Independence Day

Big week.

It's a great day to hang out by the pool with friends and family and enjoy some homemade food. That's what I'll be doing today. It'll be a fantastic close to what will hopefully be a milestone week in our family's life.

As of this week I'm going independent with my career.

I've long held a small number of clients and provided technical consulting and support for organizations that can't justify a full time staff member. I'm going to expand that work, dedicate more time to writing here, and start learning how to develop software in order to bring some of the ideas I have to market. There'll be plenty more to share about going independent as I start to walk this risky tightrope and learn how to balance it. I may fall but I'm confident that I'll be able to sustain it.

I couldn't even think of taking this step without Courtney's amazing support and belief in me and all the encouragement that friends of mine have given me over the last 6 months or so as I've started to seriously consider this path. If you read this site right now, you're part of a very small handful of people and I thank you for your support. I can't wait to share more and see what's to come.

When It Pours, It's Obviously Raining

At the beginning of June I wrote about the ebb and flow of client work all coming in at once. I wrote the following thinking it wouldn't prove true:

I look forward to testing the theory in another 6 weeks.

Here we are 7 weeks and 2 days later and I can report that it happened again, but differently. This time it was my day job and my side work that found themselves intertwined into an insane set of circumstances for which I was expected to resolve and support. A client of mine had a switch and 3 computer's network cards get fried from a nearby lightning strike. At work our teachers are back in full swing getting prepared for the year and there is still so much to be done including preparation of this historic beast of a building before school starts next Thursday.

Funny how things work. Another 6 weeks perhaps?

When It Rains, It Pours

Ever since I started “making technology work” I’ve held a side business of my own. I started performing in-home technology support when I was 17 and my side work has an ebb and flow to it. It’s ranged from single handedly supporting a school on my two days off while I worked at Apple to just being on-call and supporting a handful of clients when something broke. The side work always seems to come and go at just the right time for me to be able to provide the level of support that I expect if I’m charging for it. For the last two years the latter has been the extent of my side business due to the needs of my day job.

Over the last few years I seem to have unknowingly put all of my clients onto the same schedule. It seems that about every six weeks I have a doozy of a week as something needs attention for multiple clients (usually) within 48 hours of each other. It’s a strange thing to get one phone call or email and know it’s foreshadowing of what’s to come during the next few days but somehow it makes me feel that I’ve accomplished something. I had a week like that this past week which is part of why the site hasn’t seen any new posts. I look forward to testing the theory in another 6 weeks.