November 8th, 2011:
I apologize once again for the delay in updating everything, so just gonna explain what has been going on.

1. My closest friend Chuck; his father passed away on Friday, November 4th, with a courageous battle with skin cancer. He had to immediately go to North Carolina, so I was/have been house (aka: dog-sitting) for him for the past week. I absolutely loved doing it, and having some time to prioritize some of the things in my life.

2. My best friend Chuck’s girlfriend’s mother Carol died on November 5th, 2011 after battle cancer as well. She started off with cancer in her liver, that spread to her lungs, and eventually was in her bones. She went through a chemo/radiation treatment and was sent home from the hospital after staying there for nearly 2 weeks. They called the ambulance on the evening of the 5th, she wasn’t able to keep anything down and wasn’t ‘there’ per-say. She told Rhonda (her daughter) and her husband that she didn’t want them to see her this way (while she was throwing up). Not even 5 minutes after they left, she ended up passing away. Needless to say, I think she was waiting for them to leave, and that she knew the lord was coming for her. She was one of the most amazing people that you’d ever meet in this world.

3. A close family friend of ours & his family for nearly 15 years was the first thing that happened. Kevin Teagarden 42, who was one of the most friendly men in this world, hard-working, and extremely good looking, had 2 kids, Madison who was 9, and Kevin, Jr. who was going to be turning 2. His was Tammy Teagarden was 42. Needless to say, Tammy was leaving Kevin after they had been together for nearly 20 years. We’re not quite sure of what would have been the reason for everything to happen the way it did, but Kevin used a 22 gauge shotgun that holds 4 bullets, and he used all 4 bullets. He killed his 2 children Madison & Kevin, JR. He then turned the gun on his wife Tammy & then himself. I/we would have never imagined that he would be capable of what he did, but apparently there were things that we just didn’t see. I personally could understand killing your wife & yourself if you believe that is the only way to ‘solve’ the issue(s) at hand, but why the 2 children was beyond me. My dad & I had a conversation about it, (my dad was good friends with Kevin for 30 years, hunted/fished together, and even worked together for a period of time). The way my dad tried to explain it to me is that maybe he thought that he was doing the kids a favor; not quite a favor in my eyes, but he didn’t want to leave them without either of their parents, or the horrific acts of watching it all happen. Something that I personally would have rather seen, and I’m sure everyone would agree with. That’s why we have therapy and what-not in this world. They had 2 separate funerals for the family. Kevin was shown (and buried) alone, and Tammy, Madison & Kevin Jr. were shown (and buried) together.

I am just glad that this is all over with, it’s been quite traumatic to say the least, I’ve lost a lot of great people in the past 8 weeks, and personally don’t think that I can handle one more death.

Along with that, I celebrated my 28th birthday on October 27th, though I don’t think celebrate would be the word that I’d use. On October 26th, I went to the doctors office because the lymph nodes in my neck were hurting extremely bad, and I felt like I had a sinus infection. When I was at the doctor’s office, the doctor came back into the room and told me that he had consulted with his ‘boss’ (I can’t even remember the doctor’s name; was all a blur). When he came back into the room, he informed me that the CT scan that I had done at the hospital showed that I had a liason on my liver, however it appeared to be benign (non-cancerous) when I was there. Well, he told me that the liason had grown 3mm (milimetres) in length, and that the white blood cells appear to be attacking my liver in an attempt to heal it. This was causing a ‘ripple effect’. The liver was enlarged because it was trying to heal itself, it was then pushing on to my small intestine, not allowing for much to pass through. They then proceeded to tell me that it appears that this now many be malignant (cancerous). They set me up with a series of tests, the first one was done on Friday, and that was some blood-work, followed by another CT scan. On Thursday of this week, I have a colonoscopy (which is a tube/scope up the hole in which I’d rather not have a tube up). Once I get done with the colonoscopy, they’re going to be doing a liver biopsy, followed by an appointment to the oncologist.

** It has been one of the worst month’s that I have had in a long time, so I’d apologize for not being around as much as I would like to, but the real world does and will always come first. I am attempting to get myself back into the groove of things. I personally feel ‘fine’, the sickness symptoms have subsided a great deal. **

◙ The one thing that I did manage to do was get the IRCNewbies.com domain name paid for, and it’s set up to auto-renew every year so that way I don’t have to do a thing. Only thing I didn’t like was, seems like since I have been working on it, have a certain amount of unique hits per month, and what-not, they decided to jack the price up or something, lol. I paid nearly double what I did last year, which didn’t make much sense to me, but I wasn’t/wouldn’t let it expire, especially since it’d be picked up, and sold off for someone else to make a profit, that’s not what this is about, it’s kinda like my baby. ◙

However, some quick news – IRCNewbies.com has officially added a new channel to our division. This channel is located on the DALnet IRC network. We have no opened the channel #Teen; This channel is in the mIRC favorites list, and we are already averaging just over 50 people, and have peaked at nearly 70 users. This is quite incredible! Along with that, HorseC has accepted the link-up with IRCNewbies.Com; though he & I haven’t got into specifics, or if any members of the website will be oped (@) in #mIRC on DALnet, I consider this a huge step forward. I look forward to working with HorseC over the next few weeks and getting everything set in stone. I am also working on adding another member to the team. This person is tyrant (on DALnet). He’s the owner of #mIRCAide, #JustChillin, and the ever-popular #Cheers chat channels. I think he’d be a great addition to the team. I haven’t spoken to ABN in over a week, I hope everything is okay his way, I have a lot of updates to get in touch with him about, so hopefully he’s back soon!

I am also moving forward on setting up a link with DALnet’s network. If everything goes as planned, the server would be called newbies.pa.us.dal.net (Because it would be based off our website, and hosted out of Pennsylvania, USA). I am working with Bones (DALnet) on setting it up. The staff chosen for the server are basically the entire IRCnewbies.com team – ABN, Tranced, tyrant, HorseC, myself, and Bones.

Tranced will be working on the website for us, and we hope that it will be completed by August 2011.

I am still working on finding a company to set up the bnc’s for the staff, and that will be completed by the time the website is officially launched. I will also be purchasing another domain for the channel #Teen (DALnet). The website will not only be directed at the channel, but allow teens around the world to have a safe place to come to chat, post on the forums, talk about teen issues, and what-not. This site will also be maintained by the IRCNewbies.com team. (Though I haven’t told them yet, so now they’ll know! – See told ya I need to get the emails sent out!). I have not decided on the domain name as of yet, so continue to check back.

So between the IRCnewbies.com team, these are the channels (all default mIRC favorites) ran by our staff members on DALnet.

Myself – #Teen, #TeenFactory, and #mIRCSupport (We also use #Beginners, #JmIRC, and #CyberAngels)
Tranced – Runs #ChatAway (Peaks around 50 users)
Tyrant – Runs #JustChillin, #mIRCAide, and #Cheers. (#Cheers peaks around 100 users)
HorseC – Runs #mIRC (Though not as popular as it used to be, we hope to change this by linking with us!)

There will be links available shortly for users who visit us to connect through the online portal, directly to our channels. We hope to see you all joining!

I think that’s enough updates for the time being, considering I am not at home. When I get home this evening, I will attempt to get all the emails sent out, etc. Thanks again to everyone who’s supporting IRCNewbies.Com; we greatly appreciate your support, and look forward to the upcoming months when everything is officially launched!

Some quick updates while I have a few minutes of time. I am pleased to announce that we have finally have a designer for the new IRCnewbies.com website in place. This is thanks to Tranced on DALnet. His girlfriend is going to be the one that’s doing the site, and his friend will pick up the pieces on area(s) that she’s not certified in. Since this has the potential to save a lot of start-up costs, when the website is completed, I have made the decision to possibly link to the DALnet network with a server representing IRCnewbies.com. We have chosen newbies.pa.us.dal.net – this not only allows new users to remember /server newbies.dal.net, and the pa.us is due to where the server will be located.

More news – olyd88, Tranced, and dragonlair have all been brought on our DALnet team, and if they accept, will be joining the IRCnewbies.com team on various projects.

We have a few channels now established on DALnet; #CyberAngels for internet security, chat, and general assistance. #Beginners is our main help channel, and we also have two default mIRC channels set up – #TeenFactory (for teenage users of course, and #mIRCSupport, which is another help channel set up by our team.) This channel was recently passed on to me from tyrant, we have some high expectations for this channel.

ABN has been doing a great job within the IRCnewbies.com team, and I have to admit that I can not be more pleased on who I chose to help me with this project. It’s definately more work then I originally thought it would be, and I know that in the long run, it isn’t something that I can do alone. Speaking of staff, we have chose to remove Roi_Scorpion, BetterMan, and Arch from the IRCNewbies.com team. We have no hard feelings against these three individuals. We merely understand that they are focusing on their promotions, and status on the Webnet (WebChat/Webmaster) community. Again, we wish the best of luck to the three of ya! You all better do me proud as opers on Webchat, just remember who’s footsteps you’re following in!

This is just some of what we’re going to attempt to have on the IRCnewbies.com website. I hope I can remember it.. (I’m not at home).

1. User accounts, each user will be able to create a profile. Here you’ll be able to have your age, sex, location, networks, channels, websites, nicknames, etc.

2. Forums: Forums for questions, comments, suggestions, links, etc.

3. Channels: Channels (which will have java connections available) that are recommended by The IRCnewbies.com Team.

4. Help Library: An interactive library, in which users will be able to contribute help files for others to view, and even download.

5. Contests: Extra money generated from ads, etc for IRCnewbies.com will go to pay the hosting and what-not. Any remaining funds, we will hold various contests for our members. These contests will have various prizes such as gift cards, instant cash payments (via: paypal), t-shirts, etc.

6. IRCnewbies Store: The IRCnewbies.com store will provide coffee mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, mouse pads, etc.

7. Vhost(s)/BNC’s: Staff will all have the @staff.ircnewbies.com vhost, certain members will also have vhosts available.

8. News Room: News from the various IRC networks, our team, mIRC, World News, USA news, etc.

9. Classes: Classes on various IRC topics. We are even working on setting up videos for the classes to make them more interactive, with a live chat taking place in the channels.

10. Newsletter: Once a month newsletter for members. The newsletter will have various sections, and we will even be setting up a form for users to submit news, and what-not to contribute to the newsletter. We hope to make the newsletter as interactive as possible. We are also going to allow channels to take about their channel, websites, etc.

I think that’s enough for now. I will post anything that is important that I forgot about. I will have more news in the upcoming 2 weeks, so keep checking back! Also, IRCnewbies.com has officially hit 2,200 unique hits for the month of June. I can’t believe how many people are actually taking a liking to the project. I even got some great feedback from Mark (The owner of the Webnet (WebChat/Webmaster network). As the fourth of July approaches, we want to remind everyone to stay safe, and let us know of any exciting events that you have planned!

A couple of the members who I had working with me have been promoted on Webchat’s chat network. Though they show constantly above 15,000 users, I know from being a CSOp for quite some time, that it’s a lot of idle bots, and what-nots. They seem to want to improve themselves on the network and work their way up the ranks there. I have nothing against that to be honest, and I wish them all the best of luck. However, with that said, I have been through the ranks, and I consider getting this website completely finished as my ‘project’ and reputation. Once everything is going well, I know that they’ll regreat, or even attempt to start putting in the time to become apart of our elite team, but this time, it’ll be too late.

Okay, now some quick news.

1. I am going to do a twitter account for IRCNewbies – this way people can follow easier. I have to admit, I am probably one of the only people who have never used twitter, but I am going to check it out. I have heard good things about it, and millions of people use it. I just never had a reason to, so now that I have one, I’ll get to it.

2. All the channels on webchat (webmaster – irc.webchat.org) are now back to normal help & chat channels. I have decided not to use them as a linked help channel to IRCNewbies.com – mainly because they’re slower since we’ve not set everything up, and second of all I just don’t have the time, patience, or dedication to training and getting the ‘Chat Operators’ all registered and what-not on the site. It was more of a pain in the rear, then something worth finishing. So there ya go, you can chat, op, etc in the channel(s) without even dealing with this site.

I personally haven’t even been on the forums for a couple of weeks since I don’t know what I want to do with them. I’m thinking of running the forums directly linked to the webpage, however I’m not quite sure if I can just transfer all the current accounts to the new one, so I’ve layed back a little on em. We’ll see in the future. However, you can & should still register at our forums, we’re growing in the numbers, and they can be beneficial & helpful to you.

Okay, now something I am excited about. I was checking the stats & such (through wordpress) and I was surprised to see how many unique hits IRCNewbies.com had got for the month or July. The only advertising of this website is through dalnet & webchat. I keep it in my ‘real name’ section of my whois, and word-of-mouth. With that alone, this wordpress site had nearly 1,900 unique hits for the month of May – like I said, kind of exciting. When I purchased the domain (after waiting years), the site really didn’t have a value, and wasn’t worth much because of how long it sat, and the hits were down. I did a little searching, and got the site appraised – IRCnewbies.com is now worth a little over $1,000.00 if I were to sell. (That’s one thousand, not million!) Though a thousand isn’t a lot of money, it shows me that I am slowly getting everything in the right direction, and if I can implement everything I would like to, who knows where the value would go!

However, just because it’s worth that much money doesn’t mean I am going to sell it. I didn’t start this project to become ‘rich’. Yes I see/seen how much the owner of webchat (webmaster – irc.webchat.org) makes, and seen his private plane and such. Though that was part of the reason I wanted to start my own project; but not for the money part. I was tired of volunteering countless hours to a network that paid me nothing, not even respect. Even if my project was worth millions, I would never sell. Like I have said from the beginning, once everything is in place, and I do start to make some revenue from the domain and such, I will not ‘profit’ the benefits. I promise (and still do) that the revenue would be used for hosting, extra pop3 emails accounts, etc. Any money that is left over will be given away in several ways (gift cards, contests, etc).

I appreciate everyone who continues to visit the site, I absolutely respect those who are helping me out and expecting nothing in return. Hang in there all, there is a light at the end of this tunnel! THANKS!

So I have been thinking about other directions that I can go with this site, and I am thinking about allowing members to create an account, and be able to just post about their day of IRC – and allow others to comment, etc. I think Ican link it with each users profile, so will look into that.

As for me, I have found a couple channels I really enjoy. I have been meeting a lot more people through DALnet, and I am actually putting them on this webpage, and going to allow them to link their website (if they have one). One channel I have been visiting is #CafeChat – it has all the right things, a name people can find on their own. It has just enough staff members, and I happen to like the atmosphere. The one thing I don’t like; being talked down to. I forgot what it’s like to be one of the lower ranking ops in a channel, and was basically told I think about myself more than anything — imagine that one! After being on IRC for 14 years, I will never understand the attitude that some people take when running a channel, I want to scream “relax, if you do the proper things, the channel will grow. It doesn’t happen over night!”

Anyway, moving on – another funny thing that has been happening on DALnet for years. Users that become an IRCOp, and have a complete other side to them. They are flooding channels, hacking nicknames & channels, and do so under other nicks/ip addresses, and then turn around and sit in oper channels, and gain an o:line of their own. Just pure craziness!

So, where am I hanging out these days? Well, DALnet is about it – I can be found in the following channels:

#ChatAway – #CafeChat - #Teen – #TeenFactory – #Cheers – #DALnetNews and sometimes #IRCnewbies.

That’s enough today – you’re gonna notice some changes to IRCNewbies.com very soon! I am going in another direction

1. Online Store – T-Shirts, Coffee Mugs, Mouse Pads, etc will be offered through the IRCNewbies store. We will also have submissions from users that will be printed onto these materials and available for sale. A proceed of the sales generated will go to several charities, the costs of the webpage, and a portion will also go to members through a variety of contests, etc.
2. Forums – The forums will remain on IRCNewbies (see profiles).
3. Profiles – Every member that signs up on IRCNewbies will get a unique profile where you’ll be able to add a variety of fields.
4. Support – IRCNewbies will have a toll-free customer service support number.
5. Chat – Direct links to channels owned by IRCNewbies, or trusted channels with IRCNewbies.
6. Staff – A unique staff to assist in a variety of areas of help.
7. Testing – A test area where members & staff will be able to see and take a variety of tests offered by IRCNewbies, your scores will be logged & placed on your profile.
8. Email – Email will be provided to staff, and certain members. Several varieties of emails will also be available for purchase. (List will be up soon, and is based on a first come, first served basis). We will not HOLD any email accounts for you. These emails can only be used by the member with access, no staff or administration, or owners can view the content of that particular email.
9. Vhosts – A list of vhosts will be available soon for members to view. Again, staff will be provided unique hosts so that users know their role with the company, users will be able to purchase a vhost through our sales team. You’ll also need to view the terms of service(s) with this.
10. Sales – A IRCNewbies Sales & Support Team will be available for all sales, we expect to have all purchases handled within 48 business hours, anything over is unacceptable and will result in a credit to your account.
11. Ads – IRCNewbies will have ads on the webpage to help generate some funds for hosting, and such. Again, extra money gained will go to a variety of areas – up to, and including members. The Ad Sales page will also be available on the website, and you will need to check the hours of operation and such when making a purchase. Ads will run for a 30+ day period, certain exceptions will be made for test runs with your ad/company placed on the webpage.
12. Shares – With IRCNewbies®© going to a company/trademark, certain team members that are asked to join the ‘office’ department will be compensated, based on sales, etc.
13. Giving back – We are not here to make money from users, as long as the hosting & webpage material is paid for, we will give back. Again, contests to members for cash & gift cards, charities, and contributing office members. Staff that show growth within the company will also have a chance for a bonus.
14. Expansion - Generally we only help with IRC related topics, however, other areas will also be listed on the website – including windows, linux, unix, viruses, and computers.
15. Official Channels – Official channels such as #Beginners on DALnet, #HelpDesk on Webchat, are already available. These channels are staffed by our official team. I will announce the other networks & channels very soon, so you can come by and check them out.
16. Games – Games will be on the webpage, all scores will be logged to your profile, and we will hold contests for prizes with these games. We will also have games set up in our official channels on certain evening(s) for users to come by and play for a chance at prizes. On these nights prizes will be given out at random, as well as to top players and such. This is one thing I am looking forward to getting done!

Thanks again for being patient. I just want to make sure everything goes as planned – I am trying to cut the costs at every corner, however keeping in mind the functuality of the webpage. Users and members will always come first to me, therefore if this takes to the beginning of summer to get put into place, I am happy with that. Several staff members have already been spoken to, and agree this is the first priority. We’re in no hurry, and our team is always here to provide support. If you have any comments, questions, etc – feel free to leave them here, or please send me an email at Admin@IRCNewbies.com orAOB@IRCNewbies.com – I want to hear what you have to say and if you have any suggestions for additions.

Keep IRC’ing & Thanks for choosing IRCNewbies 2010-2011®©

Starting on January 31st through February 2nd, each staff member who is going to remain apart of the IRCnewbies team will be required to attend this training. I can do the training individual, however I would like to make this a group training, and more of a meeting. I have a lot of material to go over, below are a list of items that will finally be sorted out.

1. BNC’s – It will be determined which host you’ll be given to use, the usage of BNC’s will be available around February 5th, 2011. We will discuss the security behind the bnc’s, what is expected of you while using the host, etc. Keep in mind, with the allowance of staff members to use a bnc, you’ll all have 24/7 connections, you’ll just detach from your nickname, however remain online.
2. Positions – The official announcement of who will be in what position, this will include your duties, what you’ll need to do in this position, how your email(s) will work, etc.
3. Channels – I will announce what channels will be listed on the IRCnewbies webpage; each channel listed will have a direct link to connect to that particular channel.
4. Bots – There will be 2 eggdrops provided by IRCnewbies, I’ll explain what these bots will do, abuse policies, etc.
5. Email(s) – You’ll learn what your email will officially be; security issues behind the emails, spam abuse, etc.
6. Ads – There will be some advertising on our webpage, this is to hopefully bring in some revenue for the webpage to pay for hosting, bnc’s, etc. Bonuses may be available for top team members &/or users of IRCnewbies.
7. Forums – What the forums will look like, how they will work, etc.
8. Webpage – You’ll learn what is going to be on the webpage before it’s official launch. This is not to be revealed! *** (There will be an additional training on how to walk new users through the site – March 2011) ***
9. Teams – The various teams/divisions on the site.
10. Admins – Administration announcement, who will be an admin, etc. *** (Admins accepted will have an additional training course – March 2011)
11. Newsletter – How the monthly newsletter will work, how you can contribute articles, news, or announcements.
12. Rules – The policies behind the scenes, the policies of our channels, etc.
13. mIRC – A test will be given to each staff member on general IRC/mIRC; you’ll have to achieve a score above 85% before you can start.
14. Promotions – How promotions will work, how we’ll choose new members, etc.
15. Professionalism – How you’re expected to present yourself to our users.
16. Network – The IRCNewbies®© Chat Network.
17. Accounts – How to mark, suspend, create, and manage accounts on the site. Also what all will be available to users when they create an account.
18. Tests – There are a series on 8 tests that staff will take over time, you’ll learn where to go for scores, where to go to take the test(s), the deadlines, etc.

As you can see, there is a lot that needs to be covered. Once officially launched there will be classes for users that run in various channels on many different topics. There will be some live classes, however with the amount of ‘stuff that needs to be done, some of the classes will be done by an IRCNewbies bot that will repeat the classes on a timer, users will be told to join our official help channel if they have question(s) on any of the classes & topics. I know the push of the launch was a major set-back, but I am a profectionist, I won’t release anything until it’s completed. I consider this my first major IRC project. I have served as a CSOp on webchat, taught over 50 classes (with the highest amount of users in turnout in webchat history), served on other networks with various positions, but this is my chance to share my knowledge of IRC to millions, and the best part of all – I’m the boss this time! I look forward to serving those who still love IRC, and those who just find it. Together, we can do great things here – and you won’t go unrewarded. Thanks again everyone!

Thanks again, and we apologize for the delays.

Keith – CEO/Admin of IRCNewbies

• Chad has been promoted to the Chat Divison Team, as well as a moderator with IRCnewbies.com. His email has not been set up at this point, we will announce it as soon as we have it available.
• Chad is also training to move up in the ranks, give him a warm welcome! I think he’ll be an asset to our team.
• BetterMan has been promoted to our Chat Divison Manager, with this position, he also becomes apart of the AOB, and will work hard in managing the webpage for everyone; again – I think Congrats are in order!

Along with the promotions, we haven’t officially launched The IRCNewbies.com project, and we’ve already hit the 20 member sign-up milestone. This says numbers about the team that I’ve worked hard to put in place, and I think with some hard work and dedication, this project may turn into something I’ve dreamed about running for years.

Thank you all for supporting this in the beginning stages, I am looking forward to the day everything is working properly on IRCnewbies.com instead of this wordpress site, however, I am going to miss the layout that’s provided by wordpress, and it’s easy availability. Again, thanks to everyone – Happy Holidays & Blessed New Years!