According to Locus Online we’re getting ready to ship the March 2010 issue of Locus. This one features an interview with Samuel R. Delany, Forthcoming Books (always one of my favourite parts of the magazine), and appreciations of William Tenn and Kage Baker.

The March 2010 issue is Issue # 590. I don’t know why I was motivated to look, but I checked out the back issue information, and the first issue I wrote reviews for was the August 1997 issue (#439).  So that’s something like 151 issues of the magazine I’ve been involved with over a close to 13 year period.  It’s probably a little closer to 156 because I started as ‘Visiting Editor’ in about April.

It’s been a long and interesting ride working for Locus. I’ve gone through pretty much every emotion with it, and I’m still pleased to see a new issue hit the stands.  I’ve made life-long friends, traveled, and had wonderful experiences simply because I’ve been involved with it. And, of course, I met my wife at their 1993 WorldCon table.

Of course, it’s a hungry beast, Locus.  I’m doing edits on the April columns now, assigning books for May and June, and have thoughts for the September issue.  I’m even taking notes for next February’s ‘year in review’.  It’s a heck of thing.

Well. That was not fun. The upgrade of my working computer from Windows 7 RC1 to Windows 7 did not go smoothly. While all of the main data files have been imported and backed up safely there has been an issue with my email.

Now, what I’m guessing has happened is that when I created a final backup of my main email files (these are .pst files in Outlook) the central file was corrupted. When we tried to import it into Outlook on the new build of the new computer Outlook would not recognise the file. It insisted it was invalid.

After a little research I ran a repair tool over the mailbox and this morning Outlook opened it. All of the folder structure is lost. Now if this were any other email record that would be annoying but not appalling, but losing all folder structure on a little over 29,000 email messages covering a ten year period is a little like someone walking into an organised office and unleashing a whirlwind.

I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to proceed from here. I have quite a number of book projects on the go, and my taxes need to be confronted shortly (as always, I’m late with this – these are my 2008/2009 taxes). I’m tempted to simply take all of the emails out of the ‘recovered folders’, put them in a single folder called ‘old email’ and move on. If I do that, though, I’m going to need to seriously consider how I want to move forward on email organisation.

In the meantime, my apologies for any delays in responding to things or delays in getting things organised. I’m sorting out my information as fast as I can. I should add this mostly affects accessing old record. I may have to ask some people for new copies of recent attached files, but that’s about all.

The weekend has not been the awesome typhoon of productivity ™ that I’d intended.  This is very disappointing. I’d intended to draft the introduction to Wings of Fire, do some work on story notes and continue to chase the remaining permissions, while bracing myself for the final race to the line in March (the manuscript is due March 18 and I have to do my taxes too, which I am not not not thinking about).

Instead I was tripped at the outset by the death of Windows 7 RC1 on our home network. This was somewhat foolishly installed when we built the new home network last year, with the notion that upgrading fro RC1 to the final version would be simple. Oh foolishness!  Two of the three machines need stripped back to the basic hard drive and built back from scratch.  Oh joy!  The ever-faithful Gordon is supervising this process, but it’s taken time, a bit more grief than expected, and we’re still awaiting reports on possible data loss. I also continue to fight against upgrading to the new version of MS Office which is a horrible videogame pretending to be a piece of Mac software in drag.   A priority before June will be the acquisition of external backup capability.

We also continued to be somewhat sapped by the heatwave which has continuing to grip Perth. I believe summer is technically over.  This effectively means that, even though the daily maximum temperatures continue at over 38C (100F) we shall call it Autumn (or Fall, dear Usians) and simply run the airconditioning a bit cooler. I find myself watching weather forecasts for other cities and entertaining daydreams of moving.

I don’t know whether it was the heat or something else, but I slept extremely poorly on Friday and Saturday nights, which meant that by Sunday I was something of a zombie too.  Still, last night was much better. I’m a bit tired, but much, much more functional, which is promising for a productive day today. I’m hoping to get the home network running today, get copy written for a Larry Niven book and some other things.

Now, you must be thinking: poor Jonathan, no ‘awesome’ in his weekend. Well, that is not the case. There definitely was some awesome. I continue to read the ‘no-I-can’t-tell-you-what-it-is-but-it’s-terrific’ novel and find myself struggling to pull away from it. I also headed out on Saturday evening to a delightful dinner with Garth Nix, who was visiting Perth. Marianne, Robin, Toula, Stef, Janet, Nick and Amanda met up with Garth at a Vietnamese place and talked about all sorts of things till late.  I then met up with Garth on Sunday for lunch to talk life, publishing, writing and so on. It was a very enjoyable time.  I gave him an ARC of Swords and Dark Magic, which he was pleased to get (though the cover got another mixed reaction).  He and I don’t see enough of each other, so it was a great time.

I was feeling seedy last night though, so I sat quietly in the front room with the new big speakers (which I have not mentioned here but which are BIG and SPEAKERS and AWESOME) and listened to a little Vangelis before grabbing an early night.  Up at 5.30am this morning and enjoying some quiet now before the day starts.  Onward!