Created in May 2018

This month I’ve decided to start this list at the beginning of the month and add to it as I go along, rather than trying to retrace what I’ve been doing (like I did last month). The latter approach takes forever and is prone to losing something I did in the process.

Starting this list early means I can easily add to it, and even schedule the date of publication. It works great both for scheduling as well as a victory log.

Super Survivor Project

I’ve spent the second half of May writing more of my book, something I’ve taken a break from for over two months. To see where I stand, I printed the whole 400+ pages out and bound them using 1″ book rings (just about fits). The book is definitely coming together, but there’s so much more I want to say. It will probably take me the better part of June finish t.

I gave myself an (already extended) deadline: Broken Bowels shall be released on the 4th of July, which means I need to deliver the final manuscript to Amazon no later than June 30th 2018.

My original plan was to have it all done by the end of March but I had reached a point at which it just didn’t flow anymore. As I later found out it was the premise that wasn’t working for me. The more I thought about it, the less I felt that an account of the events as they happened during my cancer journey wasn’t telling the whole story.

What was fascinating me more and more was the question, “how did I survive this ordeal – both mentally and physically”. And as soon as I started writing with that question in mind, things kept flowing like never before. Hence I’m very happy to report that I’m back in the game, hitting the keys almost every day and I’m very much enjoying it!

I had several very successful sessions that yielded more than 4200 words per day (about 20 A4/Letter pages) and the whole project is becoming more than what I had envisioned it to be when I started it. Here’s what I did in detail:

created a book cover for my book Broken Bowels
made the book available for pre-order on Amazon
gave an interview to Cindy for the Miami Herald
examined and learned from my Writing Diary
wrote an additional 31.233 words to Broken Bowels as a result
added an update on my writing process

Server Tales

I spent the first half of the month with a great deal of server related matters. This was a mixture of scheduled and unscheduled items on the agenda. One my servers mysteriously died after a scheduled reboot. Turns out the power supply had given up, and it took the data centre 48 hours to get it fixed. Classic email conversation with said provider:

Me: “The server no longer reacts to the reset command in your control panel…”
Them: “Have you tried the reset command in our control panel?”

Needless to say, I had to leave them as soon as possible. Data loss did not occur, so I rebuilt the server in another data centre on my own hardware, leading to superior performance and a soothing feeling to have extracted a seriously bad provider from my supply chain, one who had been spoiling my life for many years.

Websites and Hosting

built a new SSD based server in the data centre in Las Vegas
thoroughly tested that new server
christened him RENO
migrated 60+ websites from various servers to RENO
built another HDD based server as a replacement for the broken one
restored 300GB worth of data from backups to that new server
fixed a mysterious network connectivity issue between two servers (ELVIS and FREEMONT)
updated CentOS to recognise a new server’s MAC address (TITAN)
updated my P2 Header Ad plugin
wrote a new version of my P2 Categories theme from scratch

Articles

Dealing with my so many websites, server matters and printing related tasks, I wrote the following 28 articles:

DAZ Studio 101 Series

Unfortunately with all the above, and the tight deadline to finish my book, I had no time left to record that DAZ Studio series I had envisioned. I did manage to upload a single video that serves as an introduction though. You can watch it here.

Once I finish the book, this series is the next thing on my list.