Submitted by dougj on Mon, 2006-06-19 21:13.
It’s been a hectic few months behind the scenes at DIYPlanner.com, due mainly to some major changes in my personal life, and so I thought it a good idea to share some good news and put a few minds at ease regarding the status of this project. I generally tend to stay away from mentioning my personal life here, but in this case it seems to be warranted.
First of all, my apologies to those people noting my markedly out-of-character absence as of late. Part of it is due, no doubt, to the birth of my new son Daniel, and all the issues surrounding my wife’s pregnancy and my need to spend more time with our two-year-old Conor. This has pushed my other main “occupation”, that of finding full-time employment (rather than endless small contracts), to those hours I normally relax, administer the site, and answer email and comments. As is, I’ve been busy till at least two a.m. each morning preparing cover letters, sending off resumes, and trolling the job sites.
Which brings me to another personal bit: I’ve just received a full-time position to work as a multimedia project manager with a marketing firm up in northern Canada, in a small city called Yellowknife. It’s a great opportunity, and I can’t wait to move up there next month.
So, where does all this leave the D*I*Y Planner project and site? Actually, with a very bright future, I do believe. Here’s why….
You see, most of the work on the kits has been done in my off-hours, usually in the colder, darker months. Yellowknife, edging the Arctic Circle, certainly has copious amounts of those. Having a permanent job also means I don’t have to spend most of my night-time hours in hot pursuit of my next meal. In short, this should translate into more spare time available for the project on average.
Thankfully, though, I don’t need to do everything myself. For example, the next DiyP project is actually a final release of the Widget Kit, which will allow people to create their own templates quite easily. We have three skilled volunteers ready to jump into the OpenOffice.org files and help create the roughs of the many forms, and several other helpers willing to write documentation and test it all.
We also have Sardonius, who helped to organise and edit the latest version of the handbook, who lent his educated and cryptic wit to many comments, who administered much of the site while I travelled to northern climes, and who even contributed an article or two, mostly in capitulation to the all-too-persuasive Innowen.
Ah, Innowen! She was one of the first people who contacted me when I first solicited writers for this site, and she’s been with us, steadily and faithfully, every since. She has proven to be a fine and very creative writer. She’s contributed an endless stream of perceptive and foresighted advice which has helped the development of both the kits and the site. And, when I’ve had to disappear lately for nearly a week at a time for job-related reasons, she’s even jumped into the editorial waters to take my place, piloting the writers into our chaotic little harbour.
We need a “number two” here, someone who can be here for the site and the writers when I’m not (which will be often, in the next month while I shuffle across the continent), someone in whom I have complete and unconditional faith. That someone is Innowen, who now steps up to the mantle of “Associate Editor”. Thank you, Innowen!
I’ll provide some more details regarding Innowen’s new role, along with some news regarding our writers, at a slightly later date, but I just wanted to post this article in response to a few nervous email I’ve received lately. Don’t worry, folks… the D*I*Y Planner and its site will be alive and kicking for a long while yet, coming to you from near the top of the world.