Grand Adventure--The Sequel

It was a configuration issue with my FTP client.  Go figure.  Easy to fix, nice to know for the future.

www.grandadventure.net

Grand Adventure is still messed up, after 4 interactions with the tech support people at www.hostonce.com.  So I have parked my website also on a free web host.  www.netfirms.com is a great free host, which I used often before I paid for my own domain.  You can see a scaled down version of my site at www.grandadventure.netfirms.com 

You can also surf to www.grandadventure.net/default and see the same thing without banner ads.  The good news is my email is still flowing.  The bad news is that what seems to be a simple fix isn't.  The tech staff at Host Once have now asked me for my FTP log in and password...now why would I want to give them that??  So if all else fails, go with a free provider.  Fancy that.

FTP upload is still messed up, despite reassurances from the host that they had fixed things.  Arrrrggggghhh!  I'd be tempted to change web hosts except I paid them for a full year of service.  <sigh>

I also got some scary news today: Groove Networks has a link to my 'official' weblog at http://radio.weblogs.com/0112434/ .  Be afraid, very afraid.  You might want to check this out right away because once they are on to me I'm sure they'll yank the link ;-)  http://www.groove.net/blog/

I just checked online and according to official records I have 198 months of active federal service.  Translation: I have 42 months left before I am retirement eligible.  That's not a long time folks :-)) 

So, I better get cracken on what I will do when I retire.  Here's my top ten options and why (they are not in any particular order).

10.  Full-time author of horribly written stories.  I had a good thing going on a children's story about a polar bear who heads south because he's tired of the cold.  Not so subtle meaning there, I know.  But writing pays off pretty well, and almost anybody can do it (www.wilwheaton.net)

9. Healthcare consultant.  I honestly do a tremendous amount of free consultant work for the Alaska Federal Healthcare Partnership (www.afhcp.org).  If you work in HC, finances, or other business lines you have dealt with consultants at some point.  They come in and do work for you that you are too lazy to do in house.  And they get paid handsomely.  Here's the best part about being a consultant: you don't really have to know anything at all.  Just be willing to work on projects the hiring organization doesn't want to tackle!

8. Teaching at a local community college.  Easy money, but beware: many students are grade (i.e., performance) oriented and not learning oriented.  Be prepared to spend time with students who will haggle over percentage points on exams, papers, etc.

7. Flipping burgers at DQ.  Advantages: zero responsibility and all the Dilly Bars you can eat.  Disadvantages: coming home reeking of deep fat fryer grease and the inevitable stigma that our society places on people working in the fast food industry.

6.  Mid-level HC executive at a regional hospital system.  Very good salary with lots of hours and probably a bunch of travel.  Wait a minute...I do want to RETIRE don't I??

5.  Work on a collaborative project involving Marc Pierson (http://www.wwpp.org/users/0000002/), Daniel Shurman, S.B. Chatterjee, and Dawn Will.  This one has as much chance of becoming reality as the full-time author one does, but it would sure keep my internal fires stoked.

4.  Computer game beta tester.  I can sit at home, in my PJs, and test away.  Probably not too much of a salary, but what a cool job!

3.  Start a new small business.  This one also makes me question whether I want to work that hard or not.  But the non-financial rewards could be awesome.

2.  Go to work for my brother as a bank teller or something.  He is always telling me that 'bankers get the babes' but I don't think I could handle having my big brother as my boss.  This is the same guy that used to beat the crap out of me and get away with it you know.

1.  Riding lawnmower pilot.  Yep, this is one strong possibility.  I spent one summer working on a broccoli farm driving a tractor.  I got a deep suntan, got paid okay money, and the tractor almost drove itself.  How hard can it be to mow lawns?

--

Okay, now that I have more free time on my hands (all schooling is done!) I find myself wanting to pick up hobbies where I dropped them mid-stream.  For about 18 months I just put a bunch of things on hold because I couldn't dedicate the brainpower to keep them going and do school simultaneously.

My list of things to revisit:

• Exploring new information technologies.  A prime example is this new weblog hosted by Blogger http://www.blogger.com but crafted via Blogjet (www.blogjet.com).  The slick thing about the Blogjet publishing tool is that it is more robust than going to Blogger.com and working there.  Plus, I can work offline on this blog and post when I get back to the net.
• Game module design for Neverwinter Nights.  It brings storytelling, basic programming and overall design all into one hobby.  Very cool, but requires quite a bit of time to stitch all the pieces together.
• Continuing to push the envelope with Groove applications.  (duh)
• My 'put on the shelf' stories.  I won't try to suggest my writing is any good, but I find the ideas very compelling.  The trick will be wrapping the ideas in the right blanket of good characterization.  To assist in this I am absorbing some of Orson Scott Card's texts on how to write well.  It is one thing to learn how to write, quite another to be gifted at it.  So I have two huge hills to climb.  But the stories need telling so I will write them, crap and all.
• My other weblog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0112434/  which is dedicated to Groove, the healthcare industry and information technology convergence.  It's still raw in places, but I am getting a tremendous amount of ideas by rubbing elbows with people here in Alaska and elsewhere.

That's it for now.   

Okay, so I must be crazy for starting yet another weblog.  But what I wanted with this blog is to explore topics that just didn't fit my Groove + healthcare + information technology focused writings here--> http://radio.weblogs.com/0112434/. 

I now have two weblogs and my website (still woefully out of date, but only due to the pain and sweat it takes to post there).  

A new link to my website: http://www.grandadventure.net/default/  I dorked up the settings somehow, so use this link until I figure it out.

I have installed an interesting application - BlogJet. It's a cool Windows client for my blog tool (as well as for other tools). Get your copy here: http://blogjet.com

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso