I suppose I should offer up a bit of an apology; apart from the (unfortunate) news of Helen Walker Garriott’s passing, I haven’t posted any news to the Ultima Codex for a few weeks. And while I’m grateful to Golem Dragon for his continued efforts to ensure that the Shroud of the Avatar weekly updates continue to be posted to the site, there are some people who have expressed…I’m going to use the word concern…that the Codex has become little more than an advertising front for Richard Garriott’s latest game.

Hopefully, you’ll believe me when I say this isn’t the case. What has been the case, especially over the last few weeks, is that my schedule has been in a state of complete tumult, a lot of which has been work-related. For example: what had initially been planned as a one-week trip to Fort McMurray, Alberta, turned into a two-week trip (with only a brief return home for the weekend between). That was unexpected…though the work itself was fun, and challenging.

I’ve also been working like a madman to get everything off the ground for another year of Scouting. This year, both Beaver Scouts (youth aged 5-7 years) and Cub Scouts (youth aged 8-10 years) are my direct responsibility; I’ve been feverishly attempting to line up a sufficient number of adult volunteers (Scouters), manage communications with youth members (or, more correctly, their parents), and to plan out the first few months of programming.

In other words: it’s been busy. I’ve been busy. And the Codex has largely been on the losing end of the triage I’ve had to exact upon my schedule. Spam Spam Spam Humbug has suffered as well; it has dropped to what is essentially a bi-weekly publishing schedule.

Now, this isn’t a note to say I’m contemplating shuttering things, or anything of that sort. I think things have stabilized some, enough that I’m contemplating attempting to schedule SSSH recordings again. And I should be able to draft a number of articles over the course of this week, which will mean that a lot of things which deserve to be in the news will, in fact, get into the news at long last.

That being said, this inadvertent break in the site’s publishing does handily demonstrate that the Codex would benefit from a few additional editors who search out — and post about — any and all things Ultima-related (and/or fan project-related) on their own initiative. If that’s something you — yes, you, reading this right now — would be interested in taking on, we should talk.