Yes, I'm still alive.

Current Status

I've received a few inquiries from interested parties who wanted to make sure I was still alive after my abrupt departure from the Game-Guru community back in March.  

I wanted to assure everyone that yes, I am well and truly still alive.  Life for me, was altered by COVID in a big way though and after a brief explanation you will understand why.

For those who don't know, my primary profession is not Game-Guru or author.  It is being the head Linux geek for Rite-Aid corp.  Rite-Aid is a major, fortune 500 company in the USA that runs a Pharmaceutical chain.  

My job, primarily, is to make sure that the infrastructure of the company which has many core systems worth a great deal of money (millions of dollars) running on a day to day basis.

I cannot go into great detail about what specific circumstances occurred, but I can say that once March hit and things started to go sideways my job (which had already been ramping up in intensity due to internal changes) literally hit the fan in the worst possible way.

I've been running like mad for months now, with every spare inch of my time consumed by work or my three children (we had a new one midway last year which really added to the amount of things we have to deal with at home). 

So, yes, unfortunately I have been completely unable to spare the five or so hours that it takes to put together each weekly report for this site.  It's just time I don't have, time that's unavoidably taken up by work or family issues.  

I want to thank everyone who took the time to check in on me and also to everyone who purchased my book.  I'll never get rich off of it, but it was a great experience and I really am happy that it made it's way to completion.  

And now, a few parting thoughts:

On Game-Guru Max

Game-Guru Max I've followed with some interest having bought in on the original project back when it was first presented. At the time I said, and I will reiterate now, that "Just having a search is worth money."  At this point, all other features and upgrades are gravy.   

I am however very pleased with the direction and leadership that I'm seeing from TGC and the progress being made on what I'd consider mission critical upgrades to the Game-Guru engine - specifically on lighting, the limited terrain system, and core structure of the engine itself.

On COVID

Man I hate COVID.  I'm sick to death of it, no pun intended.

On my own stalled projects

Much like all of my reports, all of my projects have been completely stalled out. I have a whole batch of skies almost ready to go that are just not going to go anywhere.  I have a roguelike kit I'd love to release but can't due to time constraints and feature creep.  I have a number of fixes for existing projects I'd like to implement or adjust (such as improved weather effects using some of the new engine features).  On and on it goes.  In the end, I simply don't have the time.  When I do, trust me, you will all hear about it.

Lastly

Thanks to everyone.  It's been great and I do intend to come back - eventually.  Things need to change though.  I can't keep going at my current pace and until it does, I'm stuck in an endless loop of work, work and more work.

Until next time!