Unfortunately, when I registered my first domain name, I didn’t know any better. Also, I’m lazy. So up until now I’ve had about 20 domain names registered with GoDaddy that I haven’t gotten around to transferring somewhere else.

Recently I had to purchase a few more, so I figured it was a good time to start anew. Transferring is super easy, the new registrar claimed. Just enter the domains you want to transfer and we’ll do all the work!

Ha.  Ha ha.

Okay, so, to transfer domains you need to have them ‘unlocked’, and you need to cancel any private registration (the add-on that makes it so people can’t see who registered a domain through WHOIS). I had 8 domains I wanted to transfer. GoDaddy told me I had to log in to Domains By Proxy in order to cancel their private registration.

However, only four of my domains were listed in DBP.

After browsing around and making absolutely certain that I didn’t miss anything in Domains by Proxy, I sent an email to GoDaddy support.

I got a confirmation email, telling me I could SAVE 15% WITH MY NEXT ORDER!

Shortly thereafter I got an actual reply.

Thanks for contacting Online Support.  It appears you were looking to review your account domain registrations.
Reply back with your four digit pin and we can review your account.

Underneath that it told me I could SAVE 15% WITH MY NEXT ORDER!

I wasn’t exactly looking to review my account domain registrations, but I replied with my pin anyway.

I got another confirmation email, telling me someone would be right with me and that I could SAVE 15% WITH MY NEXT ORDER!

Then I got another “actual” reply, which made me think that GoDaddy just employs bots and that nobody is actually reading the emails.

I understand that you are currently working on removing the privacy from your domains.  If you forget your login information, you can retrieve your customer number, retrieve your password hint, or reset your password on the DBP website.

Then it told me how to log in to the DBP website. Then it told me: You could SAVE 15% WITH YOUR NEXT ORDER!

OMFG YOU GUYS I DON’T WANT TO SAVE ANYTHING, I AM TRYING TO GET OUT OF THIS ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP.

After several more, increasingly generic email replies from them, they told me to contact support at Domains By Proxy. I thought it was almost certainly a GoDaddy issue, since they were the ones that had sold me private registration for those domains, and DBP had clearly never even received them in their database. But then I noticed that Domains By Proxy is owned by…wait for it…GoDaddy, so, SURE, I’ll contact these completely fictional OTHER SUPPORT PEOPLE.

I don’t have anything better to do with my time, right?

Domains By Proxy took a couple of days to get back to me, and then they asked me for a screenshot of my DBP account while I was logged in. Even though I’d given them the account ID, and I was emailing them from the email they have on record.

I logged in to do that and, oh, look! Mysteriously, in the couple of days while they were getting back to me, all my missing domains showed up in their list. Fancy that!

So, yeah. I hate GoDaddy. And, by proxy, Domains By Proxy.

(But, oooooh, look! I could save up to 25% now!!)

(I was going to rant about GoDaddy anyway, but conveniently, Gretchen's Spin Cycle this week is about HATE. Go, spin. And grab the pretty button because someone awesome made it for her.)

- Several bruises and some velcro rash on my shoulders where we practiced hitting at derby

- a bruise/scrape in the middle of my back from where part of a gazebo I was trying to build fell over and landed on me

- Sunburn on my chest, neck, face & scalp (totally counts) (it’s really red)

- A hole in my heart from when I discovered Michael Bay is making the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into aliens.

I found the recipe for snickerdoodle bread here. And it’s not really bread. It’s cake. But you could justify it for breakfast.

(Bear in mind that is coming from someone who can justify cold-pizza-with-a-chocolate-cake-chaser for breakfast.)

(Anyway, there is ALSO a recipe for snickerdoodle cake that I haven’t tried. So clearly this one must be healthier. Ha.)

I made a couple of adjustments to the original recipe:

Snickerdoodle Bread
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup no-fat sour cream (no-fat sour cream is totally unacceptable for use as sour cream, but it works okay for baking) (It also makes you feel slightly better about the 2 cups of sugar and butter that you just stuffed down your breadhole.)
1 package cinnamon chips Skor bits– I don’t know what the hell cinnamon chips are, but if you do, feel free to try them.

2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°. Spray two loaf pans (or two muffin pans or four mini loaf pans or, well, you get the picture).
Mix together butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Add eggs, vanilla and sour cream, and mix well. In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add flour mixture and Skor bits to batter.

Pour the batter in the pans. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle it over each loaf. Bake 15-20 minutes for muffins, 35-40 minutes for mini loaves and 60-70 minutes for full-size loaves (depending on your stove and chosen receptacles, the timing is a total crapshoot so just bake until it smells good and until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean).

There you go. I’ve recently sworn off conventional wheat, which is a whole other post in itself (short version: it’s genetically modified EVIL) so I’m going to try baking this with spelt flour.

Stop laughing. I’m sure it will turn out FINE.

I’ll keep you posted.

I'm back on the dieting bandwagon again. Can you tell?! Yayyayayyayayyaya starvation!

(Dieting apparently enhances my sarcasm. Yet another fabulous benefit.)

This time I'm using MyFitnessPal to self-torture, er, track calories. I have used SparkPeople in the past, and it is still very good, but MFP has an added social component. You can get encouragement from friends, and let them see what you ate and did for exercise if you want.Supposedly you lose up to three times more weight if your friends can shame you for that chocolate blackout.

(You've never blacked out and eaten ALL the chocolates? Just me?)

Is anybody else using MyFitnessPal? I need people to chide me about my nachos-for-lunch choices, but also people who tell me it's totally okay to eat that whole snickerdoodle cake after midnight, everybody does it. I have openings for both good cops and bad cops. I'm SuperKeely on MFP if you want to look me up.

(Well, I'm SuperKeely most places, but there too.)

Yayyayayyyayayay team starvation?

Those of you in a less bipolar climate probably don't have the same...stirrings...around this time of year. It doesn't matter to you that a person can suddenly, say, leave the house without 45 minutes preparation. One can start their car and not have to wait 15 minutes for it to warm up. One can wear light, cute jackets. One can go outside without... scurrying.

Summer is a time of much more social activity. You remember who your neighbours are. You chat over the fence. You get invitations to barbecues, daily. You go boating and sit in the grass and admire the sound of dirt crunching under your shoes.

Summer is like coming back to life.

You go to parades and festivals. You go for walks and bike rides. You plant things that grow, your life is just a little easier.

Your water bill suddenly skyrockets.

Can't imagine why.

(He does that every. Single. Day. Just...fills the entire sandbox with water.)

(It's a small price to pay.)

(SUMMER, you guys.)

So I finally got to go! Extra skating! Yayyayyayyayay! [wave arms in the air Kermit-style]

Also see: Holy crap, is that ever hard work. Like, way harder than at practice. There are rocks, and sticks, and wind. And places where it is uphill. 

(Both ways!)

I went with a derby pal and we stopped at one point, mostly because we were tired after a whole 10 minutes, but also to check out this guy.

He was standing on top of a bridge with a UNICYCLE, trying to steel himself to ride it over the arc. His friends were giggling on the shore with a flip cam.

"I say he goes sideways," my friend speculated.

"Nah. With the curve, he'll either go backwards and fall on his face, or he'll go forwards and crack the back of his head on the edge before his limp body falls onto the bridge," I replied.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "I hope he goes sideways," she repeated.

"I hope he chickens out and just doesn't do it," I said. (What? I have SOME piece of my soul left, honest.) 

He delayed for so long - hemming and hawing and "OMG"ing - that we go bored and skated on.

 ...

I know, you expected a more spectacular end to that story, didn't you? So did I.

YouTube has completely ruined us as a society.

It wasn't an earth-shattering move; one of my co-workers moved down the hall and so I snagged her desk. I'm tired of having my back to the door. I'm not easily startled, but I don't want anyone to sneak up on me while I'm, say, blogging.

You wouldn't think that this sort of thing would have an impact on your life. It's the same room, the same co-workers, the desk is identical. Except that it's backwards.

I've found myself mildly unsettled by this all day. My pens are in the wrong spot. My files need to go somewhere new. The desktop on my computer got reset when I unplugged everything to move it. People walk into the office and pause, expecting to see someone else where I'm sitting. This one tiny change in the status quo has caused ripples.

I like to think that people are adaptable; we accommodate social change, geographic change, losses, death. But we are also creatures of habit, of routine. We get used to having things a certain way, we find comfort in them.

I find comfort in them too, but I'm also of the belief that routine breeds closed minds. Too much comfort creates fear of the unknown. Fearful, closed minds are dark. They scorn. They hate. They resist understanding.

So I force myself to change it up occasionally, even little things. Take a different route to work. Shop at a different grocery store. Wear that shirt that's in the back of the closet that I never felt comfortable in. Change is good. 

But sometimes I really have to force it. A minor shift in my everyday perspective can chafe more than an entire trip to another country. 

What tiny thing have you changed lately?

(Also, once again, being flagged by security/customs. Hello, Canadian Customs agents, thank you for not being too creepy about fondling all of my dirty underwear.)

(Do I look like a spy? I must look like a spy. Natasha Romanova, I’m next in line for your job.)

I loved Atlanta and everything and everybody in it, but I won’t lie, I was glad to get home to my menfolk. I got home late last night so I basically mumbled a ‘hello’ to Alfred and fell asleep. Promptly at 7am my four-year-old crawled into bed with us.

“Hi, buddy,” I whispered. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Mama,” he told me. “Can I stick my butt in your face?”

Then he laughed maniacally.

Happy Mother’s Day to you all. May you all be similarly blessed.

That's Becky & I, rendered in Coke bubbles and suitably branded. You don't get out of the World of Coca-Cola without their stamp on you somewhere.

Did you know Atlanta is the birthplace of Coca-Cola? I actually didn't. Apparently, people don't offer you a "pop" or a "soda" here, they offer you a coke. Then they tell you what kinds they have.

It's the little things.

World of Coke was a tribute to the amazing marketing machine that Coke has been for 126 years, and then they let you sample all their products, including the ones that are popular in other countries. I have to say some other countries have strange taste in beverages, but it was fun.

Then we had a Googie burger in the park, where there was better wifi than I'm currently getting (and paying for!) in the hotel.

Then, aquarium. There were fish. It was really cool but I always feel mildly guilty about the animals. I'm sure those stingrays just LOVE to be poked repeatedly.

That didn't stop me from poking them, mind. But still. I'd break them out if I could.

I figured I walked for about 5 hours today. That seems like a lot. My feet agree. I'm about ready to go home, I think.

What do y'all have going on?

• You don't need to be on Pinterest, even though absolutely everybody else is on Pinterest. No, really. Why are you all still talking about Pinterest?
• Twitter is still awesome.
• People like to be "surprised and delighted". I know, I was shocked too.
• Google+ isn't popular because Google is too transparent about their Big Brotherness. Stop telling us what creepily accurate analytics we can get from it, and maybe someone will start using it for fun, you guys. (Okay, that one is less of a takeaway and more of my own opinion.)(They're trying so HARD though, I feel bad for them.)(Not bad enough to spend much time on G+ though.)
• The modern attention span rivals that of a goldfish. My toe is itchy. What was I talking about again?
• Puppies and kittens are always a marketing winner.
• Facebook is a mess.
• I don't see how the economy is still suffering, with all the e-shopping people are apparently doing.
• Mall shopping is still fun. That one isn't so much a "conference" takeaway as a "we went shopping after the conference" takeaway.

There, now you guys don't have to go to any conferences on digital marketing. I have served a useful purpose!