Oh you few, you lucky few. Some of you are seeing this post ahead of schedule. My projects aren’t supposed to work like this. My rule of thumb is to take my first guess of how long it will take, and take that number to the third power.

Or, that’s what Cheryl would have you believe, once I explained the math to her. Ouch! Score one for the husband who will be sleeping in his car for the next month!

Here’s the scoop. I’ve been doing business with dirty, slow-daddy, relying on them to host this site for the last three years. (I was in the hospital, spiking fevers, popping pain meds, and pumping chemo when I signed up, so my judgement was impaired. I hope this earns me a pass.) They’ve been reliable, and I can’t really blame them for the speed – not on a shared server, low cost plan. I can blame them for their marketing practices, and the strange vibe I get watching the CEO’s video podcasts that leave me feeling like I need a shower. But momentum kept me there – that and the dread of switching to another host: moving thousands of files, a database, configuring WordPress to find the new location of its database, making sure all of my redirects work on the new server. I imagined slogging through all that data felt like trying to stop Genghis Khan and his merry band with a wicked sharp tooth pick.

Six months ago I decided I’d give Host Gator a try, once my contract with GoDaddy was about to expire. Host Gator offers to move the data on your old host to their servers for you, free – though no guarantees. But I figured if they could get me most of the way there I could handle a little bit of tweaking. Well guess what? My account with GoDaddy expires in a month, so I placed my order. I didn’t even have to tweak. They even went in and reconfigured my WordPress config file to point to the new database location, and they did all of it in a matter of hours… on a Saturday.

I popped over to GoDaddy to point my domain name to the new name servers and waited. It can take a few days for the DNS (domain name servers) around the world to catch up to the changes – meaning some of you will still be directed to the old server, while the rest are here at the new one.

Hoo-Ray for you!

I didn’t find out the DNS I use (I’m sure your sitting on the edge of your seat, pencil and paper at the ready – Open DNS), had switched over until somewhat late last night.

So for those of you who have found me at my new host – welcome to my new home!