Hey folks, @anyx, @arhag, and @michaelx helped me out tremendously. I had issues with pushing the block (red letters in steemd). I got rid of the old block chain and extracted this new one suggested here. I also kept my existing config file and placed this in the newly witness...node folder.
I wasn't able to resolved the issue until I removed the # sign's next to the manual data that is required to be entered. I hope this helps. Thanks yall.