My big brother has always had Titans PSLs and we’ve been fortunate to go to many games. We’ve even introduced Miss C to the glory of a professional football game and a little fan smack talk. Back in 1998 when the Titans were still the transitional Tennessee Oilers and playing some of their first games at Vanderbilt Stadium I got a few fairly close-up pictures of quarterback Steve McNair.

We had taken the girls swimming yesterday afternoon when the news broke that McNair and a 20-year-old woman had been shot downtown. I had left my iPhone at home and the hubby was taking a rare day off from his business and had also left his Blackberry behind, but the news quickly spread around the pool and driving home we listened to sports talk radio broadcaster George Plaster interview former Titans players Frank Wycheck and Kevin Dyson about the death of their friend and former teammate. Although McNair ended his career with the Baltimore Ravens, he obviously still had roots in Nashville as he had a restaurant downtown and had a home here in Nashville. He was one of the key players that shaped the formative years of the Tennessee Titans.

The circumstances are tragic for everyone involved. Thanks for the memories Steve.

I will cling to my ideals, dreaming of a day when the TV collects dust and we instead keep ourselves busy doing family crafts and baking bread and planting heirloom tomatoes. In reality, though, I have been known to break out in a sweat if one of the girls’ favorite DVDs is scratched.

Recently the girls have become quite into Scooby-Doo, especially Miss C. This is all fine and dandy because Scooby and Shag take me back to my own childhood, until I realize how scary Scooby-Doo can be with all the ghosts and witches and general occult themes…nice. It doesn’t really seem to phase them much, though, because it is, after all a cartoon. Also don’t get me started on what kind of clandestine activity the kids are engaging in the mystery machine to crave Scooby snacks all the time. Highly suspect in my book.

The other night we stopped at a Red Box rental kiosk to check out the new kids’ DVD releases. I tried to steer the girls toward a movie that I might actually enjoy sitting down and watching, maybe Adam Sandler’s latest flick Bedtime Stories, but they saw Scooby Doo and started jumping up and down and chanting Scooby Scooby Scooby! Never mind that it was a Scooby special on vampires and that I was sweating between my toes and the heat from the blacktop parking lot was starting to set the backs of my calves on fire.

I rented the DVD and the next thing I knew the girls were brainstorming on their killer vampire girl Halloween costumes on a 95-degree summer day and asking me umpteen times “how much longer” until Halloween. Next week we may rent Frosty the Snowman and bake Christmas cookies. Anything to escape the summer heat and anything that keeps them occupied and imaginative at this point is OK because we’re on the downhill slope to the first day of school in August.

One minute I was writing a highly intellectual post about Scooby-Doo and getting ready to take Miss C and a friend to see Ice Age 3 in 3D and the next minute I was closing down WordPress and Firefox when I realized both my blogs were down with some lovely BlueHost error saying my account had been suspended. Shortly thereafter the hubby called me telling me to check my e-mail as Blue Host had e-mailed him to say our account had been shut down due to “Performance Issues”...with ZERO advance warning.

Thanks so much BlueHost!

My WordPress guru Daisy Olsen (@DaisyOlsen on Twitter) was happy to help after I spoke briefly with BlueHost who told me it was a “database” error and gave me the corresponding error code. Daisy responded immediately to my pleas for help via e-mail but we couldn’t even access the dashboard. Finally after 5 today my husband was able to call BlueHost and speak with a customer service rep who was helpful and walked hubby through repairing and rebuilding the database(s).  The rep then told him to call BlueHost back and check in with the Abuse department to get the account turned back on. Abuse?! The hubby checked in with BlueHost abuse. The customer service rep asked him if he had done as he was told, somewhat condescendingly, and and also if WordPress was the latest version. When he said he wasn’t sure about WordPress, as that had not been mentioned during the support call, she said she was “going to give him the benefit of the doubt since he hadn’t done all that was required of him.”

As my husband says, “WTH?  WE PAY THEM, not the other way around!”

I would have been much more  OK with all this had they put up a screen error message that said simply, “Blog/Site is down temporarily due to technical difficulties,” rather than”This Account Is Suspended” which has all kinds of negative nuances. This is the second time we’ve had a screw up with BlueHost and the last time I lost several posts because of human error on their part.

So who do you use to host your blog(s)? Are you happy with them?