Here's the thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=326012

I wanted to share a quick update.

Based on advice here I took the following steps:

1. Posted to linode.com and Slicehost.com forums as well as the Drupal paid-services forum, soliciting paid, contract work to migrate to better hosting and optimize my server situation.

2. I received 18 responses. Many were impressively detailed. A few were hilarious: "My brother's setting up a box. It's 10x more powerful than anything out there. Let us host you."

3. I heard from a developer I already knew and have worked a bit with in the past. Turns out he's interested and knows his way around Slicehost. I hired him based on our past track record, at a price we both thought was fair.

4. Last night we moved my Drupal site to a 1GB slice. It's already noticeably faster and is no longer crashing every 2 hours.

5. Next week I have some "Drupal sharks" who'll start crawling over my install looking to optimize the Drupal piece of it.

So thanks, HN. It was really useful to learn that I needed more RAM for my setup in addition to Drupal optimization. I am happily on a Slice and now have an experienced hacker to defer to now and then.