Hey Ladyfur....I've been dozing in front of the weather channel, and am feeling my breakfast bell going off. They are saying that Dorian is wobbling a little toward the west which puts the coastal towns in Georgia, South Carolina and Hatteras more in the updated path of the storm. Thankfully the projected course of the eye of the storm still bends eastward at Hatteras, sparing Nags Head of the worst, but the outer bands of the storm's surge and wind will, of course, affect nearby areas. It's still a Cat 2 storm, with 105 mph wind.
Oh, and about the "chat" thread....like I said,
I should have named the thread differently, but that was the suggested name way back in forum history, even before we lost the first forum in fall of 2015. When we returned online in January of 2016, I just named the thread the same, without thinking too much about it at the time, mostly so folks could find us, since they were used to that name. Not too many people happen along who haven't seen the thread before. I guess the upside of having a name like that is that it takes the pressure off to rigidly stay on topic all the time. Our "topics" are all over the road...and that's fine....we do seasons of light chat in between projects and stuff. But I've noticed lately that folks who are new to the thread have been hesitant to click back even a couple of pages....it's like anything on a previous page is gone and forever forgotten to them. So that's what I mean about pages of light chat "burying" the projects and researched information....there's a fine line, or a sweet spot, somewhere around a page or two, of chat breaks, and then resuming useful content, that keeps the momentum of the thread going without it slipping into another sleepy little social media clone. I've wished many times that the forum threads had the ability to do both simultaneously....that is, an embedded chat box alongside the thread itself...so that folks could chat away as much as they wanted while posting their work and projects, and each participant could have the option to individually save the chat if they wanted to, while maintaining the permanent projects. That way when newcomers clicked in to the thread, they wouldn't think, oh, this is just a bunch of chat, and then click back out....and....the thread wouldn't be over 400 pages long....hahaha. So, all that to say, no problem...we do light chat here too....but I hope that I'm explaining this in a way that makes sense....if it's been three to five pages since anything useful has been posted, it changes the dynamics of the thread, especially for newcomers. I was pondering it while resting in front of the TV....and the answer at this point may be that I have to create a "map" of the thread, and just bounce that map of links forward during down times, so that stuff remains easy to find, without diminishing the importance of our friendliness....because both are needed and appreciated here.
And....thanks for posting Shadow's first walk through FlowScape
I hope he will continue to post his progress....it will be cool to look back on the learning process. I can't wait to get in there and click around to figure out how to get a thunder storm and lightning going, but I'm still at the stage of it taking awhile to build the scene, so I'll get out my PDF tutorial cheat sheet and pick my way along too....haha. But at first it may be a lone tree with a lightning strike
And finally, thanks for posting your work too Ladyfur. That's what we need to see. I'll always love fishy pics
Just as all of creation speaks volumes about our creator...what we create speaks volumes about us.
Okay, it's breakfast time....and Jo will have his fins on his hips, waiting for his breakfast too....haha.