We have a new story in The Hatbox, btw, by Angela Rasch, author of the "Voices Carry over Water" that is still on the front page for free for another day or so. Angela's new work is called: Sexy, Cute and Popular by Angela Rasch

Here's the blurb:

We've done okay with contributions for this month, but we are still a bit short. If you notice, we've spent $700 on equipment this month which is reported in the Server Fund numbers. Actually, we just spent another $500 but that won't be reported till next time.

I just paid the colo bill for this month and my own ISP bill is due. We are going to continue to need more coming in than before because Piper is putting in some long hours and not taking other work while we get all this set up. She put in about 55 hours last week alone with 40+ from me and about 20 from Cat.

We've got BC up and running on the new server, Buttercup, and it does run faster! We have a few configuration bugs to work out and then we will get one of her sisters up and running to share the load. It's been a long and tiring road and we aren't done yet. UPDATE: As of Sunday mid-morning, we have Buttercup and Bubbles sharing the load! Site seems faster still and appears even more stable. We did lose about 1/2 hour of comments and edits in the changeover, but no stories.

Right now we thought we would have our new servers installed and operating, ready to move BC over to them by, perhaps, Friday. Ain't going to happen.

Here's a link to the list of "lost stories".

Lost Stories

We got a good head start on February this month and I want to thank everyone who contributed. We even got some donations for the hardware fund. :)

I set the donations goal for November at only $1000 so we could start December at $0 instead of continuing to be a whole month off. November also completed our 14th year of running BigCloset!

Weather in the Denver area interrupted power and connectivity to the server farm. They worked on the problem for quite a while then it took even longer to get all the servers rebooted. Looks like we are back online. :)

Hugs,
Erin

I'm feeling better now but I woke up at 330 AM last night with diarrhea and vomiting that lasted till a bit after noon. I kept drinking things like lemonade and Seven-Up and hot tea and water, to keep my fluids up even tho a lot of time they just came back up. At noon when I thought I could keep it down, I took an anti-diarrheal pill.

Back from the con, I had a great time. I'm working in the bookstore today and have a writer's group meeting tonight but I will be on and off. And Piper and Amy had their baby!

What a weekend!

We just payed our $1572 hosting bill and will have another smaller one next month (or maybe it is in November). Anyway, these things go on my credit cards and then I pay down the balance with the money that comes in from the Hatbox gifts. We made our goal for August over the weekend and now need to think about September.

Anything you can send will be good and if you can't do anymore than hit the kudos button on your favorite story, we all understand.

It's the middle of August and we still aren't halfway to our goal for July. There've been a lot of unexpected medical expenses and while the hardware fund has collected some money, that last $500 was from me.

I want everyone to know how much we appreciate your gifts, we couldn't do this without help. Piper's work on the servers has made BC stable and reasonably fast. If you appreciate that work and can afford to, a few dollars would be a great help.

Thanks and hugs,
Erin

Disrespecting anyone's profession of belief in a comment, blog or forum post is not allowed on BC. Please don't attempt to embarrass someone with public comments here. But is this a friendly place for atheists? I try to make it so.

You can announce your beliefs without dissing other people's in public. I remove comments and blogs where someone calls out their version of religion as being the only true one. You can announce what you believe or don't believe but no proselytizing. And trying to ridicule other people's beliefs is definitely against Rule One.

This is a new extension to the friendly rule; titles and teasers that appear on the front page should be work safe and if there are non-work friendly images past the teaser, that should have a caution attached.

This means some of my own teasers would not have passed this test but I think we need to add this caveat. It applies to stories, blogs, links, and even comment subject lines. I will take what steps I think necessary to implement this, usually just modifying the teaser, tags or title slightly.

Hugs,
Erin

The real world is as strange and wonderful as any of the stories here on BC:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/2013/07/15/_you_are_you_lo...