Cavern Communications Network Community Programming

Once upon a time Ruby dug herself out of a hole. One could argue that Ruby’s been digging herself out of a hole for years. She thinks she is filling the hole, patching it up or mending the rim, but in reality, she is digging out. Always.

This past Monday she fell in for real. Into a hole created by a 2008 tremor that dropped the CCN broadcasting and film studios into the core of the earth, or thereabouts. It is still a mystery, where the main building is gone, but Ruby’s Under the Red Lake Water retreat surfaced only enough to be seen. With a tug here and push there, she managed, after falling into the hole and causing more frustration for her colleagues at CCN, to pull the office up and over the side. After that her colleagues left, so aggravated they were. Always.

Now Ruby was left with a mess of her own making. Here in a pile on the desert were the pieces of a once elaborately furnished office suite where Ruby hid out during a crisis of faith at the network. This part of her long and winding saga happened during the year of our Yahvo, 2006.

For two baffling years she worked from beneath the lake manipulating here and there, or whenever possible. Her contributions to CCN programming were limited and targeted. Her ego, enormous and bull-headed resisted any criticism. There was no arguing with her about matters related to the breakup of the network. A lingering and slow to develop ice burn is generally more painful, than a burn caused by pyre fire. After a pyre fire there is no cause for fuming over what went all wrong. There is nothing left but ash. In a circumstance where ice burns there is a drip that lingers on.Image

The pile of rubble on the desert represented what was left of her schmoozing, mea- culpas, social ladder climbing and CCN production efforts. It’s not that she didn’t work hard. She worked day and night, without enough sleep and non-stop intermittently. Ruby was totally dedicated to her work of restoration. But her theories about what restoration meant, and what other explorers thought restoration mean were not in sync 95% of the time.

What made matters more inconvenient was that Ruby could not, for the life of herself, figure out why the explorers felt like they did, particularly the 50 or so, UU restoration effort explorers who ventured into the CCN enterprise from the outset. Ruby had her agenda. The fifty had their agendas. It was a wacky concoction - a herding cats soup that went quickly from simmering to burning hot, and then to frozen like a dead penguin in a few short months. Under no circumstances would the rubble be repaired, to again construe a similar experience - or so Ruby promised.

In the indeterminable future, the one time co-producer of the network, and moreover the co-producer of the one time CCN flagship The Cavern Today planned to heed every warning that came her way or pinched her. The one warning that she would hold dear and true to her cyan blue heart was: “Stay small and focus on the little mysteries, turmoils and thrilling outcomes that make a story sizzle, but don’t get thrown from the bridge, no matter badly you desire the explorers (possibly D’ni descendant) story to belt out an aria. It’s not worth the complete demise of the protagonists and her cohorts in crime,” she pondered wisely

By noon on Monday the office looked much better. Ruby, instead of refinishing every stick of lumber (once secretly stolen from the Great Tree branches) went shopping for siding and finishes that were created by professionals. She bought scripts, code, furniture and clothes. She sent notes of apology out to anyone still within shouting distance. She told other Eder D’Uru explorers and the transportation system management about any quick transitions she would need to make up front. To give her something else to do during periods of respite and healer meditation events (Ruby can’t sit for too long in the lotus position), she joined two other oddball, PG rated and wonderfully sweet cultural groups being promoted as “safety first” by the much improved 2004, albeit expensive, and highly commercial (ka-ching, ka-ching) Linden transportation company. Over time Ruby got practical, and when her creative fingers get itchy, she plans to go to these places and bother her neighbors, instead of cajoling and otherwise pestering the same explorers she pestered in the past.

There is no doubt Ruby learned through her mistakes. The issue/story is/was whether Ruby will bring about a manageable CCNE (Cavern Communications Network Eder D’Uru desert station) without losing her mind, and the last remnants of a once thriving and completely collaborative cavern broadcasting concern, imagined into being on a lonely and lovely relto during the summer of 2005 by 8 founders, including, but not limited to herself. The not limited to herself part is what she needs to keep in mind, while she tries again to dream up a Prairie Home Companionish project. Always.

Confession Chapter 1 to be continued…

Dear Explorer: This is a serial chapter book - the next part of Chapter 1 is dedicated to what Ruby found on the desert and in the cavern. She has been told this is a new effort, not the same cavern she frequents solo, and it appears the storytellers are right. The scenery does look different. It could be like New York, once York or Londonderry, once London, or Pookeepsie, once Pookeepsie. Who knows? At this very relative pinpoint in time Ruby is not concerned with the story snafu (device) of how she gets to where she’s going. At this moment she is completely in her storytelling mode, because at her age, there may not be a better time to tell the story. In other words Ruby has grown a tad impatient for backdrops, props and people to use those props. Stay tuned for more of Confession Chapter 1.

Desert Hole in the Ground

June 30th, 2009 | Tags: Cavern, Cavern Players, EderDuru, humor, Station | Category: CCNE Desert Station Story | Leave a comment

Ruby woke up one morning seasick and exhausted. On a whim and a wing she decided to descend into the cavern after spending the better portion of the last two years on the road travelling. A little teaching here, a little elixir sales there, making only enough to feed and clothe her against the harsh subtropical winds of North Florida. :suspect:

The seasickness finally subsided. A long nap and a roast beef dinner at Cracker Barrel took care of it, but she felt a quagmire coming over her. Does an explorer whose seen her better days go back down with new transportation. This time the shuttle isn’t a shard. It’s a sim, and she remembers the sim from a time past. Ruby booked a sim in the spring of 2004 after the first live restoration came to full stop. The sim experience was a bumpy, and nearly X rated ride she never wanted to take again. Ruby has a full blown sense of humor, but she’s also a wee stuffy and prudish when it comes to cultural morays and the wearing of clothes. She likes clothes, and lots of them.

Nestled between a nightclub lingerie dealer and a pole dancer did not agree with her. She bought a car, got sick and got out. There is not much more to say about it. Her foray was over, before she got started.

This time was different. There were new ticket exchange offices built along the sim. Ruby could enter the transportation system to get to Eder D’Uru through one of them. She chose the super commercial, but very successful PG (nearly G) rated Faery portal to enter. After being born as a Fae, she took the next TP Shuttle over to Eder D’Uru. Not a single griefer got in her way. The entire trip went without a hitch. Her only problem was flying. It is a common way to get around inside the sim, and Ruby can’t take the heights or the passing terrain. Neither can she look out of an Amtrak window dining car window to the side. The last time she tried, she threw up on her husband’s tweed jacket.

To avoid flying (a try at flying resulted in her episode of seasickness) Ruby walks everywhere or she transports herself through the TP shuttle system. It works. The miles per hour resolution, if set at 1024 X 718 does not bother her to see rush by. The stronger the view the better, and she keeps her eyes on the path in front of her.

Ruby’s ground transportation is a triple core beam me up scotty. Regardless of bandwidth consumption (otherwise known as sim gas), Ruby only goes where she can get a good view. During parties and well attended events, she may resort to a 4 cylinder rider only for the duration of the event. After all she is standing still at that point (unless she is actively engaged in dancing and listening to the wonderful music played by some very professional DJ’s). Her mind can’t fuss about 2 issues at once.

At this time Ruby’s other quagmire, purpose is not so easily determined. She knows she will tell story. It is her life ambition to live out her grandfather’s legacy, and she can do that by telling an old story with new vigor, but she also wants to tell a new story that is only bubbling up from beneath cavern surface now. Most likely there will be conflict of the funny kind now and then. She expects Madge will show up for an adventure or 35. Old friends are certainly going to make the difference. Picking up an explorer shirt in the cavern reminded Ruby of how important it is to belong to a tribe of like minded and kindred spirits. She doesn’t expect to meet a stripper or day bond trader among them.

Out of 12 or 14 Myst like communities along the Sim route, there is bound to be place for Ruby to find old friends and make new ones. Eder D’Uru has that special texture that suits her in particular. Not that other communities aren’t also extending the story. Every one of them does in their own way, but Ruby believes The Voice is never easily replicated. Better to find a new vision for an original concept, than to try to piece by piece lay bricks for an exact copy. Exact copies aren’t possible to do with different technologies and designers at the helm. Ruby, herself is an evolution. She started out as an explorer and fine artist/oil painter museum curator, who came to Myst Island on her own, and only on weekends. At 16 years of age, she lived through virtual life time of antics and mysteries, not all created by game players. Not a moment would she change, but finding the humor in all of it transformed the character of Ruby into someone else. She is no nicer, certainly no wiser, and she is still inept and clumsy. Her wacky assumptions about secret guilds, diverted water, and Riven being withing walking distance of the volcano’s entrance do not help her causes. Ruby has been chastised, fired, rehired, burned, cast out, and not trusted, and all of it brought on by her lonesome.

On the other hand, she is loyal, harmless and ready always to laugh at herself, pratfalls and all. She managed to finagle some over the top gifts, attend a Mysterium in Spokane with friends she will never forget ever, and make more life time friends along the way. Her friendship with Ghaelen is one her of her most precious finds in the cavern. Ghaelen is one of those more than patient explorers that can put up with Ruby. It is Ruby’s blessing and good fortune that Ghaelen listened one night to a play that Ruby adapted.

And for years Tyion, Veralun and LC have also put up with Ruby’s sometimes lack of focus and her decisions to make unwise choices. These alliances are important to Ruby and will be part of the story herein.

In part Ruby believes that many of her issues arise out of her belief that Facebook, My Space and all the other social connection sites have their place, but OOC is not interesting or safe to her. Story and the “sweet rocking safety of a lie” is the line of demarcation between Ruby and her benefactor’s world. Ruby always tells the truth from her perspective. Her benefactor does too. In the in between thin spot (a Celtic place of prayer) lessons are learned for life. Then the benefactor takes the lessons back to the classroom and spreads those life lessons out. Divvying up code is much less arduous than dividing up fishes and loaves (divvying code requires no divinity).

A 95% Ruby O’Degee (Glenfadden) is the only way Ruby will come to the cavern, or any other world wide stage. If 95% of her benefactor’s presence is not good enough for prime time so be it. The remaining private 5% will never be told through the footsteps of Ruby. [Dear reader, this is MY gnarly disclaimer]. As Madge (an original phone bot transformed through Merle’s ingenuity and wit to an avie missing some parts) would say “Don’t be telling your kids to leave themselves open online. It is no place to wash the family’s undergarments or your own.”

What Ruby will do is confess in her own loose cannon style the back story, present and front story of her trials and tribulations, her birth into a cavern, and her attempt to reshape her future until the next best and real thing comes along (Thank you Rod Stewart for reviving that wondrous classic).

Be on the look out for trembling crust.

June 30th, 2009 | Tags: CCN, EderDuru, humor, Station | Category: CCNE Desert Station Story | Leave a comment

CCNE (Cavern Communications Network Eder D’Uru), the Desert Station will be live streaming and presenting podcasts in the category entitled CCNE Desert Station Story. The way it works is this: the desert station story is Ruby O’Degee’s Continued Confessions of a Loose Cannon Story. It is the published version in serial form. The working edition of that story is being put together in the forum topic section of the same name. Readers may go there, read the dailies and generally participate in the lateral discussion about Ruby’s interpretation of life in Eder D’Uru.

On it’s own page (so it won’t move), the livestream player is presented here on the blog. From time to time podcasts will accompany Ruby’s published story. Those podcasts will be shown in that category, and on the opening page as those last draft revisions occur.

If you have comments, or would like participate (guest or get tickets) in the live and recorded CCNE Find a Home Companion program, or any other special event, including Myst Reader and Poetry Slams, please register at the forum and contact Ruby O’Degee or see her in world (Ruby O’Degee Glenfadden). Shorah b’shem.

June 29th, 2009 | Tags: Add new tag, Cavern Players, EderDuru, Special Event | Category: Around the WaterCooler, CCNE Desert Station Story | Leave a comment

It was official… the temporary CCN offices were lost.  Well, we knew that but no one really wanted to admit it.  Admitting a large, albeit temporary, object was lost would mean acknowledging that the lost something might not be recoverable.

After Veralun had looked carefully into the hole down which staff members were certain the office had fallen, the group realized it was part of a large ravine they had seen but failed to notice during their search near the hole.  This ravine had appeared in the New Mexico desert some time during winter of 2008.  It was odd that the closing of the Cavern Public Gate in early 2008 should have such a seismic effect on the North American tectonic plate, but apparently it caused quite a number of minor tremors that caused more chaos than anyone had imagined.  And these tremors continued for months after the great silent crashing of the gates as they swung closed.  Unbeknownst to these stalwart Cavern Communicating Networking types, the tremors were still tremoring beneath the temporary desert office abode (shack) that was to serve while construction of a new, temporary office space was built.

It was these tremors, not Madge, that caused the Great CCN Temporary Office Loss of 2009.

This, the staff realized as the joined Veralun at the hole down which they surmised the office had fallen.  Tyion made a comment about holding a memorial service and after some of the same type of avoidance that the staff had decided on earlier regarding the danger of the hole, the staff decided a memorial was a very Explorer-like thing to hold when something was unrecoverable.  As Veralun began a rather long-winded objection-yet-acceptance in regard to the memorial, Alty shouted to him to be careful because, standing some distance away, she felt the tremoring of a tremor and feared it would make the hole and ravine even larger.  The staff as a whole realized the tremors were still tremoring as Veralun turned toward Alty just in time to see Ruby walk quickly past him toward the hole.  She was quite intending to look into it — of course she did –  and she pitched forward as the patch of rock she stepped on shook just enough to change the pitch of the ground on which she placed her weight.  Her other foot came down onto part of a board laying close to the edge of the hole, and as she shifted her weight to compensate for pitching forward, the outer edge of her foot slipped off the board.  Arms flailing, she fell forward and down off the edge.

Shouting loudly (and definitely in Dutch), Veralun reached out, grabbed her by her belt and pulled mightily to keep her from falling into the hole.  He managed to stop her descent, but her belt snapped, whipping her around to face up and away from the hole, and as her belt slid through the belt-loops of her pants, her Relto book caught against one of the belt loops and the velcro she’d used gave way under the force.  Tyion lunged forward to grab her arm, reaching out in vain to catch her Relto book with the other hand.  He nearly lost his own balance, but recovered in time to pull Ruby back from the edge.

Ghaelen and Alty grabbed her waist and the other arm (such was the force of her pitch forward) and betwinxt them all they managed to prevent her sojourn into the deep recesses of the new office abode.  She squirmed just a little as they watched her Relto book descend, but since no one was having any part of her sudden notion to follow it, she cried for a while instead.  Ghaelen began to cry, too, then Tyion groaned out loud, and soon all of the staff were indeed conducting the very memorial they had begun to discuss some time earlier.

After much ado, Alty convinced Ruby to come back to the crate, and to make her feel better Tyion called a meeting.   He told her she didn’t really need to attend, but called it anyway as he was at a loss for anything else that might help. Ghaelen kept herself busy attempting not to plan future agendas, but her to-do list kept getting longer and longer.  Veralun and Alty did what they could to mitigate the shock of the fall, the loss, the other loss, and the tears.  Alty complimented the organized manner in which the non-meeting had grown out of the memorial.

Everyone did feel a little better since they knew now that Madge hadn’t actually done anything to the office,  but they did not feel at all better knowing all those boxes and crates of video was still down there in a buried basement somewhere.  “Ruby,” Alty said sternly, “you don’t need that Relto book now, anyway.  When the Cavern opens again, you can surely get another one.”  Ghaelen nodded and suggested that maybe they could just keep using the crate for the time being.  Ruby nodded and agreed as she always did, which made everyone breathe a sign of relief.

June 25th, 2009 | Tags: Ages, CCN, Construction, meeting, Station | Category: Around the WaterCooler, CCNE Desert Station Story | Leave a comment

April 6, 2009

Yes they did.  CCN staff members found each other while studiously avoiding attending another non-meeting.

Tyion did not succeed again in avoiding the non-meeting.  He did, however, succeed in avoiding the actual meeting, which he himself called staff members to attend.  Ghaelen and Veralun enjoyed a lovely conversation regarding videos, manuscript images, composing, reposing, declining and reclining (the last of which they suspected Tyion was doing during the meeting he had called but decided not to attend).

A few days later Tyion called the real meeting.  It turned out that the first meeting was a transitional test, you know, a test of the way in which staff members are handling the transition from non-meeting to meeting.  No one really passed that test, particularly the meeting tester, so another test seemed to be in order.

Update April 21, 2009

This second test was more successful.  Although no one had found the actual office, Tyion did find what seemed to be some remains from it. The group also noticed a large crate was relatively undamaged. Ghaelen immediately cheered and claimed a memory of it as hers from her office on the Tokotah Rooftop. It was large enough for several people to sit under, but only she really wanted to sit under it.

To their surprise and delight, Ruby passed by on her way to another adventure. So intent was she on her destination that she did not see the crate-discussing group in time to avoid the avoidance of the non-meeting and was called over to join them. After much discussion she agree that it was acceptable for everyone to sit on top of it. This they did and the actual meeting commenced.

Alty stopped by with a new cache of Kirel Baked Treats. Seeing this, Ghaelen promptly reached under the crate for Urwigor’s Tea to make it a non-meeting type actual meeting. Veralun cast about for a way to heat water for the tea, and after much discussion with the rest of the group decided it was acceptable to use some of the useless office ruins to start a fire. When the tea was ready, (and before anyone combined treat and tea) Tyion came up with a marvelous idea. Using one of Rita’s longer cables, he wrapped it around a treat, backed off some distance and lowered it into a cup of tea. When nothing came of it but soggy treat, everyone cheered.

This began the rest of the actual meeting, during which little was decided but to refrain from deciding. The staff did decide that a decision to wait further regarding the re-opening of the cavern (in some form) was not only acceptable but obligatory. Veralun walked over to the place where the office had been and looked longingly down into the empty hole. Alty shouted at him to be careful, and he shouted back that he was ever careful and not to worry so much. After much discussion among the other staff members, it was unanimously decided to avoid adding the topic to the meeting. At this the group did not adjourn the non-meeting and went to join Veralun at the edge of the hole.

April 29th, 2009 | Category: Meetings & Minutes | Leave a comment

CCN held a non-meeting this week in preparation for their next round of programming activities.  Everyone was so excited about this meeting that they all didn’t attend with enthusiasm.   The lack of noise was deafening.  It didn’t seem to matter that they had lost their office and had no where to meet. (no, the office property didn’t succumb to the foreclosure situation or the cavern closure situation.  The CCN staff actually lost track of it…) Losing an office has never deterred the CCN staff or affiliates from not meeting at any time before.  So it was effortless to hold a non-meeting to continue collaborations.

Ragpie Rita reported to no one that she was extremely sour about the fact that the office was lost.  She had spent a lot of time tightening the bolts on the wireless connections and was a wee bit more than miffed that she had to start over.  When she can find the wires again, she said, she would tie them to “those roots over there in the ground.”  What roots she meant wasn’t clear since no one was there to look to where she pointed.

Tyion tried unsuccessfully not to attend the non-meeting.  He had been on the surface improving his directorial skills so that his directions as director would be more direct.  Since no one came to the non-meeting he wasn’t yet been able to try out these skills.  Nevertheless, he directed the staff not to worry if they missed the non-meeting and for once everyone followed his directions.  It was only much later, after the non-meeting had ended, that he discovered why Rita was so upset.  Apparently Madge has learned to read the dictionary, and thought she understood the meaning of the word “non.”  Unfortunately, she confused non-attendance with non-existence and so thought she’d help Tyion out in preparing for the non-meeting.

No one was quite sure just what it was she did….

——————-

Veralun announced he was taking a vacation from these non-meetings.  He said he consulted Dr. Brains about his loss-of-office trauma, and had to watch Dr. Brains sit there, thinking hard about the logic of needing vacations from not-meeting rather than office-losing.  After an hour, his patient, Veralun, lost patience with his doctor, Dr. Brains, and de-occupied the office.  This isn’t the office Veralun lost, no, that office was the reason he came to Dr. Brains’ office.  His office was well worth the effort to occupy.   The office he left was Dr. Brains’ office that rightly deserved to lose its occupant.  Dr. Brains muttered something about “poor lost stubborn so-and-so” but his words were as lost as the CCN offices because Veralun’s ears were already out of range.  Dr. Brains was at a loss for words.  Shortly thereafter, someone noticed a sign on his door that read “unoccupied for loss of occupants.”

Ghaelen said “what meeting?”

Tyion tried to direct her to the directions regarding this meeting he had left on the directory wall, but since the wall was lost with the rest of the office, she never did find the memo about the non-meeting.  Turning around several times in the same place, convinced that there was really nothing amiss, she finally sat down (on her trusty crate, which she carries everywhere so as never to actually be without an office) and didn’t think about it any longer.  She did get some of the CavernCasts uploaded to the web blog and out on ITunes (which she told no one about at the non meeting).  And she didn’t speak to Veralun or Tyion about an evil idea regarding characters, offices, and scripts, none of which had anything to do with non-meetings.

Altydwarber was almost at the non-meeting, then caught herself in time and said “Why should I go to a non meeting?  I have better things to do.”  So she did them although she did miss the tea and had saved some Kirel Baked Treats for the company snack.  She also almost saw Ghaelen sitting on her crate, so she did sit down with her for a while and they laughed about explosions, balloons, bosses, and they wondered what Veralun was doing out there in the wilderness looking around as if he had good sense.  He grumbled something about smart people with no brains and lost buildings (none of which they could quite understand) and then came to sit and not-meet with Alty and Ghaelen on the crate.

Mr. Jules wasn’t at the non-meeting for the first time in a row.  If he hadn’t been the boss, Tyion would have given him the what-for.  As it was, Tyion was able to pride himself on knowing not to attend, while Mr. Jules simply didn’t know not to attend, and wasn’t even aware that the office itself had disappeared.  Or maybe he did and thought he had lost it so was out looking for it so the staff could not meet.  Since no one was around to see him not there we can’t really say where he wasn’t or what he wasn’t doing.  He could be lost with the office and no one wouldn’t know.

Ruby completely missed the meeting too, although everyone knew she was working very hard to not meet wherever Mr. Jules might be.  She didn’t tell everyone she was writing a new storyline and that she might know where the office was but didn’t really want to say.  Last we heard she had collared a third-grader who was lurking about near the door not-marked “bathroom” and whining because he couldn’t get into it.  She tried to tell him it had been lost but that concept seemed totally foreign to him because he really needed that door to exist and to be open.  Ruby lost her mind as well as her office and told the poor child that if he could find Madge he would most certainly get a door with the words “bathroom” on it.  She then thought it might be nice to have some tea with Alty and Ghaelen.  So she came over to sit on the crate and not-meet with the rest of them.

(It’s a very large crate.)

Marten was absent from the non-meeting.  We’re not sure where he is other than at the Messengers surface site, and everyone at CCN misses him terribly. (Especially Madge, who finally understood about the word “extra” and very much wants to know more.)  But since no one met to share their sentiments, Marten wasn’t able to hear them.  Someone said he had finally fixed that “hole” at rel.to.com, but could not explain what the hole meant.  Staff members thought briefly about calling him to communicate these things, but since the phone was nowhere to be found, they decided they needed another plan.  They tried crate-to-crate skype calling, but since there was only one crate that didn’t work either.  So they tabled that topic until the next non-meeting when, they hoped, Marten would attend.

Lord Chaos was a non-meeting absentee.  Rumor had it that he was fighting a just war somewhere against something and creating non-order everywhere he went.  Or maybe he was fighting to creating order out of non-order.  Well, it didn’t matter because no one met to question it, but everyone who wasn’t there and couldn’t find the office was sure they heard beautiful strains of music wafting through the air.  A flash of light went by where they weren’t and slowed down just enough for non-attendees to catch a glimpse of his friend Lady Chaos in her newest and largest duds.  Rita took off to get some duds for herself, and no one didn’t see her again after that.  But the music stayed, and everyone had a great time on the crate with the tea not talking about meetings or offices or other very important things.

February 22nd, 2009 | Tags: Agendas, Cavern Players, characters, humor, meeting | Category: Meetings & Minutes, Personnel Reflections, Very Important Information | Leave a comment

You know, with the upcoming re-launch of Uru Live, I’ve had a thought on my mind, and that thought is, “When the link Opens” where will I link to first?

Well for me it will be the wondrous and beautiful mansion of K’veer.

During Live it was the one of two places I really enjoyed going to, and it was even better since they converted it from “Myst5-End of Ages”.  K’veer is one of those places that makes you feel like your really part of the whole overall “lore” surrounding Uru.

I thought to myself, wow, somewhere in this mansion is “Gehn’s office” and the remains of Atrus’s first successful Age.  Hear is where Atrus was trapped.  I could go on.

To me, this is what makes Uru an amazing game,  I could just imagine the “Myst 5” journey as it was meant to be.  I can see myself linking in and seeing “Yeesha” once again speak of “The Least;  the encounter with “Esher”;  “The Tablet”, etc.  Granted, it would not take place in the same fashion, but still….

Now we have Open Source Uru, the chance for us to create what we could only write about, the chance for us to give others that feeling of “I am in a world of wonder.”  The chance to make our own histories in a universe we all have come to love.

It is a time to dream, it is a time to imagine, it is a time to smile.  Why?  Because come that day when the link opens up once again… we will be home.

“Tyion”
.

 

 Our Favorite Place - From Veralun [1:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

January 1st, 2009 | Tags: Ages, Cavern, Kveer, MOUL, Video | Category: Around the WaterCooler, Personnel Reflections | Leave a comment

The CCN staff met on Saturday in spite of the fact that they were still running amock and reluctant to sit still for any length of time. So much to do, so much time, so much to run amock about…. Oh… Wait….

Ok, so that wasn’t quite true. Nevertheless, the staff ran amock for a while longer then settled in for a well deserved meeting. Veralun and Tyion both looked askance at Ghaelen when they realized the website blog had not much new information on it, to which Ghaelen (did not giggle) but smiled and said “I’ll get to it, sirs, right away sirs.” Of course, she did not, but she meant well, and soon at some point in the not to far future of the meeting she did, most certainly, post the meeting minutes, which you are, in fact, reading at the present moment.

The meeting was, of course, of the utmost importance. The staff had planned several programs which found their way to postponement ages since they were planned just prior to announcements by Cavern authorities that something yet again was in suspension regarding the re-opening of the Cavern. So this re-affirmation of another re-opening was a welcome differential in the CCN schedule of program scheduling. In short, it gave the staff a reason to plan yet again. And so they revived those previously postponed programs and at Tyions direction, dusted them off out of sight of Aunt Dolly and in sight of a renewed Cavern community.

In the midst of their excitable execution of excess energy, the staff did determine a duo of definitive decisions. CCN programs would once again resume their accurately truthfully rumor-impervious and seriously humorously non-episodically delightfully exclusively inclusive parodies of the entire URU community — themselves most assuredly. Staff members are busily writing, planning, and invoking the deities, and will hopefully present the community with something quite soon.

Future meetings will hopefully include more staff members, such as our esteemed leader, Mr. Jules, who never really has had the opportunity to be in charge…. The staff voted as to whether they would allow this to happen. After all, every group needs someone to be in control of them.

They decided he would be allowed to be in charge, but they would refrain from actually telling him so at present. If he doesn’t know, he may actually attend the next meeting. That, of course, is of the utmost importance for all CCN members — planning, executing, and attending meetings….

Oh, yes, meetings we will have. Given the enormous appetite for discussion, debate and disagreement within the community, we shall have no shortage of reasons for holding a vast number of meetings, for which we will most assuredly plan in minute detail and execute in exact appropriateness. We can’t wait!

December 13th, 2008 | Category: Meetings & Minutes | Leave a comment

Wow.  That’s a record, at least in the last six months….

Uru will be offered to the Community as an open-source application.  That means that at least some portions of the code will be made available to the public domain and coders (no longer considered hackers) will be able to make whatever changes are needed without worry they are stepping on Cyan’s toes.  For us at CCN this means we can move freely through the many upcoming ages and create havoc, er, tell our stories without worry that we aren’t supposed to be there or say that or do that….. Not that “that” stopped us from doing “it” anyway.

Whatever all that really means, we are extremely excited and still running amock.  Rita is especially energetic, particularly since she found so many rust spots on the wireless wires we’ll need to transmit our programs.  She is beside herself about all of this (which is fine, because then she can keep herself company as she fusses, frets, grumps and growls).  How those rust spots got there, we’re not sure, but it could be simply from lack of use or because the birds started nesting there.  At any rate, we don’t know, but we are sure Rita will tell us.

Veralun was a bit less animated, although he did, in his own effervescent way, let the staff  all know that there was MORE news and once Ty got wind of it he became so wound up he called a staff meeting ASAP.  At once the staff said they would try to attend a meeting.  The meeting itself is scheduled for a later day than today, however.  Ty’s exasperation was virtually tangible.

Szark helped tremendously by posting on the CCN forums
about this new development. Such excitement, even as nothing did, in fact, actually happen. The Uru Community needs little encouragement — so energetic are we that a little fuel lasts quite a long time for us.

December 12th, 2008 | Category: Meetings & Minutes, Very Important Information | Leave a comment