News – August 15

What a month! As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted in a while. There are two reasons for that.

The first is that I came down with a ferocious bug. I ran a high fever for a week or so, and then spent the last month coughing like mad. A lot of people in this area got it, and it seems that it takes most somewhere between a month and six weeks to recover.

I’m about finished with it now (I hope) but as you can imagine coughing until you are so short of air that you lose vision and your chest muscles cramp up doesn’t leave a whole lot of energy to do anything that’s not vital.

Since very few people actually read this blog, I’m afraid it fell into the “not vital” category. I’m sorry, if you are one who checks here regularly. Thank you so very much, and I didn’t mean to let you down.

The second reason is that I agreed to teach a series of four Photoshop tutorials at my local quilt shop, Bits ‘n Pieces, during the month of August. Of course, that meant that I needed to plan lessons, and I quickly realized that I needed to give the students a transcript and detailed illustrations with explanatory text and arrows on them. Which took more time than I expected to put together, although I did find an incredible tool to take screenshots on the Mac, called ScreenShot PSD, that lets me arrange all the windows, menus, and cursors however I need them after taking the shot! If you have a Mac, and need screenshots for tutorials, I highly recommend it. It’s even free!

At this point two of the lessons have been given, the third is in the can, and the fourth is written and (mostly) illustrated. Another day or two should take care of finishing it up.

Just in time to set up for The Arcade in Second Life! I knew I’d be short of time this round, so Marianne McCann offered to do textures, and I took her up on it. But I still need to do all the keys, promo, and set-up work, so that should keep me busy the rest of this week, since the first day of setup is less than a week away.

After which, I have Plans.

Which brings me to the stories. As far as I can tell, only a few people are reading them, and no one is interested in supporting them on Patreon. (Except Lauren and Michael. Thanks, you guys!) So my question is, do you want me to keep posting them here? If you do, I’ll be happy to. But it does take time, and seems kind of silly if no one cares. Please let me know in the comments if you want to read them here.

I think that’s everything. With any luck, my life will get back to normal soon!

Take care, and thanks for reading!