Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Jul 18, 2007

Thinking Out Loud: Inspecting the estate

In times of yore, the lord of the manor would get on his horse and go out and inspect his estate. I suppose he was doing one of two things: protecting his inheritance, or making sure that all was well. Every morning, it feels as though I’m doing something similar. I have this silly early-morning image in my mind of me on a horse, making sure that all is well. It’s particularly amusing because the last time I rode a horse with any kind of regularity was when I was eleven years old.

The first thing on is email, to see if I need to answer any support issues and to see if anyone has just plain corresponded. I learned a long time ago to not reply to important emails before I am suitably woken up, though.

I have set up automated emails to remind me to do things: to tell five people about Markeroni, for example, or to greet a new arrival in the forum. As this is a big wad of emails overnight, it motivates me to do a few of these tasks and clear my inbox a little. I try to keep my inbox as empty as possible. Invariably, I fail. I start with the ones where I don't have to talk to anyone.

Then I move over to Markeroni to get a fix on how much admin work needs doing. Typically, there are between 100 and 400 things that need my attention. I try to keep it below 100 but sometimes that doesn’t work out.

While I am drinking my first coffee of the day I clear a bunch of the simpler corrections that need doing. It’s all automated so it’s just a case of seeing that the things I'm correcting are in the right format, and hitting “yes.” I am not yet ready to communicate with humans. As I wake up, I start on the direct-logged landmarks: I have to assign each a code, double check that it doesn’t already exist in the database, and turn it into a real not a temporary, entry.

Nest I check my two blogs for comments and spam. The spammers are obnoxious and I have to keep on top of those on a daily basis. Sometimes I even get a genuine comment, in which case I have to reply to it. They make my day.

By this time I am awake enough to answer some of the more pressing emails. I am also ready to run through the server logs and fix whatever bugs need fixing. There is usually something, though there are fewer and fewer as I go along. I have learned to have my error logs displaying as I mess with programs to catch the inevitable new bugs early. This process now takes about a quarter of an hour.

If I have any notifications from posts on other sites, I deal with those next. I also stick my nose into most communities in which I participate, just to make sure that all is well. Often by this stage I am tweaking the site in the light of feedback received overnight.

By now I’m fairly galloping.

I could do more, I suppose. I could check for any accounting that needs to be done, any filing, and the rest. But these couple of hours in the morning, spent checking out my estate, set me up for the day. I am reassured that all is well, and can move onto more interesting things like programming, writing, and putting out the word.

Just a glimpse into my world as the lady of the manor.