After much poking about, I found the Thematic Theme Foundation, and I’m giving it healthy thought.  It seems robust enough, and even though there aren’t currently a whole lot of child themes available right now, creating my own from scratch doesn’t look like it will prove to be all that difficult.  I may even switch over to one of the “out of the box” child themes for a few days, just to see how things play out.

I know that I could just spend the money for thesis and have the one single WordPress platform that everyone in the world is talking about. I know that they all say it’s simple to use, easy to configure and to be honest, just looks plain great right out of the box, but in the end, I like to be a little different and I’m kind of proud of that part of me as well.

Peace. I’m out.

More on this subject

• Getting started with Thematic child themes – Part 1
• Getting started with Thematic child themes – Part 2 – the structure of Thematic
• Aptana, the only IDE you’ll ever need for web development

I’m not sue what the normal turn around time for edits on a 74 page book are, but I’ve been dwelling on it for far too long now.  It’s time to get back into the game and start writing again. I have more ideas that I think might appeal to others, as well as a ton of bookmarked sites and jotted notes for this blog that have simply sat and waited for me to get my head out of… Errr. To get my head straight.

Have any of you ever gone through something like this? If so, what was the editing process like? How long should I expect to wait to get the first round edits in my hot little hands?  I’d love to know.

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Two days wasted.  Beware the non-humans.  They aren’t going to take the earth by force.   If they are intelligent they will make a game as addictive as Resistance or Guitar Hero and the next thing you know, even John Scalzi won’t be posting any more. (This would be a terrible thing, mind you.)

For today I’ve unplugged the evil machine, at least for the morning, so that I can get something done that doesn’t involve blowing the hell out of a few non-zombie mutants.

But I want to.  It’s crack for me.  I NEED it.  It’s like a Heroin fix.

Just… One… More.. Clip…

Argh!

Back to work.

Peace.  I’m out.

More on this subject

• Coming to terms with a life outside of bloging
• …And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
• Have you missed me?

Even the most fanatic workaholic needs a few good reasons to waste time now and then and I am definitely no exception. The latest in my absolutely nonproductive pursuits is a free online game of conquest and world building sort of like a cross between Civilization® and Sim City® meets Age of Empires®.  It’s a combination that could have fallen flat, but in this case it worked, and I’m hooked.

Evony has all the hallmarks of greatness.  If you’re a strategy game freak like myself, you’ll have a hard time walking away from it once you get started.  There are a lot of things to think about as you go along, with the added worry that you’ll get wiped right off the face of the map if you don’t get it done fast enough.

Game play is pretty basic.  Sign up for a free Evony account, pick a server and start following along with the quests to get your city up and running. (If you’re gunning for me, go for server 67, you’ll find me there as Lord Galen.  My wife is on the same server though, so if you’re feeling like getting frisky I have the most dedicated backup there is!) After a few minutes you should be rolling along pretty well on your way to getting a few awards and free gifts.

Like most massive multi-player games, the world of Evony is packed with players who are far more experienced than you will be when you’re starting out. If you’re a first time player, you’re in luck.  You have a one week period of safety in which to get your city in shape before the hordes of the world at large are allowed to pummel you into the ground. Be prepared to spend a lot of time with Evony on the first day.  You’ll need to get a population going and then get them to work.  Just watch the task window closely and follow along for the first day or two while you get your resources built up.  You’ll need them, trust me.  Don’t worry about trying things on your own at this point unless you’ve played Evony before, jut follow the quests related to resources, wealth and the ability to get more of each.

For the first few days your attention should be on getting your resources as high as possible and your population levels as high as you can manage, but at about day four it’s time to start worrying about your military.  Don’t forget that on day seven (or when you’ve upgraded your town hall to level 5), you’re at the mercy of other players.  You’d better make sure you’ve go a defensive force that will make them think twice about coming after you before they go after someone else or you may just find yourself in a very bad situation quickly.

I would suggest that you save any speed-ups that you get for later in this process when upgrades can take 5 hours or longer to complete. (This is experience talking, people.  I’m currently waiting for an upgrade that won’t be done until late this afternoon and I used up everything I had earlier in the game.) The plus to this is that the time-wasting factor of the game becomes less excessive as the days go on.  Things take longer to upgrade so you can get a few things rolling and then get back to more pressing tasks while you wait for projects to be completed.

So you build up, you prepare, you stockpile and your army is ready.  What happens when your 7 days of safety are gone?  Do you get owned or do you stand tall as the master of your domain?  Only you can answer that question.  In the end your strategies and alliances will determine whether you stand or fall.  That’s the beauty of a game like this.

Go sign up for an Evony account and see if you’ve got what it takes to be a king in the realms of Evony.  While you’re at it, send me a “hello”.  I’d love to see you there.

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• The last long day.

This marks the first full week that my wife is deployed overseas.  The weeks leading up to, and the week after this event have kept me very occupied in the world of personal matters.  It’s a hard life that we live at times.  Separations make it harder.

So now I have to get myself back into the world of work.  At the same time, I’m a full time father, so I’ve had to juggle schedules to get myself planted back in front of my monitor, but hopefully I’ve got that settled now and can return to the task at hand.

I need the work, it keeps me sane.

And you can expect an awful lot of it from me over the next Fifteen months.  Aside from being a father, missing my wife terribly and running a house, it’s all I’ve got to keep me moving.  At the moment I consider it a dear friend that I plan to embrace.  Working means less time for feeling lonely or powerless.  At least until late at night.  Then it’s just me, a small dog and a picture of my wife on a  nightstand.

But that’s a tale for a different venue.

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• How do you balance work and daily life?
• Resetting yourself and your space between large projects

In short, anything and everything. It’s been a very hectic month for the Russell family in many ways, all of which conspired to keep me from getting much in the way of work done here, or on any of my other blogs and if you will indulge me for a moment, I’ll fill you in on some of the highlights.

Firstly, for those of you who aren’t aware through twitter or my food and recipe blog, we’re gearing up for a move. This is a military move, and one of the more complicated types.  My wife is moving to Incirlik Air force Base in Turkey and my son and I are moving to northern California to be close to family.

The logistics of a move like this are staggering, not only from a family standpoint, but from a paperwork standpoint.  Much of my time has been spent making sure that everything I can do to help my wife get things in order has been done.  After that it’s taking care of my son. In what little free time I have left, I’ve been handling the paperwork for the home we’re buying.

If there’s anything left after all of that, I’m usually content to spend my time mowing down hordes of parasitic alien beings in Resistance and Resistance II: Fall of Man, or creating and destroying cities in Civilization IV. Getting all technical minded just hasn’t been on my high priority list after a day of pushing to get things done.

I’m happy to announce that almost al of the paperwork side of the move is done.  On my side at least, there is little to be done now except wait for the movers to come and pack our things.  We should get word on the house sometime today or tomorrow.  If we got it, great!  If not, I’ll rent in California.  Either way, there won’t be much to worry about.

Now I can get back to work. I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.

Over the course of the next month much of my blogging will be done from locations other than my trusty Mac, which will be packed for moving by Father’s Day. I can’t promise that I’ll be posting in great length, but blogging from a hotel room or while I watch the kid play in the park will pretty much guarantee a heavy posting frequency.

In any event, this station is now resuming its regularly scheduled programming.  We apologize for any inconvenience that our technical difficulties may have caused our viewers.

Peace. I’m out.

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First of all, My wife and I are buying a house! That process alone is enough to keep me quite distracted. We currently live in TX, but are purchasing a home in California. As you can imagine, there is a significant amount of time required in the process, since I can’t just drive down the road to look at a property. I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time on the phone with my Realtor and my sister, who lives in the area while we try to narrow the list of prospects preceding a quick trip out to make the final decision. It’s hectic, but exciting as well.

Secondly, I’m in the middle of getting three eBooks ready for publication. Currently I’m in the editing process on all of them and it’s taking most of what little time I have left from the first item on the list. I’m excited about the prospect of getting these books out, but I’m not going to let them see the light of day until I’m positive that they’ve been polished to the point of perfection. After all, my name will be on them and it’s important to make sure that they are not only valuable, but simple enough for the casual reader to gain something from. It’s a lot of work, but well worth it in the end and hopefully these books will provide some valuable information to the people who read them.

Lastly, I have several websites in progress. unfortunately these have had to take the back burner to the other projects I’m working on, but I hope to have them completed in a few months. When I do, I’ll let you all know.

I hope to have a few posts ready by the end of the day. I’ll get them all queued up for automatic publication over the next week or so. Until then,

Peace, I’m out.

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In the past month I and my family have had to deal with more than our share of personal issues.  My wife has been having difficulties at work, we’ve had a few external family problems and then there was the kicker.  My two year old son has been diagnosed with Autism.

Needless to say, news of that nature can cause a drop in productivity for most people, and I am no exception.  Most of my time in the past 30 days has been devoted to making sure that his need are going to be met in both the long and short term.  i’m a Dad, that’s my job.  All other responsibilities fall far lower on my list of things to do than taking care of my family.

Things have settled into something like a routine again and wth that I’ve taken a hard look at the time I have to devote to work vs. the time I cannot help but devote to family.  In that light I realized that I was spread too thin in the world of writing and blogging and have been getting ready to shut down a few projects I’ve been working on.  At the same time, I’ve begun work on another, but that’s a different story and I’ll get to it later.

For now just let me say that there will be far more frequent posts here.  At the very least i’ll post a daily summary of earnings if there are any, and there usually are. Hopefully this can inspire others out there to make a litte cash for their Christmases as well.

For now I have some things I must attend to.  I’ll be back no later than Monday to get this ball rolling again.

Peace, I’m out.

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• Beware the non-humans
• Coming to terms with a life outside of bloging
• …And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

So if you will please allow me my non-partisan and entirely personally fueled rant, we can get back to what’s important…

…The blogger steps up on his apple box…

To both of our Presidential candidates.  I don’t care which one of you wins this race.  I could give a rat’s behind what your age, color or religious denomination might be. I don’t care if you like broccoli or not.  I will never lose sleep over your gender, sexual preference, sexual prowess or lack thereof. There are just a few things that I would like to see happen in my lifetime, which they tell me is going to be longer than any generation’s before mine.

So if I could take a few minutes of your time, these are the things that I think you should address over the next four years:

Thirteen things I would like to say to The Next President of the United States of America:

Stop talking about improving health care and get to it.

This is not time for a committee.  Free health care is achievable and has been for the last half century.  Every state already has a system in place for giving assistance to those who cannot afford basic health coverage.  Subsidise these entities and give out basic guidelines for minimum requirements. Allow the states to set up their own infrastructures, it’s what they are there for and it will cost a hell of a lot less of my tax dollars than the committee you were planning to investigate the feasibility of doing something extremely simple.  Job done. Problem solved, free health care of at least a basic level for everyone.

Stop spending our money to defend our foreign energy interests and put it into finding viable alternatives.

As far as petroleum goes, we’re running out of time one way or the other. We are currently spending billions of dollars every year to keep U.S. men and women in places which endanger their lives so that we can wait on politicians to waffle out whether their chosen lobbyist has the right idea or not.  This is a screwed up thought process and needs to be evaluated.

Believe it or not, this humble citizen has an idea that might just work.  Let’s put that money into building known ecologically friendly methods of power generation NOW. Take the troops we’re sacrificing on lines that are questionable and put them to the task of constructing and defending this new energy infrastructure. It is their honor and duty to defend the United States and her allies.  It is also their duty to maintain a state from which we are less vulnerable to outside influence, and the U.S. Military is a very, very effective force when a task needs to be completed. No conflict of interest and our service members can be both safe and happy in their jobs while making this country a greater place.

Disband the current political parties, they don’t work anymore.

What the Democrats and Republicans stood for when they were conceived has been diluded over time.  Both of these parties are now in existance simply to draw power from other people with questionable interests. By removing parties altogether and forcing politicians to form alliances based on the needs of their constituants, you might actually force Washington into doing positive things for the vast majority of this country.  Just a thought.

If you insist on leaving parties involved, please rename them to something that fits the meanings and agendas of the parties in question.  may I suggest the “liars” the “cheaters” and for the independents, the “undecided”. At least that way we’d know just what we were voting for.

Make Freedom of religion a reality, not just lip service.

Freedom of religion means freedom of all religions. If it is acceptable for an Islamic group to post signs in a city or neighborhood, it should be legal for Christians, Jews, Hindi, Buddhists, Catholics, Protestanst, Wiccans, Satanists and any other of the thousands of groups out there that do not promote hatred or violence in some way that might harm some person or the stability of this great nation.

having said this, it is also not in the best interest of this country to allow one group to find the other group’s writings so offensive that portions of them should be removed from public places where thay have stood for over one hundred years.  In my opinion this equates to allowing a national monument or historic building torn down because one person in the city thought it was “old fashioned.”

Do not continue to allow the courts to dictate law.

It is not the place of the U.S. Court system to dictate law or to create new laws. It is the duty of the courts of the United States of America to interpret and enforce existing laws to the best of their abilities in an impartial manner. The fact that the U.S. Supreme court has recently moved past this scope is reprehensible. It is reprehensible and appalling that any court int his country should ever do so, yet it happens far more often than anyone should be comfortable with. It is time for the members of court to be held liable for actions such as these, whether they be county circuit court Judges or the Supreme Court Justices of the United States of America.

Make educational excellence a priority that is enforced.

I know that both candidates have spoken on this topic. Our current president swore to be a leader in this field. So did the last. I’m not convinced.

The current state of education in the U.S. does not rely solely on better pay for educators, though they do deserve better pay. It does not hinge on creating a system where no child feels threatened or uncomfortable because someone in class may be smarter than he or she is, and it damned sure will not come from creating a “caring and nurturing environment with a focus on positive reinforcement.”

The brutal fact is that our students are expected to perform at minimal levels with a kind of automaton-like conformity to other students in their particular age group. competition has been suppressed, as has recognition for excellence. The buzz word of the day is mediocrity, and as long as you are mediocre, you will be rewarded.

This cannot be allowed to continue. These are not the methods used by the countries and institutions turning out the best educated young people in the world. As a matter of fact, they are laughed at by most places outside the U.S.

I could go on for thousands of words on this topic, but suffice it to say, the system is broken and it needs to be fixed sometime last week.

Always focus on Domestic Policy before Foreign Policy.

Whether this country is in the middle of a conflict or not, the economy and well being of the people at home must be thought of as the first priority. If it isn’t, how can you justify the life of even one American to defend it? we must always make sure that if we are going to send our young men and women into harm’s way, that they have a viable economy to return home to. If anything, this is the greatest responsibility of any body that asks a person to put his or her life on the line.

Re-examine Tax Policy.

There is something to be said for the flat tax. The current tax structure favors anyone but those who are making a lot of money. From lower to middle class, tax rates rise exponentially. The wealthy, very wealthy and corporations pay diminishing percentages. This does not strike me as reasonable.

it strikes me as even less reasonable that the nay-sayers of this tax structure are the very people that claim that the “little man” is the person that they champion.  When I lived in California, I paid the usual payroll taxes. One to the state and one to the federal government.  I also paid tax on all non-food items. When I was done figuring it up, I paid a total of 40% of my $2,000 per month income to state and federal taxes. Do you wonder why a 10% global tax sounds like a good idea to me?

Lead by example

America and by definition, her president cannot ask the rest of the world to adopt policies we do not strictly adhere to. This is not limited to foreign policy. It includes each and every point we wish to make, from health care and education to energy consumption and reliance on foreign fuels. We must learn to use our position as a global power to lead, not to intimidate.

Don’t call it a “War” unless you plan to win it.

I’m sick of hearing about the “War on Drugs”, or the “War on <insert favorite topic here>”. These are not wars. If they were the U.S. would fight them with the gusto we have always fought a war. That’s the thing about war,  it’s not pleasant. It’s not fun. It’s nothing anyone wants to do, but when you do have to fight one, fight it to win.

In that respect we have lost the war on drugs. It was a war that was never fought. We gave it a lot of lip service and on the surface we might have made a dent, but in the end we accomplished nothing. The same is true of most other internal “wars” we have done nothing but talk and make a few token gestures. If this is a successful campaign then I would like to know what, exactly, a victory is.

Keep your enemies closer.

The U.S. has made a terrible mistake. It has forgotten the value of good diplomacy. It has also forgotten the teachings of the Art of War which states “keep your friends close and our enemies closer”. By this I mean that we have simply decided that our policy towards countries that we have poor relationships with are countries to either be ignored or shunned. this is not an intelligent policy, nor is it doing the U.S. any good in repairing or improving those relations.

The last case in a long line, Cuba.  You go read the statements.  I don’t have the heart to go through it again.

Be unflatteringly honest.

The last president that held office lied to the American public and the world at large. Granted, it was about his personal life, but here’s the thing:

There is no room at all for dishonesty to the people you serve in an office of that magnitude. Period.

You may or may not disagree with me on this one, but I feel the man should have been run out  by his heel.  I feel that any president who lies to us should be, regardless of party, race, creed or any other factor. It might be just me, but  I don’t see any room for that.

Listen to your people.

Last but not least by any means on this list. Mr. Future President, please. PLEASE. Listen to the people of the United States of America. I do not care what the lobbyists say.  I do not care what members of your party say. Hell, I don’t care what the media says. There is a large portion of this country that is underrepresented and they need to be heard, not just given lip service.

these are the poor, or the rural, or the less affluent…  Oh! Wait, they are the people who make this country great, and they deserve a voice. Whether you want to believe it or not, people in Washington have become detached from the every-day American.  it’s time that this disconnection was repaired, because if it isn’t, this country will be a much sadder place to live in.

In conclusion:

Though some may question what I have to say, please let me say this:

I am a proud American, a veteran and the husband of an active duty service member. I swore an oath to this country at 19 years old that I never personally relinquished. I consider this the greatest country in the world, despite its flaws and the fact that I can write this is proof of that.

In the end, Mr. Future President, Both my wife and I will follow what you have ordered this country to do. We will trust in you to maintain peace and prosperity. we will trust in you to ensure that our children have the resources that they need to make their way in a future that still holds the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, because we have both sworn to make sure that it would happen.

And now, Mr. Future President, we expect that of you.

*And the blogger steps off of his apple box and quietly walks away*

More on this subject

• Beware the non-humans
• Coming to terms with a life outside of bloging
• …And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Needless to say my attention has been focused elsewhere, and the article planned for this week remains half written.  I’ll be getting back to it on Monday.  for now, there are far more pressing matters to attend to…  Like helping our friend feed his four kids and visiting in-laws!

More on this subject

• Beware the non-humans
• Coming to terms with a life outside of bloging
• …And now back to our regularly scheduled program.