors said they were amazed that I didn’t die but somehow managed to pull through, and several major surgeries, and lengthy and painful recoveries. When I was at my lowest, I reread all your books, and it was like visiting with an old, cherised friend. Your books brought me not only pleasure, but comfort at times when I really needed it. I know I “paid for” your works, but I don’t feel like what I paid is in any way adequate reimbursement for what I received. I am positive that there are other members of the BDH and other people on this blog that feel the same way. If there was anyway I could give back to you, just a little bit, I would be glad for the opportunity! Besides, you are going through this ordeal trying to do so.something that would benefit us. It would be miserly and ungrateful NOT to want to help!! I don’t know if I speak for anyone else (but I have a strong suspicion that I do), but I would really LOVE to be able to help in anyway. I can understand if there are privacy or other such issues, but maybe there is some other way in which those who wish to could help. I hope that someone comes up with a way in which we can help, and that you would accept. I, unfortunately, don’t have any ideas, but I will keep hoping that someone comes up with something!
Love it. As a former lab tech, it’s spot on. Best book I ever read was “To know a Fly”. Author chose flies, yes, your standard house fly, to do his PhD , when he saw his colleague having to dispose of a dead elephant. Priceless.
LOL That’s great.
That made me really cackle. Love it.
Good luck!
There may be hope. A DVD writer can store 4.7GB on a DVD-ROM and 600MB on CD-ROM. DVD writers run around $40 or so at Wal-Mart. My suggestion is make2-3 copies in whatever format you deem appropriate.
And yes – librarians do have you save everything if you have the space.
Current Blu-ray ROM writers can handle 100 or 128 GB. It’s the only way we can keep up with storing my wife’s photography.
Would losing the comments from past posts help with the size?
The thoughts of the BDH take up a large amount of data I’m sure but the reality is we are a mouthy opinionated group, but as this is your site, it is your words that are the most important.
Uhm…have you considered paying someone to do this for you? 300 MB XML does sound kinda big but a 300 MB file in real life is not that big. I have not done a website migration in many years but FTP or SFTP offers a copy feature….and a professional should be able to:
A) copy everything (or clone)
B) make a complete backup of everything
C) using a copy write a script to update path information to conform to the new site D) test the new site
E) set up a site backup plan
If the professionals you hired to move the site are having issues, well I think you know more about haggling and escalation than I do… escalate it baby!
Good luck!
Good luck!!! I hope you all have help moving the site around. Isn’t one of your kids a computer science major? Sounds like a job for them. 😉
It sounds like you have so very much to manage at the moment… the author gig is out the door, and instead your juggling for a circus.
Please don’t forget that you have a very large fan base, filled with thousands of very helpful people who are somewhat besotted with you both.
I’m sure if you needed a bit of help, for instance, in organising your blogs, or helping to transfer data across, you would find some very willing and experienced helpers.
In the meantime, please take care of yourselves and each other.
Oh, man, do I ever sympathize. I’m just coming off a laborious back-up & transfer of 25+ years of data/pix to a new computer because of a dying screen (which I let go on for too long, hilariously thinking it was some sort of Apple special effect for the screen to be dark over the Sierra mountains and gradually lighten up). Back-up was especially laborious because of my more than 50K photos which I had to export from iPhoto and Photos, since the chances of them migrating smoothly from within a 4-OS’s-ago app to the latest version of that app were pretty much nil according to everyone I consulted. I ending up getting migraines from the eyestrain of doing all this on a darkened screen (luckily one half was still somewhat lit up; sadly it was the right-hand side, so all the command menus were on the darkest side). Silver lining: I now have the iMac I’ve been jonesing over. But I still haven’t finished transferring everything over…
???? I’m sorry you have to endure this, but I can’t stop laughing because of the “happiness engineers” and “Eden from the Flywheel”! Are they real?! ???? Hope you’ll exorcise them finding them a place in one of the books! ????
All the feels. I had them. Good luck, and listen to the wise librarians – I loved reading those first posts!
Good Luck! ???? This reminds of Scotty – “I’m giving her all she’s got Captain”
I have a friend who quit her corporate job 4+ years ago to run an online audio school with her husband, who’s recording engineer. I’ve gotten to witness, secondhand, all the joys & pain involved with managing your own site: the continual updates, the constant tagging & re-tagging, the platform migrations, and all the other tedious tasks.
I totally get the drain & the strain you’re going through and wish I could offer help or advice. I’m sorry it sucks right now. I appreciate the time and the care you put into this site. It’s one of my favorite places to visit.
Good luck!!! And thank you for making a humorous post out of it.
???? how cool of people to volunteer to help. You’re some good eggs out there people!
Glad that I don’t have to do anything. I had to do a Zoom meeting on Friday. First time . And it worked. And the cats left me alone. I contributed and took notes. This was uncharted Territory for me.
So, I wish you patience and some luck. And have some ice tea and cookies.
Let the wonky commence
As a long term follower on your site and blog, it’s fantastic! Just start over with 2020 and some of the free stories/snippets (to introduce yourselves and suck in new readers).
If you miss the past, you can add some of it back when you’re feeling bored. I recognize that you have a lot of awesome content and the go-back will probably be never, but this a tense year (for many reasons), give yourself permission to do less. 🙂
Maybe Avon’s tech folks would reset up the House section/ info for you.
I can’t even wrap my head around the size of your job. Just going to suggest that you order really good carryout in a quantity that will allow leftovers to fuel you through this. Thanks for all you do.
No matter what you’re talking about, you always put a smile on my face…
Good luck and thank you for your efforts to make this site even more awesome.
Read your post, laughed at the jokes, thought about the problem, now have a headache and need to lay down. If you don’t get to post until the end of the month, summer, year? totally understand.
I’m with the librarians. But then, I’m an historian. We’re worse than librarians.
Oh my gosh I agree with you Mary! 😀 My Bachelor’s degree is in History.
I was about to post a similar comment. I’m an historian as well and adore the fact librarians don’t want to throw anything away. More data for me!
Just Blog text 300 mb? Yikes!
Full e-books are about half a Mb, if there’s no cover.
600 books worth of blog. No wonder they wanted You to save that.
That…. Kinda puts it in perspective doesn’t it?
OTOH I used to work for a very large welsite with a very large database. 300 was the size of the sample database we used in our dev environment.
One time I borked up the production database. I accidentally triggered a mysql bug and instead of transferring all entries from point A to point B, I transferred all entries NOT at point A to point B.
DB rollback took an afternoon to complete.
I’m not techie so can’t help in that way but am sending energy and strength for, what appears to be, a big task.
Sometimes it’s good to accept the gift of help unless it compromises privacy. It’s hard for us to do sometimes…
Good luck with everything!
Happiness Engineers and Flywheel Team, snort. Love it, but tech can certainly be a pain. Hang in there.
So you’re saying I have a short time to read the entire backlog of blog posts…. Challenge accepted
I feel your pain. Just updated old computer to new computer. Apparently a certain company is now releasing computers with s mode that’s supposed to be easy to switch off. 4.5 hrs later it is definitely not easy. Next up my parents computers…kill me now
Just announce you’re going silent for a few days until everything’s up and running and
You’ll email us when the next Ryder is up. Then take your time, get plenty of rest, and stay well. Virtual hugs, Wonder Woman ( and Man).
CAN I GET SOME ➕ 1️⃣S TO SHOW ILONA SOME SUPPORT❓
Never having used word press, I am having great difficulty figuring out what’s so difficult with all of this. You downloaded a mere 300 MB of blog posts. You have them. So make the new site, and as you have time, you replace the old posts you want to keep by uploading them to the site. It’s not as you have terabytes of data to upload or download. But if you make the new site and begin using it, that will ease the pressure of deciding what to leave in, what to leave out. I mean, you’ll have to hunt down the Ryder posts so they’re all on the new site, but that’s pretty easy. Nothing else is urgently needed on the new site to keep things flowing. Having downloaded the blog posts, you can just keep them at your fingertips until you are ready to go through them and post them again. Thumb drives can hold massive amounts of data these days. It’s not as if you’re using floppy disks to store things. If word press won’t do this for you, perhaps you can make a section on the new site, call it “old blog posts” and put the old ones you want to let people peruse there. And, keep in mind, it’s YOUR site — you can just remove all the comments from all the old posts and leave your own personal diary posted.
I’m not blowing smoke here when I say that I agree with the librarians that you should not throw them all away. Many of the posts you give us show us a look behind the scenes, as it were, to the efforts that go into creating the books we read over and over again. I’m just saying that the new site will be complete without those old posts until you have to time to mess around with them.
Also: Happiness Engineers? Who are they kidding? If 300 MB is too much for them to handle, there’s no happiness there.
I have been here since the beginning when I wasn’t even sure what a blog was. Over the years the site has gotten better, prettier and more user friendly. I look forward to what comes next! *waves flag and cheers*
I consider myself lucky to get on the computer and do e-mail. I just want to use it and have no knowledge of how to make it work. Hats off to you for doing it yourself and even better having it work. I do not envy your task.
Eek!! Good luck with all the computer data transfers! ????????
Cute penguin! ????????
There’s a sci-fi book I read writen in the 80’s I think where in the future there is almost no music or liturature available from the times of now. We lost it all when the new computers stopped talking to the old computers. I can actually see that happening as we loose so many thing’s we’d converted to e-storage so we’d “always have it”. Kind of sad really.
I know this might not be particularly helpful in transferring data, but if you have to lose some of your older posts, a lot of your current website might already be archived in the wayback machine on archive.org, and people should be able to view them that way. It seems like nothing ever truly leaves the internet.
I think I’m too much like Kate, but anyone who goes by the title of happiness engineer would warrant suspicion. Seriously, it sounds like something Hugh would have called himself while he worked for Roland.
????????????
As someone with a degree in information management, I am compelled to agree. I get this eyelid twitch when people say “delete”.
As for your Happiness Engineers……a place I worked once, on a wall in the boss’s office, hung a baseball bat. Beneath the bat was a sign reading: ENGINEER ADJUSTMENT TOOL.
It’s an option. Just sayin’.
“Happiness Engineers”? When I have an issue, I don’t want the happiness rainbow smiley guys; I want industrual strength, grim-lipped, steely-eyed missile men.
+1
XKCD: Devotion to Duty:
https://xkcd.com/705/
“…librarians do not want to throw anything away.”
I have worked as support staff in public and academic libraries for over fifteen years and can absolutely confirm this statement.
Have never used WordPress. Having said that, a basic principle of working with databases is that the data must not be tied to program that uses it.
Translated to this, why do you need to copy the database? (unless may be you are changing hosts?).
Why not simply have your new site work with the existing database? you can work on new tables if you feel like starting from scratch and then merge the old with the new (at a db engine level).
Those were magical. Thank you for sharing. Pleeeeeease post a few more!?
I had to deal for the second time with Verizon Fios Help Desk trying to get a refund for my land line being down for two months. I won’t even go through the agony of trying to find a phone number on the FIOS website and then getting to the correct department. I think I was talking to a lady in the Philippines working from home as I could hear chickens and children in the background. Finally getting $60 refund which ended up only being a $3 credit off my account and having to do the entire song and dance routine this time it took two days to get the right department and a human being from Australia this time to grant me a $60 refund which I will wait and see if it sticks this time. I would have luv’ed to have dealt with the Happiness Engineers it would have been less stressful.
Hugz. Head pat. Offers fresh chips&queso. Currently trying to AT THE SAME FREAKING TIME learn install manage Google Hangouts FB face TIME and PORTAL Skype Zoom and Jitli all to prepare for the imminent CAROSEL OF LEARNING happening just any minute now. Here lets just lay down here on the beaches of Daesyn pass back kaluha and give all those cutie pie knights espresso shots. Gordon? Gordon who?
Can’t help but will send happy thoughts ???? (sorry, it just came out). Btwthe comments are so entertaining,as per usual.
*continues reading Magic 1-10 again.
I, and my fellow librarians, thank you for archiving!
Bless your soul!
I know nothing about building websites, and I’m super impressed by those who have patience and skill to do so. I am also appreciative of the corny “Dad jokes” of your early post. We use such jokes to get a smile during mid morning huddles at work, so I’ll share with you courtesy of https://www.thehumortrain.com (warning, rabbit hole…)
“I got hit in the head with a can of soda yesterday. Luckily…it was a soft drink.”
“I always knock on the fridge before I open it. Just in case there’s a salad dressing.”
And my personal favorite, kid-tested and approved:
“What do you call an alligator with GPS?”
A Navigator.
Happy weekend, good luck with your project.
Hahahahahaha
I’m dying ????????
I love those first posts ????????????
Good luck
300MB just isn’t that big. You can get TB drives for roughly $20/TB. Is it so urgent that it can’t wait a week to order a TB drive? I know you have said not to pay you for Ryder, but I would be happy to order you a drive to be delivered to a PO Box or something.
I remember reading about your time in Washington (or Oregon, it rained a lot and you gave up a dog) and the southeast. The early years for you and Gordon were very tough. I always admired your persistence, and how awful it seems that people continue to live in that way. I remember Gordon posting on ‘how hard it is to be poor’; I think he writing on what he did not want for your kids. I wish I could find those early posts as a reminder of what is can be done with courage and ambition. Thanks for all you do now.
???? original/test posts. But, seriously, if you have folks who know what they are doing willing to volunteer or for the compensation of an ARC, you might consider it. Unless you are a complete control freak, which I TOTALLY understand.
Agree. Everything everyone else said. 😉
It’s the end of an era. I have no idea what you’re feeling rn other than overwhelmed, but I would guess there’s some sentimentality attached to the old blog. Sending love and happy thoughts ????????????
Wonkiness may ensue? Zooterkins, no! Not that! Chortle.
You’re all missing the point ….
“Blah” was misspelled!!!!!
????
Thank you for the chuckle, Ilona Andrews.
I have a geek BIL who builds and maintains websites as a software engineer and he was surprised that the tech people were having issues with so small of a database. Of course he routinely deals with tetrabytes etc so to him it seems small. It’s all relative.
As a family historian I keep my family tree database on a non internet machine as security protocol. I have multiple backups on cds and dvds and SD cards and external hard drive after first hard drive crashed. Paranoia. It’s a pain but I don’t like getting chewed out because someone tweeted family tree info that family wanted kept hush hush. Yes I am one of those people Microsoft and antivirus company hates as I require a manual update not an over the internet fix. And yes I follow up and go up the supervisor chain when I don’t receive a disk in a timely manner. So I feel your pain and sympathize. Good luck.
Wow! I wish you all the luck with the change over.
Hiiiii Team Andrews *frantic waving*
Depending on your timelines, I’d love to volunteer help building/rebuilding the website. Due to cost savings in my company, I’m on furlough through all of July and wouldn’t mind a project to keep me busy on an intellectual level. I’m a decent hand at web stuff. 😀
Please look into zip compression it should be available on any window 10 machine for archiving the site. The support folks should know and help with this but it’s orrery easy.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14200/windows-compress-uncompress-zip-files
DescriptionZIP is an archive file format that supports lossless data compression. A ZIP file may contain one or more files or directories that may have been compressed. The ZIP file format permits a number of compression algorithms, though DEFLATE is the most common. Wikipedia
Note: there are better but this the most common and therefore easiest to get help with later on.
IT professional, former university IT lecturer and web dev here – ping me if you want help:)
Lots of luck with your site!!!
I was wondering what the next Innkeeper book will be called. I was thinking you might call it something like “Sweep with Us” or “Sweep with Love” as it sounds like all the siblings will be getting together to go after the parents. What ever you call it I am waiting on pins and needles for it!!! I also am counting the days for “Emerald Blaze” to come out! I would love more kinsmen stories as well.
The two of you are my favorite author. You are so good at what you do and bring so much pleasure to so many!!! Thank you Both!!!
I woulfmd be shocked if the entire thing isn’t already indexed on the Internet Archive
As a librarian I have to plead guilty to keeping everything. I have boxes full of papers and USBs full of files. In my defense I will say that I have fun organizing things and it makes me feel like I have accomplished something when I catalog things I will never use. But this is your site and you should do what you want. I will continue to be a devoted fan.
You have an amazing website and as a reader I appreciate it. I visit several other author websites and most either haven’t updated anything in years, or just don’t have much content. You give us up to date information and wonderful additional content. THANK YOU. This is work above and beyond your wonderful writing and not everyone would take the time to do it.
You know – in light of what is happening in the world today, my first reaction was “Happiness Engineers they call tech support Happiness Engineers? Way to totally rub it in your face that you have a problem and are totally not happy…..”
I don’t know if this would help with cloning your website, but if you are using wordpress there should be a database behind it like postgresql or mysql. If thats the case then you can do/get a database dump from that. That would be the actual copy of all the website content. The database dump can then be loaded into a new database. The database dump will be quite large and may take a few days to be created/generated. I have exported/dumped databases in the past that were over 100GB before, so size wouldn’t/shouldn’t be an issue.
Have you ever thought about publishing your favorite blog posts like John Scalzi did ? Not like you need more work or anything, but just a thought
Just trying to learn WordPress again (it has been years since the last time). I feel your pain! Love the suggestion of several others to start the new and add the other stuff as you have time. Just reread the Legacy series getting ready for the new one coming soon. Thank you for all you do for us! Remember to take the job in small bites, so it is not so overwhelming, good luck!
There may be much moaning and groaning on both sides, but just remember no matter how much we complain, it is only a compliment to you and your work, a way we can let you know how much you are appreciated. Take your time and enjoy the challenge the change in website represents; we will be here to cheer you on in that, as well as your writing. Oh, and sorry to hear about the skunk. My old beagle never met a skunk she didn’t want to make family, so she often smelled vaguely of the critters (fortunately they liked her too, so they didn’t spray).
I’ve just spent the last 2 months (and counting) rebuilding our nin-profit site from scratch due to similar issues. You have my eternal sympathy. Good luck!
When saving things for posterity, don’t listen to the librarians. (I am one, I should know). Instead, talk to the “Archivists”! (In any “information” emergency, keep calm and ask an archivist.) They’ll tell you if it *really* needs to be saved. Librarians: We should keep one copy of EVERYTHING! Archivist: Yeah, no. No. NO. That’s not “special” …in fact that is trash. You should throw it away. (Archivist out!) Tl;dr…if you need to “find” something, talk to a librarian. If you need to “save” something, talk to the archivist.