An Apology & A Reader Plea - (Chester, CA)

I have to start with an apology.  Back in the spring of this year, I shut down one of our websites.  It was a site where authors could submit their own stories related to RVing - sort of an online magazine.

We had several authors sign up and post articles and stories.  Unfortunately, that particular site was expensive to run and it was not generating the traffic I had hoped.  It was not able to pay for itself, so I shut it down.

Now, my intent was to get permission from the authors and transfer the articles to another format.  Unfortunately, I messed up.

When I canceled the website hosting services, I thought I would still have access to an administrative panel and could grab everything.  But the data was gone.  I've been working with the software company and the web-hosting company for months to try to recover the articles for re-publishing, but we couldn't get it done.

We were unable to recover the articles and now they are lost unless the author saved a back-up copy.  I had presumed that all authors submitting articles prepared them on their own computers and saved copies.  However, I now know a few authors did not have back-ups.  So, for those that lost original works, I am deeply sorry.

I should have made it clear that everyone keep a back-up copy, and I should have known the consequences of canceling the website services before I did it.  I wish there was more I could do.  Again, I apologize.

As for our day, it was a much lighter day than the last two.  Linda still was annoyed by several phone calls where the people kept asking impossible questions.  "What will the lake level be when we arrive in September?"  "Will we be able to launch our boat?"  "What will the temperature be?"  "Will it be windy there?"

We understand those are important questions to people trying to plan their vacations, but we can only give broad, general answers.  Believe it or not, people will try to hold you to your answers on such questions.  :)

We got through the day and were glad to have the next couple of days off.  I had one thing on my agenda for the evening.

I needed to call Tim.  Without compromising Tim's privacy too much, I'll tell you he has been following us since the beginning and he has been a valuable member of our Forum.

In June 2008, he posted in the Forum that he and his wife, Robyn, had made the decision to full-time about a year earlier.  They had just decided on the fifth wheel they would buy and they were getting really excited.

But then tragedy struck shortly after that post.  In a terrible accident, Robyn was severely burned.  She has struggled for her life more than once in the last year and the dream of full-time RVing seems to be over.

Their life as they knew it and the future they planned ended suddenly.  Robyn was recently released from the hospital and has to have long-term care in a facility for who knows how long.  Tim is struggling with his options of how to care for her and reached out in an email when his calls to attorneys had not yet been returned.

Often, people find it helpful just to write to us as a release.  But sometimes we get emails that just strike us in such a way that we have to talk to them on the phone.  A return email just won't do.

I had requested Tim's phone number and called him this evening.  We talked about his predicament and his thoughts.  It has been a nightmare, but he says Robyn is fighting as hard as she can.  He has to do whatever he can do to fight with her.

We discussed some options and I referred him to ElderLawAnwers.com which has been very helpful to me and provides loads of information on planning for disability and eldercare issues.

At the end of the conversation, Tim gave me permission to tell a bit of their story in the Journal.  And the thing he wants me to pass on more than anything else is this plea.  "Don't wait to follow your dreams!"   

I could feel the tears welling up.  All I can do is tell Tim & Robyn's story and pass on his message.  The rest is up to you.

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Comments

[Dee_NC]

Thanks for posting the update. There's been several RV-Dreamers with loss and health problems this year. Thanks to you we're following our dream, sometimes money isn't everything if you want it bad enough, it will work out.

[Kathy Salsbury]

Our prayers go out to Robyn and Tim.

Kathy and Bruce

[Jo Wishnie]

What a sad story about Tim and Robyn. Our hearts go out to them. Equally sad and unfortunate stories related to people I knew are what got us to go for our dream. So I couldn't agree more. Find a way. Do it now.

[Hazel]

Howard, Thank you for sharing Tim's story and his words. We will keep them in our thoughts and prayers. Tim's advice is so very important and even though we know it, this makes it so very real. Each day is a gift and we don't know what tomorrow will bring. I hope that they have friends and family nearby to support them.

[Brenda L]

Our hearts go out to Tim & Robyn,and we say "keep fighting".

Heard Tim's message back in 2003, just after my husband went thru physical therapy for the second time to learn to walk and talk again after surviving a 3rd stroke.

We had talked about fulltiming in the past, so a few months after he was done with his physical therapy, I contacted a realtor and we sold the house in 32 days.

My husband was nervous about traveling far away from his doctors, but I arranged with them to consult with any doctors we may need to see on the road. We carry copies his full medical history with us including MRI's. Over the last couple of years, we have made a couple of trips back to NC to tweak a few medical issues that came up. It has all worked out well and we found a doctor in Arizona that will collaborate with our east coast doctors. My husband feels at ease that if he needs treatment, he will find the resources.

We are so glad that we decided to follow our dreams of fulltiming. Some of our friends thought we were nuts to sell our new house. My answer to our friends was that I chose my husband over the house. I wanted us to be able to enjoy the beauty of our wonderful country, and spend quality time together. We are doing just that, living every day to its fullest. We feel so much at peace, and are closer to each other than ever before.

[Leslie Madge]

I have been following your blog for quite a while, and had to comment on Tim's story. I am an elder law attorney and know the author of the elderlawanswers site well. Tim must consult an elder law attorney in his home state. There is a national organization, www.naela.org, which provides a nation-wide listing. My thoughts and prayers are with them.

[Emery Nash]

As an FYI, the waybackmachine on http://www.archive.org has been crawling websites since 1996 and often has duplicate versions of websites long since gone.

I did check there for your "lost boys and girls" content but, unfortunately, only a few of your earlier website pages were saved. The rest since then have been skipped, perhaps because someone put a robot.txt file on the site to block crawlers.

I have found this a very useful site on occasions when someone has an "oops" moment and loses web pages or content.