Back at It

[Lind]

To all you loyal members who are still with me after the chaos of recent days:
Most of you who have tried to visit recently realize that the site was hacked (not even sure what that term even means) and has been down for more than a week. I've lost track of exactly how long.
I know I'm late in welcoming you to this, the newly reclaimed board.
I've delayed because
A. I've been out of town for the weekend.
B. I'm still hoping that somehow, we'll be able to pull up the old forum -- the one with more than 1,000 posts. I know you can well imagine how heartbreaking it is to me to believe it's gone for good.
So many of you had so many good things to say, threads and threads of fantastic thoughts and feelings. And we've formed a little mini-community together.
Although there's never a good time to get one's message board raided, this crime occurred at the worst possible juncture: three days before grant, my very capable webmaster was set to leave for China to do one of the most important things in his and his family's lives.
He'll be back in about two and a half weeks and we'll see if he can work his magic and get the original posts back.
If not, well, at least we're back together and we can make a game of starting from scratch.
I want to thank all of you for your patience -- ALL of you who have put up with the inconvenience.
But there are four people who deserve ultra-special thanks.
First, Dale Anne who called to alert me to the problem practically moments after it happened. Getting a good head start was a crucial plus in this damage control.
Second, grant. As I say, when this break-in took place he had so many overwhelming things on his mind that he could have said, "Look, I'm just not available right now." Considering the pittance I'm paying him, not a court in the land would have convicted him.
Instead, as soon as he got word that the site had been hijacked, he sprang into action and worked half the night trying to get it back up. Over the next few days, between coping with visas/passports, adoption procedures and International red tape, he stayed in constant contact with GoDaddy, the people who host this site, working like a dog to get things together. By the time he'd left, he'd done everything possible to set up putting it in place.
Third, Jill Guerra, my manager, spent this weekend taking a crash course in web-site-ese. While I was away, Jill was painstakingly decoding the complex technical notes grant left for us. Although what he left us was written as clearly as one could expect, to people like Jill and me who don't understand how this cyber stuff works, it could get overwhelming.
Instead, in her typical sense-of-adventure style, Jill made a game out of it and learned enough to communicate the problem accurately to the fourth person in the equation, Martin Roberts.
How do I thank Martin? He's not an employee or professional affiliate of mine in any way, shape or form. He's just a fantastic person who gave up a major chunk of his weekend to take the information Jill relayed to him and translate it to reclaim this board.
Martin is the same dude who helped grant and me get this site on its feet two years or so ago. His know-how and creativity are two solid reasons why there even IS a Bob Lind Message Board.
He won't take a dime for his work, did it out of sheer friendship (although we've never met face to face), love of my music and a natural, saintlike spirit of helpfulness.
Believe me, it's because of him that we got this board back as soon as we did.
Enough of this speechifyin'. Sounds like I'm accepting the Oscar.
Enjoy the board, post lots of stuff and let's see what happens when grant gets back to the good old U.S. of A.

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[JohnB]

Bob, it IS good to have things up and running again, even if it is sans previous postings. Maybe it will be able to be recaptured, but if not we'll just keep adding to it and keep supporting you as best we can. Thanks for the music.

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[Lind]

I have no idea what the above post could possibly be about.
It'll be gone when grant gets back.