The primary dismay has been the last two weeks, where I spent most of my time either sick or recovering from being sick. The first week of March was spent dealing with a nasty norovirus that gave me terrible flu symptoms. The second week bronchitis decided to come back. Even now I am still recovering from the bronchitis and through it all I missed something like four and a half days of my day job, with only one day of that being sick time covered. I’m just happy to be near healthy again. If only I can clear my lungs long enough to go for a walk and get back to exercising. The con’s only six months away and I’m still only able to be on my feet fifteen minutes. This half a month repast on sickness is not helping.

But hey, we’re done now right? Time to just climb back on the horse as if we never fell off. Excuse or not, we’ve got some catching up to do. Expect a return to the normal schedule here with the typical Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. Well, maybe not Friday, but Monday and Wednesday will be common.

Also, regarding jsamueldiehl.com, I have been behind on my flash as well. To be exact, we are missing the following dates: 1/5, 1/7, 1/12, 2/18, 3/2, 3/4, 3/9, and 3/11. That’s eight stories I owe you, not to mention the fact I haven’t started the Saturday series yet. Well, look for them, they will be coming. For now, expect a new piece to show up tomorrow as expected, and then we’ll start filling out that back log.

Plans are still in motion, and things are getting back on schedule. Just taking some time.

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Last week there was a lot of work done on the blog. In terms of content, design, and usability, hiddennode.com has undergone a great deal of change. The new theme and plug-ins I’ve selected have turned this from a project that looked like I did care about it into something that has a little push behind it. The new content I’ve managed to post on a fairly reliable schedule has also increased traffic and hey, we had a few comments show up (hi folks and thanks!).

With all this effort put in it is time to continue my activity here. I’m going to attempt something of a schedule for posting here and on jsamueldiehl.com. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be the days you’re going to see posts here on hiddennode.com. Tuesday, Thursday, and occasionally Saturday will be the days that you’ll see new flash fiction on jsamueldiehl.com. Sundays I’m taking off.

The occasional Saturday posts lie on the fact I’d like for Saturdays to become days I post longer pieces of fiction, not just flash fiction. Because of that, I might just post every other week on Saturday so the content quality will be better. That is until I’m a better writer and know I can do more in a shorter time than I can now.

There’s no perfection to this system. I will miss days. I might even miss a week if things are tight. It’ll happen but once whatever is keeping me from posting is resolved I’ll be back and ready to go.

Going out on a note on the future; in the coming weeks you can expect a review of Star Trek Online (it goes live next week), might actually get to hear a podcast I take part of (if we ever record), and hear about my plans for Dragon*Con (bought my ticket yesterday). I’m looking forward to sharing these with you and hearing your comments.

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First, we’re gathering for early Christmas setup and not doing gifts this year in our normal fashion. Instead, we’re having a baking party. From the email my wife sent to the attendees, I’ve been listed as an official tester, a role I intend to shine in. It will be good fun seeing my sister-in-law and some of her children and their children and significant others. Besides… Raven is going out of her way to make my favorite peanut butter cookies.

Second, myself, Dakota, and Andrew will be recording episode one of Trans-Dimensional Cafe. We’ve already recorded two other “non-public” episodes to get into the swing. Some hiccups with recording the last two episodes, but we’re staying on track with getting episode one created. I’ll be posting whenever a new one comes up, until folks get tired of it.

What is Trans-Dimensional Cafe? Well, to sum it up in a sentence: It’s a casual conversation about gaming, writing, TV, movies, and other entertaining and constructive projects. Why the name? I don’t know, but it sounds cool. Are we going to make some sort of theme around it? Maybe, but not so much at first. Being entertaining on our own merit is more important in the long run.

The final spark of the weekend is on Sunday, when I have my book club meeting. It’s our second meeting, so I’m excited to see how it goes. I’m still working on reading Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, but for a genre I don’t normally read I’m really enjoying the book. I’ll give a review after this Sunday I think. Again, I’m looking forward to meeting my neighbors more at these meetings. The last batch of three really were fun to chat with. Between the four of us, we’ve had a pretty diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. I have a feeling I’m going to gain a lot from them in the coming months.

My weekend is pretty full from these events. That said I still have a few smaller things I need to take care of. I’ve got some Second Life work to manage, I need to find a new theme for this blog, I need to craft an entry for the jsamueldiehl.com site, and a few more minor details I’ll take care of in the second half of the week.

So, this post’s question: Continuing the holiday theme, what are your plans for getting ready for the end of the month? Are you buying or have you bought already? Did you plan out a nice trip for family or friends? Are you treating celebrating Christmas the American holiday or are you celebrating Christmas the spiritual holiday? Always happy to hear from you.

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That said, I’m going to start separating the two entities going forward; at least here on the site. I’m setting up jsamueldiehl.com and justindiehl.com (same site, different URL’s). Hiddennode.com will not be going away. In fact, it will pretty much remain the same (although expect a visual change sometime in the future). Jsamueldiehl.com will just become where my writing home is located. You’ll find information about my current projects, past projects, links to where you can find my writing, and any part of that which is my brand. Hiddennode.com will remain home to my personal blog, with maybe a few tidbits of my writing ending up here.

I’m promising myself that I will have the other site at least functional as a blog with some plug-ins within the next 30 days. The graphical upgrade should arrive later this year. Jsamueldiehl.com won’t be fully functional for several months as I’m not where I need to be to take full advantage of the site. This time next year that will be a different story.

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Hey this site is for my writing business after all and as such I do have to take the time to make it efficient for me.

That said, something else is coming soon as well. I’ve signed up for Amazon and Google Ads. As the theme I make use of is right widget bar only, that’s where things are going to show up. Not sure what Google will show but Amazon will show links to things I talk about in the blog. Yes, that means once I talk about something, it’ll be easier for you to buy it. Makes sense right? A little “pimpage” when talking about something and getting a kickback if you readers buy it. And no, this blog isn’t going to become a big product review site. I’m going to talk about what I use, not what others want me to use. Expect mostly book links and other similar items. There will be no pressure to buy or click links. For one, that’s shady. For two, it’s against the Terms of Service I signed up for with Amazon and Google.

And personally, I don’t want Amazon and Google not liking me.

Jdiehl

My first review article on the old version of the blog was about a show called 12v Theater by Jack Jaffee. I had originally planned on trying to get with Jack, do an interview thing with him, and post it. Didn’t happen. Not Jack’s fault. The man was quick to reply and very open to a meeting. I’m the guy who dropped the ball. Sorry about that one Jack. Still kind of feeling like a douche for it.

So to make up for it, my first topic is going to be able Jack’s new show: Media Frenzy (formerly the Jack and Theresa Show). Basic overview is your hosts, Jack and his wife Theresa, talk about various shows on air today. The genres vary and they go back and forth between Network and Cable shows. If it’s something on these days on a popular network, odds are they will talk about it, if just a little bit if they don’t care for it, or put an entire show out about a single series (I’m looking at episode 12 starring Dubshack as an example). Now I’ll be the first to admit it, I really don’t watch most of what they talk about. A few things, but not all of them. I pretty much listen because the hosts are cool and entertaining. They understand they have an adult audience listening to them and treat their show as such. So far, there are about a dozen shows as of April 24^th and it looks like they are going to keep going.  I do recommend listening to Media Frenzy if you want the perspective of folks like you and I reviewing the shows they like. You’re not going to hear buzz words or fawning over a show for no reason and the criticism they give isn’t hollow.

Okay that’s it… wait there’s more? Oh hell, right, 12vtheater. Erm… well… let me see here.

Well, there’s a problem with me reviewing 12vtheater. See, after the whole losing the job thing last year, I hadn’t listened to many podcasts for awhile. While I’ve recently managed to get caught up with a lot of them, well fiction podcasts have taken a back seat to more current events podcasts. That said, I’m going to make a more concentrated effort to catch up on this shows and other fiction shows soon. So no, I’m not going to post a new 12v Theater “Down the Road” post at this time. The series deserves more respect than to be reviewed by someone who has only listened to half of it.

Okay, so there’s the first review. Let’s see if I can keep them coming.

jdiehl

PS Since I wrote this Sunday night, I have actually mainlined my way through Down the Road. Waiting on that final episode, but yeah, I’m ready to review later this week.

Well, it’s time to bring back that good old spirit of writing about the things I enjoy; Only this time, I’m not going to be so heavy handed in getting posts out daily. I’ll just create them as they come to me, and as they come to exist, I’ll also add them to the Interests Page at the top of this blog. Even better, I’ll have the interests page link the brief descriptions I post there back to the big descriptions that appear in the blog.

Good idea right?

Okay, I admit, it’ll take some extra work and that might put me off, but hear me out. I think it’ll actually work for keeping me doing that sharing the love thing for things I enjoy. Trust me. It’ll come to pass. You’ll see.

jdiehl

Changes made for now:

• Removed Podcasts Page
• Added Interests Page Placeholder
• Removed Content of About Page

Changes coming soon:

• New About Page Content – To reflect subject matter of the blog
• New Author Page – To reflect the old content of the about page, basically information about me
• New Interests Page Content – To reflect links and posts I make about things I enjoy

Detail about the changes:

The changes I’m making reflect a desire to give a more in depth look at who I am and what I do here for this blog. For one thing, the old podcasts page was very vanilla in how it approached my enjoyable of a podcast. I’m changing it now that whenever I post about a given podcast, I’ll add it to the interests section. This will also reflect other things I’ve been enjoying, such as apps on my iPod touch, books I’m reading, and games I’m playing. The last three will probably fluctuate a bit as I move through different books, games, and etc. Ideally, I’ll update this once a week with new content and removal of old content.

The about section will also get a revision shortly. It will contain a breif detail on the various things I post about here, as well as link to things I use on the blog (namely what plug-ins I have tied into wordpress, and where else you can get the blog feed).

The Author page will become a static bio page. I doubt I’ll change it much except when a project receives fruition. Eventually, this will contain a list of everything project I have out there that folks can get their hands on to see.

So that is what is coming. I’ll be doing most of the changes this evening. Maybe even might get a new theme and new plug-ins to make the site strong. Maybe even *gasp* sign up for google analytics that I’ve been asked to do a few times for Raven’s site. If I can get a handle on them here, might have an easier time working on them there.

Okay, enough babble for now,

jdiehl

Oh, PS, www.cylys.com is no longer part of the hiddennode.com network. Dakota finally got off his ass and got his webspace. Congrats man! Now I don’t have to fix your site anymore! (forks is gonna love that).

Well, we’ve had this website for over a month now. In that time we’ve had a few new folks show up and sign up, but sadly, there isn’t a great deal of development within the site itself. This is disappointing but not entirely unexpected. Sadly, the $20.00 a month going into keeping this forum alive isn’t looking to be as worth the price. Frankly, with my pay cut and other finical needs, I could use that $20.00 for other important matters. With that in mind, www.dipsg.com  running IBP is going goodbye.

This is not the end of the website or the forums though. My primary website has the ability to host a forum for free and we will be able to handle our needs. I don’t like losing the great tools from Invision Power Boards but frankly as I’ve said, it’s not worth it with the activity.

That said and done, here’s what’s going to happen. The IBP board is going poof. I will be setting up a new board under the hiddennode web server that will still be accessible via www.dipsg.com. This should happen this weekend. Please take the time to setup your account on the other server. I’ll be setting up the board soon. The Layout will be different, by the way. The site will no longer be focused specifically on the dynamic ip super group. Instead, I’m going to focus the site on being a general gaming community site. There will be a section for CoH and the SG specifically.

If you have any questions, please contact me on ventrilo or send me an email at admin(at)hiddennode.com.

Thanks,

jdiehl

As I posted last night, I went ahead and locked all the old topics before my quick update in christmas. I also deleted all the twitter posts. Today I’m going to be trying to smooth out what I have on the site and on the site’s arms (Facebook, Twitter, and Livejournal as well). Interesting note about the LJ side, with closing all those old posts here, they suddenly vanished on the LJ side. Pretty interesting actually.

Of to work.

jdiehl