The new website is up and running!  The old URL (as of this afternoon) redirects surfers to the new site.  It's been a number of months since I started the process but work, health, computer replacements, and numerous extracurricular projects and requests intruded.

Although the new site is unfinished—more of a work-in-progress—the consolidation makes things more manageable.  The Radio Kansas Fall Fund Drive ended last night so normalcy should start creeping back in within the next few days…

WMS

Finally got to see ALL of the Battlestar Galactica finale.  My DVR cut off before the final 9 minutes of the overlong Daybreak Part Two unwound.  Thank the Lords of Cobol for Hulu.com.

So, now I’m left with a disturbing theory (beyond the idea that there’s a race of Centurions, somewhere out there, that have had another 150,000 years to evolve…).

It goes something like this:

The reimagined Battlestar Galactica with James Edward Olmos as Adama unwinds 150,000 years in the past.  At the series end we flash forward to the here and now.  The finale hints at the cyclical nature of events and how our present-day patterns are mirroring the events that led to the rebellion of the machine servitors and the fall of the 12 colonies.  We close on a collage of robots that are developing toward bipedal and human-like designs…

If one follows the established time-lines for the BSG mythology…

Eddy-J commanded the original Galactica 150,000 years ago. 

Loren Green commanded another battlestar named Galactica some 150 millennia later at the end of a thousand-year war against a machine race believed to have been created by extinct reptilian aliens. 

Thus the original BSG is the future series and the “reimagined” BSG is the “first” series.

My…head…hurts!

WMS

First of all, my apologies to all for going silent for so long.  I was fighting a battle on two fronts.

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First of all, my laptop went down some months ago and I had to go through the process of getting an older laptop repaired and refurbished while I hunted down the extended warranty pertaining to the current one. 

It took some time to restore some of the data from my hard drive—being a poor author I had to do all of the dirty work, myself.  Once restored, the old laptop gimped along requiring a certain amount of nursing and coaxing.

As it turned out the "new" laptop (hurriedly purchased as the last display model while under deadline duress) was covered by a special service enhancement warranty (a fancy sort of laptop recall) and I was eventually able to get it back in much better working order.

Of course it typically takes a minimum of several days to restore the hard drive and get all of the software re-registered and back to proper working order with passwords and specific configurations back in place.

This is assuming that the Windows Update processes don't throw a monkeywrench into the processes.  Which it did for three different installs.

Complicating matters further, my old ISP topped its usually litany of glitches with the meltdown of my 2^nd DSL modem, necessitating the purchase of a third in less than 2 years.  Unfortunately no DSL modems were available outside of an 80-plus mile round trip to purchase one at their store.  It was the last straw.

So I've changed ISPs necessitating a new round of password conversions and account transfers and what-not—a process still somewhat in process.

All of this would have been challenging enough but there were home repairs, landscaping, and major overhaul of the furnace and central air conditioner to occupy my time. 

Add to the mix the death of my pancreas, the deterioration of my L4 and L5 vertebrae, and the resurgence of cardiac ventricular abnormalities, well, life on-line has been put on a rather lengthy hold.

Not looking for sympathy, you understand.  More like absolution, forgiveness, or at least understanding.  The good news is: I think I'm about caught up.  I've worked my way through most of the more than 700 emails in my inbox and finally updated my homepage to reflect certain changes that have transpired in the past several months.

Now if I can only figure out how to tie my newsgroup/journal/blogs together and sync them to one source…

WMS

I think I am back, now.

Life got a little complicated after my last post.  You know the old saying: If you want God to laugh, tell Him your plans.

Aside from family business, a little surgery, the death of a friend, and a long list of projects with deadlines, there was the two-fold problem for me related to blogging.

The first was that I was trying to blog in a universal format for outlets on my Amazon pages as well as my website and the process proved incompatible.  I may havefound another approach to this problem and the next couple of days will tell.

The other problem is feeling that I have something to say on a regular basis. 

I am a storyteller.  As such, I have readers for those particular formats.  I am told, however, that some members of a writer's audience want to peek behind the curtains and get a better look at the process...or previews of what's in the works...or get a little more insight into the author, him/herself.

I am uncomfortable with pontificating.  The internet is filled with the bloggings of people who are not shy about expressing their every thought, feeling, or attitude about anything and everything under the sun.  I don't want to be one of those bloggers.  And investing a lot of time and energy into a blog is time and energy I am not spending on the next novel.  I have a day job.  I have additional, professional responsibilities that lay claims to my time.  And now I have an additional, daily committment that I must keep if I want to keep writing for another decade or two.

So, I think the solution (if the first part works) is to reprioritize my postings and be a little more regular if not a little briefer. 

And since I will want to respond to posts to my website newsgroup where I engage in conversations with readers and friends, I will have to see how this new multiposting process will filter across the platforms.

But I think I have solved the first hurdle with this post.

I hope the holidays have been good for you...so far...and that we all have a better passage into the New Year.

Cheers!

Wm. Mark Simmons