Many questions tho:
How is everybody?
What happened to Brain Talk 1?
Is everyone here?

About me, I am doing pretty good. I believe my RSD has spread to my shoulder and is giving me a fit. But by now I'm used to fighting the best fight. It hasn't beat me and I am not going to let it either.
Gosh I miss you guys.
Have a great day!

Sorry to hear the monster has spread up to your shoulder, that really sux. It has made it from my ankle to my shoulder, and like you I have learned how to fight this monster. It may win a couple days here and there, but I win more often than not keeping the pain levels low enough to where I can function.

I find it interesting that it goes after my joints. I noticed that I must try to keep using the limbs normally as possible, or risk losing them to this monster. I dont mean working them out as that actually hurts them, and causes loss of use while it mends, if it mends enough to use.

Sorry about getting all into the way RSD spreads. I came here to to say Howdy!! It's good to see ya, and hope your doin all right. Big hugs!
Allen

Hey Kathy,

This is great, you got the email - I'm thrilled you made it here. I've been racking my brains to think of how to reach people, and remembered that you always had your website as your sig - so googled you and found the cached version of one of your posts....eh voila!

Are you still able to do that wonderful woodcarving? I do hope so....

I just woke up (it's 4 am here) and had to say a quick hi, so back to bed for me...best way to see what this BT2 thing is all about is to go to Forum Feedback and read the early posts - this place just started around aug 22nd...

Anyway, more tomorrow, great to see you here - oh yes, we're obviously trying to let people know where we are, so if you have any contacts perhaps you could let them know too? - We're growing fast!

Take care, all the best.

Welcome . So glad you made it! So many familiary faces faces. Welcome back and pull up a chair!!!! I'm making chocolate chip cookies. I'll share with everyone! I can't do much of anything anymore because of the RSD and now the neuropathy in my feet but I do what I can when I can. Chin Up!!!!

Mark

welcome home kathy...glad you found us.............it is good to see all the names/faces again.........

hey mark, keep those cookies warm, and send some to michigan........it is cold, rainy, damp and just plain miserable here...........................

Kathy,
Hey there! It is so good to see you! I am very glad that you made it here!

I know that Pat got here first and suggested to go to the Forum Feedback to read posts to find out what the lowdown on everything is. That is a good idea....unless you don't like, or easily upset or stressed out by a bunch of arguing and whatnot. Then....you might want to proceed with some caution.

That kind of stuff only happened because so many folks were so hurt, confused, upset and feeling abandoned by OBT and the Admin there. There are still lots of conflicting feelings about all of that, by many many forum members all over these boards. But...Maybe if I try to answer your questions about "What happened to BT1", and "Is everyone here", it will help to shed some light on the matter?

Either that, or just muddy it up worse. LOLOL. Hopefully not though. So, here it goes...to the best of my knowledge, from what I have been able to piece together.

It seems that OBT (Original BrainTalk - aka BT1) crashed at the beginning of July. There was quite a long period of time, with no message/update as to what was going on. When it did come up....it explained that John Lester (JL) had been out of town for most of July/August...and that the crash happened at the worse possible time, and that he would work on it as soon as he was able.

That was it, for a long time. No other word.

Then...weeks later (end of Aug? I think? Can't remember for sure, as I wasn't on the computer much my self during all of this time) saying that whatever "parts" he needed had been ordered, and would arrive on or around Sept 5. He was unsure of how much data he would be able to retrieve from the system. Kinda sorta a similar thing to what we have heard in the past when there have been major crashes. The way that the message was written lead folks to believe that once the parts arrived, it wouldn't be long before OBT was up and running again.

You can see...it is not, and here we are knocking on October's door.

The last "update" was sent out by email just this past week. I received one. I will copy and paste it:

Quote:

Subject: Braintalk Returns! From: "braintalk@gmail.com" <braintalk@gmail.com> Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2006 21:34:50 -0400 (EDT) Greetings. We had a bad software and hardware crash recently and about a month of downtime, but Braintalk is returning! I'm in the middle of restoring the server and installing brand new software. Thank you for your patience, and please visit http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums in the next few days. Take care, — John Lester

As you can see...he says that OBT has been down "about a month". I don't know by who's counting....but I have always known months to have about 30 or 31 days (unless we're talking about Feb...and it's a leap year...or not...but since this is Summer/Fall we are talking about, Feb isn't an issue. LOL). I have heard that OBT went off line on July 8th. Starting with July 9th, and ending with today, I come up with 84 days so far that OBT has been down. I don't know how that adds up to "about a month" in anyone's book? But...that might just be me....

Anyway...as you can imagine, that email kinda sorta sparked things up a little bit. Lead to lots of questions. Well...that isn't really true. It just brought back up to the surface lots of questions that lots of folks still may have....and may be feeling hurt about.

Another reason for some of these hurt feelings, is that Braintalk Forum Boards, aren't the only thing that runs under the "BrainTalk Communities" name. There are other things that run under it as well. All of those other things seem to be working fine...not a blip in their running at all. THAT has leads folks to have hurt feelings and questions...about all sorts of things. That John Lester has evidentially been on line and posting to otherwheres (I don't know where, nor do I much care at this point), but not saying a WORD about the Message Board....is ALSO fanning flames.

Long time members of OBT, that used to be able to "talk" to JL,,,and get responces from him when things like this crash happend....have been made to feel "shut out" and gotten NO responce to repeated emails. Folks that have sent donations....some ones that were pretty darn hefty...same thing. No word, no response...nothing to tell them anything about what is going on. That is not how things have ever gone before. THAT has lead to hurt feelings and what not too.

Then, you have all of the folks, like us, that use the boards, that were pretty much left in a lurch. Some of us knew how to contact some folks...but not others. Some of us had little "life boats" of support out there, but some of us did not. Some of these boards deal with folks that are shut ins...and have NO other way to get support. Folks that, sad as it may seem to other folks, TOTALLY Depend on the message board as their way to communicate with other people. There are folks with Autism and Aspergers (Man..I think that I totally massacred the spelling of that...so sorry if I did), that have a hard time forming relationships with other people, even through the computer screen. They have been left too....for much much too long. It is kinda scarey to think about all of the different kinds of people with all of the different kinds of problems that use the message boards that were just left in a lurch with NOTHING. No word about what was going on...no nothing. Just kind of drifting around....hoping to find some of their friends in this huge wide world web thing. Or..worse...not even drifting, just going back again and again, hitting that link to OBT, hoping and hoping that if they hit it enough times, it would work!?

I could keep going on and on about OBT, and what happened, and why folks may be upset with it and JL. But....that really serves no good purpose here now, right? The GOOD thing is that we have all started finding each other again on this NEW board, that "DocJohn" (Not JL....but another John who just happens to live in Boston too. LOLOL) was kind enough to set up and run for us all here. First, it was just a temporary thing, until OBT got back on line. But, as more time went by with no sign of that happening, he asked, and it was well received for this BT2 to be a permanent thing. It is run very differently from OBT...and IMHO, much better. We have a voice in making this place what we want it to be....and we don't have to be afraid of getting the ax from the Mods for stupid reasons. I personally saw that happen in other rooms at OBT, on my many visits around. It was awful, and I was so very glad that our RSD room just kinda stayed under the Radar. Still in all...things had changed so much...and folks were so uncomfortable with the new direction they were going (ever since JL made BT a non profit thing, and set up different folks to "Help" him run it, while he did other things ....created new and more exciting things under the "BrainTalk Communities" umbrella), that lots of "Oldies" just....faded away. Either totally left, were banned, or switched to total "Lurker" status. That is kinda sorta what I did; I was basically a lurker in what had once been my "home".

There are lots of folks that have said that they are ready and just waiting for OBT to reopen for business, and that they will be flying back there in a heart beat once it does. I don't think I will. I think instead I will go to "Visit" and see any old friends that may still be hanging around there.....but that is probably it. It doesn't feel the same to me, and it hasn't in a while. So far, I really like THIS place much better than I have OBT for the past year or so.

As to if everyone has made it here yet or not...Nope. I don't think so. But, more and more folks are trickling in every day. Artist here has been busting her tail trying to find folks....I think that she was the first one here in the RSD room, and was quite lonely for a while. She is so tickled to have us that have made it so far here...I dont think that she quite knows what to do with herself! LOLOL. But, like she has asked...if you know how to find anyone....let them know where we all are. Seems that is the only way to do this...and to help get the name higher up on the search engines.

Oh...I believe that the name of this place will be changing from "BrainTalk 2" to something else (I think that NeuroTalk was in the lead....in the poll that I saw a while back? But I don't know that that had been totally settled on as a name yet) if/when OBT ever comes back online. So...that needs to be known too.

You all can go and read this all......long rehashing with lots of anger and hurt feelings and lots of speculation and innuendo and what not....on Forum Feedback, as Pat said. It is very informative. I only wrote what I did here, for those that might not feel up to reading through the arguing ("OBT is BEST!!!" "JL IS BesT!!!!" "HE is a SAINT!!!" "I will be going BACK ASAP!!!"! or "I HATE HIS GUTS!!!" "He is CROOK!" "HE Doesn't give a CRAP about ANY of US anymore!!!!" "DOWN WITH OBT!!!" That kind of stuff. LOL) a kind of summary of sorts. If you want to go and read at the Forum Feedback, look for "Locked" threads. DocJohn has said that there can only be ONE thread discussing (arguing about..lol) OBT and JL at a time, and not numerous ones, making Forum Feedback nothing about THIS community and all about OBT instead. So, there is only one about OBT open last I saw, and it is titled something like "BT Update" or something like that. The others are locked and easy to find, if you are looking for them.

Hope that this helps....?

And...Kathy?? I am really very very VERY glad that you are here! Sorry to hear that you too have suffered some spread. Seems like that is a theme around here right now, so you are in good (if painful) company. Makes me sad to hear, too....been there and done that, and trying to NOT do it anymore! Keep fighting the "Good Fight"...you are a special lady...and I SOOOOO Happy to see you again!

Love and (((Hugs)))
Jose

OMG, Jose, that was a tour de force! Really good summary of the state of play! Now no one has to go read anything - we should have that post as a sticky, save everyone time and trouble! Thanks!

Yes, I am tickled pink that so many of us have come together again - quite apart from the fact that I wanted company! I'd started to post to myself, I think . But you're so right about the old board over the last year. The heart had gone out of it as so many "oldies" withdrew.

But this place has the energy of youth and I'm so enjoying seeing it developing; over the last 2 weeks it's calmed down *so* much.

Frankly I think JL just plain screwed up. Unfortunately, by negligence rather than intent probably, he seems to have messed up a lot of people along the way.

BTW, here's how the timeline went, more or less:
OBT - went offline around July 6th. 1st message from David (Firehorse) Hosobuchi -around July 20th. Ist message about new server, disks etc - around Aug. 6th, next one around Aug 20th saying disks arriving Sep 5th, then the last message, end Aug/early Sep, repeated on the OSX server after the disks arrived (although many of us, including me, can't see that message). So he's had the disks and the software for at least a couple of weeks, still nothing. And yeah, that's very nearly 3 months of nothing. The recent email message from OBT hasn't reached many people (also including me) because apparently it was sent from "localhost" which, according to our resident expert, is usually read by servers as SPAM, so it chucks it out. Hahhahah!

Well...quite a story, huh? Brilliantly shortened by Joselita the Wise (Jose? Shorten?.... Watch this space....)
all the best

Hi Kathy,

Aloha! I'm so happy that you have arrived home.

Thanks Jose...Once again, you have simplified the dark journey BT1 has taken over the last few months. Thanks. I have no clue what members will do when it does finally come back to life. We will just have to wait and see.

I have, of course, read the jib jab of communication on BT1. Plus I have gone even further and read a bunch on JL and all the things that he does besides BT. BUT...I do have a major problem medically. I have no short term memory. laffs. I don't remember it all to repeat it. I do know that he does have many other priorities besides BT.

One thing I can say for us and our many communities on BT. I say "many" as we our now on our 3rd forum of BT. We had 3 BT1's..., I believe, with JL, and now this one BT2. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've been w/ BT for at least 5-6 years...or just a little after it's birth. I started on the Repetitive Strain Injury...and then quickly moved to RSD after my diagnosis 6 months later.

One thing that we did that I'm discovering that was not done on the other communities is that we as a whole became very close friends. We had little close knit circles of friends. We "oldies" as we were knicked named...asked all the newbies, as you entered, to try to pick a trusted member. To exchange e-mail addy's and phone #. Pick a couple members...just in case of emergency.

We wanted to be able to contact our members if you stopped posting for a while and were out of touch. We wanted to be able to contact you or your family members to see if you were ok. We were not nosy...we were genuinely concerned for your well-being. RSD comes hand in hand w/ depression. In my opinion, all RSD'rs should be on anti-depressants.

We also set up a Yahoo group many many years ago. There were a several set up after this. A home away from our BT home. In fact as time went by there were several groups set up. In my opinion, this was such a great idea. There are many personalities here, and subjects here being discussed, personal and otherwise that just are not appropriate to be discussed here on BT. But most of all for the mental safety of our members when there is a crash we will not be left in the cold. We learned very fast after the 1st crash.

Oh how I wish I went to every community of the BT and urged them to set up a Yahoo Group and to swap e-mails. I'm sure many of them had swapped e-mails but nearly not enough. My heart goes out to them now. Just look at the spinal communities...it's empty practically. That community I believe was sometimes in chaos... but was so much busier than RSD. And as Jose said...the many communities that members so depended on BT1.

Our RSD group had issues at times, granted. Let's not forget. And I'm going to take a second to brush on this and not sweep it under the rug. Let's keep our eyes wide open. Artist, you are a great Private Eye! We've talked...and talked about this. But in my opinion, the RSD forum worked like a well oiled machine. We were top of the class and deserve a big A+.

We have come back together as a family...! I care for you all. I embrace you all with open arms. When you hurt, I hurt. We are the only ones in the world that understand our pain. We must continue to fight the dragon!!! Fight for the cure for RSD....CRPS...Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

Something I've missed very much. I would like to thank each of you for writing and welcoming me back to my home in the internet world.

Mark, Allen, Emily's Gramma, Jose, himomdp your responses and shared greetings made my day! Jose thanks for the info about the crash pf BT1, I'm sorry it happened. (Plus it was good to see your famous purple!)

I went into lurkerdom at the BT forum before it crashed, not because I was upset or angry, but because real life was becoming overwhelming. I had been diagnosed with diabetes (which I am controlling with diet--no additional meds!) my dad, who is my rock was seriously ill, a separation after 23 years of marriage, and I didn't know if I could take care of all these life changing issues. My dad is better, my diabetes is better, and it was tough but I am better too. I am getting divorced and my ex and I are still friends and I hope to keep it that way.

About the RSD, the spread is bothering me, and it is formidable, but I'm stronger. I will kick it to the curb, or whip it so bad it won't be making its presence known. I have flares in my hand much more often and the worst part is the burning. I am on a new med, trazodone and it helps relieve some of the burning pain. It helps me through the depression of RSD as well. I am very conscious of the pitfalls and traps RSD springs upon me.

I've been introspective too. Getting to know myself and my expectations, I need to shed some pounds and improve my own self image. It is amazing to me how cruel people can be to themselves. I'm gonna stop that and work make myself a better person.

I am so glad Pat found me, it feels good to be wanted in this community. Thanks for the welcome and welcome to my family too.

Have a great day,