I've wanted to post for the past few days, but simply haven't felt comfortable doing so. I've been worried about the ramifications of my words, so I've done something that Jeff has always advocated I do when I'm unsure of myself—I've chosen to say nothing.

Some of you who read domesticat.net know me in person—know me personally. Some of you only know about me through my association with greymatter. The latter group has grown significantly since I took on the job of running the greymatter hacks/mods site. Whether I like it or not, I'm not laboring in quite the obscurity that I once did, and I now have to be a bit more careful of my words since I know that people are reading.The short version is that for some time, I've been a part—more like the unofficial cheerleader and ringleader—of a group of people who are continuing to do some work on greymatter in the absence of Noah. I've said nothing, mostly to protect Noah's privacy and peace of mind—but the cat's about to come leaping and meowing out of the bag in a few days anyhow, and I no longer feel the need to be quiet.

There will be a version 1.21c of greymatter (it currently stands at 1.21b). It will contain bugfixes and a few new variables. It is, I hope, the laying of groundwork for more work to be done later—but that's the future, and the future often holds strange things.

This has been a difficult and frustrating journey for me. I am not a Perl coder by any stretch of the imagination. What I am, however, is organized and (occasionally) efficient. I've spent more time prodding and cajoling other people to do things than I have actually looking at code.

I like to joke about "taking the heat" when 1.21c is released. I'm hoping it won't be much, but at the same time I realize that at this moment, there are four people who are highly visible when it comes to greymatter now (the forums and such). Subtract Noah, of course, because he's not actually involved—that leaves three of us to smile, nod, and take the heat on this endeavor: Indigo, Geof, and myself.

People are going to assume that the existence of 1.21c means that future developments are planned, and they're going to ask questions. Guess it's time to get prepared. Questions sent to the three of us are questions that don't get sent to Noah, and that's a good thing in my book.

I didn't want to be "public." I wanted to write for a little website, maybe have a few readers, but go on in relative obscurity. I remember when I first got to know Noah, he tried to explain to me why his even releasing a bugfix was out of the question. I now understand: a small step, even such as that, has ramifications. Give 'em an inch, they'll want a foot. Give a foot, they'll ask for a mile and be angry when they don't get it.

I shouldn't do this if I'm not ready to shoulder the responsibility. But I've tackled things so far and made them work. Indigo made greylogs exist. I added my knowledge and created two subsites—the mods site and the dev site—two sites that, in absence of new versions of GM, got a lot of traffic from people who still wanted updates and changes.

I wonder what this is going to be like.

Tonight, I'm taking a blank version of 1.21b, adding patches and tweaks, and putting together what will become version 1.21c—which I've jokingly nicknamed "cow." As soon as the greylogs infrastructure is ready and beta testing has been done, we'll make the new version available.

Shortly thereafter, I think I'll pack my maps, warm clothing, and toiletries and drive to Illinois. I'd originally harbored the hope that I could take several days away from the computer, but I now no longer believe that this will be the case.

Either way, I've been busy, and I've been secretive. The latter isn't exactly like me. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'll be a little more open about what I'm working on. There's a lot to tell.

Oh, and if you're interested in beta testing, let me know.