Slight Return

[TheEggman]

Hello Awesomedude Forums posters & lurkers. It's been a few years since I've shown my shell here or anywhere else so I'll give you a brief rundown of what's been happening. Since I closed TheGlassOnion in 2005, I spent most of my free time playing guitar, recording and attending a few more concerts. If I recall correctly, I managed to post two updates to A New Life/ Life Goes On, chapters 7 and 8, between 2005 and 2008.

March of 2009, I was laid off from my job. On April 24th, four days before my 48th birthday, my dog Thor was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on his liver and was bleeding internally. I had to put him to sleep. Since he was only nine and a half years old (my previous dog Zeus lasted an amazing 13 years) I wasn't prepared. It really knocked me for a loop. On April 28th, I went to the local animal shelter to donate Thor's food, Milk Bones and a few toys. Someone was obviously watching out for me. I learned that the shelter had picked up a stray yellow Lab on the same day that I put Thor to sleep. I met the dog and he was well behaved, obviously really needing contact with people. For the next few days I visited the shelter and eventually chose to adopt him. On May 6th, I brought him home and named him Rex. He's a Lab/Boxer mix, about five years old now and other than an intense fear of thunderstorms, has turned out to be a fine companion.

I continued looking for work online with no results so I took an online course in audio engineering. September of 2009, I moved from the bay area to Arizona to attend an audio engineering school. I've completed that course with a 3.8 GPA. But the economy is still in the tank and I'm still searching for work. In May I was contacted by Roland, (of CastleRoland.net) asking if he could host my stories. When school ended, I agreed. Hopefully by the end of this month you'll find my stories there. I believe the plan is to put up a few chapters at a time.

Bored and frustrated with the economy, I began writing again. If you recall, Dewey (of Deweywriter.com) wrote cross-over chapters of "Brian & Pete" where his characters met Prez, Keith and the rest of the Woodland Hills, CA gang. Well, now its my turn to return the favor. LGO-09 tells the same story from Prez & Keith's perspective. Now that the chapter is complete, I contacted Dewey to review the chapter. He liked it and we're going to meet for a late dinner tonight. Dewey also asked if he could host my stories and I've agreed. I don't know how quickly my stories will be posted but they will soon be found at Deweywriter too. Once my new web hosts have got their ducks in a row and quaking in harmony, LGO-09 will be posted. LGO-10 is already in progress.

There aren't job opportunities here so I'm planning another move, back East this time, by summer's end. But I am returning to writing and to the net. Honestly, I never stopped writing. I've sections of what will in the future become full chapters already written. I've been hanging out at GayAuthors.org forums and chat room recently so if anyone here also hangs out there, maybe we'll meet in the chat room.

Hmm... that wasn't exactly "brief", was it? Sorry, once a storyteller....

Peace, TheEggman

[Lugnutz]

Sounds most excellent with the story! Bummer about the job situation, things are tight on the east end too.

Things will be nice sooner than you expect it.

Stay cool!

[Trab]

Nice to hear from and about you, Eggman. Every so often in the intervening years, I'd wondered what happened to you. Glad to know you are mostly okay, albeit jobless, and good to know you're still writing.

[JamesSavik]

I'm so glad that you are back!

I can shut down my Eggman sightings command post.

I was afraid that you had been abducted by aliens or were hanging out with Big Foot.

Really looking forward to your collaboration with D!

[The Pecman]

Ah, I sympathize, Eggman. I'm in the LA area, and the job situation here is bleak as well. I know many very good audio and video engineers out of work right now. I'm barely hanging on with a part-time job, hoping that things will pick up.

My sympathies with your beloved pet as well. We had to put our second cat, Tuffy, to sleep in the spring, after complications from diabetes. He was a great cat for many years, but he had lost a lot of weight and was on a downward spiral. Very sad when things like this happen.

Hang in there. My advice: always have a backup plan for the career, and go where the money is. I hear the recording business is doing well in Nashville and Orlando (but not New York). You should check the various audio engineering forums like Gearslutz.com and see what the guys there have to say.

[dude]

It's with mixed emotions that I welcome Eggman back. I remember those few years back when we all begged him not to close his site and I offered to host his stories. I even went to the effort of downloading his entire site with the hopes that he'd reconsider and keep his story -if not constantly updated- at least alive at AwesomeDude.

I finally gave up writing and relegated the entire downloaded site to a CD-ROM. And, although The Eggman has chosen to host his story elsewhere, I certainly do welcome him back to the writing fold. And since we've never dropped our homepage link to DeweyWriter in the more than six years AwesomeDude has been around, the continuing saga of my favorite lads from Woodland Hills will be just a short click away.

And Eggman, in case you didn't notice... I'm a bit closer to you now, too. We started the site from Korea, moved it to Borneo and now for the past more than two years actually run it out of Palm Springs, California. Don't be a stranger!

Mike

[TheEggman]

I'm so glad that you are back!

I can shut down my Eggman sightings command post.

I was afraid that you had been abducted by aliens or were hanging out with Big Foot.

Really looking forward to your collaboration with D!

James, you've been my unpaid PR man for 5 years and I'll never be able to express how good you're posts made me feel. No matter which board I happened to show up at or how long I had been away, there you were tooting your horn for people to go read A New Life/ Life Goes On. Thank You! ~hugz~

Pecman, yes I have been watching state unemployment levels and Delaware is a good place to be right now - or at least its not as bad as CA and AZ. It's probably because of the relatively short commutes to Philadelphia and Washington DC. At this point, I'm keeping all my career options open. And yes, we become so attached to our animal companions that when they become ill or old, no matter how prepared we might think we are, its still the loss of a best friend. All I can say is, continue to share your love with another animal. Thor did not replace Zeus and Rex has not replaced Thor in my heart. All three are completely different but they've attached themselves to me as much as I've attached myself to them. Go to your local animal shelter and adopt a new kitty. I adopted a kitten too, back in 2007. I was really worried that Thor would try to eat her but he saw me holding her and just dealt with the new addition to the family. He also made sure she knew that he was big enough to squash her when she stayed up at night opening cabinets! And when Thor became ill, Flower knew it before I or Stephen did. Pay attention to you pets. They seem to notice things that we stupid humans easily miss.

Your Dude-ness! I did notice your new location is SoCal. Roland just happened to catch me as school was ending and I had time to work on the stories for more than Stephen and myself. Over the last few years, I'd write a few pages here or there, bouncing around the time-line, just because the characters have become so damn loud that if I didn't write it down, they would continue to pester me until I did so!

I just had a late dinner with Dewey. He hasn't said when he'll get my stories posted at his site but I expect it to happen as soon as he gets the time. I'm not playing favorites - if you'd like to post the stories here at Awesomedude.com, you have my blessing. Please don't build a whole new TGO though, okay? I do still play guitar and record and have learned to enjoy life as much as I can. God knows, enough shite pops up from time to time to make that seemingly simple task a chore. I reached the point where daily news and politics have just become another stress-er so I limit my exposure to that crap. If I paid attention to it, I'd be down in Louisiana with automated weapons blowing away BP executives from a sniper position! But there are no doubt many thousands that feel exactly the same way. I just want to write my stories for me and share them with whomever likes to read about gay teen musicians and their lives. I'm not trying to go pro and publish novels; I just want to have fun with the characters that I spent many years developing.

Trab & Lugnutz, thanks for the kind words and thoughts! Take it from this old Egg, sharing positive stuff ALWAYS makes something somewhere go a little smoother. Like in the movie "Pay It Forward", a little kindness goes a long way. Acts of Random Kindness are all we need as a species to prevent floods of bad stuff. That's why there's so much silliness and smiling and smirking in my stories.

[Mountain Dude]

Hello Awesomedude Forums posters & lurkers. It's been a few years since I've shown my shell here or anywhere else so I'll give you a brief rundown of what's been happening.

Peace, TheEggman

It's really great to see you back Eggman. I was saddened when you folded up camp and disappeared. I still have your story files in a 'hold' directory and look forward to reactivating them.

[sumbloke]

I am so happy to have this reason to delurk!

TGO and Eggman's stories were among the first that really got me sucked into on-line gay fiction and I've been back and back to them over - well let's face it, it's now years! I'm very glad that you are back and I want to thank you once again for some magnificent and affecting stories. I was a gay teen musician when I first read about Prez and Keith and the rest and now I just have to get out the axe and bang out something...I think like a Hurricane will do it :).

Hoorah for the Eggman!

It's good isn't it that we have our "classics", One Life, For the Love of Pete, Quarry Tales, What We Are, Storm Nation and so many more.

Peace and loving kindness

Yak

[JamesSavik]

Wow! Far out. An Eggman and a Sumbloke sighting all in one day!

*faints*

[TheEggman]

The first 9 chapters of A New Life + Drew's Journal are now at CastleRoland.net . I'm listed on the left side of the main page as "Sir Eggman". Follow the link to find the stories.