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Accidentally Updated WordPress at the End of a Tiring Day

Two nights ago, so in the early hours of January 17 in Europe and still on January 16 for those east of GMT, to be exact, I accidentally updated WordPress straight from version 4.5.12, which I was using, to 4.9.2. Saw that 4.9.2 was released and that it was a security update for previous versions as well, but instead of doing what I’ve been doing all this time and look for 4.5.13, I just downloaded this latest version and then went through my usual process of backing up the database and manually updating by replacing what I had with it. Then, continuing my usual process, I tried to do a database upgrade even though minor version updates don’t require one, and finally realized what I had done when I saw it say that such an upgrade was required. Could have gone back at that time, not going through with the database upgrade and replacing 4.9.2 with 4.5.13, but was worried there may be issues and I guess I wasn’t thinking too well at that time anyway, so decided to let it go ahead.
Been considering going up one step, so to what would now be 4.6.10, been considering it for a while, perhaps starting my way up to 4.9 step by step, as new updates are released, since the planned inclusion of Gutenberg in 5.0 pretty much ensures I won’t be going past 4.9, probably ever if I can help it. But saw no need or benefits in doing so and only potential issues, so definitely didn’t mean to do even that one-step major update, much less this leap. So if anyone happens to read this and does notice any problems, do let me know. Personally, I didn’t notice any immediately obvious ones at a quick glance, but I haven’t tried much and, either way, I’ll definitely be keeping that database backup made before this update for a long time, to know the older entries are at least safe in case something pops up at some point.

Still on the topic of the site, days with no visits seem to be getting more frequent, at least according to Google Analytics, in the view I made to filter out obvious spam. Previous one was August 11, and now I had another one on January 14. And that actually came after two days in a row with a single visit each. Assuming any of that’s right, at least, because the unfiltered view sure is showing up some odd results lately, including totals displaying one visit or view more than the actual sections do or, actually just yesterday, listing one additional apparently legitimate visit that doesn’t show up in the filtered view, even though it seems to have the exact same details as two others that do, leading me to wonder whether it was actually a single visit that somehow got recorded three times, one of the three being discarded when checked again in order to go through the filters despite not having anything that should have been blocked by them. But I can’t really do much except assume that the filtered view is more or less correct and go by it.

Moving on, or in fact further back, realized that in the previous post I forgot to mention that last Wednesday I went to get another cabbage, since most of the one dad had bought had to be thrown away, and could have ended up coming back with more money than I had when I left. As it was, ended up actually spending only a quarter of the price of the cabbage, since I took back two empty shopping carts, one I found at the door when I went in the mall this Carrefour is in and another left in front of a store close to the exit as I was going out, and took the coin from each when I connected them back to the others, and also found two smaller coins on the floor. The thing is that there were two carts at the entrance at first, but instead of connecting one to the other, taking the coin from it, and then pushing them both back to their place and also taking the coin from the other once there, I just took one, for some reason, and that second one wasn’t still there by the time I got back, the one in front of a store clearly being a different one. Not that I know why the person who left the second cart at the door didn’t connect it to the first and take their coin back that way.

Next, one of the issues mentioned at the end of the previous post has to do with my license for Emsisoft Anti-Malware, which was expiring on January 14. Unlike before, now I saw they have a partner in Romania too, so a new license could be purchased, though that required paying on-line as well, the only difference, an important one, being that it’d have been a payment to a seller from here and therefore not a problem for the cards dad has. However, only new licenses could be purchased that way, even those at a price over 20% higher than that obtained if purchasing directly from Emsisoft, the discounted renewals not being available at all. So I still had to ask for a favor, having someone else make the purchase for me after I sent her the money, but now she had some problems and I couldn’t have sent her the money before the license expired, and I couldn’t find anyone else who could do it either, so there was a moment when I thought I’ll have to let it expire, do without for a day or two, and hope things will be sorted out Monday or, at worst, Tuesday, since they had already confirmed that I’ll still be able to renew at the same discount even after the license expires.
That didn’t need to happen, however. Not because the issue with the payment could be worked out sooner, but because of Emsisoft’s Referral Rewards Program, granting not only 180 free days if a new customer referred by you actually purchases a license, but 30 days even if they simply successfully install and activate a trial, checking of course that each person is counted only once and that you can’t gain rewards from yourself. Hadn’t made use of this before, but now I used my link and could get help that way, from a trial version that was installed, and then uninstalled the next day, to grant me additional days as well and get me through this period. Also admitted doing it, and the fact that the chances of them getting a sale out of it are basically zero, to Emsisoft support, since I had been discussing my options, and they said it’s perfectly fine that I made use of this facility. And, while I only really needed two days, since things were worked out and the payment made on Tuesday, this at least pushed the date when my license expires to February, which may help in the future, assuming I’ll keep using it, since such problems may appear again at the start of the year.

But I mentioned a tiring day, referring to Tuesday, so let me get to it, leaving Monday for some other time, since what I did then can be considered the first step in something that will be sorted out later. And the first reason why Tuesday was tiring was that I ran, 16 kilometers instead of ten, with the temperature below freezing and some snow and patches of ice on the path around the lake. For that reason, wore my regular shoes instead of the running ones and had two training suits on, two t-shirts as well, plus the jacket wrapped around my waist, since I wore it on the way there and back. Admittedly, overestimated how cold it’ll feel and I wonder if I even needed that second training suit, and could have definitely done without even both t-shirts.
Either way, the time was 1:23:45, so exactly four minutes slower than when I last covered that distance, but still 21 seconds faster than the first, and so far only other, time, and just beating that first time was my target, considering the conditions. Sector times were 4:31, 5:14, 6:09, 4:45, 5:25, 6:21, 4:55, 5:29, 6:33, 4:59, 5:38, 6:36, 5:05, 5:36, 6:29, making for lap times of 15:54, 16:31, 16:57, 17:13 and 17:10. The first lap was an attempt to see whether I could manage to stay under 15:40 and have a chance at covering ten kilometers in less than 49 minutes again, but I fell short despite pushing at an unsustainable rate, so I then tried to maintain that level of effort over the second lap’s first sector, to see what I’ll manage, and once I saw how much slower I had been it was clear I had to go for 16 kilometers in order not to have an embarrassing time, aiming for a second lap in 16:30, then 17 minutes for third and fourth, to allow 17:30 for the fifth. And on that second lap I just lost one second too much on the third sector, but then gained three over the next lap, compared to the target. The fourth didn’t go so well though, the 13 seconds lost being exactly all I could afford to lose and still allow for that 17:30 on the last lap. But I pushed a bit more then and managed to even be slightly faster than I had been on lap four, though that’s not surprising.
Lap five being faster than four isn’t surprising because I started lap four by trying to unwrap one of the two candies I had taken in my pocket and failing to do so, struggling for quite some time before giving up and putting it back, and that must have translated in a few seconds lost over the first sector. And then, during the second, a little dog without a leash started barking and ran at me, so I had to avoid it and also get ready to try to do something if it’ll try to bite, and just seconds later the first of two boys pulling sleds as they came down on the path around the lake cut me off. With that taken into account, lap five’s first sector was awful and the second wasn’t too good either. The third was decent, on the other hand, maybe also because the pain I had been feeling in my left ankle pretty much since starting that lap had lessened by then and I wasn’t worried about it anymore.
The main problem was slipping and not having enough traction. The thin layer of snow made it somewhat harder as well and there were also those patches of ice that I had to be careful of, but I was learning to adjust my path in order to avoid them as I went along, only slipping more seriously once but managing to avoid falling even then, so the real issue was that I was slipping just a little bit many, many times, and that obviously made each step require just a little more effort and likely cover just a little less distance, which made it impossible to be fast enough to just run ten kilometers again. If after setting the previous record on that distance I ran 16 kilometers because I considered just staying under 49 minutes to be too disappointing after such a great time, now I’d have definitely been completely content with that, yet it was not possible and I ended up once again following a new record on ten kilometers with a run of 16.

That wasn’t the only reason to be tired that day, however, as after my run I went over the details regarding the payment for Emsisoft and then left again. Did also mean to send her the money for and ask her to buy some ebooks from Amazon for me, initially replacing the first one I had in mind with two others, but the price of those two was the very most I could possibly hope to afford and then when we checked what buying as a gift means we saw some added taxes which don’t show up when buying for yourself, so I just gave up on the whole idea. And that worked out well enough, since the money I now have left are less than two thirds of what I ended up not sending her compared to that first plan, and a little over one third of what I saved compared to the second one. Does mean I don’t have new books though…
But to return to leaving again, it was a good thing I could use the metro, dad not needing the card that evening, so I first went to charge my prepaid card at a place next to the nearby metro station, the number otherwise being about to expire soon, then took the metro to Cora, where there’s also a branch of the bank I had to make the deposit at. Once that was done, after standing in line for quite some time, I made my way to the hypermarket and got a pumpkin weighing just over seven kilograms, two cabbages, what was the last pack of its type that I could find of yogurt, a large cutting board that was also on sale and should prove useful seeing as the larger one we had broke some two months ago and the one mom got is of poor quality and already not doing too well, and a pack of butter at a supposedly heavily discounted price that’s actually what until recently would have been a normal price that at the time I considered too much, seeing how the price of butter pretty much doubled in a short amount of time. Obviously, mainly due to the pumpkin, carrying all of that back would have been somewhat difficult if I couldn’t have taken the metro, though I still walked over a third of the distance I’d have had to walk if I’d have gotten back on foot.

After all of that, when I woke up yesterday, admittedly after sleeping more soundly than I had in quite some time, I just grabbed something to eat and checked a few things on-line, then went out again, hoping to do as much as possible before it’ll start raining. So I first passed through a farmers’ market on my way to Auchan, to see whether I’ll have any reason to return there on my way back or I’ll be able to use the free buses they provide to get me closer to Kaufland, then kept going despite having found some nice and cheap apples, which was what I was looking for. Returned there under a light rain, after getting bread, tea and some liquid soap from Auchan, bought some apples, and kept going to Kaufland, from where I bought some oranges, a pomelo and some black radishes, making my way back under what I could call a more proper rain. Some of my muscles aren’t too happy with what I put them through over these past few days, but they’ll have to recover before Saturday’s protest, even more so since I may need to walk there and back.

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