Sam's life

Increasingly I find myself sitting here in Bedford Stuyvesant, wondering when I'll next go fishing, or hunting, or plant a garden, or drink moonshine. The thought process always lands on when or if I'll ever move out of this concrete jungle. Buy myself a plot of land that is only accessible on foot or potentially by cable car, and retreat into my thoughts and hobbies.

But no. No! I like it here in New York. I like museums, I like the nightlife, I like the friends I have made, and the opportunities it has given me. I like it as a jumping off point to travel the world, and I'll never get over walking these city streets in a cold spring drizzling rain just to feel invisible.

But, alas, we are at an impasse, neh? Too many of those things I value are inherent to living full time at a place or at least half a year at a stretch. I can envision things like time shares or having a vacation home, but to be honest, that attitude doesn't sit well with me. I don't want this life here and that life there. I want both lives in both places. Yes, I'm greedy.

And so began the slow shift to being an Urban Redneck. I'll have to leave being a Metropolitan Hick for another blog post and stage in my life.

And what is involved in that you may ask. Well, I don't know. I started with slow food in increments.

I make my own bread, and pasta. I'm taking the New York State hunting course in May. I've made an in-apartment compost bin - complete with worms. This spring I'll be planting cucmbers, tomatoes, yellow squash, red peppers, green peppers, garlic, and various herbs.

I hae a food dehydrator and snack on dried apples and bannanas most times. This past season I've canned my own pickles and chili beans. Soon will come my own marinara sauce (to go with the pasta). My homebrew kit just came via UPS.

The point of all this? There is value in being self-sufficient. There is value in knowing how things work - even more so in the natural processes.

Next steps:

Off the grid in NYC - one appliance at a time.
Turning the back room into an entire garden.
Weekend camping trips within train ride of the city.
What do you do once you've shot the deer?
and much much more!

Been out and about for the past ten days. First Colorado for my first AdvoSummit, in which we were clarifying the future business plan and, particular to me, defining my role in the company. More on that later, but to say the least, work is interesting.

After that I spent a week in North Carolina. For the second time in twenty years I managed to wrangle all of my father's children in one place at one time. The previous time was at my sister's graduation from college, which was barely a half day event. Before that, was my mother's funeral - not the best time for visiting. This go around we covered a lot of ground. My sister will be having a child come March, my brother might be going on the road, and we all got to see the old man. In whole, a success.

I've created a posts-to-make block on the right. The intent is to spur me to write more on this, or at least keep a public running to-do list... even if I don't share items here. Too often I think of things that I want to write here and just end up not writing - lack of time, energy, or proper wording are all reasons - yet none are good excuses.

More soon.

Lots going on and invariably no time to write. The title more or less describes half a dozen scenarios playing themselves out in my lie right now. My living situation, my occupation, my family, my relationship towards material possessions, my lifestyle, my, my, my.

Today I bought a paper shredder. My indoor composting bin has been going quite well, but as I understand it, I can't help but to be carbon poor and nitrogen rich ergo, I'm composting my non-colored ink junk mail, and bills. I've also moved to a two bin system, and will have worms on site in a day or so.

This all is leading up to next spring, when I plant with a combination of this material and whatever else is needed. Yes. If all goes well, this time next year I will be eating my junk mail. You have a problem with that?

Other than that, I've been nose in books about business, computers, and eco-friendly trends. Much to the chagrin of my social life, but much to the benefit of my plan for the future.

Maybe I'll talk about that here at some point.

Mostly, I'm writing to let everyone know I am alive and well. I hope ya'll are too. and Happy Holidays.

That's a lyric from a great song called, "The Mary Ellen Carter". I've only heard it performed by Stan Rogers. It's how I feel right now. I just went under for a month and a half or so. You can tell by the lack of anything here.

Oh, I haven't been completely gone. I did a show for New Georges Theater Co. And reached the inevitable conclusion that I really need to be only doing the artistic creative side of theater when I do go back to it.

I'm becoming entrenched in my new job. Things on that front seem to be going exceedingly well. I've been made project lead on something and am participant in 3-4 other projects. The past month has been rough, really rough, trying to close out or prepare all my old clients for the absence of... well, me.

That's gone hand in hand with the Mike Gravel Campaign, which I'm still volunteering for.

The Kevin Murphy Show plunges ahead into uncharted waters. Our next big hurdle is to get stuff online. Then its all downhill till Kevin's a star.

I loaded in Betsy and Ming's Clambake, a theater design show. That was another eye-opener about how little I am occupied with my old profession.

So things have been busy, you could say. I've even found time to write on Other people's sites. But mostly, I've been nose-to-grindstone, head-in-book. Deducing the quickest way from point A to point Q; are B through P really all that necessary?

I got big ideas a brewin' and the only way to get to them is to trudge through some rather boring groundwork first. There's one part of me that finally wants to come out of this shell and be a more social creature again, and another part thats telling me not to stop working when I'm finally on a roll.

I'll update more often for a while. I have the time to breath evenly again for the next month or so.

It's official. I now labor for http://advomatic.com I'll be soliciting my brain to them part time for the next ten days, off for a week to wrap up some stuff for a New Georges show, then back full time.

Advomatic does websites for, "Progressive Advocacy, Grassroots Movements, and Really Cool Causes"

It's times like this when I'm jolted back to the realization that my experience base is vastly different from most. I'm just a little terrified to get a steady job. You have to understand that I value my freedom over everything else, and I haven't had a job where I truly answered to someone above me since I was 19. Thats about 8 years.

That factoid goes hand in hand with the fact that I haven't had health insurance since I was 21 and that is about to change as well. It also doesn't hurt that they're gonna practically double my income.

All in all this should actually free me up to do a lot of those things that I've been saying I would do for so long. It's a 'virtual office'; meaning that we all check into the same chatroom every day and it matters very little if I work from 9-5 or 6am-midnight - as long as I put in my 40 hours a week.

I also have the luxury of being able to work from anywhere. This gives rise to all sorts of thought about traveling and putting down roots for 2-3 months at a time. Ramblin'; as it were.

All in all, I think this is going to be a great move.

Wow. Its been a long time since I've posted regularly to this site. There's a reason; there hasn't been a lot to report. Suddenly, things have taken a bit of an upswing. Lots going on and no time to write about it.

Tuesday I had dinner with Mike Gravel and some staff. Don't want to talk too much about it but it might be the first time I seriously throw my hat into the ring politically.

Wednesday, I flew to Sunnyvale CA to attend OSCMS, which has also been amazing. I want to write about all he sessions that I've attended, but know that I don't have the time before they aren't fresh in my mind anymore. I am taking notes, but no promises. Perhaps the most mind-blowing was a session on security from Rasmus Lerdorf. In short, I thought I was being secure relative to most people I knew. I thought I was taking reasonable precautions. But let me tell you plain; DO NOT put any sensitive information into a web browser that has access to any other page. Be that through tabs, or cookies.

In laymans terms this means whenever you want to do anyhing with any sensative personal data (bank accounts, bills, etc), Find the option in your browser that clears personal data - cookies/passwords/etc, and clear it, Close the browser, open it (or preferably a different browser), do your business, repeat the process and go about your business.

On another note I'm in serious thought about the immediate future of my business as I have a group interested in hiring me. We could work out an arrangement to absorb my clients, and while the hourly rate would be less the steady pay would probably equal what I'm making.

They're nice people and have a great system to manage hours whenever you want and flexible lifestyle which I've grown accustomed too. But the fact is, I've grown used to being my own entity. I don't know how ready I am to give that up.

So lots to think about... ... ...

I'm making a roast and having some friends over here shortly, just though I'd share this...

My apartment has very sharply sloped floors, I figure, if thats my biggest complaint about the place, then I'm doing fine. About two weeks ago I had an incident with the stove where it fell off the 2x4 that was under it to keep it level, and I thought that I resolved this issue then, but I guess not.

Anyway, I seared the roast and packed vegetables all around it filling the baking dish with cooking wine, water and a touch of vinegar - very tasty. I covered it in foil and put it in the oven - and then I remembered the bay leaves - which I think are rather important. So, I open the over, slide out the rack and peel back the foil - just in time to dodge as the over slips off the 2x4, a cast iron pan goes sailing off the top of the stove past my head and lands on the floor, followed promptly by the roasting pan, roast, and 3-4 pounds of chopped vegetables, and about a quart of red-wine/water/vinegar mix....

Once the din died down and I stopped screaming "Son of a Bitch" at the top of my lungs...

Threw out the vegetables, rinsed the roast, re-seasoned it, and chopped all the vegetables again.

Merry -edited- Christmas.

The up side is that all that red-wine quickly disappeared under the floor boards which means that the downstairs neighbors are gonna _love_ me in about a week or two.

I always forget that one of the most important habits of a highly effective person (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People ) is renewal. I've been running on empty since about a month before Thanksgiving.

In fact, I *still* have large amounts of work to do, but I'm taking an enforced few days off here and I have to say that it's doing me worlds of good. I'm already having new insights to problems that I've been beating my head against for months. Realizing better and quicker ways to deal with things.

Reminds me of the old adage. More haste makes less speed.

One of the best parts about being forgetful is that you are constantly getting little surprises. THings like: 'Oh! Hey I forgot that I already did this bit of work and I just sat down t do it' or 'Whose soda is this? Mine? Right on.'

This just happened to me again. "What is this piece of mail? Macy's Parade Studio? Oh hey, I DID work the parade this year - I DO get paid for that!"

Totally forgot to expect the check; makes for extra money at X-mas time. Nice.

I've unpacked my espresso machine! Nothing says home like a double latte.

Wow. This past week has been among the most stressful I've had in a long long time. I have two sites that need to launch by Monday a third that will want to launch by the end of next week and a fourth I'm running late on and a meeting with a new client that I find very important tomorrow.

In addition to that I'm tasked with making sure I have double rent this month... don't ask. I'm beat.

Not to get on an old horse here, but this is feeling kinda stagnant. I don't want my life to be one series of ever approaching deadlines.

Time to parlay this inter-web thing into a few projects I'm actually passionate about.

That should be doable. With the money coming in from the sites that I am finishing, I'm geared to take some time and start developing a few sites of my own.

For starters, the semi-big client referenced above is a project I've been negotiating for a while that will meld my experience in the entertainment world with my web-work into, what I think, will be a profitable company. The investors can't really pay my rate, but they can cover my expenses for about a month and make me an equal partner. That's very exciting. Being involved on the ground level on soething I think will be big.

It's not world changing or anything like that, but I hope it is one of many.

Is it bad when you look forward to work you will enjoy more as relaxation from the workload you have now?

Things have been crazy at work and getting crazier. Today was a particualrly long day and I'm still not done. I frequently feel like I'm keeping ahead by the skin of my teeth and have trouble enjoying my time off thinking that I should be trying to get ahead.

Through the maelstrom of that and moving, and various other stresses in my life I've found that I'm more tense than I've been in years - this is rougher than teching two shows at once (but not by much ;)

So reaching way back I've rekindled my old practice of trying to meditate. I admit I don't get to it daily like I used to in high school, but I do try to clear my head 2-3 times a week at least.

I really don't know if there is a 'proper' way to do this. I start by clearing my head of all thoughts for a few moments. Literally trying to think of 'nothing' pushing even the color of the back of my eyelids out of my mind. Or sometimes when its too much to do even that I try to hold the thought of a metallic sphere in my mind and then imagine that its mercury, but I need to keep in in the shape of a sphere for a few moments.

Then, I address each thing I encountered during the day in turn, giving particular consideration to anything that caused me distress, tension, or undue stress. This goes on as long as it takes.

Repeat step 1 and you're done.

So, why and I'm telling you all this. Well, it dawned on me that this is really nothing more than spending 10-15 minutes thinking about what I'm doing each day.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if everyone took 15 minutes to think about what they were doing each day, as opposed to just acting and reacting...?

I still do a lot of stupid things - but I bet I've missed a few since starting this.

Thats all.

Just got off the phone with a Richard who has been nice enough to listen to me bitch about all my various and sundry issues and problems. On the surface everything is jolly. I'm just down for a few reasons....

Let's attempt to enumerate without boring the hell out of you.

A) Living situation. Its a wonderful ting to have a solid place to live for an entire year at affordable rent in a neighborhood, I'm OK with. This place has a few quirks, but for the most part it is everything that I've been looking for.

However, I have a roommate. A roommate who seems to be a very nice guy and I don't have many complaints about, but I also know me, and there is a reason I wanted a place too myself for so long.

In truth my alone time is extraordinarily important to me. And even sharing space in a perfectly normal fashion I find to be a chore in much of my day to day life. I referred to this before as my streak of loner-ism. I'm gonna do my best to make this work out best for all involved - its only a year.

B) Work. Is going amazingly well. I just booked an account today that basically will see me fiscally sound, I believe, through the end of January. I don't want to jinx it as things are never certain until the check is in the bank, but ostensibly, things are going really well with this company.

But, I'm getting a little bored. For me, this is a death knell. The reason why I've been a jack of all trades is I get bored easily. Its the same thing that draws me towards entrepreneurialism in general - I like starting things. I like the big push to get things off the ground. I dislike drudge work, a lot. And that is what I have for the next month or so as this business transitions into something much larger.

Its usually best for me to switch gears whenever I get like this. Come back to whatever is boring me later. But at the moment there is so much drudge work that the best thing for me to do is just plow through and get it done as fast and painlessly as possible.

C) The weather. Just plain gross outside. This combined with my new room without windows is fraying my nerves a little. Makes it so I have trouble leaping out of bed to face the day every morning.

More stuff than all this too. In brief, I like my life to be exciting, but there is a very tangible difference between stress caused in a fast paced intense environment and stress caused by living situations and workload.

Blah

I found an interesting little project completely by accident yesterday. I was riding from Manhattan back to Brooklyn yesterday around noon after a meeting, and I saw a girl wearing a hoodie that said, "Change your fuel. Change the world." and had this nifty little leaf symbol on the back of it. Now if you've read much of this blog you know that one of my big soapboxes is how we are pretty much killing this planet.

Between Climate Change, unsustainable manufacturing, and poor management or resources, and about another dozen imminent concerns I don't think we have 20 years of comfortable living left even in first world countries. I know its grim, but it s true. If we don't change our ways, we are screwed.

But that has nothing and everything to do with the cute girl on the subway - did I say cute?....hmmmm.... I had to ask about the hoodie didn't I?

She was part of The Big Green Bus Project out of Dartmouth college last year. Which is a amazing awareness raising project and seems like everyone I have mentioned this to knows something about it. Personally, I think that the hoodies could be an amazing awareness raising thing in and of themselves.

In the end I don't think that bio-fuel is the answer - too much CO2, but in the short run it is definitely one of our best alternatives - especially since the entire trucking fleet of North America is already diesel engines (no change of fleet means only half an infrastructure change for distribution).

Anyway, check out TBGB and send let them know if you would buy a hoodie or t-shirt as well. I think that they have a completely untapped revenue resource and haven't exploited it yet.

And Steph, if you read this, were I in a different time in my life I totally would have asked for your phone number. Best of wishes.

So the time has come to reveal what has been occupying my last two Sundays and is going to turn into something very, very big.

My friend Kevin Murphy is an absolutely brilliant stand-up comedian. He and I got together about three weeks back, did some brainstorming, drew up some schedules, and called in a few friends we thought might be interested in helping us produce:

The Kevin Murphy Show!

Since then, he's scheduled a few meetings with potential guests, and I've gotten the website presentable. Kev will be blogging there soon, we already have some of his stand-up over there, but the real draw will be the bi-weekly show where Kev interviews about two guests a night, uncensored, asking the hard questions?

This is gonna be ridiculously funny.

I'm a web designer and developer now. A year ago I could easily name myself a Jack f All Trades. While I still have that vision of myself, it doesn't change the fact that I haven't done carpentry, or theater, or welding, or manufacturing in close to 8 months.

I don't regret this and I still envision myself having a workshop in whatever home I settle into eventually. I find regret isn't something that happens to me a lot.

A lot of harsh things have happned in my life but I've always felt that I made my own decisions and that they made me who I am. Rationally I still feel that way.

However there is a part of me that feels this whole career thing has shut as many doors as it has opened. Socially, creatively, and in a few other ways I don't feel like talking about right now.

There are friends I don't hang out with as much, I'm no longer the guy everyone calls to fix problems (always a little badge of honor), and probably the harshest this entire past year has seen me an isolationist which normally doesn't bother me, but it looks like I may have irreparably damaged a few relationships.

I still believe you make time for the things that are important to you, and in a way I made my choices. In an important way, I'm very happy with the results - I like my life and my job now in ways that I never did before.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things and people I miss.

Blah Guess I'll go cry in my Cheerios now. Nothing for it but tho keep living and try to paste together what you may have boken.

You always think it might be nice to be your own boss. It must be good to be able 'to make your own hours'.

That bloody slavedriver just let us out. He's a jerk. I hate the boss.

*sigh* Is blogging to yourself a sign of senility?

So the past week has been hellish busy. Amidst everything I've been dealing with a Cell Phone Horror story in which Sprint Representative (Thursday) promises to Upgrade my Plan, Send me New Phone, Backdate to cover overage charges from last month, and Extend new 2 year Service agreement. I'm to wait till this goes through their system to pay - so the charges reflect accurately.
Saturday, nothing, call, no record of previous call - but they'll put it through on a trouble ticket and I should hear back about it within 24 hrs, still I shouldn't pay yet, but wait - No, they won't shut my phone off.
Wed. my phone gets turned off. Call angry. If I want them to investigate it, they can't turn my phone back on till they conclude the investigation - at least 24 hrs...this is my business line. Otherwise, they can DO ME THE FAVOR of saying I only need to pay half the overage charges - of which I didn't think I'd need to pay any. I pay. And I ask for an address to write a complaint letter to. Literally 10 minutes later - he tells me I can go to the website and submit an e-complaint.
I'm still on my old plan - likely will get more overage charges - still no new agreement, no new phone. AND I'm the bad guy for not paying my bill.

*breath*

Yesterday around 1:30 I dropped my laundry off cause I was too busy to do it myself. 3 Hours later my current roomate Justin went to do hi laundry, at which time the lady at the laundromat talks him out of doing it, and charges him less money than me for doing a heavier load of laundry. 2 hours after tha he goes to pick up his clean, folded clothes. I went back at 11:00am this morning. They were currently doing my laundry. at leat 45 minutes. I have ameeting at 12:30 - I run home thnking I;d shower while I waited to have clithes for my meeting. But they have my towels. So I'm writing this.

Things like this happen to me all he time. When I owned a truck - I stopped even trying to find a good mechanic. Mechanics that were amazing for everyone else would forget to put oil in the engine - during an oil change. I've found twisty-ties in my dinner at restaurants, Once, I sent my dinner back and got someone else's plate of the same dish - I knew cause I had eaten all my potatoes.

I have friends who pull the old - 'But I'll switch to another bank/service provider/credit card company' - When I try it, they recommend good places they've heard of I might try.

*sigh* I guess I'll go pick up my laundry now.

So, I took the day off today. My normal routine sees me up anywhere between 6 & 10 depending on how late I worked the night before. Check e-mail while coffee is brewing and right into the work mode. Today was different.
Slept till 10ish. Coffee while playing with the cat. Shower and a leisurely walk to the L stop of the train. Then off to The Metropolitan museum of art. Sketchpad in hand I tackled several exhibits. I left my cell phone at home - unintentionally but on future days like this I think I'll make that 'intentionally' as the messages I got when I got home would have just annoyed me at the museum. I got three sketches in, only one I really like, and I'll post them soon after this.
I fell off my 'hour a day' routine for creative work very quickly. That method wasn't very realistic in retrospect as I rarely have a spare hour in my days.
So here is the 'day-off' strategy. Sundays. If I can possibly manage it Sunday will be my new day off. I've found that with computer work, 10 straight is about my limit. When I was in theater I'd work 6 months without a day off, but that was different. Different things daily, different venues, and largely physical work - which, in my situation, was easier than what I do now.
The idea behind this is to keep me more productive on work days, and set aside the time I've always said I would for things like - going to the met.
Today was good. I'm much more focused than I was this morning. I'm three sketches ahead of where I was this morning. I picked up some nuances of why I should probably start sculpting wood before I launch into stone. I piked up a few ways I might try doing that.
I also thought out a lot. Sketching has always been somewhat meditative for me. When I do it right I let my eyes and my hands do the work and I think things through. Got through a lot of my impatience I've been feeling and not expressing in a certain situation I'm working through. It's just plain gonna take its time, and I'm OK with that. Rushing decisions rarely gets them made correctly, so its much better just to sit back, wait, and draw.
Talk to ya'll soon.

First off - Milo is OK. 5am yesterday morning the good neighbors called and woke me to come colled the little beast. He was hissing and scratching at them and very scared, but otherwise unharmed. I'll plug the hole he went through here soon and that will be that.
That left me all of three or so uninterrupted hours of sleep the night before Frank and Laura's wedding. Yay!
I ran all over creation assembling the 'costume' part. Someday I'll find that invitation to get the exact wording, but both Julie and I perused it and it was something to the effect of 'Come dressed in something you wouldn't wear everyday, Surprise your friends, change your haircolor'. Julie at first thought it was a joke so I verified with Frank and Laura that a modest 'costume' would be okay. They said it would be great.
Naturally we were the only cowboy and 'hussie'(her word not mine) there. Jeremy did a 'professor' get up, and everyone else came dressed in wedding clothes... And we pulled it off! Julie had made here own skirt and was wearing a corset, I had shaved to a more old-west look and had a vest and a cwboy hat, we both got lots of compliments - especialy Julie's 'dress' which was really her hand-made skirt and corset, and people said I looked 'sharp'. Go Us! We rocked.
And so did the wedding!!! It was way casual - and that was tres perfect for Frank and Laura. The vows were short and to the point. Josh officiated with Laura's best friend Alicia(sp?). Jono, Laura's brother, parents, and pretty much everyone made funny and touching speeches. It was grand.
We came home and crashed immediately (Julie was asleep in the cab).
And to day I took off as me-time and went t the met - but that will be another post - probably later tonight.

Wonderful times.

15 minutes past midnight. Milo has managed to crawl through the rafters, over the hot water heater, and into a 6" x 8" hole into the next door neighbor's hot water tank crawlspace - and cannot get out.

I've spent the last hour and fifteen minutes calling him, removing random wall panels, and trying to shine a light through the right hole for him to jump back through. He has spent the past hour and fifteen minutes crying.

There is a note on the next door neighbors door explaining the situation... There is really nothing I can do but wait for the people in 208 to get home, or break into their all too poorly locked door... but thats a felony.

I guess I'll clean the bedroom, and wait.

Stupid cat. I hope he's OK.

Up early today under the auspices of getting work done. I've even done a little work. It's freezing in this apartment - we've been leaving the window open overnight and I guess this is the first time in a while I've been up before the sun.

Had a conversation with Jeremy last night regarding being 27 and how its different then when we were 23. The things we want now that we didn't want then and the things we do now we would have hated then. I know, all the people older than us out there are laughing into their coffee, and younger than us are saying 'never me'.

To me the interesting part about it all is that in the interim years my goals haven't changed at all. I still aspire to art, creativity, world-travel, good food, good entertainment, good times.... Its just in that I've found a different (better?) path to get there.

I should in turn say that Jeremy has in the past year gone from being a manager of a small downtown bookstore chain, to an assistant manager at NYU, to now using the tuition remission program at NYU to begin the path to getting an MBA... from original aspirations of being a writer and/or working in publishing. His goal is still to work in publishing, just that he sees a different(again, better?) way of doing it through this path.

Josh, whom I have referenced on this site many a time before, has just started Chapter 3 with two friends of his. Another drupal shop. Catering to the organizational aspects of moements, and, well, organizations. He also recently posted on Long-Range Planning

Frank and Laura are getting married on Saturday (court-house deal already happened, ceremony on Saturday), and moving to Chapel Hill, N.C. to start a business and have children.

I digress. My point was that a age 20-23 I would have called what I'm doing this very instant 'selling out'. I don't in the least feel that way right now. I feel it is an alternate means to the same ends. Interesting that.

More work than I can keep up with. Hired my first employee. Money woes are starting to get better (Vet bills, and moving, and weddings are slowing the aceleration - but we're getting there).

Milo is much better - loves the large loft we're in for running around.

Aforementioned talks with the someone special are becoming taking their own sweet time, as they should, but anything worth having is worth working and waiting for I'm told.

The current sublet will continue through Oct. when I expect to have more than enough to move into a place of my own. Oh me. Oh my. Things are fair-to-middlin and on the rise....

The great purge continues - no drinking, at least ten minutes of meditation a day, trying to get more exercise. I feel great.

Talk at ya'll soon.

I can't really say anything has been bad in my life lately. But I can say it has been both a rollercoaster of events and emotions. Lots going on and sometimes I'm floating on top of the world and sometimes I'm walking around the block trying to get my head screwed back on straight with shaking hands.

I've moved into yet another sublet. I don't like this. I want a place of my own, and it is in the works with the increased income, but it isn't happening fast enough.

I'm about to hire someone for my company. Big step. Exciting step, but stressful. Its nice to be doing well enough to warrant this. Everyday I think that this is the type of work I should have been doing for years. It really is the first step down a long exciting path that I think will lead to the career I want.

I've stopped drinking for a spell. I know it is the social activity of my circle of friends and I hope this doesn't change a lot and I still see them a lot, but with so much going on it is very important to me to keep a clear head. Its also important to me to be more motivated about doing new and exciting things, and this articular social activity falls into the old rutt things. I'm sure I'll drink again someday, but for now its out of the picture.

There's stuff being resolved on the personal/romantic/relationship front. Here in perhaps lies the biggest roller coaster. I don't want to get into it right now, but ya'll will here the results. Someone very special to me and myself are working stuff out. Its been the source of me thinking a lot about how I want my future to go. Its also seen me angry, despondent, laughing, concerned, crying, and meditating. No matter how things turn out, its all worth it.

I'm coming to terms with my loner-isms. Its interesting being both a networker and a loner. I have a very large network of acqantences, but few true friends. For most of my life I thought I needed a social circle that understood me better, or that I needed to be more in tune with them. I'm throwing all that out the window and realizing that there is nothing wrong with liking to be alone. It's not a common trait, as I understand it. Yes, everyone needs alone time - that isn't what I'm talking about. Perhaps at some point I'll work harder to explain it. I just can't right now.

My cat has a urinary track infection. At least I think thats why he's peeing blood on most of my stuff. Vet tomorrow or monday if I need to wait. Unsettling... Something in my guardianship is not well. I don't like that.

Talk at ya'll soon.

Life's been pretty hectic of late, hence I haven't been around. Updates perhaps you all should know about.

A) I'm moving. End of this month. Somewhere, several options, not sure which yet. Better than average chance that current roomate will move out of this apartment and I will take over on a month to month lease. Month to month cause I don't particularly want to live here, but I also have no time to find a place, but if this falls through, I will be moing into YASL (Yet another sublet), which, alas, would be the next-best solution.

B) Business is booming. Really. More work than I can keep up with, rates still going up, portfolio growing. Its good because it is a truly a snowball effect. The more sites that I do, particularly the ones designed by me, the more work I have to show, the more customers I can generate, the more work I have to do.... Now if I only wanted to be a web designer that would be great. Seriously though, Finally I feel that I'm on the track I should have been on for years as far as Getting To Where I Want To Be. Someday (not soon) I'll post a write up on the steps for Getting To Where I Want To Be for general review. Nothing throws off the enemy like clearly and publicly stating your actual goals.

C) Learning. I posted a long time ago about how I felt like I was back in school with the amount of learning I was doing to be competative in this field. Well, its still going on. Everyday new things are coming to me, and the scary part is I'm getting to a point where I'm helping other people with their problems. Spooky.

That is the true and boring reality. Less boring as things pick up speed I promise.