http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpUKcrs-e50
Spooky.
Spooky.
... about TIMM, horse_ebooks, and other things.
Hey, everyone. I've got some bad news, I'm probably going to have to shut the forums down in the near future. Last Friday, a tree fell through the condo my GF and I were renting. No one was injured but the damage is so extensive that it will take half a year to fix so our landlord is breaking our lease. We're going to have to figure out how to get all of our stuff out of there, replace what has been damaged, find a place to store it temporarily, and find a new place to live. We both have insurance but won't know until tomorow what our coverage will provide. This is not an ideal situation or timing. I'm likely going to need to cut expenses as much as possible and unfortunately, maintaining these forums will almost definitely be one of them.
I don't know when this is going to happen and I'm only going to have intermittent internet access for awhile. I will try to let everyone know with some advance timing before anything is actually shut down.
I really appreciate everything all of you have done to keep these boards running smoothly over the years. Even though I haven't been around much lately, I'm going to miss having this place and community available.
Sorry for the bad news. I'll let you know more when I can.
The tree that fell on the condo is still there because the restoration company cannot get a crane up the hill to the condos (too steep) that is big enough to lift the tree off. There are three specialized off-road cranes in the Pacific NW that might be able to do it, but there's no firm timeline for when that can happen. In the meantime, the condo is completely exposed to the elements other than tarps stretched over the holes in the roof as well as the tree. We're expecting another ice storm in a couple of days. If they can't get the tree removed before then, since the power and heat are off in the house, I'm looking at a high likelihood of significant personal property damage. Insurance will cover some of this expense but there will be a huge cost in time in trying to replace stuff, especially electronics and data-related. Until the tree is removed, we are forbidden from having a service come in to pack up, remove, and store all the personal property.
On top of that, at this point I don't really remember or understand how stuff was set up on the servers and the people who used to help me with those things are no longer available. My hosting company has been bugging me for some time to upgrade the old server hardware which I've been ignoring because I honestly don't know how to go about it without a good deal of free time to figure it out on my own, and I'm afraid I'll screw it up unless I have skilled and trustworthy assistance.
Forums server hosting alone is about $4000 per year currently (with the ancient hardware). Supplemental Dreamhost is about $200 per year. Domains and stuff are about $500. Business costs are about $1000. Other miscellaneous may bring it all to about $6000 per year. Doesn't seem like much but that's about $500 per month that I'm paying almost completely out of pocket. Donations for the past few years have been around $20-$200 per year.
It should be noted that donations to Unfiction can only be used for Unfiction Inc. expenses so I wouldn't want people to think they can help me with personal expenses by donating that way, although having all of my income available for personal use again would certainly help.
Even if I just shut everything down, there are still going to be some costs involved with final tax returns, dissolving the business, etc. I don't yet know how much I'm going to face in out-of-pocket expenses
Assuming I can continue paying for the forums server hosting and the servers continue to work for awhile, then I could punt on the issue of shutting down until I get my personal situation stabilized.
We're not going to be homeless through insurance coverage and back up plans to stay with family after insurance runs out, but again this will severely limit my ability to do anything other than working and finding a new residence.
Man, you guys are super awesome. It really helps knowing I don't need to worry about this for the time being. I did manage to get my computer tower packed up and have it with me for safekeeping but I only have the tower so I still won't be able to access it for awhile.