Major Life Updates, Unanswered E-mails, and Facebook Reboot; Into the Future
Many people have been wondering where I’ve been the last half year. The answer is that I have been very busy, but not in the good way.
In November of last year, there was a sewage back-up into the basement of our new house (IE the bug room). This in itself was debilitating to rectify, but the industrial dehumidification process to protect the wooden support studs in that section of the basement, despite taking precautions, wreaked havoc on many of my colonies. I would be lying if I said I was not deeply affected by this catastrophe, and for several months after dealt with the repercussions tangibly and emotionally; seeing a good portion of the work we had just finished get ripped out and months of organization scrambled was immensely frustrating and discouraging. Should something similar happen again, I will be certain to keep folks informed instead of defaulting to introversion.
Over the last two months, my father has suffered major back issues and had major corrective surgery. A decent portion of my time lately has been directed towards helping him as well as my mother, who is unable to walk due to her multiple sclerosis. They have been extremely grateful for my help (both around the house and for transportation to various health appointments) and I’m eager to assist, but this has affected my time management and day-to-day schedules. I have planned out a stricter time table and am making good process adhering to it and preventing delays or back-ups with respect to daily colony care and the like.
Roughly around May 2017, Roach Crossing ceased taking e-mail orders with occasional “hiatus ends”; as evidenced by the many unanswered e-mails, this never truly ended and this is long overdue. Starting April 20th, I will once more open the RoachCrossing@gmail.com e-mail for orders and decommission the raptorandclawz@aol.com one as AOL appears to be gradually phasing out its services. Please send all future inquiries to the former; I will attempt to re-route e-mails from the AOL one but in the past this has proven hit-or-miss. For those with unanswered e-mail prior to April 2018, I must admit I have no other choice but to only respond to the most recent submissions. The inbox for the AOL address is now into the tens of thousands of unread messages and it is frankly impossible for me to answer all of them without major impact to my schedule and therefore sanity. Except for collecting trips and the unlikely (I’d like to hope) scenario of a grievous personal injury (not limited to dismemberment, envenomation, murder by roach proletariat, etc.) or illness, there will no longer be a delayed turn-over time for e-mail responses. I have considered a designated “e-mail answering day”, but at present getting back up to pace in general is of higher priority
Looking forward to the future, I will be overhauling the Roach Crossing Facebook Page and the way things have been done; starting April 20th there will be daily updates regarding the status of different colonies, new projects, collecting trips, and general bug-related hijinks in addition to notifications about upcoming shows and sales. This is a change I have dreamed about for a long time and feel my current lifestyle and outlook are much better suited for. It has taken two years, two moves, and countless hours (many spent working, others regrettably otherwise) to get here. Roach Crossing is far from its full potential, but I will reach that point someday soon. I must say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone now more than ever, both to those who have sympathized and given patient encouragement, as well as to those who have told me to get my act together. The best days are ahead yet and I look forward to filling your invertebrate needs.
Sincerely,
-Kyle