Holy Wah! Feeling a bit of PTSD thanks to some IT
IT problem-solving plus news, substack restacks, and reviews for you
PTSD and IT Woes
After 35 years as a programmer for Ann Arbor Computer, turned systems engineer, turned applications manager for Michigan Medicine, I retired from IT. While I’m somewhat involved with our website for Life In Michigan, I leave the heavy lifting in the expert hands of our teammate, dear friend, talented musician, expert pickleball coach, and master web developer, Kate. She is amazing, and we love her to death. Everyone deserves time off, and that includes Kate. Little did I know that I’d find myself reliving IT nightmares at the hands of the turd developers at Imagely.
You may not think that working in IT could give you post-traumatic stress. To be fair, perhaps a better term is work-related stress disorder. Whatever the name, the effect is that sick feeling, edged with panic as you try to quickly recover from a computer system failure. I still vividly remember when I was the lead on the installation of a material-handling system at a steel wire plant in Dyersburg, TN. It was the fall of 1990. Back then, you had no internet. You had a modem, and that generally didn’t connect to a customer’s system. We also didn’t necessarily offer 24-hour support. Yet somehow, the maintenance dudes at the plant got my phone number and called me at 3 am. I had to talk them through how to fix an issue completely blind. I couldn’t see the screen—I had to go off their descriptions of what they saw on the monitor. Talk about needing A LOT of patience. Once they knew my number, I got more calls. Lots more calls. Eventually, that simmered down, but I developed a physical dread when the phone rang.
On another install in South Carolina, we went to the field WAY too early. Not enough testing, and definitely not enough real-world testing with the actual hardware on-site. Let’s just say when we brought the system up, it promptly bombed. I spent the next 36 hours nonstop working on the problems while drinking sweet tea and eating peanut butter cookies. Talk about being strung out.
While my work at Michigan Medicine wasn’t quite so stressful, it definitely had its moments. There was an emotional breakdown with my boss while working 70-hour weeks prior to a major electronic medical record install. Then the waves of nausea when we couldn’t get any charges to load, and then the claims failed. Let’s not mention patient statements. Eventually, we got it running like a top, but good lord, it shaped me. When I retired in 2022, I figured my IT panic attacks were over.
Enter Imagely and their Nextgen plug-in.
My tale of terror and woe began last Monday. I’d finished up selecting and processing images from the excellent Paul and Simon show over at the Harsens Island Schoolhouse Grille. I went to upload the images to a new gallery on Life In Michigan, and… nothing. No gallery was created. I thought, “Oh, perhaps I forgot to hit a button.” I tried again, no gallery. This was followed by a series of angry otter growls from yours truly, along with several “WTFs!!!” thrown in for good measure.
I wondered—perhaps the plug-in didn’t update correctly. Why? Who knows…computers!! I deactivated the plug-in and reinstalled it. I tried again…nothing. My problem-solving gears kicked into high gear. I tried uploading to an existing gallery. It worked. More angry otter sounds and “WTF!” came from my office. I’m sure Brenda was in her cozy nook thinking “Oh no! Take cover!!”
When the website is getting wonky, it is time to message our hero, Kate. I sent her an email and a text: “Sorry to bother, but something is up with NextGen where I can’t upload a new gallery.” Kate messaged back quickly, “Hey Chuck, I just arrived in Florida for a short family vacay this week. You’ve done all the first things I would do… Next, I would chat with DreamHost support and see if there are any issues with storage limitations on that side of things.”
DreamHost is our hosting platform, and they quickly got on the issue. They asked me how to replicate and checked over the system. At first, they noticed an error on a memory limit. My heart leapt! Joy, a memory limit! This has to be something they can fix in a jiffy. They addressed the memory concern, yet no luck. They advised that the server was in great shape on their end. I then put in a ticket to Imagely, the company behind the Nextgen plug-in.
While I waited for support, I figured I could at least poke around our website to make sure everything else was ok. It was here, my friends, that my blood ran cold. In the existing gallery where I’d tested uploading an image, I noticed that one of the older images in that gallery was showing the broken window icon. The broken window icon is not good—not good at all. This means that the image was either missing or damaged.
As the panic started to rise, I went into an older story on Life In Michigan to see if that image with the broken window icon was actually missing. I pressed the link, and the page quickly loaded, but the image is missing. Cue the music of terror “Don Don Donnnnnn!!!” Houston, we have a problem!
I looked in other stories on our site, more missing images. AHHHHHH!! My angry otter sounds turned into terrified angry bear growls, which were immediately followed by “WHAT THE FUCK!!!” I then looked into more of the galleries on the website. A few images, but most were gone. I realized we’d lost 14 years of images. All our stories are visually oriented and now filled with little broken windows. The terror of being the IT guy on call during a shit storm of computerized chaos enveloped me.
With despair etched across my face, I wandered out to look at the birds. I mean, when in doubt, just take a minute or two and watch the birds, right? Brenda gave me a look of concern as she said, “How’s it going in there?” “Not good,” I replied. Composure restored, I thought, “I need to IT the shit out of this fucker!”
I began to catalog my options. I could manually rebuild it. Sure, there were over 90,000 images and 14 years’ worth of stories to check. It would only take a few months of solid work. I can do this. Then the solution emerged like a visage of land to the ancient mariner—we’ve got backups! I then spent a few tight-lipped hours pulling down the backup files and checking that they were intact and contained what we needed. As I worked to recover over 90,000 images that mysteriously disappeared from our website, my problem-solving skills throttled me past the point of panic. The thought of losing 14 years of Life In Michigan history can leave you feeling edgy, man!
I was sweating it for a couple of hours while the restore operations were completed. Eventually, I recovered all the missing photos and reinstalled an older version of the gallery plug-in that was stable. Thank the lord for the UpdraftPlus backup plug-in. Those backups saved Life In Michigan!
With our site stable, I shared the trials and tribulations with Brenda and Kate. We need to figure out where to go next with this crap plug-in, but for now, we are good. I’ve recovered from my freak out, and life is grand. I guess my parting words of wisdom are these: always have a good backup and treat your IT folks well.
Upcoming Events You Won’t Want to Miss
Our events calendar on Life In Michigan is a treasure trove of events we’ve scoured the interwebs to bring to you. There are a ton of great events coming up. From that list, here are a few highlights:
Come hang out with me and other heavy music fans for Oigs Fest 9 in Lansing on Apr 4
Get a dose of maximum rock and roll with the mighty Mazinga and friends in Ypsilanti on April 11
Kolsching season kicks off at Royal Oak Brewery on April 11 (which happens to be my birthday :)
The summer fills up quickly, so looking ahead, you should probably get your tickets for the Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer fest happening on a new date: Saturday, June 13, at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti.
In Other News
Thrash legends Testament, Overkill, and Destruction convened at Saint Andrews Hall in Detroit
LAST CALL!! Geek Brush Studio in Chelsea is spearheading an effort with the city to turn the alley between 105 and 107 Main Street into the Chelsea Art Gallery. They are currently seeking artist submissions to display in this new outdoor art space. Submissions are due by April 1, 2026.
Life In Michigan Podcast
We had a lot of fun talking to Christopher Lasher of Super Duper Drinks. We hope you enjoyed listening!
Substack Restack Attack
Substack is where it’s at. Check out these other superb publications:
First off, a huge thanks to Jason Odell for having me on his Let’s Click show to talk about concert photography. I had a great time talking with Jason. If you missed it, you can find it here:
The Legend Of Hell House scared the shit out of me as a kid, and I’ve always loved it. Nick Tangborn’s cover of the movie is stellar
This is a wonderful bit of photography sleuthing on an iconic photo by søren k. harbel
I very much enjoyed this journey into a bit of discomfort shared by Justin Allen- Photographer
Is travel writing dead? Our friend James Dalman gives that question some consideration that I enjoyed reading.
Adventures Yet To Print
This weekend, we attended a show at the Ark in Ann Arbor featuring our friend Kate Peterson and Joy Clark. Prepare for a review of that show coming soon!
What Are You Reading?
Brenda had mentioned to me how much she enjoyed the historical fiction of White River Crossing by Ian McGuire. However, after starting The North Water, she had to bail. She just couldn’t get into the gruesome details and violence. I was intrigued. How bad could this be? Friends, this book shows no mercy.
This isn’t to say that the book is poorly written. Ian McGuire is a fantastic author. The pacing, details, and themes are extremely well crafted. If it has a problem per se, it is, as Brenda mentioned, extremely gruesome and violent. The level of brutality is unending. There is violent rape, murders, dire sickness, animal cruelty, and every kind of human darkness. All of this was found during the end times of the “golden age” of whaling in the endless ice and cold of the North waters.
I grimaced more than a few times listening to this book as McGuire described a nasty bit of human savagery or just plain disgusting sights and smells. Brenda and I laughed after one walk as I mentioned again that this book requires the reader to endure almost as much as the sailors on the whaling ship.
While not necessarily a pleasant story, it is one hell of a great book. I was captivated and compelled regardless of the harshness of this tale. Ian McGuire is brilliant, and I’ll be looking into more of his books.
What Are You Spinning?
On March 27, 1981, Blizzard of Ozz by Ozzy Osbourne was released in the United States, and it would become a life-changing album. I was a junior in high school that spring when this album was released. I’d heard “Crazy Train” on the radio and made a point of picking up this album as soon as I could.
At the time, I was in transition musically. I was still very much a Rush fan, but there was something about Ozzy that sparked my desire to explore heavier music. A large factor was the guitar playing and songwriting of Randy Rhoads. I was just beginning to play guitar, and Randy to me was a god. 45 years later, Randy is still a god, and this album continues to bring me joy.
The one song that hits the hardest is “Mr. Crowley”. There is a sinister, classical feel to the riffs as Ozzy hints at the haunting life of the famed occultist Aleister Crowley. Here, Randy’s guitar solo is phenomenal. For me, he was the first to bring a truly classical feel to a blazing metal solo.
During my senior year, I nearly wore out my Ozzy concert shirt that I bought when they played at Pine Knob (with Def Leppard opening). This album, and in particular Randy Rhoads, ignited my love of metal music. After this album, the doors opened to Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest. It also fueled my love for great guitar playing, which caused my spectrum of music to broaden into Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Al Di Meola, and more.
That’s A Wrap
As my buddy Sturgill once said:
“Keep your head out of the clouds
And remember to be kind
And just stay in school
Stay off the drugs
And keep between the lines.”
Thank you for reading. I hope your week is awesome! Don’t forget to kick out the jams!
Now, here is your moment of zen:
"my parting words of wisdom are these: always have a good backup and treat your IT folks well."
#Yep
OH BROTHER! Now I'm having flashbacks from my WordPress days!!
The company I worked for, iThemes, developed the first-ever backup plugin for WordPress called Backup Buddy for exactly the same reason. We had just arrived in Las Vegas to partner with another WP company when we got a call from our office saying all of our product websites and client websites were gone ... completely wiped out. The hosting company had a server that crashed and all they could say was sorry. 🤷♂️ Thankfully, the Wayback Machine cached most of the websites, and we spent the next 72 hours rebuilding websites nonstop. No hosting company or any other company offered backup solutions at the time. Now it's baked into the platforms -- all because of our SNAFU.
Anyway.
NextGen Gallery was a horrible plugin back in the day and always had issues. Many plugins now have zero support unless you pay for it. And almost every time there are plugin updates, it creates issues for WordPress websites. This is why I moved on from WP, besides Matt Mullenweg (CEO of WP) being a complete narcissistic asshole and using his power to gain unfair advantages in a community and platform that was supposed to be open-source and fair. Be careful, my friend, because WordPress has many issues.
Sorry for the rant. Just wanted to know I can relate. And thanks for the shout out!