So many false starts, technical and social debt piling up making each next start that much harder. We keep getting back up, swinging at where the windmills last were...falling when we meet only wind, and the bones of giants.

Spring 2014—we’re committed to the name, if the date has slipped once more out of our overexcited hands. Issue 7.

It shouldn’t be hard to send out 31 emails—one of the simple "next steps" in this process. We had a color-coded spreadsheet and a handful of email templates. And then it wasn’t February anymore, it was September. Hadn’t it just been September?

A moment’s strength allowed one more scaling of the wall: what did these things mean? Were the templates still valid? Where did the files go—and how did these tools work, again? Do they even work? The server’s changed three more times since then.... Nope, they don’t work anymore. But we found the files! And a few hours later, stuff is still broken. But less of it is broken. But I rarely get a half-hour to apply myself to these problems.... (oh, wow! and I was depending on...oh, my, the bit-rot rabbit hole is deep! and the character encoding of the database changed?!)

I have a new baby (new!? he's a year and a half already!) and a new house (that's been a labor of labor) and (unplanned) job change[s]...I have no excuses to give anyone, but I hate just saying "Hi! I'm here!" and nothing else.

Here's what we need to do, so it's out there in the world in writing:

• we need to interact with a few contributors re: changes they requested
• we need to try again at contacting the many contributors who haven't replied to us about final versions of their pieces (though everyone's been paid, so there's that at least—excepting the folks who we couldn't paypal and are in countries where it makes much more sense to send check/cash with their gratis issue)
• we need to order postcards (I'm having a really hard time with this for some reason) for the kickstarter rewards (we've at least got all the poems done, more than a year ago)
• we need to do videos for some of the kickstarter rewards

We don't have to do things in that order, but that's where we are. Next, we do what we do next!

A “lesser” vogon poem for you all:

Blart blargh snort kerfluffle
My kitten likes to chase its tail
The tail’s old and has fallen off
Then rises again like morning dew.

Propellers spin anew, anew, they
face the wind and kerfluffle CHEW
To see the day anon that rises sure
ly, rises—to troubles, we say
mea culpa, PEW PEW PEW!

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