I really need to get better at properly planning these posts. For a while I was writing them early in the morning, but then that got too tiring, so now I'm writing them late at night, usually after everyone has gone to bed, which is also tiring! Perhaps there's a middle way? Perhaps I can take some time in the morning to think/plan what I'll write about (and maybe even come up with some structure?) and then in the evening just fill in the blanks. That sounds like a good idea and definitely better than doing everything in one sitting!

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The Azure folks told me that they might not be able to reactivate my account, which is a bummer. I'm now asking if they can send me the DB backups I had stored on my account (noob move not saving them somewhere else as well). I do have an old-ish backup from September 2025, so at least there's some data I can recover. Not ideal, but it means I won't be starting everything from scratch once again.

I'm looking at other options where I can host my stuff, and after some investigation I think I'll go with Hetzner. They have excellent reviews, are surprisingly cheap (much cheaper than Azure at least), and the UI is simple and straightforward. The only negative thing I've read about them is that they're very strict with privacy, and any violation or data mishandling is cause for an immediate termination of your account. I think I do manage everything properly in all my "tools", so it shouldn't really be a problem, but still, it worries me a bit that I might get something wrong and go through this whole situation yet again.

Another thing I considered was self-hosting. I have an old, unused PC lying around, and it's "big" enough to run all my stuff. However, I called my ISP a while back (a year or so) to ask them about assigning a static IP to me, and they told me I had to do a formal request detailing exactly why I needed it and what I intended to do with it, and pay an extra $50 per month!! Crazy. It's much more expensive than what I would pay on Hetzner (and even on Azure for that matter). Still, that's the dream! Ah, not to depend on anyone else... Before actually paying for a server on Hetzner, I need to call them again to make sure that their stance on public IPs hasn't changed.

Regardless of what happens, I hope to be able to bring everything back online by next week :) I'm not sure if there are still people waiting for me to get all of this sorted out (sorry about all of this if you are), but at least I'll be able to use my stuff once again! I'm missing reading stuff on Mire, hah.

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Some days ago I spoke about The Wandering Inn, and ever since I've had an itch to read it! Though I'm currently reading The Will of the Many, which has been on my to-read list for a long while now, and I know I should finish it before I start something else. I think I'm just craving something cozy and nice and fun.

It's actually been many years since I read anything from TWI. I didn't get that far last time, but I still read quite a bit. Still, I think I'll start again from scratch because I don't remember that much. I remember something about blue melons or coconuts, and refreshing drinks, and people being made to behave and get along.

To assuage my "thirst" I've been catching up on all the new changes they've made on the site. I also saw that now they have an audiobook version, which is awesome! I've also been going through the FAQs, where Pirateaba shares some genuinely useful writing advice.

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Well, it seems today's post ended up being pretty low-key. It's nothing much about anything, really. Strangely, it sort of feels like I'm talking to a friend about small stuff. We're sitting in the kitchen, the kids asleep, maybe sipping some frothy beverage or tasty kombucha, and just telling each other how our day went. Nothing much else to do, or that we wish to do.