I didn't know what a "furry" was until a few days ago. Apparently Simba Lion (yes, that is was his real name), former owner of Pride Tech Design, my web host until recently, was a "furry".
"Furry" equates to weirdo in my book, but Simba's personal life wasn't my concern, at least not until a few days ago. Fact is, i think he was pretty damn good at what he did, which was reselling and managing VPS (Virtual Private Server) services for clients who, like me, want a website but have outgrown the shitty charade of shared hosting. Fifteen bucks a month for a fully managed and decently outfitted VPS running on Digital Ocean infrastructure from a guy who i saw as very knowledgeable and ethical was a deal i don't think i'll ever find again, not to mention the level of support he offered.
12bytes.org went offline on December 12th. The site has virtually never been offline since i've been with Simba so it was a bit of a surprise to see it down, but i wasn't too concerned because i knew he'd jump right on it, except he didn't. Eventually i opened a support ticket and my mail was returned. Weird. Then i visited pridetechdesign.com and it too was down. Very weird.
On November 19, 2019, Simba Lion apparently got into an argument with some bug exterminators and things turned toxic. The cops were called (you can listen to 911 call here). The news tells us that he shot at the officers, wounding one, and, in turn, they shot back. Simba died shortly thereafter. I was oblivious to all of this until December the 13th or so when i started searching the interwebs to figure out what the hell happened to my website and Pride Tech Design.
If you're in to lot's of drama and fluff, there's a long thread about Simba over at Kiwi Farms. The Simba i knew was very different than the one described on Kiwi Farms. He came across as a straight-laced Johnny do-gooder who was very professional without being impersonal. Maybe he was a weirdo and maybe, if we can believe the media, he was unhinged enough to play O.K. Corral with the coppers for no good reason. Then again, maybe there's more to the story. Either way, as web hosting provider, i'll miss the critter.
