[sword-devel] Status on Jeff

[The Schmidts]

Hello, This is Jeff,
    This is the status on me.  (Maybe you don't care, but here goes
anyway ;-).  First, I want to apologize.  I started, with great ambition
(for what should have be a small project) to take on the job of making
some minor modifications to sword's configuration system so that it
would be a bit more flexible in where/how it would load files.  Here it
is, 5 or 6 months later and I haven't yet submitted a patch.  I'm sorry
for that, but when I volunteered, I had know way of knowing what lay in
store for me over the following months.
    To start out with, when I first volunteered for the job, I managed
to find a little bit of time here and there, but as I was working a full
time job that required a 1 and a 1/2 hour commute _each way_ every day,
a lot of my time and energy got sucked up (it was, btw, a very tedious,
aggravating, stressful job that took away most of my motivation to do
anything after work [not that that is an excuse, per se, but it left me
little time to work on sword except weekends, and most of my weekends
were filled up with work my parent's needed me to do]).
    Also, around the time I volunteered, I made the decision to go back
to college (switching my major to Comp. Sci).  I applied to the
University of Akron, OH, which turned out to be a very time consuming
process as I have found that the UofA is a large Bureaucracy in which
paper-work gets stalled for weeks at a time, and one has to do a _lot_
of footwork themselves in order to get questions answered and in order
to get anything done ;-)  As a result of deciding to go to UA, I also
had to find housing in the Akron area (as it is an hour and 45 min. away
and I am tired of long commutes :-P  ), and that sucked up a lot of time
(although at  that stage (late October through December) I had quit my
job, so I was able to actually get everything done that I needed to get
my affairs ready for school this semester).
   And the last thing that was happening during all this was that
Between Oct. and Dec. most of the free time I had for working on
"projects" was dedicated to working on the website that my father
decided he wanted to build for his business.  Which was a rewarding
learning experience (which isn't yet finished), however, it left no time
for sword.

Which brings me to the present.  I am still in the process of moving
into my apartment in Akron.  That should be finished by about the time
school starts.  I maybe would have a little bit of time to work on sword
during school, but as I don't have a computer to take with me to Akron
(my parents need our computer to stay at home for work they need to do
on it -- my dad is more or less running his business with it) this would
prove rather difficult.  I thought about buying a used notebook to have
in Akron, which I will probably do next fall.  But, the main thing, as
far as my reasoning goes, is that I'm not actually taking any Comp. Sci
classes this semester, and I really, really need to get good grades this
first semester so that I can qualify for scholarships next year.  So, I
have decided that a computer might present too big a distraction to me
this first semester. =)

The long and short of it is, I am going to lurk on the list, and
continue to listen to your discussions (and maybe occasionally comment
if I think I have something actually useful to say), but not contribute,
and not pretend I'm going to contribute ;-) for the next six months to a
year (maybe longer).  I do hope that when I actually get into some of my
comp. sci classes that I can use homework assignments as an excuse to
hack on sword (and then, hopefully, I'll be more knowledgeable and able
to more usefully contribute than now [if I had the time now ;-)]).

As a parting comment (now that you've heard my life's story [hehheh]), I
really admire the work that the rest of you have done, and are doing,
especially Troy, who it's obvious is really pouring his heart and a lot
of time and resources into this.  Keep up the good work, fight the good
fight.  I hope to join you someday soon (well, relatively speaking).



Jeff Schmidt