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List:       quanta
Subject:    [Quanta] Holiday wishes to users and more
From:       Eric Laffoon <sequitur () kde ! org>
Date:       2006-12-22 19:55:47
Message-ID: 200612221155.47975.sequitur () kde ! org
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Hi all,
I wanted to express my appreciation and best wishes to all our users during 
the holidays. The resounding endorsement of our project means a lot to all of 
use who are involved and even though it may seem like a bother for us to take 
time and answer questions and take bug reports it is really more special than 
you can imagine. We are truly fulfilled by sharing this special part of our 
vision for software development... Even when it involves newbies. ;-) I feel 
like the hundreds of users on this list are my extended family. Perhaps even 
better as none of you have been drunk and boring while holding me hostage to 
a poorly cooked meal. Maybe you know what I mean. So happy holidays to all of 
you.

For the last half of the year I've been incredibly busy. So much so that I 
have neglected fund raising. We're not doing too bad over all, except that a 
major sponsor and I have been missing each other in email tag. We could of 
course use more sponsors. On top of that I would like to do something nice 
for our developers for a year end Christmas bonus. I'm assuming I won't have 
trouble getting caught up with our long standing major sponsor, in which case 
we really only have a need in the hundreds of dollars. Otherwise it's in the 
thousands. In any event this is your opportunity to express your support in a 
tangible way and put our development team on your last minute Christmas list. 
I would be very happy to transfer that money.

I wanted to offer some insight to our development, but first a note on my 
ability to financially support this project and my ability to participate. 
Some of you may know this was to be the breakout year for my business. 
(http://kittyhooch.com) Initially there was a question of whether we would 
have the land available to grow on, but everything worked out stranger and 
more interesting than I could have imagined. It was sort of a dress rehearsal 
as we ended up with only a portion of our raw materials harvested in time. So 
instead of becoming fabulously wealthy I have had to shift to more labor 
intensive areas and I still have to review our limitations until July of next 
year. I'm probably doing better, but with more capital investment required it 
is difficult for me to commit to cover shortfalls in donations. Especially 
given that I may have several months of reduced income.

Aside from being busy it has been hard for me to concentrate on things I need 
to do on this project. Some of you may know I was diagnosed with high blood 
pressure early this year. Had I not addressed it I might not be alive now. I 
choose Naturopathic medicine because they focus on the root causes of illness 
and on restoring optimum whole person health. To make a long story short, 
through the year we have addressed every rational physiological reason for 
high bloodpressure. My blood work says I'm at optimum levels for any normal 
cause of high bloodpressure. Still I cannot get to normal range. Most 
recently we tested hormonal levels which has offered me some helpful new 
therapies. Finally we tested neurotransmitter levels. I was told any 
imbalance could be corrected with a few weeks of targetted amino acid 
therapy. To my doctor's surprise I tested as severely clinically depressed, 
the technical term is "masked depression" because I have no outward symptoms 
being such a positive person. It will take 10-12 weeks to correct my levels. 
I'm two weeks in and I'm starting to not feel like my mind is a simmering 
mess to be beat into place by my will. An unfortunate consequence is that as 
this has progressed I have been less and less able to concentrate or handle 
any number of seemingly innocuous stresses. I have dearly wanted to be more 
involved with actively developing and leading design issue on the project but 
it has been frankly impossible. I expect in the coming months that will 
change. Oh, and for the latest development, I will be doing a heavy metals 
test shortly to insure that is not a problem. I am a candidate for that 
particularly because I have lots of fillings in my teeth that might be 
leaching mercury. Go for the porcelain people, it might save your life. Given 
that I am otherwise very healthy for a 49 year old guy, in fact I generally 
look 10 years younger, we expect once the key issue is addressed it is likely 
I can get off prescription medication.

So for a progress report on the project, we have a lot of time and work is 
progressing on porting. Of course if you read this far you can see where 
helping me to avoid stress could be really useful for better reports. ;-) 
Again my thanks to all our supporters and sponsors. I hope to be more 
involved this coming year again and more vital and active than ever. This 
project remains one of the best things in my life, but at times it can be 
demanding. I remain very proud of it. Happy holidays all.

BTW if you wish to write me please use my eric@kdewebdev.org address or 
eric@kittyhooch.com if you want me to see the email any time soon.
-- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
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