I haven't heard anything specific regarding this latest absence, but since I know JA very well, and have years of experience dealing with him in person, I'll take a stab at an "educated" (uneducated?) guess. I would say that there's a high probability that JA has just been very busy lately, has probably been required to travel extensively for work, and he has just not had a chance to check in recently. If he intended to do something other that what he said, I'm sure he would have let us know. To quote Rhun: "Patience, Padawan, patience."