Today is Memorial Day. A day set aside to recognize the sacrifice made by those who served and gave their lives in the performance of their duties. I'm not a huge fan of Veteran's Day... mostly because its an awkward day for a lot of people who on that one day discover a whole lot of us who they thought were just like them actually put our lives on the line and served... and then try to make up for the fact that they didn't know (or usually don't care) by thanking us for our service. I get it. I really get it. After all, I was an engineer on a carrier. My risk was pretty minimal outside of full out WW3 and I know people who were under fire, or took a bullet, in the same combat theater where I sailed in circles and kept equipment running and clean. I feel unworthy of the comments in comparison.

But I don't feel that way about Memorial Days. There's no question or ambivalence about the commitment and service of those we recognize on this day. I wish, that for this one day, Americans could set aside the the idea of celebrating holidays through the consumption of meat and beer and recognize this holiday with the solemnity that it deserves. Consider in comparison the way we reflect each Spring on the death of one man who lived 2000 years ago... and his rebirth afterwards. On Memorial Day, we recognize, mourn, and thank thousands of American men and women... who not only served and died, but did so knowing that they weren't just going to suffer through it to rise again and ascend. They did so because they believed in the principles of our nation... and on behalf of everyone who remained at home and was yet unborn. Save your picnic and celebrations for next weekend... take a little time to contemplate generosity and determination of spirit while watching the flags wave in the breeze over your local cemetery grounds and say a few thank yous.

Made some good finds this week on extensions to the software we use. These should repair some of the flaws introduced into the core system and give us some additional functionality that we've been hoping to add for some time now. As with anything more flexible and with greater potential, there's also an added learning curve and complexity in working out just how their elements were designed to be used by the developer and how we can make that work for us... so for the next couple weeks, my 'free' time will be in slowly getting a hold on how this stuff works and improving functionality. At first, that's probably only going to affect you if you are spending some time reading things in the Library right now... as the Library is going to be my first stage test bed. Once I have things snazzy and organized just right, I'll expand to the rest of the content.

For now... authors will find (even the WhatIF authors) that we were able to re-implement the multi-stage pipeline for in progress work and the WhatIF authors in particular will find that they have greater control over their own content if lesser over that of other authors. Some individuals have been granted extra priveleges in their 'area' of content for their efforts to support others and provide editorial support... but all WhatIF authors should have the ability to move their stories from the starter category (WhatIF - Working) into their Needing Feedback category and from there into the 'published WhatIF' category for public release without any need for staff assistance. Of course, if you DO want/need assistance, feel free to ask. Most of the canon staff should have the ability to help edit or publish your work. We'll also get a revised/updated version of the walk through up as soon as things settle enough to make it worth the time to do it.

And finally... this week's content. From Elrod, with assistance and harassment from E. E. Nalley, we have our three ladies of toil and turmoil from Gen 1 in a new stand alone called "Intervention". And from Morpheus, we wrap up the current Imp piece with Part 3 of "Imp 5: Head Over Tail." And any week that starts off with the Imp is going to be a good one.

Enjoy! And don't forget to Comment... or drop by the forums and leave some Feedback!

And... fill in the rest with the song of your choice for the day. Is it a highway? A rock? Flower? River? Road? Movie? Game? Traffic Jam? Journey? Song?

No matter what you pick, you might want to brace yourself... because today's line up comes from JG and Morpheus, so its bound to be a bit of a one-two punch. From Morpheus, we have the clash that EVERYONE has been waiting for. The cigar smoking "looks like an 8 year old" retired mechanic known as Ribbon faces off with Jade and the glitter powered girls of Wondercute in the first Part of "A Little R & R 2: Alyss in Wondercute Land" ... and then we move from sugar coated insanity to a completely different breed of crazy as we look at JG's offering for the week. It's Part 1 of "Siblings and Savages"

Enjoy! And don't forget to comment and/or join a forums discussion about the story.

Also, if you're interested in getting news from the Whateley staff ... follow us on Twitter. @WhateleyAcademy

On the bright side, the big show that's been using up every ounce of my focus for over a month now closed yesterday and I can finally relax a bit and maybe apply brain cells to other pursuits. The down side is, that with the closing of the last show for the season; I have two weeks to load out the facility before we turn it over to the company that uses it for the three summer months. And then I'm off contract (read: unemployed) for three months before loading it all back in and diving into the next season.

In the Whateley Universe, we come back this week to Kayda 10. Elrod wraps up "There's No Place Like Poe" with this final release, Part 6. Over in the Second Gen corner, Wasamon and Souffle Girl bring us up to date on the European contingent, Erica and Calliope, in "Dorms of Our Lives." 

Enjoy! Comment! Join a Feedback Discussion! Drink Milk and Eat Cookies! Change your car's oil! (One of these things is not like the others)

For today's release, we've got something special. 

From Elrod, we have a story about the Headmistress, herself, Mrs Carson aka Lady Astarte: "Blast from the Past"

And from our newest canon author, Phoenix Spiritus, we have a new student for the Fall 2007 class in a story called "Soaring"

Enjoy! And don't forget to comment or drop by the forums for feedback and discussion!

In the past week or so, I've been trying to work through alternate means of handling some issues of publishing workflow caused by a recent Joomla patch. From what I can tell, they've done something (unintentional or perhaps intentionally to support something I don't know about) that prevents us from doing category changes to articles from the front end editor. This makes it impossible for us to use the "In Progress" "Review" "etc" categories as a tracking process before final publication visibly to the public. Not that such a system is 'required' but it does make it easier for two things: one, it makes it possible for a us to do all of this in the front end instead of giving a lot of authors access to the back end of the site. That's important because it means I don't have to go through a huge vetting process to make sure authors are trusted before giving them access. And second, because it allows almost all of the process to operate without my personal intervention, keeping the maintenance of the site as low impact as possible. 

Obviously, I'll keep working on things... it may be that it'll reverse itself in a Joomla patch because I settle on an alternative method. In the meantime, I've taken a look at the access levels system and made some adjustments based on my current understanding of them, which is far better than when I originally set up the site. Most users won't experience any changes... but authors, both WhatIFeers and canon authors, might experience some restructuring changes... and obviously, at the moment, we won't be using the whole tracking system... to minimize the need for category changes. Continue to create new articles in the appropriate "In Progress" category for that class of story... and then just leave it in "In Progress" until you are ready for it to move to official published status. If you need to prompt people to give you feedback, feel free to PM me or post in the appropriate forum thread which story you want moved and where you want it moved to and I'll get to it as soon as I can... but don't feel you HAVE to move things just because that's what the system demands. We'll get back to using things as intended when we can make it work right.

In the meantime... please let me know if you don't have access to something you think you should. Or if you DO have access to something you think is supposed to be hidden for you. Don't assume its no big deal or leave it as is so you can snoop around... just remember, if you have access to something that you shouldn't, its entirely possible that someone with far less concern for the integrity of the site also has access. And where you might do a little snooping, they might break things permanently. 

Ok... site problems aside... we have some new content lined up today. First from E.E. Nalley, we have the 4th Part of "The Bear, the Bitch, and Everything" ... and then, if that isn't sufficient to satisfy your reading urges for the evening; we also have Part 2 of "Head over Tail" from Morpheus. My Impression of this combination is that it should leave everyone happy for the week. But don't leave us hanging, let the authors know what you think. Comment or join a Feedback discussion in the forums!