Folks,
I am happy to report that all back orders created by our attendance at PRGE (Portland Retro Gaming Expo) have been shipped. Whew! That was really becoming difficult for many reasons.
On a related note, as some of you have noticed, a lot of things are noted as "out of stock." As you already know from the prior blog post, you can email me to see if when it will come back into stock. HOWEVER COMMA there is something else going on as well.
I am not usually one to share personal crap, but this bears on the business, so here goes:
About three-four months ago, I noticed that my pinky and ring finger on my right hand we constantly on "pins and needles." It then progressed to a complete lack of feeling in my pinky and most of my ring finger. I also noticed that I was dropping things A LOT. Soldering things was becoming difficult as I am right-handed.
Sooo, I went through the excruciatingly painful process of seeing umpteen doctors and specialists--one of which actually used a taser(!) on my muscles--and they came to the conclusion that I needed surgery in my arm. I needed a "cubital tunnel release." Which, you know, is nice as it will pair well with the two carpal tunnel surgery I got about 20 years ago :-) Also, as part of the diagnosis, they stated that I had lost about 40% of the muscle function in my right hand (grip, etc) AND that I would *not* get all of that back, even after surgery, but that surgery should be done soon to prevent further permanent loss of function.
HOWEVER, the tests also indicated that I might need neck surgery. Because, while it might be just at the elbow, it could be at the neck and elbow surgery would only relieve the problem for a little bit if it was being caused by the neck. Soooooo, I got an MRI (good news, discovered I was NOT claustrophobic!) and the preliminary read seemed to indicate no neck surgery.
I was wrong.
Apparently, my spinal fluid channel is very VERY compressed to about 10% of what normal should be. This *might* indicate the need for additional neck surgery. Sooo, I am scheduled to see the spine surgeon at the first of the month, so fingers crossed. I am still,, however, scheduled to have arm surgery in the middle of December.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO YOU, dear customer?
Starting 07 December, I will be unable to ship anything that requires more than picking it up and putting it in a box. So, if you want something from the following list, you need to order it between now and 07 December. After that date, anything that requires me soldering will have to go on "out of stock" status until the end of January at the earliest. If neck surgery happens, it could be well into March or April. I just do not know.
Sorry about this, but if I do not get it taken care of now, I won't be able to offer anything at all pretty soon!
Things going out of stock on 07 December ( a date, no doubt, that will live in infamy ;-) )
- UAV plug in (Basic and Kits will still be available)
- UAV 7800 mounts
- Internal Audio boards & BoBby
- All 1088XEL & XLD builds/kits
- Ultimate Carts
- FR99 & FG99 TI 99/4a carts
- 2600 UNOs
- ANY TI 99/4a accessory
- Open JVS PiHats
- Vectrex VectorBlade carts
- CV-NUC (all versions)
- 576NUC (all versions)
- FujiNet (all versions)
- Atari XL/XE Power supplies (all versions)
- Any TK-II keyboard replacement boards
- (probably more things I am not seeing)