I have been taking a little break for about a week or so and should be wrapping it up after my trip to Tulsa, OK next week. I’ll be slowly getting back in to the geeky swing of things.

Here are some updates on a few of my projects:

ARKon & A2F

ARKon has been postponed until 2011. A new day has not yet been chosen. We feel by postponing the event, we can make a better convention experience for next year.

Since ARKon has been postponed, several of us are going to Arkansas Anime Festival in Fayetteville, AR on Nov 19-21. Usually the Fall event is bigger than the Spring con. We’re going to start planning this weekend for it.

Arkansas Geek Central (AGC)

Arkansas Geek Central will be making a comeback. I will be reworking it to make it flow a bit better. It will still be using WordPress, but, the Forums will not be coming back. There are plans for a better set of calendars. One for Arkansas based events, and another for surrounding states.

Kwadkades

The Kwadkades will be staying at Conway Gaming Center. The 3 standard cabinets (Mark I, II & IV) will be running regular arcade machines. Street Fighter II, Neo-Geo & Robocop will be the games/systems in those cabinets. Possibly this week Street Fighter II will be pay-to-play with some days set to free-play. The other 2 will be following when the coin-mechs get ordered and come in. I haven’t decided on what to do with the Mark III. This is mostly due to the monitor needing to be larger. Depending on my budget after my trip to Tulsa, I may see about getting a ~23″ LCD monitor for it.

I plan on building a small portable arcade machine running on Linux on a Beagleboard. I have not yet narrowed the game list yet. The games will either have to be Open Source or pre-compiled for the ARM processor.

The Stepmania and Vanguard Princess will be eventually making a comeback along with possibly another fighting game. I’m hoping to build some custom cabinets for these or using the Mark III.

I’ll be bringing 3 of the Kwadkades home this week. To make room for these, I’m getting rid of a bunch of computer parts, books, and misc other things that are in my way. I will also be getting rid of the Mark III Kwadkade cabinet as it’s too big & heavy for where I live now.

Here’s a few things I’m getting rid of if some one in interested:

Free:

• Guitar, Guitar stand and small amp (Free)
• Casio Keyboard Synth (Free)
• Misc computer parts: NICs, Motherboards & CPUs, Memory, Sound Cards, etc (Free)
• Misc older computer books (Free)
• more to come

If there’s no one interested in the Free Stuff, I’ll be putting them up on CraigsList and/or FreeCycle.

For Sale:

• Small Midi Keyboard (price not yet determined)
• Mics, Cables & Audio Mixing boards (price not yet determined)

If these aren’t sold before too long, they’re going up on Ebay.

I’ve shutdown several of my websites, mostly due to inactivity and lack of interest from other people.

• Arkansas Geek Central
• Central Arkansas Anime Group
• LazerTagChat.com
• Kwadrix.com
• LAN Party Admins of Arkansas
• ARLUG.org
• Ubuntu Team Arkansas
• Kwadnet
• Q3TCRP
• FlashMobLAN

Pretty much just have this website (Kwadroke.com/AEBates.com) and Kwadkade.com still running. I’m also stepping down from HSALUG & CARLUG. I am not leaving these groups due to a person or a group of people. I just feel I need a break and to remove some of the pressure I have placed on myself. There were some groups that did not have any outside input or involvement.
I have been contemplating this for a while and I doubt anyone will miss these groups or my involvement. In fact, I have a feeling most groups of the continuing groups will prosper from me stepping away.
It is possible I may return to some of these groups in the future. I very seriously doubt I will be taking a direct role in any of these.
I am also stepping away from working at Conway Gaming Center. I may be there occasionally as a gamer, but, not as anything official. Again, this is not due to anyone who owns CGC or works or is a customer there. I just need a break, and, I do not feel like I can contribute anything to help improve the store at this time.

This is why I build the KwadKades:

Seeing the cabinets being full reminds me why I do this.

I’m also working on a website for another blog. Yes another one. Still using WordPress. WordPress makes it so easy to set up a blog. I can have one setup in a few minutes. Tweaking a theme takes the longest time. Anyway, this is another Arcade themed blog. I’ll have more details in the near future.