HeyChristine.com

Monday,
August 26th
On this date last year...

"No pain, no gain..."

This is one of those entries where I'm writing because I need a break!

I have to say, today was one of the most painful days yet in my "Quest to build ORIENTED" since securing funding earlier this year. Lots of cool and exciting things happening, but lots of hiccups as well that is really making me sore all over.

OUCH.

First the painful news.

The email newsletter that was scheduled for publication this morning - which includes the introduction of the new People Directory - was delayed until this afternoon because of an email list merger that was not happening.

From the termination of .ORG two weeks ago... to the transfer of the People Directory to .COM last week and all the fixes and tests that had to be done... to today, what was SUPPOSED to happen was that I would simply ADD the .ORG email list to .COM and publish the newsletter, piece of cake. Unfortunately, the system couldn't handle that large of an upload (I guess?), so the developers had to step in and help fix a few things through lunch.

That it itself was okay, but since I had a pretty good idea of what percent of those emails would be duplicates, right after they gave me the okay I went through *all* 117 (?) pages of email addresses to check for any errors or duplicates. That was painful, but what REALLY hurt was AFTER I published the newsletter, when I got over 400 bouncebacks, some from the .COM list, most from the .ORG list, which totally made my temporary Yahoo account exceed its quota.

Thank God I thought to create a NEW Yahoo forwarding account else I'd really be screwed, but I literally have to go through each and every bounceback, decide whether or not to have the organizers check their local lists or delete it altogether and then copy/paste to the appropriate file for further action.

That really hurt, and I'm still not done.

Only people who operate online properties and email lists can really appreciate what I just went through. It was quite a sad moment for me, not to mention how depressing it was to realize that all this time that we were publishing the .ORG Email Bulletin, that 20-25% of our email addresses were invalid.

I'm trying not to think about it, but I can't help it (sad).

I started to wonder where those bouncebacks were going before (huh?) but then I dropped it.

I DON'T CARE ANY MORE.

.ORG needed to be retired a long time ago.

So that's that.

On the lighter side, I had to laugh at myself after clicking on the SEND button to publish the newsletter, because while it was rolling through, I sat very, very still, afraid to multi-task like I normally do. That in itself was a surreal experience (my sitting very, very still, lol), contemplating all the work that has gone into this very moment and wondering if it was worth it.

The other thing I was thinking as I sat frozen in my chair was, "Wow, I have never published anything to THAT many people, this is kind of scary!" and "Christine do not move... do NOT move... keep your hands AWAY from that keyboard!" to "You sure you checked for typos?!"

Kind of funny.

The good news is...

By the end of the day, a steady stream of people were signing up for the People Directory, from Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei, the States, etc. That made me very, very, happy, even though by then I was very, very, tired. Hopefully there will be more sign-ups overnight.

Nice to know that people find value in that directory, too.

The other good news is that as of this morning, and after over a week or so of talks about a very cool project - sort of related to ORIENTED but a separate thing altogether - Jimmy and I have agreed to collaborate on a long-term project that is going to ROCK Asian America!

Now I KNOW that sounded totally fluffy lovely but it's the truth, lol.

I will say something here that some of my readers may think is total hokie pokie, but at certain intervals in my life -- starting from college I believe -- I would get this tingling feeling inside me that I am about to do something HUGE with what I have in my hands at that moment. I used to get that feeling a LOT during college when I was home alone and playing the piano, can't really explain it nor was I ever clear on what "that" was going to be at the time, but inevitably, "it" always happens.

Anyway, I got that same feeling again today when I was talking with Jimmy. Will elaborate on the details of our project a little later as it materializes.

I also just wrote up yesterday's entry... kind of a big deal...

By the way, Jimmy asked me if I wasn't as "into" HeyChristine.com as I used to be since I don't update this site as often. On the contrary, I'm just as "into" it as ever. I just don't have as much time as before, but I most definitely endeavor to keep this place alive and kickin'.

Shake it baby!

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