Apologies for the lengthy absence, I've been busy with a lot of things, and just plain worn out to the point I couldn't sit down and draft up a decent post. Not to mention there hasn't been a whole lot going on in my life of late. Now that I have a break in things, I'm back and hopefully I'll be posting regularly again. I'll know next week if I do or don't post.
Garden Update
I promised some pictures and videos this post, I have some good and bad news on that front. Google Video, the site I host my video clips on, has not been playing nice with me for a couple weeks now. Clips aren't being listed properly, embedded clips aren't loading or playing, they're becoming more like YouTube than a reliable alternate video host. That said, I can't trust the links I have to the video content I want to show you, I can't trust that they'll function so I won't waste my time and yours with those right now. I've already sent two complaints to Google Video over the bugs I've come across, and the third one will be my last, I'll port the clips to another host and try again. I have next to no tolerance for something that is supposed to function a certain way and doesn't.
I promised some pictures of the garden, I only have a few online right now, but I'll have some more next time as the tomatoes are going like mad, the pumpkins are doing all right, and the cayenne pepper plant (right) has already produced several bright red peppers which I'm rdrying to grind into powder since that's the only way I eat cayenne pepper. I could use the endorphine boost, that's for sure. 
The pumkins are doing well, the first hints of orange are starting to appear on the skins, these pics are weeks old when I first found the pumkins on the vines, so they're bigger and more orange now than they were in these shots.
The pumpkins will be nice to have, I'm not much a fan of pumpkin pie, but I can learn to like it, or make other things with it that I will like we have 5 on the vine right now, and I expect more will start to surface as the blossoms attract bees. It's a lot of work, but I like the garden, it yields results for the effort that's put into it.
Next post I'll have some tomatoe pics, as well as some non-storm clouds that I've shot, just for something different. the bell peppers are still not yielding anything, wish I knew how to get some bell peppers to grow. I'll also have more up-to-date pumkin pictures as well, maybe more cayenne pepper too. I'll just have to see what the camera gives me.
Commerical Projects Update
I can't actually link to anything here, but I can post a financial update on them. To date, my commercial projects have netted me: $0.00. I'll post this information once a month, for my own "benefit" if nothing else.
Forum Update
Anyone who has the link to the Role Play forum I frequent, the site's been down for two or more weeks now and I'm not sure when it'll be back up. I haven't gotten an update from the site's admin yet, but I know it's being worked on from what others have told me. I'll link it again here when it's back online.
Comments:
Yensid:
Yeah, I'm updating there more often than here these days. Got a few others I need to pop in on as well.
scorchbird12:
Long time no see, taking a break sometimes does a person some good, but still it's nice to see familiar names come around again.
One of my vids has those freakishly low clouds in it, I tell you I haven't seen a storm like that since I lived in TX where you expect low couds to spawn tornadoes. Unfortunately, I have to hold off on embededing the videos here, as I mentioned, Google Video is being a major [Censored] and not cooperating with me at the moment, so ultimately my readers here, and on my other blogs where I post videos suffer.
Well, being stubborn can have it's advantages, but it has it's drawbacks too.
AngelBest Dream:
Well, I've been worn out from doing a lot of hauling for the band, fighting bad weather, and I had a friend over last weekend also. When I burn the candle at both ends, something has to give and for me, that's my online life. I am still plugging away at the novel, I hope to have it finished and ready for the promotional stuff to begin again, not sure exactly when, but I hope to finish it sometime.
Keep at it, and go with your gut. That's the advice I can give you. Hopefully I'll be around more often than I have been, I've kind of been her and there across both sites, not really commenting, but I have been reading posts and stuff.
whtdragon:
I used to live in Tornado Alley, so wind scares me to no end. All the luck to you in staying out of harm's way in the wind. Weather's been nuts this year up here like you wouldn't believe, hot and humid one day, pouring rain and thundering the next.
Yeah, that's one of those subtle directions that needs to be made bold faced or something, cause I had the very same issue myself till I took that literally.
Whoops, I missed that till just now. Sorry about that. Anyway, they did that here some years ago, consolidated schools, and they talk about it every couple years as well, but, at least here the parents have enough clout in the local government to push school closings off for a few more years. Their arguments are very valid ones about class sizes, student to teacher ratios, as well as safety and transportation concerns. Personally, if the parents wanted to send a strong message to the school board that the idea smells worse than a titan arum, all of them who have kids that were pushed to other school districts would pull their kids out of the public school system completely and home-school them. A trend like that would command the school board's attention because that's state and federal funding they would lose out on, so much per head that's not at a desk in a public school. Sorry about the mini-rant there, I tend to get loud when I'm annoyed, no matter the subject.
Iruka Sensei:
I don't tan, I burn so no comment there. The weather's still being a bit loopy here, but it's settling down for the most part.
If I sit down uninterrupted (can't do that till the humidity goes down, my room is like a sauna, and not in the good way), I probably could get it all hashed out and polished in a month or two, I might just try to do that as best I can here in August. I don't know a whole lot about publishing either save the annoyance that no one takes unsolicited materials anymore, and agents for first-timers are hard to come by as well. Oh well, as I learn this industry, I'll be sure to pass on what I learn to others.
jomz
I saw that on the news, scary stuff.
At least I got the photos up finally, sorry I couldn't get the vidoe posted though.
Honestly, I'm not sure my work is "worth" publishing, but I'm going to try anyway. I'd like to have something under my belt in the success category, right now, none of my successes do me any good in the financial sense, and even if I get a tiny little trickle, it would be better than nothing.
Yensid:
I'm going to respond to this one here because this is something I want on public record, no matter the fallout it generates.
I see a lot of potential here with the the TOS and the enforcement of the document. Now, potential can be a good or a bad thing. It depends on the people in those positions of power to handle themselves appropriately, and not fall into the ruts of past experiences when they do take actions. The TOS has me at a disadvantage these days because of one key point that doesn't fully make sense. Should there be a "no commerical advertisements" policy on TheOtaku? Yes, given that one of the premium features is ads free browsing, and the ads help support the free users use of the site, it makes sense that the site has that policy. Here on MyOtaku, a site that's not ad supported anymore, and not in the mainstream otakudon anymore, does it make sense to have or enforce a "no adverts" policy? To me it doesn't, but the policy is there. What that does is cripple me in two ways.
- I can't display or direct readers to my best photographs.
- When it is published, I won't be able to fully "promote" my novel.
The policy also puts a damper on those artists who take commissions here as well. Any artist that promotes commissioned artwork here is commerically advertising and that's a TOS violation when one applies "the letter of the law" to it. That creates an environment of double-standards if certain ads are prohibited while others are allowed. What the site may become is yet to be seen, it could go downhill and turn into Elfwood, it could ride a flat line and not really go anywhere, it could go in a positive direction, we'll just have to wait and see.
Yeah, that's scary stuff. The sad thing is, the national networks are banking on the suffering you guys are going through out there to play "lets get more ratings by pointing blame fingers at someone". Bureaucracies will alway cause more problems than they are created to resolve, that's politics at it's finest. Instead of trying to figure out who's to blame for the resources not being there, national networks would be doing a lot of good to try to get people, equipment, and supplies where they are needed to help combat the fires and lend whatever aid is needed to the people in the areas affected.
just.me
That's quite all right, I don't get around here as often as I want to these days anyway, so a few days is quite all right.
I like thunderstorms, but I don't like the wind. I'm stupid enough to go outside with a camera and try to capture lightning. Would be nice to get a torrential downpour to knock the humidity out of the air though, these little spits of rain with all the sky fireworks just don't do enough.
Yeah, I know, I've been stubborn my whole life. I do wonder though, if I'll have a fight with the publisher over my special dedication when it comes down to the wire. "To the fine people at Workforce West Virginia, the West Virginia Bureau of Employment Programs, and a couple of US Senators, who did nothing to help me find a job, get into a training program, or fix the corrupt system which failed me." Don't be surprised if that's the reason my novel becomes well known.
Whenever someone wants a book I have, I send them to the used bookstore, tell them the investment in a copy of their own is worth every penny, and I buy sometimes too. I really don't like to lend stuff out, I rarely get it back.
Magnus Lensherr:
A year's delay is a rough estimate on my part, I'm horrible with time estimates. Hopefully I'll have it done and already be in the process of promoting it to agents by the end of the year's time. I'll know as I go I guess. The delay is mostly because agents and publishers don't like to look at an "in progress" work, and I have no idea how long it'll take me to finish my major overhaul. Had I stuck with the original plot, I'd be submitting for consideration right now, but the delay will be better for the book I think.
