Sometime between 11a.m. and noon, PST, this morning, we hit 20,000,000 visitors on the site counter. Since that only goes back to June 15, 2005, we really had probably a million visitors in the six years before that. At the current rate of visitors coming to the site, we'll hit another 20 million in about three years. :)

Writing here is for amateurs, amateurs in the original sense of people who do what they do for the love of doing it. If you're not happy about how long chapters are or how often they are posted, be polite and kind because if you simply make demands you might as well kick the authors and tell them to stop having fun.

Have you read about the new hydraulic bikes? You pedal them and a liquid transmission sends the power to the wheels -- they're going to market them under the name The Viscous Cycle.

:)
Erin

Had another of my patentable weird dreams. This one was about a fictional high school in Malibu known by the nickname of Surfer High. In the dream, I was pitching this as a cable TV show.

One of the exec types says, "I like what you've done there, with the double meaning in the title. It's not a double entendre unless it's dirty, right?"

Fell while walking the dog. Ripped up my left hand on the concrete.

Hugs to all,
Erin

Genre-based attacks on stories posted as comments are not allowed. I'm tired of this unfriendly behavior. Multiple and repeated attacks of this sort MAY NOT get further warnings and MAY result in banning from the site.

If you don't like the genre of the story you are reading, exercise the muscle between your ears and stop reading it! You don't have to tell anyone publicly about it either.

If you like BC as a place to come and read the kind of stories you like, allow other people the same dignity and respect you would like to have.

Hugs to all,
Erin

Contest results will be announced tomorrow. Sorry about that.

Hugs,
Erin

It's down to 55F in the daytime and water falls from the sky every half-hour or so. Some locals think this may be the last days but I've seen this before, it gets worse before it gets better. I think we'll survive. :)

Hugs from Sunny (not so much) California,
Erin

There will be no commenting allowed on this post, I just need to say this.

There's a bill in the legislature here in California that would extend the same protections and presence in educational curricula to sexual orientation and gender variation that are allowed and mandated for religious affiliation, ethnic origin and sex.

In the More Shortcuts box, you'll find a new link, repeated below. These are selected stories that are at least one year old and have had recent comments made on them. Enjoy!

Hugs,
Erin

If you don't get the site, it just means the DNS may not have cleared for you yet. Try to force a reload by holding down the shift or control key and clicking to reload the page. :)

Again, Piper has done most of the work. :)

Hugs,
Erin

We hope to have it back up tonight or tomorrow.

Hugs,
Erin

The secondary BC server, the one that handles almost all of my sites except BC and handles my mail, is under attack by spam emailers from the Ukraine. I'm trying to get a handle on the problem. I'm going to be busy with this, so if the site is neglected today, that's why.

Also, has anyone heard from Piper? Last I heard from her was early Tuesday morning. She was on the road with the truck full of servers from Bob's place and had stopped at a motel. Nothing since then and I can't reach her cellphone either.

Hugs,
Erin

My dentist gave me a balloon for my birthday (Friday) and the dog thinks it's an evil fairy out to get her. :) She stands at the end of the main hall barking at it where I trapped it in the back hall. Except it just now escaped and yes, headed immediately for a fan. I only just saved it and nearly tripped over the dog who was running along looking up at it. It's now corralled in the kitchen with its string tied to a cast iron frying pan.

It came tied to a bag of cookies but we managed to free the cookies earlier. Mmm. Chocolate chip raisin. :)

Hugs,
Erin

Just spent $2300 for purchase of four servers to be new homes for BigCloset, Stardust, Fictioneer, Sapphire's Place, TGFiction.net, TG LIbrary, Tuckerspawn, Storysite and at least a dozen more sites. These servers will be the new homes for the next few years of these sites and will also be a lilypad for as many of Bob's sites as we can get moved before Lani has to shut down Bob's internet accounts.

We're trying to get things so we can make copies for everyone that needs them so we will probably have to keep Bob's servers running for another three weeks or so. It looks doable.

More later.

Hugs,
Erin

Tuckerspawn, the Ellen Hayes fan site is back up at: http://tuckerspawn.fictioneer.org/

Here's a thought we've been kicking around behind the scenes amongst the site managers. Our very own webhosting and publishing company organized as a non-profit corporation (NPC).

There are advantages.

Many of the sites could be hosted for less than people are paying now with possible improvements in service. Publishing contracts for books could be written that did not depend on just goodwill between author and publisher. Donations to an NPC can be tax deductible. An NPC can own things that will survive the death or disappearance of actual human beings.

Bob Arnold died and his family evidently turned the servers off. Some of the sites above were hosted on his machines and some just had their DNS (net pointer system) hosted there.

The DNS problems will be sorted in a day or so, the site outages will probably take a bit longer.

See other blogs and announcements here for news and to read about Bob Arnold and what he did for the community.

Hugs to all,
Erin

I don't have any further details yet. I'm trying to get information from the county sheriff's office.

Hugs to all,
Erin