Kindnesses All Around

[captainsblog]

Let's start with this, a shout-out to one person: you know who you are.  Or maybe you're not even reading this, because the note I got didn't indicate any personal connection.

I received an email message from Dreamwidth, the current host of this journal, saying the following:

Your account has been randomly selected to receive someone's payment through our
sponsor-a-free-user program.

The account type that was purchased is:

    Paid Account for 12 months

The following note was authored by the sender:

    I'm buying an account for a random person because this is the best and easiest way to donate money to dreamwidth.

The timing on it is impeccable.  My original hosting site at Livejournal, which I'd been a paid member of for years, was scheduled to expire this month. (I'm not renewing with them, after they signed the Putin Pledge to oppose LGBTQ expressions and other Soviet Shit); somehow, when I checked just now, it says I'm still paid over there until May, which may have been some kind of loyalty extension, but whatever. Not one more ruble from me, Boris.)

One nice thing about it is I now have 100 userpics over here, which I was able to fill to the brim in a few easy steps by carrying over my 13-year stash of them from LJ in a couple rounds of imports. (I also killed off my extra pic package over there a few months back, but they keep them as inactive so you can restore them as you delete others.) That's why you get This Year's Model of Prince Philip today, and many of my old favourites will be making return appearances now.

----

Just now, I did a little something to pay it forward. Literally forward.  I checked out at Wegmans in a 15-item express line.  Behind me was one of their on-break employees, with one item from their cafe.  I know from this drill from Eleanor's reports; she probably had all of 15 minutes to slog something down before having to go back to work.  So I insisted she go in front of me.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course- you're on break!"
"Thank you!"

Little things.

----

Also, definitely bigger ones.  The biggest item in that order was a big box of birdseed, which ran out overnight- but not before we had a trio of hungry customers at the feeder:



Perhaps bigger still, in the human scheme of things: 

Remember the neighbors we had such issues with two and three summers ago? Well, last summer came and went without any problems. Yes, they had some late-night hot tub parties, but they moved the thing sufficiently far from our house, and more importantly they ended at a reasonable hour and sounded just happy and engaged, not loud and miserable-drunk.

And then, a few days ago after one of the heavier snowstorms we've had this season, when I headed outside to shovel our front walk, said neighbor, who was snowblowing his own driveway and sidewalk, smiled, said hi, and offered to (and actually did) finish clearing off our sidewalk for the more than half toward his side I hadn't finished. (I've been shoveling up to his driveway all winter rather than stopping at the lot line, so maybe he appreciated that.)  This morning, before I even got out there after another 4-6" snowfall, he went and did it again.  Now I'm thinking of what kind of kind I can repay with. Maybe he and his family like hockey- Sabres home tickets are going for $6 a pop for most non-Toronto games, so that might be a nice gesture.

Or maybe, this season, that wouldn't be kind at all;)

Comments

[warriorsavant]

I'm keeping my LJ, but as a non-paid account.
How did you import all the pix from LJ? I imported my journal to DW, but the pictures don't actually import, they just hyperlink back to the original source (LJ's website).

[captainsblog]

This is the link to the importer:

https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/importer

Couple of things about it:

- If you have a password manager, it will load your DW password, not the LJ one that you will need if they're different (and tell the password manager no, you don't want to change it when it asks)

- Be sure to check the LiveJournal option at the top, and you probably only want to check off the "icons" import, since importing the content, tags and all that will take infinitely longer.

[warriorsavant]

I did that when I first switched over. My pictures from LJ are definitely still stored on LJ. Possibly they've changed it since then, or maybe you found a different importer than I did, or maybe (although I hesitate to make such a far-fetched statement) you are not correct.

Go to one of you posts that you imported that has a picture. "Edit" it (don't really have to change anything, but click the edit button), then go to HTML mode (if you aren't already in it). Look at the address of the link. Is it a DW or an LJ address?

[captainsblog]

Ah.

Icons are what imported.

I don't think there's a quick import function for scrapbook photos. The paid account on DW does appear to come with picture hosting (not sure how big, how many, etc.- my Semagic still defaults to LJ, and we'll see what remains after my paid account dies in July).

[greenquotebook]

Deer!

I have to remember to check my LJ expiration date too. I ported my journal over here, but I want to make sure all of my pics are moved over and links are updated before I delete my LJ. I hate that there are still some folks over there who I'll never be able to read again, but que sera sera!