Hello, and welcome to 2009! I hope that we all do just a bit better this year than last.
I haven't added anything to the game in far too long, although I've got bits and pieces that I've been working on, like a partly-done Google gadget, the ability for AOL and Gmail users to register/log in using those accounts, and improved server robustness. I'll be getting that last one into production soon, after today's hour-long server outage.
Things have been quiet on the law-job front; a few interviews that didn't pan out, one still to be scheduled. I continue to do assigned criminal defense, which comes in intermittent bursts. For several months I worked on a web site for a special project for my sister-in-law's business, in the vain hope that it would bring in some much-needed customers. The result has been a lot of belt tightening, and a minimal Christmas.
That's enough whining from me. I still have my health, my family, good friends, and a lot of very nice people who enjoy WordSplay and tell me so. In a few weeks, I will start taking evening classes in Spanish, with sign language to follow. And I fixed the headlight and turn signal on my VW Bug myself, for only $27.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Beatnix Gone
This is a purely personal post, with no updates on the game.
Beatnix Coffee House went out of business yesterday, and today we started selling off its assets and winding it up. Almost three years ago, my wife Penney started Beatnix in collaboration with her mother Sandy (seed capital) and old friend Todd (professionally trained chef). It had been a dream of hers for quite some time, and she made it a glorious reality. We had art, music, poetry, great friends and great coffee. We had cool, funky employees and customers. All four of our children worked there, and two of them performed on stage there, at one time or another. You can read more about it in our local paper or the Beatnix web site.
For most of Beatnix's existence, I was in law school. In recent months, I hosted open mic poetry, but that was about the extent of my involvement. I was very proud, though, of what Penney had accomplished - apart from Todd's tasty muffins and paninis, all of the things that made Beatnix great were due to Penney's creativity and hard work.
Many, many people loved Beatnix, but in the end, that wasn't enough to keep it going. Sandy, Penney and I invested a lot of money that we won't be getting back, and Penney and Todd spent a great many underpaid or unpaid hours. All that is left are memories of the good times we had and the little community of wonderful people that gathered around us. There are quite a few things that we would have done differently, if we had it to do over, but there is no question that we would do it all again if we could.
Beatnix Coffee House went out of business yesterday, and today we started selling off its assets and winding it up. Almost three years ago, my wife Penney started Beatnix in collaboration with her mother Sandy (seed capital) and old friend Todd (professionally trained chef). It had been a dream of hers for quite some time, and she made it a glorious reality. We had art, music, poetry, great friends and great coffee. We had cool, funky employees and customers. All four of our children worked there, and two of them performed on stage there, at one time or another. You can read more about it in our local paper or the Beatnix web site.
For most of Beatnix's existence, I was in law school. In recent months, I hosted open mic poetry, but that was about the extent of my involvement. I was very proud, though, of what Penney had accomplished - apart from Todd's tasty muffins and paninis, all of the things that made Beatnix great were due to Penney's creativity and hard work.
Many, many people loved Beatnix, but in the end, that wasn't enough to keep it going. Sandy, Penney and I invested a lot of money that we won't be getting back, and Penney and Todd spent a great many underpaid or unpaid hours. All that is left are memories of the good times we had and the little community of wonderful people that gathered around us. There are quite a few things that we would have done differently, if we had it to do over, but there is no question that we would do it all again if we could.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Days Go By And Still I Think of Y'all
It's been a busy ten weeks; Hence the complete lack of bloggle posts. I have been assigned to defend five clients, so far. I helped three with pleas, and the fourth may not even face charges (I should find out today). Another local attorney, upon learning of my math degrees, hired me for a couple hours of expert witnessing. One of my favorite tasks in law school was acting as a witness during court exercises, and real-life expert witnessing was even better - but sadly, there's very little demand for it around here. Starting a law office is slow going; I don't know how I would have made it this far without your generous pledge drive donations.
Much of the rest of my time has been taken up trying to prepare Beatnix Coffee House for a big move downtown (the building we're in will be torn down later this year) and doing emergency technical support.
One of the technical emergencies was our mail server getting overwhelmed by spam. I finally gave in and configured it to only accept mail for existing mailboxes; Before that, it just delivered any mail addressed to an unknown name to my box. It was very convenient to be able to accept mail at any made-up name without having to fiddle with the server. This change saved the server from the tsunami of spam, but also made all mail to weboggle@shackworks.com bounce . . . and I only noticed this today. Argh. If you sent any email to weboggle@shackworks.com within the past few weeks and didn't get a reply, please re-send it!
Needless to say, among all of this excitement, I have made very little progress on the game front.
But I have been keeping careful track of your feedback, bug reports, and suggestions.
Much of the rest of my time has been taken up trying to prepare Beatnix Coffee House for a big move downtown (the building we're in will be torn down later this year) and doing emergency technical support.
One of the technical emergencies was our mail server getting overwhelmed by spam. I finally gave in and configured it to only accept mail for existing mailboxes; Before that, it just delivered any mail addressed to an unknown name to my box. It was very convenient to be able to accept mail at any made-up name without having to fiddle with the server. This change saved the server from the tsunami of spam, but also made all mail to weboggle@shackworks.com bounce . . . and I only noticed this today. Argh. If you sent any email to weboggle@shackworks.com within the past few weeks and didn't get a reply, please re-send it!
Needless to say, among all of this excitement, I have made very little progress on the game front.
But I have been keeping careful track of your feedback, bug reports, and suggestions.
Monday, March 10, 2008
No Tote Bags, Yet
The "Final (I hope) Pledge Drive" is in progress, and going strong! You all have been keeping me busy writing thank-you emails. Some of you (and you know who you are!) have gone above and beyond the call for "a couple dollars"; Whether you have given $2 or $20, though, you're all lovely, generous people, and I appreciate you more than I can say.
Update: All done! Here are some statistics for the week (rounded off, slightly): 550 of the 14,400 players who logged in during the pledge drive donated. This is about 3.82%, which is pretty darn good! It surprised me that only 1,900 of the 14,400 logins were weekend-only players, since I assumed that there would be a larger contingent of people avoiding the site during the work-week for the sake of their productivity.
I tried to thank everyone personally, if briefly, although there was some difficulty with non-functional PayPal email addresses (if your initials are V.H. or K.S. and you didn't get a response to your donation, please write to me!). Your donations have put me on solid footing, and given me the breathing space I'll need to make this whole criminal defense gig work. You can be sure that, no matter where my career takes me, I will always ensure that this game keeps going - and getting better!
And for the 96.18% who didn't or couldn't donate . . . thank you for coming to play, thereby helping to make this site more fun for everyone by adding to the competition! Play on!
Update: All done! Here are some statistics for the week (rounded off, slightly): 550 of the 14,400 players who logged in during the pledge drive donated. This is about 3.82%, which is pretty darn good! It surprised me that only 1,900 of the 14,400 logins were weekend-only players, since I assumed that there would be a larger contingent of people avoiding the site during the work-week for the sake of their productivity.
I tried to thank everyone personally, if briefly, although there was some difficulty with non-functional PayPal email addresses (if your initials are V.H. or K.S. and you didn't get a response to your donation, please write to me!). Your donations have put me on solid footing, and given me the breathing space I'll need to make this whole criminal defense gig work. You can be sure that, no matter where my career takes me, I will always ensure that this game keeps going - and getting better!
And for the 96.18% who didn't or couldn't donate . . . thank you for coming to play, thereby helping to make this site more fun for everyone by adding to the competition! Play on!
Friday, March 7, 2008
Time Keeps on Slipping
By popular demand, there is now a 60-second interval between rounds instead of 30 seconds. Many of you were getting frustrated at not having enough time to review the results of each round. We'll try this for a week, then I'll test out my new quick-poll code to ask you all whether you prefer 30, 60, or perhaps a compromise at 45.
Oh, and I'm off to the courthouse to apply for inclusion in the county's Attorney Appointment List. If all goes well, very soon I'll be able to start defending people who are accused of misdemeanors.
Update: ARGH! I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS! IT MAKES MY LIFE HARDER!
Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Update update: Change of plans - I'm going to try 45 seconds for a few days, to give you all a feel for it, before I poll everyone.
Oh, and I'm off to the courthouse to apply for inclusion in the county's Attorney Appointment List. If all goes well, very soon I'll be able to start defending people who are accused of misdemeanors.
Update: ARGH! I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS! IT MAKES MY LIFE HARDER!
Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Update update: Change of plans - I'm going to try 45 seconds for a few days, to give you all a feel for it, before I poll everyone.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Thoughts and Numbers
Just a quick update, to let you know how the game is doing, and how I am doing.
First, some statistics on the game:
In February, the number of players logging in each day ranged from 6,568 to 8,051.
32,729 Players have registered.
1,306 registration emails sent since the 15th are still pending.
131 donors made 151 donations before 2007
433 donors made 486 donations during 2007
39 donors made 39 donations so far in 2008
Thank you!
The new server design and code seem to be handling the load without any trouble. Most of the problems have been in the design of the game board and the wording of the emails, and thus my fault ;-) The rest are either browser incompatibilities, over-protective Norton and McAfee software, or still mysteries to me.
I am about to go take a two-day CLE (Continuing Legal Education) seminar that will satisfy most of my professional requirements for the year, but more importantly will enable me to start defending people accused of misdemeanor offenses. I hope that this step will allow me to get my financial house back in order, and help some people who really need it at the same time. Unless I get more clients than I anticipate, though, this will still leave me with plenty of time to keep improving the game.
First, some statistics on the game:
In February, the number of players logging in each day ranged from 6,568 to 8,051.
32,729 Players have registered.
1,306 registration emails sent since the 15th are still pending.
131 donors made 151 donations before 2007
433 donors made 486 donations during 2007
39 donors made 39 donations so far in 2008
Thank you!
The new server design and code seem to be handling the load without any trouble. Most of the problems have been in the design of the game board and the wording of the emails, and thus my fault ;-) The rest are either browser incompatibilities, over-protective Norton and McAfee software, or still mysteries to me.
I am about to go take a two-day CLE (Continuing Legal Education) seminar that will satisfy most of my professional requirements for the year, but more importantly will enable me to start defending people accused of misdemeanor offenses. I hope that this step will allow me to get my financial house back in order, and help some people who really need it at the same time. Unless I get more clients than I anticipate, though, this will still leave me with plenty of time to keep improving the game.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Facepalm
A new version went up early this morning. It should speed things up a lot, and fix many of the minor bugs that y'all have been reporting. There's also a first draft of score list "abbreviation", in which only the most "interesting" parts of the list (i.e. you and your team, people you have marked, the top 5, and the bottom 2) are shown right away.
Oh, and it had a "fix" for the problem of pop-up blockers preventing the links to this blog and to PayPal from working. This "fix" rendered those links completely inert, even for players without pop-up blockers running. The situation has now been remedied, and those responsible (me) have been smacked.
Oh, and it had a "fix" for the problem of pop-up blockers preventing the links to this blog and to PayPal from working. This "fix" rendered those links completely inert, even for players without pop-up blockers running. The situation has now been remedied, and those responsible (me) have been smacked.
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