Life at Twinstrivia.com goes on

I have had some serious web site issues here at twinstrivia.com with my site provider the last six weeks or so that I hope have finally been resolved and life at twinstrivia.com goes on, at least I hope it does. It all started when my site provider decided they would go through some server migrations and my number so to speak, came up on December 16. After a two day outage they finally got my site up and running but it was slower than molasses in Minnesota in February.

After at least 16 calls and God knows how many hours on the phone over six weeks all I got from them was that they “might” have some server issues that they are working on but they had no idea when things would be resolved. They kept telling me to hire an engineer and redesign my web site, a site that was running fine until they decided to do a server migration. I was so frustrated I was ready to give it up and close down Twinstrivia.com after 15 years of blogging.

I was so angry I finally decided to dig around and find out who really owned my web site host provider and after some research I found out who owned them and determined who the CEO and COO were. It turned out they own some of the biggest web site service providers in the country. That in itself was a learning experience for me, I had no clue that a number of these “competing” web site host providers are owned by the same company. Once I had that information I sent an e-mail addressed to the CEO and COO and within an hour I had a reply asking me for more info about my problem and they then told me that they would look into it for me. Less than 24 hours later I had an e-mail telling me that my site would be moved to another server, something that I had been asking for, for over a month with no success. By the next day my site was up and running just like it was before the original server migration happened. I was so dang happy and excited to have a site that worked and loaded like it should and here about 10 days later, it continues to run great.

Part of my frustration was that I kept asking the customer service folks to escalate the problem but they just plain refused to do it and on numerous occasions they said they would call me back within 24 hours with an update and they never, not once, did that.

I know that COVID is causing problems all over and people are working for home and it is sometimes more difficult to solve problems but six weeks to resolve an issue? I worked at Norwest/Wells Fargo IT in a variety of roles for 38+ years and we never let a customer have an issue for that long.

Sorry for rambling on here for so long but I just wanted to take some time and let you know why the site has been so quiet and has had so few postings lately. Twinstrivia.com is not a site where you are usually going to find a lot of hot new posts, I run the site as a Minnesota Twins historical web site with some current events sprinkled in.

I enjoy blogging about Twins history but running a “hobby” web site is not always a bed of roses and if you are not a money making site it can be difficult to keep it going for any length of time. Prices for the domain, hosting, security and applications keep on rising. I have been fortunate and lucky to keep the site up and running for 15+ years and hopefully we can keep it going awhile longer.

So thank you for stopping by the Twinstrivia.com now and then and I will try to make it worth your time as we work on year number 16. If you have enjoyed the site over the years and wish to donate a few dollars to help keep it running, I would appreciate it very much. If you are so inclined, you can find the donation link on the right-hand side of the Home page. As you all know, nothing in life is free. Thank you and I hope that you all stay safe, warm and healthy out there and keep cheering on our Minnesota Twins.