I’ve been fairly busy the last few days and haven’t done a good job of keeping things updated. I’ve updated the site to the latest version of MoveableType, and I’m working on a new bookmark site that I think will be fun (as well as an easier way for me to sort out my bookmarks).

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time working on Project Orca, one of my pet projects. I’ve got a seperate development blog to keep track of the development efforts there, and for my side business.

I am managing to get some writing done, despite all of the work. I’ve been posting news to Ars Technica, where I’m now a staff writer of sorts, posting news as regularly as I can and working on some new articles.

As busy as it is, I can’t complain.

Well, I’m still suffering through this blasted cold. It started out as a minor sinus infection, not uncommon during this time of year. It quickly degraded to a full blown cold and cough, and subsequent nosebleeds. I thought it was getting better, but apparently it was just gathering reinforcements. Now along with the original cold, I also have an inner ear infection. And to top it all off, I haven’t been able to sleep more than a few hours a night for the past three nights. This also forced me to miss tonights writer’s group meeting.

Of course, waking up around four in the morning does have its benefit. I’ve been able to squeeze in a little writing, between gasping for breath. It gives me new respect to those with the kind of seasonal allergies and have to deal with this all the time.

Dena’s going to a Styx concert with her girlfriend tomorrow, so I’m going to spend the night writing. I’m still working on Trey’s Jambalaya challenge, which is due on Saturday. Coming up with a story involving shredded money, chocolate with large teeth marks, and a connection between the Amish and Chinese Jambalaya wasn’t easy, but I finally came up with something I was satisfied with. I may even post it here when I’m done.

It’s been difficult to keep my writing schedule lately. Work has been much busier than expected. There have been all too many late nights and weekends spent working on things better left to others – if only those others worked with me. It’s the price to pay working at a small company; you can either enjoy wearing multiple hats of responsibility or be miserable. I definitely fall into the former category, no matter how much I complain about it. I’ve always been a jack of all trades. I’d just like to think that I’m a master of some as well.

I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to this contract work I’ve been doing. It seems like this contract has stretched out forever, when in reality it’s only been a year. Still, a year of working two jobs, day and night, takes it toll. Combined with the strange weather lately, it’s no surprise this cold is lingering. I’ll be happy when things slow down and I can take a breather and catch up on the things I’ve been neglecting.

I’m still recovering from the weekend trip to St. Louis. I had a great time hanging out with thirty other computer geeks playing Counter-Strike, despite the horror of the shuttle Columbia tragedy.

I took a few photographs while I was downtown. I was staying at the Drury Plaza Hotel, right across the street from the Arch. It made for a pretty view. I’ve also fallen in love with St. Louis-style pizza.

I’ll upload the rest of the St. Louis photographs in a few days.

I made the 300 mile drive down to St. Louis on Friday (and I should be in bed now). I’m spending the weekend with roughly thirty people from #arsclan on irc.arstechnica.com, the IRC server I run for Ars Technica. It should be a fun, relaxing weekend. I even managed to land a nice hotel with broadband internet access in-room.

I’m too tired to form anything resembling a coherent thought this late, so I’ll just leave this little thing. Later this weekend I should be posting some new pictures, including the Arch (which is right in front of this hotel).

Things just seem to go from bad to worse lately, and something’s got to give. I can feel the stress fractures forming and needs to change soon. Between the recent problems at my day job (which has taken up all too much of my attention) and the contract work I’ve been doing for myself, I’m exhausted. The work has taken over, leaving family and writing in the dust, and I’m not happy about that.

I enjoy my work at dito, and the contract work I’m doing is proving to be nothing but hassle. Working 4-5 hours a night after an already full day at Ditto is not fun. The original intent of Battleaxe Technologies, Inc. was to develop some web sites and commercially saleable software that I have either partially written or designed. So far, I haven’t been able to manage one bit of what I intended. Instead I took the road most easily travelled and accepted some contract work doing customizations of Postnuke, a Content Management System (CMS) that I now consider to be a vile and poorly implemented disaster waiting to happen.

So where do I go from here? My heart tells me to take the road less travelled, and follow my own desires. Doing contract work may be a financial success, but at the end of the day, if I had to choose between money and contentment, I’d choose contentment hands-down. I’d rather be spending my free time of my own accord, so what’s holding me back?

On top of all of this, I’m still trying to finish first draft edits on the short story I’ve been working on for the past two months. If I had more control of my free time, I might actually be able to follow the schedule I had set for myself. My desire to write has not waned, only the time available to do so.

The time for hard decisions is at hand.

The past weekend was busier than most, even for me. The plan I had of building servers on friday fell apart, thanks to a screwup by Fed Ex. The hardware was delivered on Saturday, but the fun didn’t end there. It turns out I ordered the wrong case/power supply. The motherboard wouldn’t fit in the case.

I went to a local computer store and bought two “server” cases. The board fit perfectly, but it turned out the power supply didn’t have the right connector required by this board. Without it, certain on-board peripherals didn’t work, such as the video. Quite a pain in the ass. I ended up returning the cases.

My own server was much less trouble. I managed to order the right case, and I had no troubles getting it assembled and configured.

Along with all of that, I managed to revive the rotting corpse of Project Dolphin in the form of Project Orca. I’ll leave a detailed explanation of what that is for another time.

Never let it be said that working at a post dot.com era start up is uneventful.

We’ve finally managed to outgrow our hardware. While this painful from a cost perspective, it shows that we have built a successful and growing business. So now the fun begins.

It’s easy to call up Dell and order new servers. They also charge you an arm and a leg for it. Up to now, all of our servers are Dell-made, thanks to the venture capitalists of the dot.com era. It’s just not as feasible now, when we’re operating on a tight budget.

So I’ve decided to build our own servers. I can buy the parts and assemble them for almost a third of the cost, using the same quality equipment. Over time, I’ll assemble a farm of these servers. This will even make my job easier. With some standardized hardware, I can create images of the machine. Then adding a new farm to the cluster becomes a trivial task. I’m all for making life easier in the long run, even if the short term means working the weekend to assemble and configure servers.

The weekend is nearly over and I realize that I’ve accomplished none of the writing I intended to do. I wanted to get a head start on revisions to “Temperament” (or whatever I decide to call it in the end) so that I could submit it to group this week. That doesn’t look promising. Even if I can get some time to write tonight, I’ll be hard-pressed to finish the edits that I know it needs before I can give it over for public consumption.

I read some comments today from someone who went to a book signing by Robert Jordan recently.

“If you are writing two hours a day you won’t cut it.”

He continued, saying that he works eight to ten hours a day, seven days a week. Last year he only took five days off. It’s comments like these that always chafe my hide. If by “cut it” he means pumping out mamoth volumes every two years and stretching out the expectation of readers over as many volumes as you can get away with, then I hope I don’t cut it. I want to write and be published, but not at the cost of quality over quantity.

Once, when I was a much younger man, I made the mistake of asking a published writer what advice he had to give an aspiring one. He replied, in a gruff, bitter voice, “Don’t quit your day job.”

I expect that published authors are bombarded with such questions from people who want to become writers. In truth, they are difficult questions to answer. If I’ve learned anything over the years of writing, it’s that there’s no one right or wrong way to do it. You have to discover for yourself what works for you. If any advice should be given, it’s that.