No one plans to attend the non-meeting immediately as soon as possible.  Veralun rather sheepishly said he would be there, but would not explain the sheepishness.  Tyion lept onto the roof of the temporary above desert office just to see that he could, and claimed success although the entire structure had once again sunk two feet below ground level.  Ghaelen sat patiently on her crate that she had protected against ‘use-in-wall-building’ and nodded approvingly as Tyion cheered when he landed with both feet on the office roof.  Veralun looked at the roof for a moment as if to consider leaping upon it as well, then looked at the ground and backed up two steps.  Alty did not have to shout for him to stay off that roof and out of that darned hole.

Even Rita plans to not attend the non-meeting.  She was last seen setting out every tool she owned (and had borrowed while in the cavern) to be sure it was clean and in proper working order for the upcoming descent. For her it is quite certain, once she decided it was even possible.  Nothing and no one will convince her that the wires hadn’t held over the last year or so. She plans to make use of the Underground Radio being discussed on the DRC forums.

The non meeting is not planned for this upcoming weekend. Everyone is welcome to not attend.

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.

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.

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!

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.

The CCN Staff met again this weekend to discuss further plans for the re-opening of the cavern.  Now that it felt more “real”, the teams could get back to preparations for a re-entry into their offices in the CCN Hood.   Tyion reported that construction continued and that he was, as ever, doing what he could do on the surface.

Our second meeting yielded some creative and seriously nonsensical ideas for a line of audio caverncasts.  These would lead in to a full-sized CavernCast vidcast to be released sometime closer to the opening of the cavern.  Ghaelen and Veralun offered to dig through existing video clips they had filmed while the cavern was still open.  There are yards and yards of it; reels and reels in cans just collecting dust and wasting away, fearing they will never see the light in an explorers eye when viewed, never to become known in…

But we began to digress…..

Tyion jarred us back to the present as he shouted “I’ve got it!” and began typing furiously.  What he’d gotten we never did find out, but he muttered something about “skit” and “Jules” and “water” and then “burn” all in quick succession, so we rather felt it was better left alone.  Veralun and Ghaelen speculated that his outburst of excitement had to do with a sudden renewed burst of creativity that these meetings often produced.  (Or it might have something to do with the dusty basement Veralun had spent so much time in lately.  Ty and Mr. Jules had found him there, working like a madman, and it was only the promise of this meeting that had brought him out into daylight.) However, they did not wish to speak to him in his current state (for fear of unleashing a torrent of shouting that was the result of months of pent-up ideas) so they went on to talk about the website, which was beginning to take shape.

This fantabulous website application will allow all the CCN teams to send out their audio and video programming onto the ITunes and other feeds with a spiffy new plug-in.  Ghaelen was becoming quite an expert in the “not having to write all the code” department, and felt a new-found sense of confidence in her web-siting skills.  She was so confident, in fact, she nearly broke out into song.  Fortunately, Veralun asked her a rather pertinent question at just that moment, and she forgot whatever melodic words had previously come to mind.  They went on, then, to discuss the CavernCast section of the website, and Ghaelen said that yes, she was in the process of adding all of them to the site.  The MiniCasts and old Shortwaves would be there too.

At this point Tyion shouted again. “Done!”  What he had finished wasn’t clear, but we were certain it was something significant.  It would also be something an audience could, at some point, enjoy.  And they all agreed that since CCN had found a bit of funding and was able to afford a new, improved, zippy, fresh, sparkling, chrome-covered RSS feed and vidcast wiring, they all felt it was quite alright to say outloud that they could use the one site now instead of three to publish whatever the Done thing would be.

So they shouted in unison “One site instead of three!” and everyone breathed at last.  Yes, it is true.  Ghaelen had not actually taken a breath for 18 months together.  Not only had she been sad, but she had also been, quite literally, blue.

What a revelatory moment.

No new updates on the location of any other Cavern Players.  We hope to find them soon, and truly hope they are not trapped down their in the Cavern all this time.  Ghaelen said that her Aunt Dolly was definitely back in the White Mountains, as her aunt had called her last week suggesting she stop trying to be so grammatically correct in her posts and simply “tell it like it is.”  Ghaelen agreed to stop trying and went on in her usual way.  Dolly went back to dusting the boulders near her home — quite satisfied she had eased Ghaelen’s mind.

Mr. Jules finally arrived, so late it wasn’t even properly fashionable.  Tyion will assuredly not allow him to forget that.  He was so amazingly frazzled he didn’t even have the words to present the staff a reasonable and clear report on Recent Complaints and Apologies.  Truth be told, he didn’t even have the report.  He muttered something about Ruby, then Madge, then Rita, then ran straight out of names and resorted to arguing with Tyion about a completely unrelated subject.  We think it was squees and their usefulness in newsmaking.

Well, they aren’t.  Useful, that is.

Fortunately for the entire staff, the Guild of Messengers’ Meeting was about to begin, so they all marched straightaway over to the rel.to/gome meeting room.  The rapidly paced and relatively painless meeting agenda was peppered with humor from all corners of the Messengers’ D’niVerse.  A great deal was accomplished, particularly in regard to the new GOMe Newspaper.  It seemed that everyone involved was intent on moving along, or perhaps it was that Marten smiled gently at the lot of us and kept the meeting moving along.  (Or it could have been the whip) That meeting log can be found in its serious and not-so-serious entirety at the Guild of Messengers Forum.

All in all, it was another productive and completely humor-ridden CCN meeting day.  It would have to be to attend two of the darned things.

We continue to await reports from Mr. Jules and Ruby O’Degee.  Rumor has it she has somehow avenged the loss of her office by confusing him completely with oxymoronic satire, but he would not comment.

For MORE information on CCN projects, please visit the CCN Forum (Or, perhaps it is better that you do not, for your peace of mind will most assuredly be affected.  Or a piece of your mind will leave you.  We aren’t sure which.)

Last week, the CCN Staff met for the first time since the close of MOUL to celebrate MORE and their future return to their offices in the cavern.  Tyion reported that office construction was still in progress, but it was very difficult to continue assembling the structures without access to the actual office spaces.   He is assembling what parts he can while restricted to the surface.

Veralun surprised us with a call from far away….. somewhere near the Cleft, he said.  He sounded a bit strange as of yet, but he said he was feeling better and was certain he would make a full recovery by the time we resume our work in the Cavern.  He has actually been at work on a web archive of explorer videos that he found in a dusty old basement in a house out in the desert.  How he discovered that house he did not say….  but he did say he would continue gathering and preserving these videos while we waited for the offices to be finished.  The videos he has gathered can be seen here on the website >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We should add that Altydwarber was quite relieved when Veralun made contact with her several months ago.  She had promised Veralun to keep that news to herself, but when he called us she felt able to /wave and /cheer that her beloved was well.  We all /cheered with her!

Tyion was also busy setting up the new and improved CCN forums.  As the software changed dramatically (and after that little “situation” with the wiring) he discovered the best course of action was to redo and reboot the forums.  So he did, and we all think it very nicely done!  He also mentioned that he is still at work on his audio drama.  He will give us and update at the next meeting.

Ghaelen began work on the new and improved CCN Website, which will carry future CCN CavernCasts, Team Productions (TBA), the Lakewater Theater (featuring the Cavern Players), and CCN’s usual variety programs.  The software now allows us to feed news and programming directly from the site, so she is happily experimenting with the buttons and levers to make the appearance of those program pages just right.  While it will take some time to bring existing programs over to the new site, it is already in progress, and may be complete by the time the Cavern reopens.

Mr. Jules popped in (in his usual way) to say “How Do” and “How does it?”  After a most cordial round of greetings (well, maybe not so much so from Veralun) the staff gave Mr. Jules a far-too-brief snyopsis of their current progres.   Since he didn’t seem to notice, the staff didn’t offer more information on that subject.  he did notice Ruby O’Degee was still absent, which Tyion explained once again.  Ghaelen and Veralun were able to stop the subsequent argument after about five minutes, which they considered quite an accomplishment.

Overall, the meeting was a success.  The next meeting date was scheduled, and Mr. Jules promised to attend for its entirety.

Future meeting topics include, but are not limited to:

~Locating The Lost Cavern Players

~Progress Reports

• Office Construction Update (Tyion)
• Archival Department Report (Veralun)
• Cavern Player Location Efforts (Ghaelen)
• Staff Health and Absenteeism (Ruby O’Degee)
• Recent Complaints and Apologies (Mr. Jules)

Everyone hoped that other members of the CCN Staff would also be able to attend the next meeting.