WordPress Serendipity: A Chat with Susan Ramsey

Bob: Hey everybody. BobWP here. And I am on the train again. I’m still in Montana. I’ve been talking about Montana a lot. This trip has been really interesting, needless to say. I mean, what would you think of… This sounds like a joke. Three WordPressers. Get on the same train and head to Chicago without really planning or knowing each other was going to be on the train. Doesn’t even sound like a joke. That was kind of dumb actually.

Susan: No, it does. It’s like those three guys walk into a bar.

Bob: Anyway. So here’s the story, here’s a scoop. So I’m just walking out and somebody sees my Woo shirt. Oh yeah. WooCommerce. I mean, somebody that actually knew it was WooCommerce. Long story short, it’s somebody I’ve known for years. It’s like, oh, you’re here. Did you follow me? No. Anyway, Susan Ramsey. It’s amazing.

Susan: I know. I know. I’m glad you were wearing the t-shirt because with the mask, I would never have recognized you. And it was just so bizarre. Oh, I know WooCommerce, I’m in the WordPress community. You might know me. And as soon as you said the name of your podcast, it’s like, oh, Bob. Yes. How bizarre.

Bob: Yeah. So this is, I don’t know. There’s probably a word for it. It’s not even coincidence, it’s just bizarre. That was it. That is it.

Susan: I know because I mean, how random is it that, as you said, we didn’t plan this. I had this trip planned for a couple of weeks and I didn’t even mention anywhere on social media I was doing the trip. And then when I saw you, I pinged Anita Carter, creative diva, and I pinged her and I said, hey, Bob is on this train. And she said, yes, she knew you were catching a train. And she had wondered if we were going to be on the same train. And it was just like, who knew?

Bob: Yeah. And what’s really strange is we could have went this whole way without ever knowing. And that’s what’s really…

Susan: Exactly because not only we’re in the same train, we’re in the same car.

Bob: Now that is really weird. Yeah. Oh man. So anyway, well, we’re just going to talk a little bit here. I just invited Susan down because I have my little podcasting studio and you get the background of the trade. I wish they would blow the horn, but that probably, nothing to blow the horn out this far. But anyway, Susan, why don’t you tell… Maybe not everybody knows you, just tell us what you do and maybe a little bit of your WordPress history.

Susan: Oh, sure. Yeah. So I’ve been in the WordPress community, I think probably 10 years, and I’m predominantly on the support side. I’ve provided theme support for a number of developers. And right now I’m doing theme support for Feast Design company. So I work a lot with the food bloggers. This is not something I do full-time, I have another job. So I’m not as out there as a lot of other people in terms of spending time on social media. But I like to stay up to date with what’s going on when I can. So, I just love the WordPress community. I love meeting people at word camps. And as I was telling you, with the pandemic, we’ve really lost a lot of that connection. So it’s good to see someone and talk to someone in person.

Bob: Yeah, really. Yeah. That was amazing. So we had lunch before we did this and stuff, so yeah. Some people may know you, or maybe they haven’t made the connection. You’ve been admin for the Genesis Facebook page for quite a long time, haven’t you?

Susan: Yeah. Absolutely, since the beginning. So it’s the Genesis WP Facebook community. And I think there’s about 11,000 members. I’m not on as much as I used to be, but yeah, I’m around. And I used to do a lot with the studio press forums. That’s kind of how I got really got into WordPress in the first place was, I started a blog and I bought a theme and I just jumped into the support forums at that time to get my own questions answered. Then I started to answer questions for other people who were new to the community, and it kind of just snowballed from there. And one of the theme developers said should be providing theme support because you can really relate to these people.

Susan: And it’s like, well, that sounds too much like a job. And I’d rather do something for fun because as I said, this is not my full-time gig. This is my creative side.

Bob: Yeah.

Susan: And I have to keep it fun otherwise it’s just a second job. And I don’t want it to be a second job. I want it to be something that’s creative and fun and allows me to meet people outside of what I would normally do in my day to day world. So yeah. I love being on the forums and the Facebook group, and just really enjoy helping other people, especially those who are just starting their first website.

Bob: Yeah, yeah. That’s cool. So, I’m going to the state of the word and that’s what this is all about. And, I know you’re not, quite as involved with that, kind of getting into all that. But knowing what you know is going on in WordPress and knowing whatever will be said, is there anything you have felt that, you know, it could be a challenge, it could be an exciting part of WordPress. Is there something at this moment in time that sticks in your mind the most, what’s going on?

Susan: Yeah, I Think the move to Gutenberg a couple of years back. I really pushed back against that because I thought it was too much like a page builder. And I thought, why are we going that route? And I was so used to doing things the old fashioned way that it’s like, I don’t really need to learn something new. I don’t want to learn something new. So it took me a while to get in into it. But then when I started to do it, it’s like, oh, this is awesome. So I have embraced Gutenberg and I like that WordPress continues to develop, to stay relevant. So it’s always interesting to hear what comes out of word camps or state of the word, to know that there’s still a future in WordPress, and they’re continuing to develop. Because we’ve been involved with studio press, for example, and the Genesis framework, and that has changed over the years. And how things have done there. And so it does keep you on your toes. And you can’t just say, well, I’m not going to learn that because otherwise the world’s going to move on without you.

Bob: Right.

Susan: And you really need to kind of stay up to date with what’s going on.

Bob: Right. So just to let everyone know, and I’m not sure when this podcast is. It Depends on the internet, that’s my life right now. It’s like, oh, I get a file almost uploaded. And then the bars disappear and I’m like, oh, okay. And sometimes I spend time here looking at my bars. Oh, I got some, I got to do something real quick. You know, come on, stay there. At least stay there for 10 minutes.

Susan: Right. Exactly. Let me tweet that.

Bob: Oh man. But so anyway, we’re going to be doing a dinner in Chicago, and since Susan’s heading to Chicago and hopefully she’ll join us and everything. And so there’ll be a group there that everybody will be able to see. Now, the fun stuff. We’re going to toss WordPress aside. Just tell me a little bit about this train thing. I mean, you had already explained it to me, but let people know you’ve kind of made this… You’re not going to Chicago for any specific reason. What is it? And then maybe tell us what is the biggest thing that you get from a train ride?

Susan: Yeah. This is my fourth cross country Amtrak trip, this year. I took my first Amtrak ride last year. The pandemic really changed a lot of people’s lives. I went from working in a corporate office to working from home 24/7. And it was fun working from home and not having that commute, but I missed being out and about. And I said, I just needed to get away. And my husband suggested I take a trip and go down to Austin and I’m in Fort Worth, so it’s a three hour car ride. But I’m not really into driving so much these days because my eyesight isn’t that great. And so I suggested I get Amtrak. I knew Amtrak travel through Fort Worth. So I got on the train, went to Austin for four day weekend, and had a blast on the train.

Susan: And I said, I want to do some more Amtrak trips. And so early this year, I caught the Texas Eagle, which originates in Chicago. I picked it up in Fort Worth, and it heads out to Los Angeles. And I stayed in LA for a night and I flew back. And then over Memorial day, I took the California’s effort, which goes from Chicago to San Francisco. And that’s apparently one of the most epic train journeys, and this empire builder rates right up there with it. So I just enjoy getting out, sitting in my room, looking out the window, no internet, no distractions. And just watching the world go by. In my busy life, I don’t get that time anymore. And this is forced downtime.

Bob: Yeah.

Susan: If I’m at home, I’m doing something.

Bob: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That’s what I’ve discovered. Sometimes I’ll start to do something and then I’ll look out and my mind just starts to wander and I’ll get hooked and it’s really such simple things you’re looking at. I was earlier looking at the fence, just thinking, is it ever going to end? and then I started thinking about people that build the fences. And so I get in weird little, you know, it’s like, wow, this is one long fence. You know?

Susan: I know. And we were sitting at lunch and we’re in the planes at the moment, and we looked out and there’s these mountains north of the train, and they’re not the Rocky Mountains. And we haven’t figured out what they are, but they’re just out crops there. And you start to think, well, what mountains are these? What’s going on? And looking out the train and I’ve seen maybe four or five cars go by in the last six hours or so. It’s just, there’s no people, we saw some deer, no cars. We’re just out there with nature.

Bob: Yeah, we definitely are. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, those mountains. I suppose some people would probably say aliens drop these mountains down, or something or maybe who knows what. But yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Cool. Well, it was just amazing to, yeah… Serendipity. That maybe is…

Susan: That is the word.

Bob: Yeah. I was trying to think. It’s like, okay, something is in my head. Oh, there’s a Columbia grain that signed. You don’t see these people. I’ve always thought how these people, it must just be interesting to live out here and just, you know, yeah. You see your next door neighbors five miles away or 10 miles away.

Susan: Right. And that’s when I was doing. I like to do a little bit of research about each of the trips that I’m taking. And what I found about the empire builder is that more than any of the other lines, this is actually a commuter line for a lot of people. Because there’s no big airports out here. You can fly into a regional airport, you can fly into Whitefish, and then you’ve got a three hour drive to get home. Whereas you can hop on the train in Seattle and it can and take your home. It’s a connection for the people to other communities and out to the rest of the world. Otherwise they’re looking at perhaps a 12 hour drive to get anywhere.

Bob: Yeah. Yeah, I never thought of it that way. It’s true. It’s because when I was looking at the entire trip and looking at all the different stops, was like, wow, there is a lot of stops here. There’s a lot of different places, so yeah. Very interesting. Well, cool. This has been great. I just wanted to get you for a quick little podcast.

Bob: And I’m going to do my sponsor shout out and I do my weird sponsor shout out, so as we sit here, there’s Cloudways because yes, there’s plenty of clouds here. There’s Mindsize. The size of Montana is amazing. There’s Post Status. We’ve seen so many fence posts that we’ve lost count and GoDaddy Pro Hub. Oh man. You know, they kind of just take care of it all. The clouds and the fence posts and the entire size of Montana. Which absolutely makes no sense at all. But I have to tie this in somehow to what I’m seeing right now. So, but no, they’re great. Do check them out and yeah. Thanks Susan.

Susan: Thank you, Bob. It was such fun and I will see you, I’m sure…

Bob: On another train.

Susan: On another train and we’ll catch up in Chicago at that dinner.

Bob: Cool. All right. Thank you.