Creating The River Tao

It was at the conclusion of the run of The Gin Game this past summer that I decided I wanted to re-brand my website. The first step in putting my plan into action was purchasing the domain therivertao.com. As I've noted before, I've been using it informally for a couple of years, mostly as an email address. Buying the actual domain formally comiited me to the process.

The immediate challenge, however, was how to turn my MB-named site apoorplayer.blog into therivertao.com. I was aware that this was possible, but I was not knowledgeable about the process of making it happen. There were technical issues which caused me a lot of confusion and frustration, so what I'd like to do here is detail them for anyone else who might be interested in this process.

Let me say from the beginning that the path of least resistance would have been to purchase the domain name from Micro.blog. If I had done that, the process would have been seamless. But when I looked at pricing, MB, through its DNS name.com, is more expensive than most other DNS sites. I had done enough research to know that I could use a process called domain mapping to have any DNS hosting service point to MB, and indeed, MB lets you know that. So I found the least expensive service I could find, and purchased the domain name from there. I briefly considered NearlyFreeSpeech.net, but I was uncomfortable with the level of expertise it seemed I would need to make it work.

Here's where things get dicey. When using domain mapping, there are DNS records needed called an A record and a CNAME record. MB does provide you with both. I understood that I was supposed to add both types of records to my domain name registrar site, and I did that. That did not work, and I was unable to get it to work for a couple of weeks. I became frustrated, and ultimately decided that, to save myself a great deal of agnst, it would be better to transfer my domain name to MB.

I tried to transfer it over, but here is the first thing no one told me - I was not allowed to transfer a domain name from one service to another until I had owned the domain name for a minimum of 60 days. Since I bought the name on July 30, I would have to wait until September 30 to effect a transfer. So I let the process go and waited the 60 days.

However, as I began the process again on Oct. 1, I began to have additional thoughts on the process. I consulted an LLM I have access to via my Proton account called Lumo. It's encrypted, so I feel safer using this LLM than any other. To cut to the chase, all the instructions I received had told me what I had to add, but none of the instructions told me what I had to delete! Not even Lumo, in giving me very detailed instructions, told me that, in order make the domain mapping work, I had to delete the IP address that the DNS issued me in the first place. Once I asked Lumo if I should delete that, it gave me an enthusiastic "yes." I don't know why anyone's instructions never mentioned that, not at MB and not at the DNS site. It always just said "add these records" and never said "and then delete these records."

Once I deleted the records, things started firing up. I put my new domain name into the Design settings in MB. It took in the new domain and made a lot of the changes automatically (such as RSS feeds), and also the SSL kicked in rather quickly as well. Right now, everything is running smoothly, and so far no apparent hiccups.

I've since gone through the process of making whatever manual changes I needed to make within my Tiny Theme design, such as updating links and such. I have also taken the final step of completely uninstalling my Wordpress site at tomloughlin.com., which is now just re-directing to therivertao.com. And so this new digital journey begins.

In 2016, AML and I took a trip to Itasca State Park in upper Minnesota. This park contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River. I was very taken at the time with the notion that I was standing right at the very beginning of the most important river in the country, a river that travels 2,340 miles before it arrives at the sea. I have similar sensations right now, as I begin digitally traveling down The River Tao. I'm pleased I was able to meet and conquer the technical challenges creating this new brand entailed, and I am similarly pleased to be starting on this new writing voyage. Below you will find a small video clip of the headwaters of the Mississippi River as it flow from Lake Itasca over the rocks and becomes the Mississippi. We're on our way downstream.