Sadness, and a Review
Commodore B. J. Turk, 13 January 2005

We were all horrified at the devastation resulting from the tsunami that struck coastal areas along the Indian Ocean following an earthquake off Sumatra shortly after Christmas. We know that the sea makes for a deadly mistress, but it is heartbreaking to hear of such times as she attacks those who do little more than walk her coastlines. Our hearts go out to all of those who have been touched by this tragedy, and our prayers are with those who have been affected as well as those who are working so tirelessly to bring them food, aid and comfort.



The year 2004 will go down in the books as one of disturbingly little progress on the club site. When there was time to do work on it, to bring it up to where it ought to be, there wasn't the motivation. When I cursed the lack of motivation (or interest in any way), I lacked the push to actually do something, and therefore, little was done.

I must note that there were exactly zero people who dared to leave their name and email to be notified when the club was ready to go. That's right. Not one person expressed an interest in the club or what it is intended to do. In fact, there have been merely a trickle of visitors to the site, so I can feel comfortable knowing that (at this point) only a few dozen or so will actually read this the month that I post it, and that's being optimistic.



As the year progressed, I became bogged down with other work for other sites, and it didn't seem like there was any great push to finish the AYC site, so it sat on the back burner for some time. In fact, there were many weeks that I didn't even think about it. That went away (briefly) when it came time to write another one of these missives, but the awareness rapidly faded. It didn't seem to matter.

Of course, the more that I think about this message in particular, the more it grates on me that this club has been in existence for nearly two years and still hasn't been able to sign anyone up. That, as you might imagine, is rather a thorn in my side, as well as in my buttocks. Because of that I have begun to infuse new vigor into my work on the site, and I am sailing for a much shorter timetable in not only getting the member module finished, but in beginning an advertising campaign to bring in members. I am hoping that the club will have come to life by its second anniversary in June 2005. We'll see.



In the vein of progress, I am pleased to report that the club had its first-ever somewhat-successful test of the PayPal IPN code that drives the back end of the member module, which will allow people to actually join and make purchases of club products from the club stores. I refer to it only as "somewhat successful" because, while the confirmation from PayPal was received properly, it didn't process quite as it should have. Half the battle was just getting that much to work, so now it's merely a matter of tweaking something here and something else there until finally everything turns out right and the database is populated with the necessary data.

As the new season approaches, make sure your gear is in order, and double-check your PFDs. You know that you'll definitely be needing them this year!

Just like last year!




Other Commodore's Log entries:

      Thankful (13 November 2005)
      Shorter Days, Longer Nights (13 October 2005)
      Summer's End (13 August 2005)
      Summer Sailing (13 July 2005)
      3rd Friday the 13th Status Report (13 May 2005)
      Ode to Spring (13 April 2005)
      The Misfortune Continues... (13 March 2005)

      Commodore's Log Archive (old stuff)


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