Fair warning: the following is probably not that interesting, but it’s important to publish the news here for the record . . .

Mid-summer last year, I tried to login to my personal Facebook page only to discover that, for some reason, my email and password were no longer being accepted. After some unsuccessful attempts to reset the password, I realized that I had received emails around 3:15am Pacific Time from Facebook confirming for me that the email address associated with the account had been updated “as requested.”

I had been hacked.

I made multiple attempts via Facebook’s automated systems to prove that the hackers were not me and that control of the account should revert back to me. All were in vain. As frustrating as it was to lose the account, the inability to talk to a human being to try to resolve the issue was worse. The whole ordeal was maddening and disappointing. I don’t live by or for my Facebook account, but losing it to some malicious stranger pissed me off, plus shut off a big way I share All is Yar stories with the world.

Fast forward more than a year. I had a conversation with a friend you I discovered had changed jobs and now works for Meta (Facebook’s parent company). I half-jokingly asked if he could help me get my Facebook account back, and much to my surprise and delight, he said, “Absolutely.” Sure enough, after kindly vouching for me and referring my situation to the right people at the company for them to investigate the account history, I quickly regained control. It helped that I never lost control of my Instagram account and they could cross-reference the two.

I know, I know. Most of you aren’t interested. I understand and beg your indulgence. I just wanted to write this brief update so that anyone seeing activity on my old Facebook account knows it’s actually me and not a new hacker (or the old ones trying to pretend to be me).

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.