Starting over... sort of.

[Dray]

Glad you like!

[Shard]

This time in a good way, starting over will be kind of nice.

I'm going to be moving Droppin-the-fork.com to a new host since I can't afford Yahoo's ridiculous pricing on their business site. My main concern will be my emails but I've moved them from lethe@droppin-the-fork.com hosted on yahoo to another shortly.

There *shouldn't* really be much of an interruption, however just in case you try reaching the site and get 404s or whatever, that's because I'm going to be rebuilding it.

I know I haven't been around, pretty much at all, for the last couple years. I feel guilty as hell about that, but with the site being moved I hope to do *something* new now and again. I can't commit to anything like the winter gather (T_____T) but I still actually have artwork that needs to be finished at some point in case that ever happens with me in it again.

Right now, my home situation is much better than it had been when I first posted this thread, though hasn't evolved much beyond "I'm still a house elf" and "but at least we have cats now (that may or may not be perma-rescues)".

I'm doing nano, and some of the characters I'm writing are firmly in the Nexus, so you guys can't be rid of me easily.

*hugs* and thank you for being here still.

[Yakima]

SHARRDDD!!! *tackles!* yes, i see you're alive on NaNo... Speed demon with writting. lol Glad to hear things are getting better.

[Shard]

Yeah right now moving the domain is going to save me that twelve bucks a month I didn't have for the last 2 years. Still kind of leaves me with transition blues, lol, because omg links broken.

Hopefully my friend will be getting a contract finalized with a group from China to use a battery management system he's building, and that will mean I can get my driver's license back, fix fines and whatever. My car, gone - the city towed it and sold it *to a guy up the street*... So at least I know it's getting used while I can't drive. I don't really WANT to 'go find a new job' because lol that's just... ugh. 7+ years I've been out of work and I'm nearly 50, so I'll still be doing stuff for Mike and the house. I like being a house elf.

[StarFyre]

\o/ Shard! Good to see that you're still up and about. Here's hoping that things start turning around for you.

[Shard]

I really, really feel bad that I have been SO far behind even getting my old stuff up let alone any newer commitments. But I've been distracted, making Zekira more or less finished (though I still need PLENTY of artwork... sigh.) and playing with doll art makin characters. sooooo lazy that way.

[StarFyre]

Well, there hasn't been much going on out here anyway. A bit of work on my side from coding and putting things together, but other than that a lot of people have vanished.

[weyrwomanrhiannon]

Shard! So glad to know you're alive and doing better. I still pop in here from time to time at least once a week though I don't generally say anything. I've been toying with the notion of writing some Pern fan-fiction or joining up with one of online roleplays again to get my Pern fix.

[Yakima]

Lol...my Pern fix latley has been working on my overly complicated Pern clutch generator in Excel. hehee...The things i do for "fun" (and at the same time I curse myself for creating sucha complicated genetic code! ha But that's fun, too! Because it...well, does seem to work. )

[Shard]

Oooh cool!

My site's been propagated to its new host, and I'm putting the existing pages back up. They *should* be still in largely the same order as always, and there are still gaps (most of my oldest Alabaster and Dawnlight dragons may be waiting for new pages to be put in, without the damn Yahoo files...), but happily now I don't have to worry about THAT any more. Yahoo's code waited until the very-last-possible day they could do so to transfer it all over. The moment I got that email (on an account I couldn't reach, because, it wasn't propagated yet... O.O - my friend fixed that since I couldn't get it easily) ICANN took maybe... 3 hours? To move the domain's registration fully. 5 days <---- waiting --->3 hours fixed. *sigh*

[StarFyre]

Good to know that your site's been copied over successfully and everything seems to have worked out, even if it took longer than you thought it would. I really need to finish all my coding for my website and put everything back where it belongs, since I think I broke a fair number of things and just... never unbroke any of it. Oops?

[Shard]

Discovering that I need to locate some pages that have wrong links (particularly: those which would lead to my on-site winter gather stuff) and fix those, but they're few and far between.

Not everything's up, and definitely not everything is functional in terms of all my weyr stuff.

.... I really want more dragons, I'd love there to be more clutches. But there are still so many unfinished clutches and growths I'm kinda sad about that. Plenty of half-grown or never hatched.

There IS the newer one over at Birdie's Nest - advertised recently, I've got 2 in that. Need moar.

[StarFyre]

All this dragon stuff is making me want to get back to coding and putting my own site back in order. <.<

[Yakima]

same here, star...except for me it's designing and putting my sites back in order. lol in the meantime I'm getting the calendar stuff worked out.

[Shard]

I'm still missing quite a few Falas and related weyrlings/adults from prior hatchings. :/ Some of which may be needing to be important given the group I'm posting / updating.

[Yakima]

If you list them, I can try to find or make them, Shard.

[Shard]

Well, the same ones that have been waiting a while,

http://www.nexusdragons.com/forum/viewt ... las#p89034" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also one of the Clonegirls, Orchid's Akieth
http://www.droppin-the-fork.com/dragons ... /15-ol.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Basically anything from that era, I definitely don't have all the images. Many of those are 'combo colors', so it's not like I'd be easily able to swipe lines and fake it (not that I would do that lol)

[Yakima]

Ok Ill look for them. Either that or I'll see what I rememeber in PSP (since I have Photoshop now...and haven't touched that program in about 3-4 years. lol)

[Shard]

Cool, thanks

[Yakima]

Okay, i found adult images for all but the 3 special colored ones, which i apparently never created (or they are hiding very, very well on my harddrive...) I will see if I can refresh my memory on PSP to create the adults for them soon.

http://magecircle.com/stuffs/Shard/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Shard]

yeeeeee! Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. Since I'm going to be having a couple of those clone girls over at my new gorram site (not for adoption, just ... well who knows.) (why do I do this to myself) it would be awesome to have the adults all set up. lol group picture will be fantastic.

[Shard]

Okay all of the Dragonhope characters with the normal DMW and Falas colors are up to date though not really with any stories added for their adult stages.

The three left over are the Copper, Cream, and the gold mix.

[Yakima]

Ok. Thankies, and don't worry about stories because Faranth only knows how behind I am on my stuff over here...

I haven't forgoten the last three...just procrastinating because I see PSP as the ugly twin of Photoshop. lol That and I've been trying a new artistic style that would be easier for me to do (because while the line-less firelizard looked awesome, trying that on a larger image proved...meh. I've lost my pacients for that type of complexity unless it's web coding. lol).

[Shard]

So it's likely I'll have to move again, but I've still got people watching my back Just that the guy who owns the house we all live in, and who is paying for my storage room, is a total financial fuckhead. He won't go get himself a proper job because he's too headstrong and very slightly aspergers, which makes his tendency to believe his own hype a bit difficult to deal with. It's gotten to the point where he finally told me and eric, after having sent an extremely passive aggressive and *total* bullshit emotional blackmail text to nick. Barb is still on vacation - she will flip her lid over him having waited until *after she spent the money to go on a flight*, because Mike leaves things to the last moment for everything.

Anyway, looking for places as a contingency, with eric and/or nick. Though barb's on much better financial footing than nick, I'd sooo rather not live with her because she's the weird one in the house and that's kind of saying a lot

But that'll be an if situation, not necessarily a when situation. We're all fed up with mike blaming the cats nick brought home for his issues - he has claimed allergies, even though he's lived with plenty of cats before now, and has been under so much stress and anxiety he doesn't equate the stress with his problem. I have already been through this *exact* thing, when my mom had a nervous breakdown that *acted just like his symptoms* of ... let's see, shortness of breath, excitability, occasional rashes... Nothing that a proper diagnosis and actual stress meds wouldn't have fixed. But in the case with my mom, we wound up having to get rid of our family of cats. Because she was told 50 years prior, that she had a minor allergy. Keeping in mind of course, we lived with cats since I was 9 and she had one sleep on her lap every single day without incident. She bought the mobile home and flipped out, overdosed on her inhaler, etc. So I know this is way too familiar to just let it slide.

But then the thing is, I'm in that remarkably bad spot of being *at his whim* for where I live. Both nick and eric are certainly offering, but the chances of us finding a *reasonably priced* place anywhere near here is just crap. They exist, but it'd be out of their means pretty quickly if we can't move *everything* into the place. My storage costs at least 200 bucks a month - which mike has never asked for any extra from anyone else to pay for. I feel like a goddamn leech but i'm also too toxic to hire with my financial situation before losing the house I lived in.

So... yeah it's one of those weird ass times in my life again, but I'm going to press on with Black Mesa and whatever else, because otherwise, I'll go nuts. Hell one of my gaming friends would be able to have me at his place but that's Wisconsin lol. If I could afford to move I'd go. I like him quite a bit. Buuuut that's neither here nor there.

[Nonanut]

OMFG... you've been through way too much ;_; I'm sorry that's all happening to you. >__< I really, really hate that kind of circumstance where you're at someone's whim =/ It's a horribly gutpunching sensation and awful headspace to be at. Wow.. :< Sending LOTS of good mojo your way! *hugs*

[Shard]

We'll see how it all turns out. Mostly he's going to be fucked when he realizes that kicking the cats out will also mean kicking Nick out with them, that's 400 bucks a month he won't be getting, and I seriously doubt he understands how alienated we feel because of his attitude toward the cats.

Hopefully Mike will understand that he can't just rely on these dumbass pipe dreams and failed kickstarters to 'save' his situation. He needs to get a job, and a real paycheck. Right now he's being paid less than half of what he's owed by the only company still giving him money at all, because they are failing too. He's a real winner, I tell ya. :/

[Shard]

So far we're doing okay but... holy crap having no cats really took a terrible toll on me that first week. :/

At this point, Mike is now at the "???" stage in the 4-step "profit" chart. He has no fucking clue what he's doing.

He believes that he is going to be working on an electric vehicle conversion for Jay Leno. I say 'believes' because he literally *walked into their shop* and apparently started acting like he was okay to be there.

He has no contract with them, to do anything. He has already showed them a potential 'plan' - but that was more than a month ago and they have NOT contacted HIM in any way, he's done 'follow up calls' TO them, about this. Today he was apparently up in LA, I don't know doing what, because he never says anything to any of us before he leaves randomly like that. And... on coming home he's like, all tired, and "Walking in looking like I know what I am doing seems to work!"

... I asked him outright, "have they given you a contract yet?"

To which he said, no. "Then don't do work for them until you have one, you won't get paid until you do."

"I don't expect to get paid for this. I don't need a contract."

"....."

He "expects to use this as leverage to get some other project funded".

..... Seriously you fucktard? You think that NOT HAVING ACTUAL PROOF YOU WORKED ON SOMETHING will hold any weight?! Really?

He "will have to agree to disagree because he thinks I'm wrong on all possible counts" where I assert that he needs to both be paid and have a contract.

Am i just... missing something? Where did the fucking stupid come from? If you don't have a contract, a) you cannot BE paid legally, b) you cannot claim any form of credit for the work, c) if something goes wrong, you better believe they'll screw your ass into oblivion. Having a contract will usually mean you a) get paid legally, b) have your name on the goddamn end result for everyone to see, and c) have a fucking WAIVER in case something DOES happen.

Holy fuck, this guy is such a monumental idiot. It is literally boggling my brain, I cannot think - he believes in his own bullshit SO DEEPLY that he is willing to risk himself legally - losing his house already, but he's "been paid" for *something* out there, I have *no idea what* because he doesn't actually DO anything at any time for anyone, aside from making ridiculously bad and poorly designed electronics for kickstarters he will never, ever be able to fund.

He's got a *partner* on one of them now, who is by all appearances, a goddamn idiot hippie wanting a ride on some form of gravy train. Between the two of them I swear there is ZERO professionalism - they're not even inventors, they're *tinkerers* at best, *hobbyists* at worst, and at worst, they're also making the entire neighborhood angry. Why's that? Oh, because Mike now has TWO INTERNS he grabbed from some high school program, and has spent a fuckton of money (where it's come from, I have no clue, because he was 'three months away from losing the house' three months ago now) on a laser cutter and a lathe and 3 new computers, basically.

And the kids? ALSO DOING DIGGING IN OUR BACK YARD. Because, apparently, they're not just supposed to be learning the ropes for their electronics careers, they're DOING LANDSCAPING as minions.

So fucking tired of this guy. I honestly hope that when he goes down, it's hard, and I have a place to live with someone else before then.

[StarFyre]

Ouch, that's just... ouch. Yeah, having a contract is safer for everyone - employer and employee both get some marked benefits out of having a contract that lays out everything. It gives legal proof of responsibility and often lays out expectations and time frames.

I'm also pretty sure that those kids can get him in deep trouble - I believe that's called 'exploitation' and is generally frowned upon =P

With an attitude like that, I'm actually kinda wondering if he isn't involved in some sort of ponzi scheme somewhere.

Either way, I hope you find a stable place to live away from this crazy guy soon.

[Yakima]

I second Starfyre!!!!