Troop Rally

The City will be placing a large dumpster outside our home from Wed, Nov 4 to Wed Nov 11.

On SATURDAY, NOV 7th there will be an ALL DAY work party starting at NOON, Rain or Shine!

We will need help schlepping, hauling and mucking both inside and outside. The goal is to clear out EVERYTHING that is garbage, broken, unsalvageable, etc.

This includes excavating out both backyard sheds, removing dead bushes and taking apart the broken shed and old doghouse in the back. Inside we'll be removing broken furnature, mattresses, cabnets and other schmutta that needs hauled away.

Please bring yourself, a package of large sized garbage sacks, and anything else you think you'll need, or can share for others to use.

LOANER EQUIPMENT:
tools
garden/work gloves
chainsaw
wheelbarrows
push brooms

If you can't make it on Saturday, please ping us to see about coming over any other day, either to help out, or to bring over garbage sacks and boxes. If you know other people that might be willing to come to the work party on Saturday, PLEASE bring them along.

This will take everyone's help to make this generous donation by the city worthwhile. If we're going to have a fullsize dumpster for a week, WE SHOULD FILL IT UP!

Please RSVP to me or Blade for directions :)

Emergency HtH Call

The financial situation here went from Going To Be Caught Up And Doing OK... to being $300 in the hole this morning.

Turns out the anethesiologist put through the $1300 we still owed, instead of letting us make payments.

And we have about $1700 in uncleared things, like all the smaller bills, and grocery shopping form last night, and the pumpkin patch, and my birthday. Each one will end up costing us another $35. And with the bank's new policy, we'll get hit with those charges based on the bank balance on the date the charge was authorized, not when it clears.

So we need to come up with an emergency $2000+, or we go back to being Completely Screwed.

Here is website:
http://helpthehamiltons.wordpress.com/

PAYPAL LINK

Unmanageable Community

Blade says it better than I can:

So, at this point, I'm done with Myst fandom. I've had a lot of very good experiences in it, but again and again, I've seen a subset of Myst fans tear apart almost any attempt for someone to take charge of something to get things done. Every time, people get accused of 'power grabs' and 'trying to make thenselves feel important.' There's a subset of loud fans who are obsessed with taking pot shots at people and take the 'question authority' schtick to the extreme of 'question anything that might possibly be seen as authority at all as rabidly as possible and then claim they have been wronged when people finish lash out at them.' Even some of the more reasonable people seem to fall back on the utopian ideal of everything being run by consensus in every single case.

I'm tired of dealing with that sort of abuse. Especially from people who don't actually do anything but hand out abuse. It's been going on for YEARS in the community, and it's usually the same people who cause it. And when they get called on it, they get offended and indignant and use that as an opportunity to take further shots.
... I'm pulling out of Myst fandom as much as I can for a while. I made a commitment to help with Mysterium 2010, and I'll keep that commitment. But otherwise, I'm done.

When Uru-related harassment and abuse follows me into other virtual realities, it's time to walk away. When standing up against people being rude and antagonistic gets me summarily rejected by long-time friends, it's not worth the drama anymore.

People want to carry chips and grudges, lash out at people just to prove they are right, that's fine for them. It's a waste of my time and energy to try and engage them.

Until the community responds by rejecting argumentative, attacking behaviour, *and* Cyan can pull off actual community management: someone(s) with actual, unquestionable authority and voice,this sort of backstabby nastyness will keep showing up again and again.

To paraphrase a bumpersticker "Myst, please save me from your followers"

PT @shadesong *NEW* Learn how to setup a proxy to help #Iran citizens get their media out! PLEASE RT! http://is.gd/12IA6

Toss a buck in the Mirriam Support Fund. Medical Bills Suck. Paypal to mirriamfund@gmail.com

An interesting discussion on "antagonists", excerpted from this article. Reading though it, it is easy to see how one or two people, by being 'antagonistic' (in the definition of this article), can bring a community to its knees.

The word antagonists is defined and used throughout this article in this way: Antagonists are individuals who, on the basis of nonsubstantive evidence, go out of their way to make insatiable demands,usually attacking the person or performance of others. These attacks are selfish in nature, tearing down rather than building up, and are frequently directed against those in leadership.

Some key phrases in this definition deserve closer attention.
Nonsubstantive evidence

The arguments that antagonists present are typically founded on little — or grossly misrepresented — evidence. They tend to quibble over trifles, providing strong proof of irrelevant points, or exaggerate the positions of their opponents. A favorite tactic is to make an assertion that cannot be disproved and then claim that the inability to disprove it makes it true.

Go out of their way

Antagonists initiate trouble; they do not wait for trouble to come along. This often goes hand-in-hand with hypersensitivity on their part. They tend to take every word and action as a personal attack and respond aggressively. For example, their response to something seemingly as minor as your being preoccupied and passing them in the hallway without speaking could result in an attack. Antagonists would rather cause trouble than give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

Insatiable demands

Antagonists are never satisfied. No amount of appeasement on your part or the congregation as a whole will suffice. Instead of calming antagonists, attempts to placate them only encourage them to make more demands. Many antagonists fight until there is nothing left but rubble. Sometimes even that doesn’t stop them.

Attacking

Harsh as the word attacking is, it accurately applies to antagonists. Although they may present some valid points, antagonists generally don’t offer constructive criticism. Their implicit goal is control, no matter what it costs others.
Selfish in nature

The attacks of antagonists are self-serving. They often seize on a slogan or pick some side of a valid issue and pretend that is what they are fighting for. It rarely is. An antagonist will quickly drop a particular slogan or issue once it no longer serves his ambitions.

Tearing down rather than building up

When people are at odds with each other, it is the result of an antagonist’s actions. Instead of pulling...people together, an antagonist divides them. Show me a divided and strife-torn congregation, and I will show you a congregation that has one or more antagonists in its midst.

At times most of us are selfish or headstrong. Without excusing such behavior, we can be sure that occasional surly behavior does not make an antagonist. What separates us from antagonists is the ferociousness of the attacks and the insatiable or tenacious quality that drags out problems interminably.

You! Yes, You!

You need more BABY OTTERS in your life!