We'll be moving to a new colocation facility sometime today, so please expect a few hours of downtime, for the whole site. I know, this is late notice.... and you won't be able to read this message while we're down.
Great news for everyone who's been waiting so patiently for snail-mail memberships and renewals.... all of the mail from the old box has finally showed up! The good old USPS isn't always the speediest, but at least it's here. I'll be getting all the stuff done over the next few hours...
cool!
914
i'm sorry, though i know that doesn't cut it.
914
Joy
is the new Featured Shacklet!
Please join us in congratulating Joy
for having the latest featured shacklet!
The phakt0rE
First off, lots of people have noticed that i'm not around a lot nowadays.... nowhere near as much as i was a few months ago. There's a good reason for that.. as many know, i was mobilized in the Army Reserve in the wake of the terrorist attacks. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing for me personally, as i was getting sortof burned out on school (i'd been at school, studying Electrical Engineering (ghod knows why)), and the income potential of a fulltime engineering student isn't all that great. Add to that the fact that my hunny and i had bought a house a few months earlier, and the idea of a steady Reserve-funded paycheck becomes a lot more appealing. So, here i am now in the DC area, on fulltime active duty.... yeah, i work at the Pentagon a lot. All of this was fine and dandy until i opened my fat mouth about something computer-wise in front of a co-worker... he narced me out, and now i'm the "Knowledge Management Environment" guy. Yeah i know, i know... but there *are* some decent ideas in the whole KM thing. They're just named wierd. This new job is a lot more demanding, in terms of time and energy. Of course it's a lot more rewarding (the money is fixed, by rank and time-in-service, so that's not a factor) too. I get to shape a lot of the processes by which we (the US Govt) will handle and manage information for the next dozen years or so. Scary thought, eh? Scares the bejeezuz out of me.
So... what's the point? Well, it means that lately (like... since the budget passed in particular) i work at least 10 hours each day, and most weekends. That's not so much a whinge (ok... it is..) as a lame attempt at excusing my inattention to things bianca lately. Since i'm now the primary 'business' stuckee, i get to do all of the back-end things too, like bills and taxes and answer the questions from the SS and FBI and so forth... things that can't be put off. So i end up putting off on doing 'real' biancawork, like making What's New updates. Sorry. i'm going to try hard to make some sort of public statement at least weekly from now on.
Of course, that's subject to revision, pending input and ideas from the 'nauts and such, but that's what i'm thinking right now.
How long will it take? ehhehhe.. who knows? i'm trying my best to spend at least 2 hours a day on development, but so far i haven't been very sucessful. Like i said, i'll try to post something weekly from now on, and update everyone one where i am in the project-queue.
I just don't know. Of course, there're going to be lots of suggestiong, ranging from 'get DNA samples on every biancanaut!' to 'i won't even accept a cookie' but as usual the best course is going to be somewhere inbetween. i just don't know where.
Anyhow... sorry! this was starting to turn into an 'i dunno' fest, and that wasn't in the plan for this rant!
Overall, i think things are looking quite good, and i hope that i can be more responsive over the next few months!
914
Cupids lil Arrows
is the new Featured Shacklet!
Please join us in congratulating Cupids lil Arrows
for having the latest featured shacklet!
The phakt0rE
Lots to Tell!
Hidy-ho folks! There's lots of news, and not all of it good. But overall it's good, so don't worry! First things first, some people may have noticed that i've pushed all of the expiration dates up to 31 Dec, the last day of the year.. i figured it was as good a date as any. Read on to find out why...
State of the Shack:
We're really pretty much ready to open up again, with a fair number of improvements and enhancements. Here's some of the neat things we'll get once memberships are rolling again:
Now, on to the question... "If all this great stuff is ready, why aren't you open yet?"
There are two primary reasons for that, with a whole lot of subrationalization between them.
The first reason is this: We don't want to take peoples' money for services we're not 100% sure we can provide. Most folks would say that it's OK for us to charge some money ($30 for a handle) and then use that money (the $30) to provide the services for the year. We're pretty sure that $30 will (barely) cover our cost of providing that service, but if it doesn't, and/or not enough people spend the thirty (or ten) bucks, then we could be in trouble. Not wanting to ever let folks down (if we can help it) it seems wise not to start up until/unless we're sure we can make it at least the year in question. So, we've been looking about for alternate funding sources (personal money from the Trolls, friendsandfamily investment, things like that), and we've found some...... but we're only about halfway to our goal of paying off all of our back bills (bandwidth since May, and the lawyer fees.. more than $8k) and having the money up-front to cover operational costs for at least 12 months. We might have reopened (i hate the word "launched" in the "started doing business" sense) now anyhow, and hoped for the best, but there's another reason.....
"914 is going away"
Yep.. i'm an Army Reservist, as some folks might have known, and my unit has been activated. In fact, i leave tomorrow morning, 0600 7 Nov 2001. Chances are that i'll be able to continue biancawork pretty easily (gotta buy a laptop now!) once things settle down. i can only hope that my work schedule in the Army isn't too brutal, leaving me a few hours a day to poke at the biancacode and work on customer-service issues.
We've sort-of known about this for two weeks, but things weren't for-sure or certain, so it seemed best to wait until i knew for sure. Well, i found out for sure on Sunday.
How is this going to affect the biancanauts?
Not much, i hope. It means that we're going to delay the reopening for another few weeks, depending on how hectic my schedule gets. It means that i personally probably won't be able to get online or check my bianca email for a week or two. It also means that when we do reopen we probably won't be accepting snailmail renewals/purchases. We'll be using PayPal exclusively.
What can you do to help?
The best thing you can do to help, is to hang in there and be a positive part of your bianca community! On the other hand, if you'd like to help out financially (and bianca sure could use it!), please don't hesitate to send bianca some money. The best way is PayPal, send the donation to bianca@bianca.com (really, the signup is super-easy, and it's the easiest way to send money), or email one of the Trolls for a snailmail address. You can also use this handy paypal button
In closing...
i'd personally like to thanks all those who have been supportive, with encouraging words and generous donations, and the silent majority of biancanauts who are really what makes the Shack a special place.
914
There's been some really monumental non-bianca things happening in the world, but it's time for a little news on the state-of-the-shack.
Some folks have already seen two of my recent posts on the Message Board, the first one announcing a sort of amnesty on expired memberships, and the second answering a couple of questions raised in the many responses. Lemme just say that i'm quite gratified by the overwhelmingly positive reaction from folks, particularly in the face of so little apparent action from the Trolls. Yeah, it sounds cheesy, but this *isn't* as easy as it looks, and the horror of Sept 11th really took a lot of drive away from our efforts. They just seemed so trivial and futile..... but that's not really the case, it just felt that way for a while. So, i apologize for the month's delay. There's no excuse, but there it is.
Anyhow, things are happening. No promises on dates and stuff, since i don't wanna let anyone down, but we're moving fast towards accepting renewals and new members again, and there are already a bunch of reforms in place. Watch the Message Board for announcements (and here for the big ones, of course) and to help make some of the decisions that will have to be made.
Thanks for all your patience!
914
I've set up some links on some disaster relief donation options
I may add some other sites as I become aware of them. Please do take the time and effort to donate some money if you can afford it, and I suspect most anyone using this place probably can. Also, if you are looking around for a place to donate, please be wary of the inevitable scams which have already surfaced in both email and telemarketing campaigns.
The phakt0rE