it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct
the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present
period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its
being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree
of comparison only.
Was Charles Dickens really writing about the French Revolution in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, or could he perhaps have been writing a prediction about my move of my domain name to a new web host?
It was the best of times because I have a new web site. Along with a new design, the site contains updated demos, pictures of my beautiful new studio with its stunning Parisian theme and testimonials, as well as expanded informational content. It was the worst of times because the site design has been completed for some time, but I haven’t been able to launch the site. My main domain karencommins.com still points to Earthlink’s servers, while the new site can be previewed under either the KarenCommins.com or KarenVoices.com domains on 1and1.com servers. If you have clicked the logo on my blog, you have already seen the new site.
It was the age of wisdom because I developed the new site under a different domain. Furthermore, I was wise to shop around for a new web host who offered better pricing and customer service than I was receiving from Earthlink. My web site would never go down when I made the transition from the old host to the new one.
It was the age of foolishness to think that something that should be an easy task actually would be.
It was the epoch of belief when I started to make the DNS changes to move karencommins.com to the 1and1.com name servers. I believed I would access my account on Network Solutions, quickly make the change to my Whois record and routers everywhere would know about the change within a few days.
It was the epoch of incredulity when I learned about the snarled mess with my domain registration. I own the domain karencommins.com. Network Solutions is the registrar. However, my Network Solutions account did not reflect my domain.
It was the season of Light when the Network Solutions rep explained that Earthlink was one of their wholesale accounts. While Network Solutions was the actual registrar, Earthlink had registered the domain on my behalf. I therefore needed to contact Earthlink and request that Earthlink make changes to my Whois record for that domain.
It was the season of Darkness when I had to call Earthlink. First, the people on Earthlink’s support lines could not understand that changing my DNS record is a separate issue from changing my web hosting account. Earthlink refused to change my DNS record to a different web host, even though I would continue to pay my monthly web hosting fee to Earthlink and even though Earthlink was obligated to service my domain registration. Earthlink promised to release its stake on my domain registration so that Network Solutions would have total control of it. A phone call a week later had me going through the same scenario, only to learn that nothing had been accomplished.
It was the spring of hope when I called Network Solutions again and was offered the opportunity to convert my wholesale registration to a retail account. I had to fill out a form and provide proof of my identity and fax it back to the company.
It was the winter of despair (even in May) to learn on a subsequent phone call to Network Solutions that my first fax was never received. My despair continued when, after receiving confirmation that my second fax was received, I did not hear anything from Network Solutions. They told me that the paperwork could be processed in 3 days or less, yet 3 weeks passed without any communication from Network Solutions. At least I could shake off my despair by going on vacation with Drew!
We were all going direct to Heaven when I called Network Solutions earlier this week and found out that my paperwork had been processed! Apparently, I didn’t receive the notification because I somehow had 2 accounts, so they merged the information. HALLELUJAH!!!
After over 6 weeks of effort that included at least 6 phone calls and 2 faxes, I FINALLY am able to enter a simple change to my DNS record that will cause my current domain to match up with my new web site. You might think that I have already made the change and am just waiting for the replication to occur around the world. If that were the case, though, I wouldn’t feel the need to tell the story about it in pure Dickensonian fashion.
I truly think things happen for a reason. For instance, a monumental traffic jam in New York on Sunday 7 May prevented me from getting to the airport in time to make my flight home. The next flight was delayed an hour due to weather problems in Atlanta. I had the opportunity to calm a terribly irate passenger who was in the same circumstance with me. She was railing at the Delta agents because all of the eateries in LaGuardia — such as they are — were closed. I told her that if being late was her worst problem in life, she had no real problems.
I said there was some reason we were delayed. We weren’t meant to be on that earlier flight. We might have run into bad weather that would have made us sick. Maybe we would have had to circle Atlanta because we couldn’t land. I would much rather be standing in an airport than sitting on a plane!
I also reminded her about all the things for which she could be grateful. She was standing there in seemingly good health and had not been in a wreck in the incredible traffic jam in NY. She was so much better off than the vast majority of the world’s population, most of whom would be glad to trade places with her right then. She not only said she saw my point, but she stopped having her tantrum with the Delta agents. (BTW, after hearing this exchange, the Delta agent who was helping me granted my request of upgrading my husband’s ticket to first class at no charge!)
Maybe the Universe put all of these extreme delays of moving my domain in my path for a reason. Maybe I need to do a few more things on the new site before I launch it to the world. I know it has a few missing links and a couple of pieces of incomplete content. At least now I can make the change whenever I’m ready!
I started this entry with a famous quote from Charles Dickens, and I’d like to end it with another that, while less famous, sums up my ordeal in moving my domain name:
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many
not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
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