Thursday, April 16, 2009

anyway, that's what's on my mind. I know things will be fine
analytically, but there's still a question emotionally whether they'll
continue to be. I guess that's the dilemma of a freelancer. It's
everyone's dilemma, really, full time jobs aren't necessarily a 'sure
thing' either, but your much closer to the razors edge when you're
trying to get your own shop off the ground.

gonna go try and sleep again. I hope it comes more easily this time.

--
not getting enough of my blather?
check out http://flabbyironman.blogspot.com
or my portfolio at http://behmcreative.com

can't sleep

figured i'd post instead. Just finished paying my taxes for the year.
I know it's something that needs to be done, and i believe in the fact
that you need to pay them honorably and on time, but i'm just really
stressed out tonight because paying them drained our tax fund and our
emergency fund and now i'm feeling like i'm in a precarious position.

thankfully, i have money that should be coming in soon from clients
and ang has a job now. That means that at least short term we'll be
fine (after what might be a tenuous couple of weeks).

Now none of this would be a big deal if we weren't getting ready to
spend money driving to a wedding 1000 miles away. Can't not go... I'm
in the wedding, but i'm a little nervous about unexpected
expenditures.

anyway, i'm thankful for the work that's come in, but i need to buckle
down on our spending again and double down on digging for projects. I
also feel like i need to wait on God, but i'm hving a harder tim with
that one. Running out ofthe room my phone lets me use.

--
not getting enough of my blather?
check out http://flabbyironman.blogspot.com
or my portfolio at http://behmcreative.com

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Day 4

I did some digging yesterday and got up and running with a SkypeIn
number. Surprisingly the quality is pretty good and you can't beat the
price. I really wanted a way to keep my Colorado Springs number for
the people I do business with there and also have a number in Austin.
I think I've got that part figured out.

We got another batch of boxes unpacked yesterday night and Angela made
her marinara and puttanesca for my leave-behinds. Now I need to put
together some labels and business cards today so that I'm all set for
my first meeting tomorrow. I'm hoping it will be a productive day
today and a productive meeting tomorrow. Angela has a group interview
tonight, I'm hoping that that goes well and that her massage therapy
experience will make her a more valuable potential employee than some
of the other people interviewing. My hope and prayer is that she can
find something fulfilling that she can develop into a career.

I've also got to get to work today on a freelance project that came in
from my former manager at First Presbyterian. He needs a microsite
developed by the 20th. Getting a couple of mockups together is
probably the bigger goal today but all of the goals are important in
different ways. Hard to figure out which one to do first.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

and on the third day..

.we continued to unpack. Life here in Austin has been pretty good so
far, but it's not hard for things to be good when you're not really up
to anything except getting settled. I've continue to send out letters
of inquiry and I've gotten some positive response. Friday I have a
meeting with a firm that I've been talking to off and on. I hope that
will translate into something. Sunday I have a meeting with a creative
team that I'm hoping to be able to do some more freelancing with.

I did land a small website project today. I'll post links to that as
soon as I can. I stumbled on the bike pump today as I was unpacking
boxes. I need to go down and fill up the various bike tires. Whether I
like it or not, we have one car and that's going to mean that Brian
gets to spend at least part of his transportation time cycling. That's
a good thing but my sorry legs will have to get back into shape.

The other thing we accomplished today was some grocery shopping.
Something we needed to do both for a marketing project and for
sustenance. I'm hoping to have little "reverse house warming" gifts to
give to the agencies as I go around and do my meet and greets. Ang has
turned into a pretty killer saucier and bottling that up and telling
people that "as good as the sauce is, the design is better!" will
hopefully bring some work in. I'll design some custom labels for the
jars that'll match up with the corporate identity stuff I've been
working on and we'll put together a cool little package.

Speaking of which, I need to get biz cards made. I haven't called to
have my number switched. I'm thinking of getting a local skype phone
and keeping my 719 number for a while. I'm not sure what makes more
sense. Anyone have any opinions?

More tomorrow, but I wanted to try and post today so that I can get
back in the habit of posting more often.

B

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I'm Back

Who knows why I end up having these long hiatuses. They're never particularly intentional. I end up getting busy and the next thing I know it's been two months since I've posted a blog. Truthfully though, the last time I stopped blogging I HAD gotten busy and ended up neglecting a promise. I kind of ended up hiding. Now, a year later (has it been a year? no, it's only been nine months) I'm back. And, person I made the promise to, if you're still out there and you stumble on this, contact me. I'll pay you for what you ended up having someone else do. I'm sorry I reneged on a deal.

So, where are we? In the past nine months we moved to the south side of town so that we could save gas and be closer to our jobs, then, later in the year I ended up quitting my job so that I could better service a client up on the north side of town where we USED to live that I've been working for over the last few years. Now, that job is ending and we're getting ready to move. Only this time, instead of moving back across town, we're making a BIG move... to Texas.

It's a big change. At the moment, I don't have much work lined up. We've got money in the bank. We've paid off our debt. And, if it works out, I'm going to be working really hard to build my business. I had said that at one point I never wanted to be in a situation where I was doing the 'freelancing' thing. Never say that you'll never do something.

Tomorrow will mark 8 days until the move. It hasn't completely hit that I won't be looking out at Pikes Peak at least once a day. It hasn't completely hit that I won't have access to the few friends that we have here.

I have been doing some introspection though over the past few days. I saw some photos the other day that really upset me and, at least at first, I couldn't pinpoint why. They were completely innocuous photos; people that we sort of know having fun. So why the anger? At first I really didn't know. But then, as I was thinking about it, I started to ponder why we had kind of been actively rejected by this group of people. There wasn't a great reason. They had just already paired off and we didn't measure up. A couple that arrived a little later on WAS accepted while we were still around and it was really hard to watch that happen. It wasn't the first time it happened while we were here. There were other instances where for various reasons we just didn't fit into the sociological norms of that set of people and we were rejected. That, to a degree, happens everywhere. I think that it might happen more when you move to a new area. When you're where you grew up there isn't enough opportunity for that to happen. But, when you move to a new area and you don't have a 'sponsor' that will bring you into a community it's kind of a crap shoot whether you'll be accepted. I think we rolled 'snake eyes' a few too many times while we were here.

So why will that be any different in Austin? I don't know for a fact that it will but I do know that we do have 'sponsors' in Austin that can bring us into a community. I guess we'll see what happens. We lived here pretty successfully the past five years. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we start over again. I want to write more on this but I've got a few other things that I still need to finish tonight. More later.