AFTER a lazy morning I get back on the case with the website/hosting issues then prep some pizza dough for later.
Laurie – Betty’s granddaughter – pops up to get some paper for some last minute prep and decoration down at the Roastery for Betty’s 80th birthday party tonight.
The website still isn’t playing ball but I need to get some social ads running for the Sheffield and Huddersfield shows so link the ads to the Facebook event rather than a landing page on my website. Hopefully it’ll work, but it means I mis. A few tricks re web visitors and also tracking analytics.
I get the pizza oven on and we have an early dinner before heading out to Betty’ party. I’d promised to take some pix so alternate chatting with folks and snapping. A grand evening….
AFTER breakfast I call the hairdresser to see if I can get a haircut sometime. She has a cancellation this afternoon, so I grab the slot.
Our pal Fiona was 40 a couple days ago and we’re going to the pub tonight with a small group of folks to celebrate. I make a couple of engraved insulated wine cups and we drop them off on our way to the village rather than take them to the pub later.
Margaret has an audiology appointment at the hospital and drops me in the village on the way. I’m a bit early so I drop into the deli for a coffee and a sandwich…and bump into lots of folks and enjoy a chat. Then it’s haircut time.
I’m halfway home when Margaret stops the car and drives me the rest of the way.
I get a little work done then we have some tacos and jump on the bus to the village to join Fiona and the others at the pub.
Smoked beef tacos…with pickled red onion, coriander and crumbled ‘salad cheese’…
ONCE I’M done with my guitar student I deal with a couple of emails then we head to the village to go for a swim.
Then we carry on into Glasgow for shopping – including a lunchtime snack at Costco, Tesco and Waitrose.
I picked up a small piece of beef for tonight’s tacos so as soon as we’re home I get it in the smoker then prep some Mexican pickled red onion.
Our pal Jeanetta is stopping by for some hep with her phone and laptop – we have a coffee, chat and I (think) manage to sort the issue/s.
The meat’s doing OK int he smoker although iut’s gonna be a late dinner. Meantime I make some poolish for pizza dough then wait for the beef to finish then let it rest while I prep the corn tortillas, coriander and cheese. I can’t get Mexican cojita but research threw up feta as an alternative with the preference for the slightly off-kilter supermarket ‘salad cheese’ version. It works!
AFTER an early online session with one of my remote guitar students I get back onto the website/hosting issue.
My next idea is to update Divi – one of the core building blocks on some of my sites – to a new version. It’s still in beta, but promises to be less resource hungry so it’s gotta be worth a try. I get all the sites that use it migrated fine…except this one, which throws up constraint errors in the process. Interestingly when I try to export all the posts from this blog in xml format for my archives the process crashes out. Mmm… yet another rabbit hole to go down. And again I’m out of time…
Today’s priority job is calling round the journals and radio folks in Sheffield, Huddersfield and surrounding Yorkshire before sending them news releases etc. My media database is pretty out of date, not least because of the changing nature (definitely not for the better) of the ‘traditional’ media.
A lot of the local and regional press has either fallen away or been bought over by bigger media organisations, and many of the staffers have been made laid off and it made impossible to reach anyone directly. A lot of radio has gone the same way and a lot of the music blogs that rose so rapidly have declined and/or disappeared even quicker.
Still, I get to chat with a few folks then move onto some social media stuff….then a walk yup the lochside before it’s dark.
THE website/hosting issue is really starting to piss me off. Thankfully it doesn’t seem to have interferred with a bunch of orders come through from folks in my Facebook Wildcats’ group ordering some of the ‘new old solid out stock’ I brought back from NYC and added to the web shop yesterday. I haven’t spread the word beyond the group yet.
Once orders are all packed up and ready to go I get back onto the website stuff and one by one, go through each site deleting any unused plugins and scripts in case they’re adding to the resource usage on the server. It seems to lighten the load a little, but things still aren’t right. I’m out of time for today tho’ and need to move on to other priority stuff…I’ll revisit (again) tomorrow!
Next job is edit promo video for upcoming shows in Yorkshire, Aldershot and Brighton as well as the fundraiser on 28 February for our local village hall. I need widescreen, square and vertical videos for each.
The videos take a while then I write up a news release for the Sheffield and Huddersfield shows coming up in a fortnight.
Betty’s daughter Kirsty and granddaughter Laurie are visiting from the USA and we’ve got to know them well having spent time with them both here and there…so we’ve invited them, along with Betty’s other daughter Shona, for dinner and have a grand night of laughs, food and drink
BACK to my usual Monday morning routine of getting the oven on early for the sourdough – then coffee and emails etc in bed as it bakes closed and open. Then out to cool for an hour.
After a mid morning online guitar session I spend a good few hours trying to work out what is causing the huge slowdown of all the websites. The hosting company says something is causing overload faults but I;m not so sure…this only started happening after a forced upgrade to PHP 8.4.
I strike a couple of possible causes off the list then resolve to check out potential memory issues – but that’ll have to wait ‘til tomorrow as my late afternoon guitar student is due any minute.
After the lesson I hit the studio and edit some video to spin into tonight’s Wildcats’ livestream on Facebook…then set about other prep….
AFTER breakfast I cut a mount to frame up something for Betty then take it along to her…along the way I bump into Michelle McManus and her family and have a quick chat. Haven’t seen her in ages.
Back home I prep the smoker and a huge slab of pork belly, get it all going then inflate the paddle board.
Once the temperature in the pit has stabilized I get the pork in and go for a wee paddle on the loch.
I work on a one-off bi of merch in the office then have a nap while the pork finishes off in the smoker. It takes a while so we have a late dinner – the pork turns out amusing and we enjoy it with rice, beans and a homemade Japanese BBQ sauce…
AFTER breakfast and chat at Billy and Dorothy’s we hook up with Mikey and go to his flat in Dundee where I install and set up a security camera for him.
Next stop, KFC then we drop into Perthshire Caravans to check out the camper vans and stuff but there’s nothing inspiring to see.
Onward to Doune where we stop off to see Catriona and the kids and drop off a birthday present for WIl’s big day tomorrow.
WE HAVE a bit of a late rise after a late night (erm..early morning!) then I go to the studio and pack a guitar for this evening.
Early afternoon we head to Bill and Dorothy’s ‘holiday home’ at Invergowrie just outside Dundee. We’re going to a special show Bill’s organised tonight – he’s invited me to play a few songs – and staying over.
We have an early dinner then make our way into the town and the Clep Bar where everything’s already set up for Bill and a splendid roster of musical pals are playing a kinda memorial show for some of the resident musicians who’ve passed on over the last few years. Quite humbled to have been invited to play too.
We have a grand night full of fun and colorful characters then have a nightcap before bed…another 3am job….
I manage to get the generator back up and running at the hydro scheme
FIRST job of the day is designing and ordering a new backdrop – a necessity now that I’ve updated my logo.
I go to the same supplier we used last time and go for a slightly wider format. A bit more expensive, but worth it.
An email comes back saying the order is processing and the backdrop has gone into production so I hit the studio to run through some songs – we’re off to Bill’s gig in Dundee tomorrow (Friday) and he’s asked me to plays a few songs.
There’s some other work to do too then an email comes in from the backdrop folks asking for an extra £30-odd for ‘Highlands and Islands’ delivery. Erm…we’re only 20 miles outside Glasgow and definitely not in ‘the Highlands’!
I call the company and explain and they respond by saying it’s down to their courier. I explain that we’ve never been classed as Highlands and Islands…and the last backdrop I ordered from them didn’t attract this ridiculous surcharge. I tell them to put the order on hold and I’ll send them some other potential delivery addresses to see of they fall within the courier’s ‘normal’ delivery area.
I send off some alternative addresses and awaiting a reply…when it comes in the company has decided that they don’t need me to pay extra and the order proceeds.
Duncan and Irene are coming for dinner later – the starter is Vietnamese summer rolls which are a bit of a faff so I get onto it early. The rolls made, I move onto the dipping sauce then spot an email from one of my fellow directors of the local hydro scheme…last night’s power cut has taken down the computer and it looks like the generator’s stopped.
No one else has replied so I volunteer to drive to the village, hike across the fields and see if I can get things back up and running. Mission accomplished 🙂
The unexpected task has eaten a up any spare time so I’ve only just finished the prep for our main course when Duncan and Irene rock up.
