Piper

BigCloset TopShelf - Status Updates!

Hey Everyone! I thought it might be a good time to give an update on what's what, what's not, and what will be :)

Firstly, the site is back, for the most part. The missing things may not seem cosmetic, but mostly they are.

Things like Kudos and Like / Love / Thank will re-appear as I get the time to edit themes.

BigCloset is not currently as redundant as it was because to get things back up and useable, I booted a new larger VM and haven't worked out load distribution yet, which is why the site is slower at some times compared to others.

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Still Homeless but Updates…

So as the headline reads, we are still homeless and living in a 1 room hotel. For those that need a reminder, we prevailed in Family Court a few months back. The judge ruled that our beautiful child should remain in the custody and care of his Mothers.

Now for the latest update. My wife and I just accepted Pre Trial Intervention on a 4th degree (instead of 2nd degree) charge. I’m not going to put the details here but at the end of our probation we will be able to have all the records expunged.

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Of Topshelf and Personal Things...

Hey everyone,
Sorry, I've been so quiet lately. Things have been happening.

Today, we started an aggressive process to fix what I've been calling the "phantom logout issues." No one is logged out; just some part of the system serves you a "stale" logged-out page from the cache in a few small places.

We have disabled much of the caching setup to try to figure out what's going wrong, and things seem to be better, but I need more data before I can start rebuilding.

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More Updates!

So good news! The Natural Gas bill is paid off in its entirety (or will be once the payments we made have been posted to the account), and not only have we taken a chunk out of the electric bill, but the utility adjusted the bill after we noticed they didn't shut off the service when we requested it!

As such, we have lowered our GoFundMe goal to represent this change.

Because of these changes and some extremely generous donations from BC Members, we are more than halfway over our goal!

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Housing Updates

We found a house! Well, specifically, we found an apartment!

We were initially denied due to credit, but we were given insight on how to appeal and told it would likely go through.

We are still at the same hotel, and we are working hard to get on payment plans for a few things and pay off our utility bills, some of which we recently found had never been disconnected as we had requested.

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Family Court (Mediation Now) Update

For all of you who are wondering what's happening now, and want to know what's going on, my In-Laws have filed again, after being denied an emergent hearing for custody. This time the judge is having us all go into pre-trial mediation to see if we can solve this outside of court.

This has nothing to do with the criminal case but is still nerve-wracking, I thought you would all want to keep updated (we are still representing ourselves pro-se, because we have yet to find a lawyer that will help us for less than a $3500 retainer for Family Court).

-Piper

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On Homelessness, Prosecution, and Family Law...

So fair warning, this may be hard to read. You've been warned.

So, Hey everyone. Last time I posted a blog I told you that Aimee and I and our lil ninja were homeless and working with an agency.

for the record, that agency is DYFS/DCP&P/CPS or whatever they are called these days.

They are still paying for our hotel and helping us try to find more permanent lodging, but that has been hindered by a few facts that I alluded to but didn't directly mention.

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Fear and Homelessness

Hey everyone, It's been a REALLY long time since I posted a blog here, despite working on a lot of the things behind the scenes still but shit has become very different recently and I was urged to let yall know some of what's going on.

Currently, my little family is homeless. My wife, our son, and I are residing in a single hotel room with the help of an agency but we are only secure here till January 3rd as of right now. The agency might be able to help more, but we don't know yet.

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Journalistic Responsibility and Trans Issues - I'm F'ing Pissed.

I was alerted to a satirical article from the Onion by Wendy (Thank you Wendy) on the BigCloset Discord and it probably upset me more than it should have. Their article was a response to the NY Times's article supporting the TERF J.K. Rowling and her views on transgender individuals (titled "In Defense of J.K. Rowling") and the onion titled their article "It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty to Endanger the Lives of As Many Trans People as Possible." My full post/article on it is linked below, but I'm going to share with you my note/forward attached to it.

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South Dakota is Forcing Trans Youth to detransition.

Telling any child they or their identity is invalid is a perilous course, no matter what your reasons. To blatantly stop any medical treatment for a segment of the population based on your beliefs, not theirs, is a difficult course. We need to stand up for all trans people, including ourselves, but especially trans youth. We have failed them this far and must fight for them daily.

#southdakota #detransition #transyouth #transhealth #transgenderrights #transgenderawareness #transgenderlivesmatter #transgenderrightsarehumanrights

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Update: Thank You!

Hey everyone. This is an update and quick thank you (to be updated in the morning.).

As of right now we have met our immediate needs and that combine with a loan from a friend of BC will go a long way to some of us getting some needed sleep.

We aren’t 100% out of danger but we will likely be ok and have a better idea of what the immediate dilutive for BC looks like.

HuGs,
-Piper

There have been an awful lot of begging letters going out of late, and the most recent ones, I have to say, are solely my fault.

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Some Downtime Ahead. . .

This blog is intended to be a heads up.

TLDR:

  • Hardware Upgrades "soon" but actual date unknown
  • Database Upgrades even sooner, within the next 2 days

After the recent downtime where I had to do way too much data recovery, we put in plans for new infrastructure upgrades and improvements with help from a QnEZ Customer.

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(My) Upcoming name change. . .

So as the title of this blog alludes to, I'm finally close to filing my legal name change.

Kirstyn Piper Plummer

I managed to change my gender marker in New Jersey and I've been waiting to get my birth certificate changed till I also had my name change so that I only have to pay one fee to the state of California (where I was born).

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You can't have two mommies, only two daddies...

So a couple months back, (December), I had my nails done. They came out beautiful, a beautiful smoky blue that was still brilliant, and it was a gel coat, so yay!.

My son's friend A came over one day (I'm not entirely out locally, but am to almost all our close friends). She looks at my nails and asks "Why are your nails painted?"

I looked at her and replied "why not?"

She said "So you are a mommy?"

and I replied "yes".

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I am a girl, I don't "think" I'm a girl. I know I am.

So when I first started thinking about this blog this morning, there were many many many places I thought of going with it.

I wanted to touch on how the fact that I know I'm a girl, doesn't change me. How I will still curse, and use rude and innapropriate jokes at times (Sorry to everyone that hoped I would class up just because I started estrogen). I wanted to point out that I still plan to do paintball, play computer games, and sometimes just lie around and be a slob.

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Getting Back on the Path...

Hey everyone. I've decided I want to share some news.

It's time I get back on the path to being me :)

Not that I was ever really off it, but while I had transitioned in my life previously, I de-transitioned when Kim got sick.

I was her primary Power of Attorney, and having to deal with showing my ID to hospitals and Doctors constantly took it's toll, and so I just started dressing "drab" to make life easier, and after she passed, I hit such a depressive hole, that I'm surprised I'm still here :P

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Photography and What I do when I'm not fixing servers...

So BigCloset and surrounding is basically my full time job. I spend time buidling websites, tuning our site and others hosted by us, ressurecting sometimes forgoten projects that have been neglected over time, and try to think of ways to reduce costs, and/or increase revenue.

But like everyone else, I sometimes need to do "something else".

So as many of you know, I got really intersted in Photography (read as, fell down the photography rabbit hole).

Most recently, Cat, Myself, Amy and the NinjaBaby attendted the Atlantic City Airshow and so I figured I would share a few pictures with you.

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Earlier Outage

Sorry about the outage earlier folks. The virtual boot image for one of our front-end servers recently corrupted so I pulled it out of the hunt group while I work on it. Around the same time I decided to process upgrades on the remaining 2 front ends, using the standard rolling reboot pattern that I usually do but with one server down I forgot that we were short coverage while the front ends finish their boot process and really get rolling.

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Stuff Is Broken...

I know most of you are going to look at the site and be like "No shit Sherlock", but trust me when I tell you that you have no F'ing clue how broken shit is.

What we have now, is probably what you will see for the next couple days. My days are taken up by something else, but don't think I'm not putting my whole into getting BigCloset back up and operational, I am.

I did a lot of sleeping yesterday because after 38 hours or so, you need to sleep...

I will get shit straightened out, I promise but please bear with me while I do so.

-Piper

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Merry Christmas to US!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Presents are here!

Well let me clarify, our 4 new servers are here!

I will be dragging a friend with me to do heavy lifting, but the servers are headed to the Datacenter in Bridgewater, NJ tomorrow.

Over the next several days I will work on imaging them and spinning up a database backup, and then transferring load to the new MySQL Cluster. After that I will work on building the new front-end cluster and move that live, and in the process I will be re-configuring the existing servers for Tertiary services.

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The Aftermath

So most everyone has gone home and the dust is starting to settle. We've not gone on the Honey Moon yet (that's in just under 2 weeks) but we are starting to find our slightly new routine.

For those that don't know, last Saturday (October 28th, 2017) CapturedByThePast and I officially (in both the eyes of the Church, and the state of NJ) tied the knot. It wasn't a big wedding or reception but for the most part, the people who mattered most to us were there.

The bills are paid, and for Amy (capturedbythepast) has started signing things with her new name.

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Amy Surgery Update

Amy is right now in preop getting a nerve block. Shortly she will be taken into surgery for an ORIF procedure where they will use a plate and some screws to repair Amys ankle fracture.

The procedure is supposed to last no more than an hour and is being done as same day surgery but please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Ninja Baby is spending the weekend with friends/family so I get to clean.

HuGgLeS
Piper

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Updates on Stuff and Things

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted to update on a few things.

There are several things going on at once. One is that we are being spidered by several sources and they seem to spin up bots just as fast as we can have them blocked.

Another is that we think someone is intentionally trying to keep us offline, and anyone that knows me knows I won't say that lightly.

So we have done several things to try and keep things up and stable.

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We've Gone Cloud!

BigCloset has Officially completed it's Cloud-Transition!

This isn't a fully virtualized cloud for BigCloset, but more of a hybrid-cloud setup where we still have multiple physical database servers that are clustered together for replication and performance needs while the front ends, the bits that compile the data from the database and make the pages you know to be "TopShelf", are fully virtualized with Scalability, Stability, and Redundancy in mind.

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AUTISM: Walk For A Difference

Hi Everyone! I posted about helping us, and helping NinjaBaby via the POAC - Autism: Walk For A Difference already once, but with the walk only a few days away I thought I would post again.

And for those of you that are reading this after saturday (should you show up late to the party) It's NEVER too late to donate, even if the walk is over contact me and I will give you information for how to donate to POAC directly (not via our walk page). Every little bit helps (just like at BigCloset).

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SheBelievesCup

Just an FYI... I will be in the endzone at the #SheBelievesCup matches today in Harrison, NJ.

As a pastime and to help de-stress I have been doing sports photography for a sports blog.

If you are at all interested in Soccer/Futbol England vs USA will be televised on FOX at 5pm eastern.

When the game is over I will try doing a blog of photo highlights.

-HuGs-
-Piper

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DMCA Takedown Notice - How to get your stories taken down.

Hi everyone! I need you all to do me a GREAT favor.

Anyone here whom is an author in the USA or other territory/area governed by the DMCA, who has had a story "stolen" or unwillingly posted to the forum.silicone-breast website, please use the form on this website:

http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/dmca/

to send a notice to the email addresses listed below:

[email protected]
[email protected]

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SmallScale DDoS

This is just an FYI. We have detected, and are currently mitigating, a small scale DDoS attack against one of our VPS host nodes. Because this VPS host currently hosts assets for YourBigCloset it could possibly affect the performance of BigCloset as we host some of our VideoAds from YourBigCloset. This is just an FYI and we don't know if it has any relation to Bigcloset.

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Possible Downtime but Upgrades . . .

Hey Everyone!

This is just a note to let you know that we are getting ready to release some new features and upgrades to BigCloset. Some of these upgrades have been attempted in the past and broke a lot of our custom changes to the front page.

So it is entirely possible they will break again, but I promise you I will be working just as fast as possible to get everything working again.

Unfortunately while I've tried to put off these upgrades because of the havoc they may cause, they have recently become urgent.

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Small Business Saturday Success

 

#SmallBusinessSaturday Success - QnEZ Servers partners with CheckItOn.Us
For Immediate Release

We didn't offer any great sales. We didn't run much advertising. We didn't even do anything different than we normally would, however #SmallBusinessSaturday was a huge Success for QnEZ and Janglewood, llc.

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Worldbuilding Stack Exchange - A Writer's Resource

I have seen this before and didn't write about it, but when I ran across it today I felt it was time.

Stack Exchange is a place I go a lot for programming and systems management help. One of the sites that Stack Exchange operates is one called "Worldbuilding".

From the site:

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Upgraded!

Welcome to our NEW Home. Meet Ariel (DB Server) and Belle (Front-End). Both servers are Cloud-Servers, hosted outside bridgewater but we are still maintaining our Bridgewater Facility for the time being. Let me know if you notice any speed/performance increases or decreases as time goes.

-Piper

-- Old Message Below --

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Large 0Day Joomla Exploit

Just an FYI to anybody out there. There is a large remote code execution exploit that affects all versions of Joomla since 1.5 that has been in the wild for about 3 days now. There are hotfixes/patches for old/outdated/non-supported versions of joomla, and a proper update for the latest version.

More detail here: https://blog.sucuri.net/2015/12/remote-command-execution-vul...

-Piper

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Short Downtime Expected: Shifting Resources

Hey Everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying our new search features (The return of SOLR search and other additions.).

Many of you may remember that we recently brought 2 new servers into the mix, making BigCloset a cluster of 5 servers by itself (front end, database, search, etc). While everything seems to be working quite stably and even fast, we were recently reviewing the setup and have decided that we don't have the best resources in the right places.

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Transgender Terminology, What are your thoughts?

When discussing things "around the water cooler" here at BigCloset/Janglewood (read as inside a skype chat window), we often have troubles picking one "definition" for what various terms mean. We often share the same "flow" with slight differences, but we know there are many different feelings in the community.

Some people often feel that Transgender and Transsexual are the same thing, but others include Transgender to be an umbrella term for everyone including Gender Queer, Non-Binary, Transsexual, Transvestite, etc.

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria: Meeting Maria Bello

Picture of Myself, Maria Bello and CapturedByThePastSo I recently got the chance to meet Maria Bellow during the book tour for her new book "WHATEVER... Love is Love" and thought I'd share my experience. I just recently posted it to my rarely-updated WordPress blog.

-Piper

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How Things Work: BigCloset and DopplerPress Edition

So with the posting of a simple question there has been a lot of discussion lately about who is involved with BigCloset, and Doppler Press and how everything works with the new corporate structures.

Because of the confusion we thought we'd post a blog explaining how it all works, for the most part.

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What Happened to Business Values? (Editorial)

When was the last time a company made you feel like you were more than a profit center for them?

These days we deal sometimes daily with Insurance Companies, Utility Companies, and even Retail Stores, who all feel they are doing YOU a favor by letting you buy their product.

What happened to the days of companies trying to earn your patronage with kindness and respect? Why have service oriented businesses stopped offering a real service, and instead treat you like a profit center?

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A Personal Request

Hi Everyone. There have been a few times when I was in a jam and the wonderful users here @ BigCloset have helped me out immensely. Whether it was helping me buy a new mattress/boxspring for Bill and I when we were stuck in a motel during the mold cleanup, or helping me setup a fund to get a vehicle and get my life back on track, and even helping us come up with the security deposit for the apartment we are in.

So it's now that I come to you with my hat in my hand, and my heart in my throat, asking for help once again.

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Out Of Comission

Just an FYI, I'm going to be out of comission for at least a couple days.

I currently have both an Middle Ear, and Outer Ear infection, which is causing me extreme pain which even the prescribed pain meds aren't helping. My left ear is so swollen that they had to use an "ear wick" so that the drops get to where they need to go.

I'm on both an ear-drop antibiotic, and an oral antibiotic as well as Ear drop pain relief and oral pain meds.

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