On Friday at about 2am on June 5th I got a call from our server people in Missouri. I recognized the number and decided to answer. They told me that they tried to update a patch on our operating system, but couldn’t get the site up and running again. I asked what to do. They told me that their technical expert recommended getting on a new server. Unfortunately, that is not so easy.

We were already working with programming on migrating to a new server. We needed more disk space, more memory, and especially a more modern operating system. Our Microsoft 2008 system no longer had maintenance, and the danger from hacking was growing stronger. But, I had no idea that our server would crash.

I normally sleep during the day and work in the afternoon and evening. But, I went without sleep on Friday for the most part. I had to get in touch with a critical person at hosting and go over a quote for a new server. I had tried to communicate and get a quote by email, but the critical contact person was impossible to get information from. How frustrating. In any case, I got my quote for the server set up I wanted. It has the right amount of extra storage, memory, and a 2016 operating system which is what the company was best set up to maintain.

They said they needed up to 24 hours to create the server environment. Programming needed 25 hours to do their end of the bargain. But, how many days would this take? That is 49 hours of labor plus coordinating from one company to the other. People need to sleep, and what if there were delays.

We were down until Friday the 12th at around noon. So, it was about 7.5 days. Carmen and I were getting very anxious. I didn’t know if my current data was safe or whether I would have to revert to older data from a few days ago. I didn’t know if things would take forever. What if there was a problem once the site was online.

To my happy surprise, there were only a few small programming issues. Notaries would not be able to login until that got fixed which I assume will be anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, but you never know.

In any case, that Friday the 5th when the site crashed — I couldn’t sleep and was a wreck when I got up around noon. I had to walk to acupuncture, get to the health food store for some green juice and then go home. I was juice fasting. I was weak. I was afraid. I tried to be patient and do other things I needed to do. I did laundry that I had been procrastinating. I did my tax deductions which is a huge endeavor for me as I love to put it off. The good news is that once my taxes were 90% done, the site came back on and there were very few problems. What a relief.

The panic was about — what if I lose my business? That couldn’t happen… or could it? What would my life be like? On Sunday the 7th I went to the beach in Malibu at night — just like freshly unemployed people do in the movies. I went to ask what is life all about as I watched the waves endlessly come in. What would I do? What would Carmen do? Would she lose her house? God! What a horrible thought. I was more worried about her than me. Would I start another business in this Covid19 world? No. I would first lose as much weight as possible and get my health in good shape.

So, no data was lost. The site is fine. Carmen is fine. I am fine. And our customers are fine, but a bit annoyed with all the downtime. This problem was completely beyond any of our control. It was a server crash. In 20 years operating 6 sites, I have never seen anything like this. But, it happened, we had backup, and we survived. And I am not sure how long I will feel traumatized by what happened. I had a bad car breakdown in 2018. It took almost a year and a half to get over it. Every time I drove down Sunset in Palisades I would get nervous. I am over it now. No more anxiety driving down that road. I just hope my server crash anxiety will go away soon. Those seven days of downtime were hard. I wanted to cry during much of it. Just wanted to share my thoughts.