I haven’t put enough effort into developing relationships with reliable tecchies who can help with issues like data migration. HE’s regular tech guy has been otherwise engaged so over the last four weeks I’ve hired two freelance guys to migrate Hollywood Elsewhere from Movable Type to WordPress, and they’ve both failed miserably. The first turned out to be a psychotic flake, and the second guy — a resident of Dana Point and an HE reader for the last two or three years — turned out to be comically unreliable and also a loon.

Two weeks ago he disappeared without a peep due to a three-day bout of meningitis in the hospital. (Or so he said.) I’d been feeling worried again because I hadn’t been able to reach him for the last two days. Last night his mother called and confessed that last Monday he was arrested for driving with a suspended license, and is now in jail in Santa Ana, awaiting a 4.17 court hearing.

I work hard, don’t drink, love my cats and this my life? I’m dealing with a guy who can’t complete a freelance job because the cops have come to his home and cuffed him and put him behind effing bars? This is what happens when you improvise and decided to trust intelligent-sounding people who seem smart and reasonable over the phone.

Anyone who drives with a suspended license poses a serious threat to the safety of any community so unless somebody posts bail ($17,500) the authorities won’t let this guy out for another two weeks, give or take. So now I have to find a third person to take over and finish the job. I’ve re-appealed to HE’s technical consultant plus another person I know. The Santa Ana jail guy had allegedly moved the migration along to a fairly advanced stage, or so he claimed last weekend. What a calamity this whole effort has been.