Remember in January 2020 when we cancelled BASHH because of the possibility of COVID being deemed a global pandemic? When it was a threat but not a certainty?

What you may not remember is how much hate mail we got. How much I received personally. I was aggressively labeled as spreading panic, being called weak-minded, being harassed for overreacting.

And here we are, over a year later. You know what has happened since.

So now, I’m being asked when BASHH is coming back because bars are full, restaurants are back at capacity, and small events are starting back up (even in the tech space, like at Capital Factory).

The answer is that it remains unclear. We can feel it coming back, but we’re not there yet.

We’ve worked out a roadmap for how we’ll emerge as safely as possible, and we’re talking to many of you about your own comfort levels and considering our own.

Hang tight, we’re almost there.

Many folks were angry with us for canceling BASHH in January for COVID-19, and we were wildly reluctant to host an event in February. We insisted no one hug or touch each other, and that was long before many had even heard of the coronavirus.

We didn’t even schedule an event in March, because by then, we were all on the same page across the nation. Here we are in April, wondering when it will be safe to get “back go normal,” but the truth is that we’ll probably be last to get back out into public.

Several of us are immunocompromised, and we’re going to be a little trigger shy, so please be patient with us.

We will keep you updated here and via email, and appreciate your understanding.

We miss you too, pals. I mean it.

BASHH has been partnered with Pressable for months now, and if you haven’t made it out to an event yet, (1) change that immediately, and (2) we want to tell you about them even if you can’t come be with us in person.

They offer Managed WordPress Hosting for agencies, developers, and you. They say “It’s Where #WordPress Works Best.” We can vouch for that. Why?

Because BASHH is actually owned by a national news organization that has long used Pressable. Don’t get me wrong, we used another company before them, but continually got the equivalent of “did you try unplugging it and plugging back in?” with annoyance that we existed.

Not at Pressable.

They’re one of the only companies that still believes in doing the right thing to help their clients, and they’re based right here in Central Texas, so we want you to reconsider who you’re currently using.

And if you’re not convinced, here’s a personal story about why we want the world to know about them:

Pressable is so special to us, professionally and personally – they’re sponsoring BASHH for the rest of the year because I very sincerely want you to get to know them as we have.

It was exactly four years ago today that my husband, and the co-founder of BASHH was in a hospital bed.

His chest had been sawed open, his heart removed and poked, and sewn back in. #quadruplebypass

He founded the company I work for, and is a brilliant leader. But bypass surgery is completely debilitating, so I had to take over for a bit.

And I did.

And then I broke our website. Websites. All of them.

I’m not sure to this day what I did, but I was sitting in a hospital, and trying to work in between hollering at nurses because the most precious person in my life was having massive complications (like guys, there was a suction hose INSIDE his body that was suctioned to the bottom of his heart, literally bruising and damaging it – that’s just for starters).

I was in tears.

I just wanted him to be okay, and for our company to run itself.

But I broke our websites, they went completely down, and the entire company came to an abrupt stop. The entire team was messaging me that they couldn’t work. Readers were emailing in anger.

It was the last thing we all needed. What the hell was I going to do?

I put in a customer support ticket to Pressable, our web host, who is just up the road from us, hoping to God that they knew what I broke.

Our last WordPress host would typically put problems back on us, and always condescended us, and while in tears, I expected the same.

And one hour later, they emailed that they just fixed it. FOR me.

WHAT!? THEY… JUST….. FIXED IT.

They didn’t ask questions, they KNEW what I was going through, and they simply fixed it because they could. It wasn’t part of any package we had paid for, they just did the right thing.

Imagine sitting in a hospital room with a laptop trying to hold a company together that your beloved founded, and they’re in extreme pain and confusion and need your focus, and you’re split in a trillion directions and crying your eyes out.

Pressable didn’t worry about a ticket time, they just helped.

They bailed me out of an impossible situation.

If you have a WordPress site or have clients that do, I want to personally invite you to come meet their team in person at the next BASHH. We’ve been with them for so many years now, and are sincerely proud to introduce YOU to them.

And then, we want you to choose them for everything WordPress in your life.