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Grand Theft Blog

VW Bug Have you ever had your car stolen? You go to where you parked it and it is not there?

I remember a slogan when I was very young "Lock your cars, take your keys" because people would leave their car keys in the ignition and wonder why a car thief drove off with it???

I have never had a car stolen but I have a funny OSU (Go Bucks!) story which I will share at the end.

Yesterday morning I woke up and my shiny new blog was missing. It was not where I parked it. I kept looking for it. Gone. I contacted my webhost... "HELP my blog has been stolen!"

Although I was sure someone else had my blog, I wondered if I had done something to invite the theft. Of course I questioned myself. Had I left it idling at the curb for any young hot rodder to walk up and drive off? Had I left the keys in the ignition? Where the @#$% is the ignition on this thing?

Then I started thinking of all the evil in the world. Was it one of those teenagers slouching around who'd taken my blog for a joy ride? Had they hot wired it? Was this organized crime? Was it destined for a chop shop? Would I ever get my blog back? Would it be the same? Would it be altered? Scuffed up?

My new blog is not a Cadillac, an Audi, a Mazerati (spellled right?... I have no idea what that is) or even an Accord or a Camry...

My new blog is a WordPress blog. I had wanted a WordPress blog...even before I knew what a WordPress blog was. I admired WordPress blogs out in the blogosphere... Sellsius° Blog, Rain City Guide, The Bloodhound Blog, Jim Duncan's VA blog....but when Rain City Guide was hijacked and Maureen Francis new MI Oakland County blog (a WordPress blog) was hijacked I decided I'd be safer with a TypePad blog...

I was influenced by a blogging friend to go for the WordPress blog... I will not say who but I whine with each new frustration... I am trying to get in touch with my inner geek but so far not so good. They say" there is a steep learning curve." Yeah.

Back to the theft of my blog. It was a Sunday morning. I could not see the blog in the blogosphere, I could not get in through the back door... it was redirected. I never heard from my host... but around 11:30 my blog was back in the driveway (figuratively... mind you...) Unscratched. Safe for now.

The OSU story. A Central Ohio woman I know told me when she was a student at OSU she lost a car, she went to where it was parked and it was gone. Stolen! .... I don't like driving near campus. The streets around OSU are clogged with traffic, I can't imagine finding parking during the day... much less parallel parking...back to the 80's I would guess... The OSU student filed a police report. Her insurance paid off she got a new car. Months later she saw her old car parked a block or two away from where she had remembered parking it. The dashboard was littered with parking tickets. Why had it it never been towed? Why wouldn't the police report she put in jive with the parking tickets with the license number? Mysteries....

There is no parking on many streets in the campus area today. Go Bucks!

Posted by Maureen McCabe Central OH Homes on 01/08/2007 06:12 AM

Comments (22)

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22 Comments on Grand Theft Blog

JAN

2007

Wordpress is cool because there are so many folks using it and so many open-source add ons and templates available. Good for you to make the move! I've been playing around with two wordpress blogs and if I would stop getting so distracted I might switch my Blogger blog over.

Angus if you do switch... lock your car and take your keys,

and

buckle up for safety, buckle up...

I am not switching.. I am triblogular now.. if I can keep from losing it again.

Maureen - It sounds like you need a bigger garage! I think all your blogs are luxury models. :-)

but Linda if you go anywhere you gotta park them on the streets...and hopefully remember what street you parked them on.

Luxury? Thank you but not my vehicles... I would guess as blogs go I have a scooter, an old comfortable (in the sense of broken in... not broken into) Toyota and a VW Bug....

OK so where did your blog go?

I can't say yet Kristal... no photos have been sent to me... you know how people will take a lawn ornament (gnome) and drag it around the country and return it with photos... It was lost. Maybe I left it parked one street over....It was not showing on the internet during the time I was aware it was missing. The URL was redirected. Maybe it was as simple as a server down..at the host (probably not though because there is a bit more to the story...)

It's home. In the garage. With the alarm set. With 'the club" on the steering wheel (remember those?)

I felt the same way the day I changed my domain host and everything disappeared for 36 hours. I had been warned that it would happen, but the reality of all that hard work disappearing into the nanosphere just about undid me. I'm glad it's back and looking forward to the public launch! When can we see?

It is there...with four entries all polka dot with logos between state law and my ignorance in how to use the plug ins. I am working.

I had the time where it was in limbo when I first registered it. It was New Years Eve and it was a new domain URL on a holiday so I probably was not in limbo, they told you that would happen, you could get into the back door... the link above should take you to it... it ain't nothing special.

If you click on the link and it doesn't go to a red and white blog let me know.. I have not checked it in hours it coulda wandered off if I did not set the parking brake.

Maureen, you are so over my head. How does a blog get hijacked? And why? HER Real Living logo

I do like the polka dots though. (yeah, I know that's the old version.)

How? Hackers... leaving the key in the ignition... lax security that allows someone in...

I could not find either the blog entry on RCG or Maureen Francis's... I think her's was just in November but I found Kevin on 3 Oceans old blog... it is different. He went from one platform to another... left the domain name unattended... someone started using the domain name for it's rank (?) Kevin had it all warmed up... to get people to their site? .... Help I've been hijacked

On Maureen Francis it said something crazy like... "this is not the bot you are looking for?" RCG had a stronger message as I recall...

I like the look. It's really hard getting used to another template. I don't know if wordpress allows you to edit the sidebar like RT did. That is one of the thing I miss from RT. There was more editing ability in the sidebars.

I can edit the sidebar and everything basically ... I just have to use a plugin... everything requires a plugin or a widget..... Jim Duncan was nice enough to send me a link to a post on his blog where a number of RE bloggers recommened the plugins they are using. MF has mentioned what she is using...

The alarm and the club are just too easy for thieves these days. I reccomend the trunk monkey. And if it doesn't work out I'm sure the Columbus Zoo can give it a good home!

JAN

2007

John.... you mean the trunk monkey isn't local? I assumed it was. Funny.

Maureen, Plug-ins and widgets are used on Typepad in the sidebar as well. I liked the ability we had to actually enter the code directly and be able to choose the amount of space between categories, font size, etc., which cannot be done with the widgets and plug-ins. However on RT blogs, the font size was programmed to change something else in the content section so there was difficulty separating out the two. It's not a perfect world anywhere!

It's spelled "Maserati." As for the finer points of being a bloggist who knows--I can't help--I was never that kinda handyman.

Jay's non-descript silver car

My "non-descript silver car" a Maserati, as mentioned from time-to-time on our blog (Yeah right--I wish). :-)

Jay

Maureen, I think you've lost it@! Perhaps it's just where you parked it. Click and listen and you'll find it!

JAN

2007

Maureen.... interesting. Thanks for bringing this up. I am still so new to blogging. I am working on a blog site as we speak. I guess I am confused when you said that your blog was parked by the curb??? Meaning, do you have your blog in a draft mode like we can do here on AR? If I save a blog and haven't released it yet, I either have it saved as draft on AR or in word.....

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Did you still get an answer from anyone in regards to what had happened? thanks

Jeff: I certainly don't know where my blog was in the time it was missing...but thanks for the comment.

scary....and sucks, that people just can't leave you alone.... okie dokie and thanks for making some of us newbies aware of this stuff

Geez, we can't even trust you with a Wordpress blog. But, it looks like you found it.

Speaking of missing where have you been Ben?

It was returned unharmed.

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