I hit my client milestone for Q1 of rykorp (3 paid clients, 1 passion project) 1 month early. Now to just convert that into cash flow and to make them incredibly happy!
Super thanks to all my friends and colleagues who have been supportive of me through this.
Tomorrow, I get a visit from the tooth fairy. I've been holding onto one of my baby teeth as a "investment of last resort" (I graphed how much I got per baby tooth by age - at the age of 27, my baby tooth is worth approximately $27,000 - time to CASH THAT IN!).
I'm gonna be RICH!
(Apparently the adult tooth underneath it is completely perpendicular to the way its supposed to be and is digging its way to the back of my jaw.)
They'll be putting me on triazolam - apparently I need to have somebody sign me out afterwards. Let's see how much I remember after the extraction tomorrow....
So it's just a victory of Duke. Maybe we're overreacting. But it's more than that.
After a season of a LOT of downs (player defections, losses)... it's amazing to watch this team come together and gel into a single unit. These kids really love playing with each other - and it's so incredibly fun to watch.
Last night, we played like a #1 seed. It was a clinic. Sure, there were moments of inexperience kicking in (random 18-ft pull-ups)... but in all, we played like a contender.
And nothing makes me happier than to see that. I don't get very teary-eyed, but watching videos of the '05 squad and the '08 squad winning the National Championship can almost move me to tears. You just have to feel for these kids who put their hearts into one goal... and to watch them win it.
'08 was particularly an emotional year, cause the squad all put off going to the pros to come back one more year and get a shot at the title.
Is there anything more beautiful than watching the fulfillment of a dream?
I love everything about this song: the album cover, the song, the video (video linked in the image above). The Modest Mouse sample is brilliant - gives the song such an upbeat feel.
Never ever put them down, you just lift your arms higher
Raise 'em 'til your arms tired, let 'em know you here
That you struggling, survivin', that you gon' persevere
Ain't nobody leavin', nobody goin' home
Even if they turn the lights out, the show is goin' on
This weekend was one of the most productive weekends I've had in YEARS. I've had weekends where I've worked a lot, but haven't gotten a lot done. It's quite possible that I did about a full week's worth of work... and I can't wait to show you guys what it is (soon-ish).
In any case, a big part of my productive weekends has to do with my playlist. And of course, being the Top 40 teenybopper I am, I "discovered" Who Dat Girl (by Flo Rida ft. Akon). According to iTunes, I've listened to this song 267 songs since Friday.
Out of curiosity, I watched the music video and realized my life is exactly like that music video. Minus the parties and hot girls. And the poker. Actually, on second thought, the only way that video is like my life is in the way a liquid gets spilled all over a laptop (and I don't even get a hot chick that appears!). Except in my case, it was soy sauce that got all over my new Macbook Air, which has essentially bricked it.
Sigh.
Time to take it into the Apple store, where they'll tell me I can't do anything, but gosh-darn, I should get another Macbook Air! Another Apple tax to be paid...
For a long time now, I've been talking about getting a dog. I'm fortunate to live in a loft in downtown San Diego that has is very permissive with pets. There have been a few time when I've gone to those adoption events and allllmost walked away with a puppy.
The first year I resisted because I'd be at work too often. Well, after my departure from MindTouch, my friend remarked that I had all the time in the world to take care of a puppy! So true!
One of my coworkers went out of town this weekend, and left his 4-month old lab puppy with me, so I got a dry run of what it'd be like to have a puppy.
Coming out of the weekend: I know I want to get a dog for sure... but not while I live downtown. Or at least, if I was going to get a dog, I'd have to get one that was already housetrained. Dealing with a semi-housetrained puppy that was not used to downtown was difficult.
I'd take the poor thing out for these long 45 minute walks (with no pooping or peeing... argh!). Towards the end of them, the puppy would start whimpering and whining, so I'd take her home. She'd run over to the carpet, and take a dump or pee. Le sigh.
Taking care of the thing was kind of stressful - I mean, she was loads of fun (and she slept a lot)... but when she was awake, I had this constant need to check-in and make sure she wasn't destroying anything. (My rug took a beating over the weekend).
And you'd figure that with a cute puppy, I'd take advantage by going out and trying to meet cute girls... but to be honest, the attention she'd get when she went outside got kind of old... really fast. Same questions over and over again. (It also didn't help that I was in a massive state of inspiration so I was itching to get back to work whenever I took her on these frequent long walks).
So it was a great experience, and definitely reaffirmed my love for dogs... but not while I live here.
Story of the picture: I just had to post it - it cracked me up. I know dogs aren't that smart, but I'd like to think that after Lilou took that dump, she tried to "cover it up" by putting the duckie right next to it.
Last week, I had to get a baby tooth extracted. I went in for a follow-up appointment today to get the stitches removed.
Now, I've never been put under before, so this was a first time experience. I should have known something was a little off because all the women in the office were grinning at me. They seemed... extra friendly. As I struck up conversations with all of them, I discovered (from ALL of them), that I am really frickin' hilarious when I'm under the influence of drugs.
While under the influence of drugs with them, I was apparently getting a little flirtatious with all of them and did the following:
The office got a nice kick out of the whole event - one of the hygienist even said that there was a person in the waiting room (I don't remember him) who was about to go under and said I was hilarious.
It's good to know that I'm wayyy more fun in an altered state of mind. Better than the altenative, right?
Phew, a break! Just thought I'd pop in and let everybody know I'm doing well. I'm back to working insane hours and weekends... but it's all for me.
Where does the business stand? Well, I'm still dealing with setting up the administrative side of things (Quickbooks, CPA, etc.); I discovered the way I'm doing things, it might have been better off to do an S-Corp instead of a LLC. The main difference for me: a LLC is taxed on all income that comes into the company at the self-employment tax rate. In a S-Corp, I can choose a salary to pay myself, which is the tax I pay. Any additional money the company makes, I can choose to "distribute" to myself at a lower tax rate. Given that the company is making more than I want to pull in salary per year... a S-Corp makes more sense. Oh well, another thing to do.
I'm currently juggling between 4 different projects. Three are clients (one of them in a nascent stage), and one is a passion project. Oddly enough, the context switches haven't killed me yet since I focus pretty deeply on a single client for a day at a time. I just wrapped up a 5-day binge on CCM's fixed income trading tools with some massive updates (and the biggest one coming this week!). Feels awesome to wrap this up and to see my hard work on an invoice sheet in a dollar amount (hah!).
My passion project is the one that I've outsourced heavily - currently managing a team of three to work on this project. I'm setting a soft deadline for end of the month for the product to be ready. I hope to have much to write about this in the near future. It's a project that really brings a lot of experience to focused fruition.
My stress levels are pretty high right now - a combination of a LOT of cash going out this month (car insurance, tooth surgery, taxes, CPA, subcontractors) has got me a little worried... but I'm coping OK.
For now - gotta focus! I'm getting such a high off of honing my product/design skills. I know I'm a little rusty, but it's all coming back to me really fast. I'm a bubbling cauldron of creativity right now.
The hardest thing for me is to remain focused on these client projects. There are so many passion projects I want to pursue... but i have a full plate.
April should be an amazing month as some of these projects launch and I start freeing up cycles. A trip to Morocco or Korea may be in the cards (after I see how much Uncle Sam leaves me in taxes).
In memory:
And if you want to read something funny, somebody posted the full synopsis of the song on Wikipedia (which has been removed now).
1.) This commercial is insane on its own.
2.) It has a track from Justice's upcoming 'Civilization.' And I cannot stop listening to it - it's being released on 4/4 on iTunes... THAT IS TOO LONG!
A software, an electrical and a mechanical engineer drive down a hill and crash.
The mechanical engineer says , "Let me check the brakes."
The electrical engineer says, "Nah, it's probably in the wiring."
The software engineer says, "Let's push it up the hill and try it again."
Barbarossa - Stones
Stones that I carry around
Every stone a story that weighs me down
But there is gold hidden by rock and sand
I have to search a little harder now
Sharp as a marble these stones keep my feet on the ground
All this experience weighs me down
But there is gold hidden by rock and sand
I have to search a little harder now
But there is gold hidden by rock and sand
I have to search a little harder now
I wonder why rental cars don't have more leverage over car companies. It seems that having a really nice rental would be a great opportunity for car companies to potentially acquire new customers.
Case in point: I was in NC and rented a Kia Rio. The Kia Rio is essentially a go-cart made into the size of an economy car. This whole experience has made me never to want to buy a Kia... cause now I think they're cheap, trashy cars.
Same with Zipcar. While I originally considered buying Hondas in the past, after driving their fleet of cars... I totally know they're not worth it. Seems if Honda gave a financial discount to Zipcar to utilize their best-of fleet (the Accord over the Civic, mayhaps), it'd make me want to eventually buy a Honda.
For now, I'll stick with Audis.
