Access Granted…

Hey All,

So I’ve been behind on posting here. Gonna change that in the coming weeks with the new year (I’m sure everyone is saying that now). In addition to posting more here, I’m going to be posting over at Cylys as a reviewer and other associated posts. Quick update here though, I’ve updated some tools on the site, updated the copy of wordpress, and I’m about to start editing the categories.

In the future, I’m going to be working on the new site theme. I’m also probably going to start posting tweets here as a weekly digest as opposed to a daily digest. We’ll see if that works better.

Anyway, later folks, talk to you soon.

jdiehl

            Wow, it’s been almost two months since I’ve actually written a real update to this blog. Really sorry about the large batch of twitter posts that have taken up the time time. Somewhere between the beginning of August and now I’ve been distracted with so many things that it’s hard to figure out where to begin. Well, let’s take things in order.

             At the beginning of August I ended up doing two things involving my gaming. First, I took an official step down from United Role Play duties. I’m still on this hiatus for the most part. Currently I am looking at picking up official duties come October. My presence as a game administer is being tiered down and I will instead focus my efforts as lead forum administer and web development. The former is a sure thing but the later not so much. I’ve also joined a more general group of gamers, F7 Lans, a group of gamers currently focused on Team Fortress 2 gaming. I’m paying to be a supporter for them and I’m enjoying my time with them. I’m not taking up any official stance with them beyond fan and occasional advertiser to new folks to the servers. I want to keep my relationship with them purely based on fun and recreation.

            In addition to the efforts in my gaming communities, I’ve jumped on the Spore bandwagon. It’s a pretty fun game and I do recommend it. If you have it, my name is nulloperations if you want to buddy me.

            Continuing the time line, early September hosted my first convention, SLCC. This was so much fun. I was able to meet Frans, Rhiannon, Amu, Armath, Harper, and a number of new folks while we were down there. Disappointed Caycee and Kevin didn’t show up (with them living so close and all). In addition to learning many useful SL business tidbits, I also got to really sit down and use Raven’s Mac. Okay, I admit it, I really enjoyed the experience. NOT FROM USING A MAC! But from using a laptop. Still hate Macs, but I do like laptops now. I’m already planning on buying one next year.

            The convention was such a great experience that when we came home in the evenings that weekend I started a crazed effort into building the new House of RFyre store. I had the bulk of the shape finished by Sunday evening. As it stands, texture work on the build it at 90% for the core structure. Detail work will come later but for now the core of the build is complete save the last bits of paint. I will start posting images later as the structure comes together and we near the final release date of October 20^th. That’s the day we’re clearing out the rest of the island and moving the structure down into place. Vendors will start moving in those nights too.

            Speaking of mid-October, I will be officially losing my job on the 17^th. I don’t hold any grudges against my work place. Its business and sometimes folks get swept under in the choices. No, I still won’t say where I work as that’s part of that crazy employee contract.

            Those are the current updates in a nut shell. I’m going to try (again) to get back to posting more often. I also need to get back into finishing up the new design for the website. I have some nice texture work done and I think it comes off rather nicely.

Later for now,

Justin

So in the last week I have been working a bit more on a number of projects. Things are going okay for the most part, although I admit this week I have back-slide alittle with gaming some in the afternoon before work. It wouldn’t be a problem if it was only a few minutes, but the last few days it’s been over an hour. Can’t do that.

Website project is taking a bit longer than I thought. Turns out frames do suck and I’m probably going to end up going with tables. This should be interesting. With that in mind, I’ve got some other things I need to work on. Mainly the House of Rfyre website. The basic design is staying, but there’s some things I need to figure out how to insert.

Another social network joins the matrix I’m creating with my main site as the nexus. I now have a Facebook profile. I’m not sure how much individual attention I’m going to give that site, but at least now I have another network presence established. Why I do this is so I lay the ground work for the future. I have a hope that, some day, I’ll be a successful published writer or something that might require me to have a public face in order for people to reach out to me. If nothing else, it’ll help some of my future projects.

I’ve been messing around with Zulupad more lately. Fun stuff. Think of it as a personal wiki journal. I’m using it to keep track of a story bible I’m writing. Have a fun universe in mind that I’ve been crafting for almost 4-5 years now. Updates on that in the future. I’m still using the freebie version of Zulupad, but I’ll be using the Pro version of it later once I have some images and styles I want to drop in for us.

Alright, enough distraction, back to work.

Justin

Just testing a quick plug in real fast.

Okay, lots of things are changing, some fast, some slow and deliberate. So let’s start the list off:

Website

I have plans for development. A new skins/style, maybe some personal coding, and general all around updates. I do intend to post more once this has occurred (mostly since I fear having to reset the blog… again). There’s a lot of things I want to do with the website, besides it just being a blog. I want it to be my virtual face, so to speak. I want people to be able to come here and know who and what I am as far as my virtual self. This includes my writing self, my developer self, my gamer self, and my business self. There’s a lot I can do with this place and so far I do feel like I’m wasting it.

That said, the website development is going slow. I need to have some more focus.

Writing

Slowed to a stop for the time being. That will be changing tomorrow. I say tomorrow because right now I’m writing this to help get some of my groove back. I also took the time to write a podcast review for 12 volt Theater. I owed Jack that much since I have completed failed to help him with the T-shirt thing I was looking at back in May and well, it being only 25-30 days left to Dragon Con… yeah… sorry about that Jack. I’ll make it up to you.

Non-fiction topic covered, my fiction will be returning this week with a passion. I’m determined to answer M. Stackpole’s challenge from Dragon Page: Cover to Cover. Not going to say which one though, not until I actually get it done. I hate saying I’m going to do something and not following through (READ: Previous paragraph). My mind has been racing with ship design and space physics lately. Need to really start studying that more. And South-American ancient architecture… Shh, secret story.

Second Life

I’ve flown in full swing into helping House of Rfyre. I’m really determined to keep focused this time around. I owe Raven that much. That said, my current topics of interest are RFyre Security, RFyre web design, RFyre future island developments, and RFyre advertisements.

One thing I’m thinking of is the fact I listen to so many podcasts (how many did I mention already in this post?) that I really need to think of what can these things do to help RFyre. There’s the possibility of getting our own, but I fear that will only hit up the current SL audience. That’s a good thing, but I want to really expand our market. A number of podcasters have mentioned their audience sizes before on their casts and many of them are very respectful. If spending money to advertise on a popular cast makes us money in return… well I’m very interested in embracing new media. After all, isn’t Second Life a growing new medium? It’s not just a game, it’s a growing world.

United Role Play

And here’s why I have more free time. I’ve left URP as a member and admin. I still hang out with the gang on weekends, but not during the weekdays anymore. I’ve got more time to focus on work now that I’m not spending all of my free time gaming on an RP server.

I still hope the best for Dave and the rest of the URP crew, but right now it’s not the right place for me. Best of luck you guys.

Alrighty, that’s really the mussings that are rolling around right now. There are other things swimming around right now, but nothing I’ve hammered out fully.

I’ll be around more often,

Justin

The website is being redesigned. Hoping to have something up by this Friday or Saturday.

Just added a forum to the website for a friend’s community.

Link is here if you wish to join in. They’re mostly a Gamer/RP Community.

Justin

So I’ve been thinking of some changes for the site. I’ve already did a new theme, now I’m working on customizing it. In addition to that, I’m considering changing the name of the blog. I’m getting closer to the time when I won’t be up every day in the early AM, and I havn’t written too many posts during that time period anyway. The website is named hidden node however, so I’m thinking the theme should have to do with the site.

Other news, my Shadowrun book delivery arrived today. Awesomeness.

Justin

Must totally be a boring website. Only has twitter updates on it. Need to fix that.

Okay, first, To Do List review:

• Research more Open Simulator Content
  • Sort of doing. Talking to some people
• Create a Splash page for www.hiddennode.com
  • Ha hah, no, havn’t done it yet. This Saturday evening or Sunday
• find or make a theme for it’s early.
  • Ditto. I’ll try to make them match in some manner. Tinker with HTML and all that
• finish at least one of the library books
  • Grumble… no either. Saturday and Sunday, before and after the coding work.
  • I will read some tomorrow before work though, promise to myself
• read at least half of one of the fiction books
  • Also no. I’ll read alittle tonight of Infection though.

    Speaking of Infection, I’m going to either buy a copy for my local library next month or the month afterwards. I need to find out what the policy is for buying books. I’d like to get people here in the Pasco Country area interested, and what better way than to buy them a copy for the local library?

    Been building heavily in SL lately (see Twitter links for proof).  I think I’m finally getting out of my funk.  Or more exactly I’m in a gaming funk while the SL is drawing me back. The creation of Patty’s home was just kind of spur of the moment after building somethings for House of RFyre. I’m sure the building will be long lasting as we go through the island redux project.

    Real Life notes, I’ve got a project in mind. I’ve been meaning to send my Nephew’s christmas/birthday/something present off for a few months now. I just havn’t gotten around to doing it and right now I’m waiting on David getting me the address to send it to. I think I’m just going to give up and send it to my grandmother’s and he can pick it up there. Beyond that, I’m considering a bit of a care package project. I’m going to take some video and photos of the things around my life right now. Yes, phone video. It’ll look shitty but I don’t care. If they want better they can buy me a camcorder. Anyway, I’m going to talk about my life, show off places in my life, and show off people in my life.  Show off what I’m doing, and just try to give a feel how things are for me right now. I also need to setup a DVD or two for each of my brothers with just various things of interest to me. A big digital care package if you would.

    I think it’s a good idea.

Justin