But Crysta did give me a couple of gifts this morning, including the stuffed raven pictured above, so I’m already pretty happy about it. I don’t know, I’m feeling good.
Anywho, just as a reminder I’ll be at Eau Claire Comic Con on Saturday — so if you’re in town, you should stop by. I had a really good time there last year, so I’ve been looking forward to it. I need to do some updates to my con calendar this week, because I have shows booked that aren’t on it right now.
So my personal site, which has been around in one form or another since 1996, has been running on Perl since 2001. Especially this blog.
And lately my webhost has been shitting the bed with Perl scripts. Like random 500 errors will just kick up on scripts that otherwise work. The problem is not my code (which I maintain and normally runs fine), but something that’s intermittently happening on my webhost’s end.
And support is just awful.
I’ve cycled through half a dozen support techs. Initially it took me forever to find one who would believe me when I said I was talking about Perl and not PHP. Then I found someone who saw the problem, and asked me to document instances of it happening, and acknowledged my code was not at fault — but then I got cycled to ANOTHER tech, and this one thinks it’s my code not serving headers.
Which it is.
And this guy just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It’s not as easy as just finding a new webhost either — a lot of hosts don’t support Perl anymore. So now I think my only solution is to recode my whole site to run in PHP — either to stay with my current webhost or to move to a new one.
Which sucks, because I don’t know PHP anywhere near as well as I know Perl.
So now I’m stuck googling functions, figuring out shit in a language I only kinda know. I’ve gotten one script done, and I’m just going to have to build a whole parallel version of my site in PHP and launch it when I’m done. But if you get random 500 errors on my site, that’s what’s happening.
Just hit reload in a few minutes I guess, and it’ll come back.
I’m finally finishing the last edits on the fourth Mia Graves novel, and over the next few days I’ll be doing the formatting of the book’s interior and reaching out to the company I pay to do my book covers. This book was supposed to be in this state literally six months ago, and while I know the deadlines are self imposed, I really do hate missing them.
This month is a busy one. Besides my birthday, I have Eau Claire Comic Con in a little over a week (September 13th), followed by “Meatgrinder Weekend” (where we’ll record season 6 of that podcast), and then the week after that I’ll be doing a small appearance at CritWitchCon on Friday the 26th. Mixed in, I also have to finish prepping stuff for the opening of Campaign 3 of Stormwood & Associates, write more comics for Peregrine Lake, and get a couple of months of BS-Free Witchcraft prepped and recorded. Also, there’s some other stuff I can’t say publicly yet (in case it falls through).
It’s a bunch of stuff.
And honestly, I still feel bad that it’s taken me this long to finish this novel. Like I forget that I am doing all of this plus working a full time job. I did two cons in August, went to my grandmother’s memorial, and finished production on Season 5 of The Meatgrinder. I think I need to give myself a break sometimes.
…we all know that’s not going to happen though, right?
Anyways, I really like what I’ve written. It’s not quite the book that I originally intended to write, but I’m proud of what I came up with in the end. I won’t announce the title until the cover reveal, but you’ll find out before the end of the month most likely. In the meanwhile, I need to remember that even if some things are taking me longer than I hoped, I’m still getting them done.
I know I’ve been a little quiet these last couple of weeks, but for the record I’m still here. Still existing. Still getting up every morning.
This was my first weekend at home in like a month and a half. No travel, no conventions, nothing but sitting back next to an open window, watching TV with Crysta, and ordering delivery food. It’s been nice, it’s been quiet, and I finally feel like I’ve been able to relax again.
Last weekend was my Grandmother’s memorial, which was an emotional experience I’m not going to go into all that much — but it was good. Emotionally draining, but good. The two weekends before that I was conventions, and the two weekends before that I was in the Northwoods. And even though I spent many weekdays back at home, it’s not the same as being able to fully relax.
Relaxing is good.
So right now I’m enjoying the cool breeze on a Sunday night. The sun has set, the bugs are making their nightly racket, and I might try to get some more writing done before the end of the night. Sometimes life is about the simple things, the simple joys, and just being able to take a deep breath and appreciate them once you’re given the opportunity. Tomorrow the cacophony will begin again as I go back to work, but for now the world is quiet, peaceful and still.
And I’m going to appreciate every second of it.
Like last year, I’m tabling at Anime 414 in downtown Milwaukee at the Baird Center (a name I can never remember for the life of me). I’m in spot 122 (to the right side of the room as you come in), and you should stop by and say hi if you’re there.
Big Minneapolis Anime and Anime 414 are both interesting shows because they’re very “comic con” in their business model even though most Anime cons are like, the exact opposite of this? But hey, whatever works. I had a good time last year at 414, and I hope to have a good time this year.
