Unquiet Desperation

It has been a week of difficult decisions. From it, I have two things to disclose.

First…I’m taking a hiatus from development on Podiobooks.com.

The reason is simple: I lack the time to do the PB 2.0 project justice. It kills me to admit that. When we started PB five years ago, I had two small kids, a simple 40 hour a week job, and my wife was not working. Now, I have a 12, 9, and 4 year old with all the commitments that follow from that, plus my wife is working full time, playing in two bands, teaching violin and fiddle, and I am working full time and filling in as Mr. Mom. It has become impossible to find the time to truly lead the project. Those things, combined with some recent health developments, have put the whammy on many of my personal projects. The PB2 project will go on (we are looking for new leads right now), and Evo and the PB2 team will continue driving it. It will grow and flourish, and I cannot wait to see where it goes next.

Second…Michelle and I will be recording the final Shadowdance podcast tonight. The reasons there are similar: my personal schedule and Michelle’s schedule no longer match up quite as well. She’s writing books, appearing on television and traveling, and I have my family and my career to look after. Also, my opinions on the subject matter of the show have changed, and I feel disingenuous continuing to give advice on a subject that I do not fully embrace. More on this in a future post.

For the record, The Secret Lair is still going strong: Kris and I will continue with our fun until the men in white coats come after us to take us away.¹ In fact, we just released Episode 29, chock full of goodness from the likes of Dr. John Cmar, Natalie Metzger, Jay Lynn, and our special guest, Mick Bradley.

So, that’s the news. How’s your day?

1. If they can get past the giant squid and the rabid zombie poodles.[back]

It’s been a productive day.

• I’ve just finished the first run at integrating Podiobooks.com with Smashwords, to allow our authors to highlight their ebook editions. Smashwords will be doing the same thing, pointing their customers interested in an audio copy of a novel to Podiobooks.com. Authors, check your email for a notification about this, or visit the Authors’ Tools section of the Podiobooks.com for more info.
• A new Secret Lair episode is mixed down, and should be ready to post later this evening. It will be an episode of The Secret Library, focusing on our latest book selection, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore. Additionally, there are some excellent segments by Dr. John Cmar and Jay “The Kingfish” Lynn.
• A new episode of Shadowdance has been edited and posted. It’s a lecture Michelle gave on dreamwalking at the last Kheperu Open House.
• I’ve installed tircd on my server, and it beats the hell out of using Tweetdeck. It allows you to connect to Twitter as if it were an irc chat room, and allows yu to segment used into various rooms, etc. I read about it in this month’s Linux Journal, and I absolutely love it.

After a five week dry period, we’ve posted a new episode over on Shadowdance. Additionally, I migrated to a new wordpress theme, and now there are links highlighting Michelle’s ritual podcast, the forums, and other goodies.