Something I've never contemplated...

Apparently the pictures I took on our trip in mid-July have sparked some interest from photography buffs. The comments left on my wife's blog where she posted a handful of the shots have generated quite a bit of buzz, and when I posted the entire set on Facebook, I received even more oohs and aahs over the pictures.

Photography. It's something I've never even considered in my life. But I have to admit, I was shocked when I saw the pictures when we got home, astounded by their beauty, and I have been further shocked by the few comments we've received in regards to the pictures, as well as the fact that it seems to have sparked interest in at least a few members of the professional photography community.

I may actually start looking into doing this on a semi-professional level. Why?

Bulgaria, and this area of Europe in particular, is a hidden gem when it comes to natural wonders of the world, as well as ancient structures from the Byzantine and Roman empires. My wife and I are in a financially free situation that allows us to travel several times a year, and we have been making a point to visit some of the most geographically beautiful locations within Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, and otherwise.

One of the people who followed us recently, in particular, has something mentioned on his blog that I had never in my life thought about before. His name is Stephen Baird and his comment was this: "I really believe that anyone can be a great photographer with ANY kind of camera."

I had never even contemplated it, but after seeing how good our recent shots came out, and feeling inspired by such comments as his, as well as knowing that we are going to be setting out to see some of the most amazing natural wonders of the world in coming months (like our trip to Seven Rila Lakes this weekend...leaving at around 5 this afternoon), I'm wondering if perhaps I might want to look into investing in a more professional camera and seeing about doing some freelance photography along with my freelance journalism and freelance writing.

In any case, just so the camera buffs who are following us can boggle (or not!), those shots were taken on an Olympus X-820, which my wife and I bought a few months back. Nothing fancy, just a nice, new digital camera for us to use in our casual sessions shooting pics of her crafting goods, around Sofia, on our walks, and otherwise. But even I, an unprofessional by any use of the word when it comes to photography, was shocked at how well those recent pictures came out. I don't even know the ins and outs of working that camera fully, and those pictures were awe-inspiring.

In any case, I'd like to thank the few photographers who have made comments and are now following along, as you guys have inspired me to start looking into (potentially) a new side-line for creative output.

Seven Rila Lakes trip

We'll be out of town for the third weekend in a row...with yet another getaway up to the mountains!

First weekend was Milanova, the small village where Evy's grandmother (on her dad's side) had a home, which is now grossly overgrown as no one has done anything with it for 13 years. She has some pics up of our hiking trip on her blog, and I just uploaded the entire batch to Facebook this morning.

Last weekend was a nice picnic trip up with the family to celebrate her aunt being here from Seattle for a month.

This weekend we are going up for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to the Seven Rila Lakes. We are going with her family for a relaxing weekend getaway to one of the many beautiful spots within Bulgaria to enjoy some hiking, great food, great climate, fresh air, and plenty of hiking trails. Should be an absolute blast.

Enjoy the pictures! I'm in amazement, and can't wait to head out on Friday afternoon! We should have a new round of pictures available for people next week!

What did I do before I became a writer?

I don't talk about it much on this blog, but I figured I'd give people a chance to see some of what I did. I don't, sadly, have a portfolio anymore because I retired from the industry, but I do keep an updated resume which includes all of my previous jobs plus contact points for reference for individuals who want to know.

Basically, I was a third generation ceramic tile and natural stone contractor. I was on job-sites from the time I was 5 years old. My grandfather started out around 50 years ago, and three of his four sons went into the industry as well. My dad and his two other brothers have collectively done between them over 750 million dollars of work, nation-wide, with my dad running the more "commercial" branch of the family businesses. Both of his brothers have had extremely successful years as well, each with their own unique brand of success.

By the time I was 19 years old I was a supervisor for a multi-million dollar company owned by my father. I was overseeing multi-million dollar projects and running crews of up to 20-25 employees at a time. However, commercial work wasn't all we did. Some of the projects my dad worked on over the years included some extremely high profile projects for such individuals as Wayne Newton, Johnny Cash, and (forgetting the name) the CEO of the Denver branch of the Oppenheimer corp. I worked on many of these projects growing up.

By the time I was 22 years old I was starting to branch off on my own, but I had to take an 18 month hiatus for health reasons. When I came back to the industry in 2004 I went straight into forming my own company, which had a specific focus on high-end residential projects, with some remodels thrown in to generate some extra income from time to time when necessary. Two of the highest profile projects I worked on over the years were up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Namely, The Porches and Marabou Ranch.

I was not the contract holder on those projects (I worked specifically for John Porter of Classic Tile and Stone, who eventually partnered up with my dad's company, Artisan Tile and Stone), and I did a great many projects in between, including several high-end condos, as well as my spec home and remodel projects down on the Front Range in Denver, Ft. Collins, Greeley, and otherwise, but those two projects in particular I spent a great deal of time on. The Porches project I spent nearly three years working exclusively on, and one of the last projects I did before my wife and I moved to Europe was working through the two partnered companies listed above on the Marabou Ranch project for about 6 months on the owner cabins. I did not personally work on the other buildings listed, but Artisan Tile and Classic Tile picked up the contract after the previous company had proven unable to hold up their end of the deal. There was another installer on-site about 4 months prior to my own work on it, doing work on the other buildings.

The last home we did at The Porches featured an individual who purchased both sides of the duplex and ripped out the dividing wall between them. We spent almost 6 months in that home. Every single bit of it featured exotic natural stone from all parts of the world. The stairwell down into the basement featured coral reef slab from off the coast of Australia, with the skeletons of fish inside the stone all "swimming" down the walls along the stairway. The guest master upstairs featured this copper slate that took me nearly three weeks to install, floor, walls, and ceiling. The daughter's bathroom was a cream marble, floors, walls, and ceilings. The master bathroom itself took me and two other installers around 2 months to complete, and was this deep, green marble imported from India that went up into a vaulted ceiling above, and the entire thing was set on a diagonal pattern with 12x12 marble, with all of the interior and exterior corners having a 3 inch black marble strip.

It actually got me thinking the other day that I need to e-mail the guy I used to work for, John Porter, and have him e-mail me some of the portfolio pictures, because I know he keeps a detailed record of all the things we worked on. I did as well, but I didn't bring it with us, thinking I had retired from the industry. But I find myself debating starting a company here to do 2-3 spec home projects a year, and I might want to look into getting all my portfolios set up again. The main issue is that my portfolios were not digital...which is why I just left them behind. Not to mention, I didn't take as many pictures as I could have over the years, because I was always in a situation where I could point to my family's name, reference a list of jobs I had worked on, and didn't have to worry about pictures.

My dad actually told me that pictures do more harm than good, because anyone can claim a picture as their own. He also claimed that a "true" master craftsman doesn't need pictures to back up his work...he lets his bank account and his reputation do the talking for him. And while I somewhat agree, I've found in recent years that digital media is the world, and has been for the last decade or so, and it really does help if you can give people pictures IF you can prove that you were in fact the person working on that particular project. That's the beauty of having a detailed resume attached to your portfolio...people can clearly see the pictures linked to the jobs, and they can make relevant phone calls to verify your information.

I love writing, and I absolutely want to transition to full-time novel writing in the next couple of years, but I'm also in a unique position in the sense that Evy and I aren't locked in to only working on ONE project at a time, so we have a lot of different things we are trying out, and I'm thinking I may want to see about setting up a high-end, custom-home company next year just to do 2-3 spec homes or high-end homes for this part of Europe. There are a *lot* of Westerners coming here and buying homes, and let's just say the Bulgarian way of construction leaves a little lacking, and many people I've talked to wished they could find Western-style craftsmanship in this part of the world. It might be a niche market I could make an extra 30-40k a year out of. Have to wait and see.

Websites and ideas

I've talked about it before, and I think it's time to actually get around to doing one. A blog is nice, but it's not the same level of professionalism that a website brings to your business. Not to mention as I diversify I need a place that more clearly showcases the different aspects of what I offer clients, whereas the blog is a mixture of professional and personal posts. I need to make the distinction between the two, and to that end, I'm looking ahead to creating a website.

I'm not going to worry about it for the month of August, but I think I'll take a look in September and see about either hiring someone to build me one, or doing it myself. Nothing fancy, just a few pages to showcase a clients list, my resume, contact list, and services offered. I've firmly established myself as a content writer over the last 18 months, and I'm beginning to rack up some serious credentials as a journalist, and on top of that I'm racking up experience as a gaming journalist, not to mention I've served as a writer on a RPG which is finally releasing in August, where I get to claim 6 months of writing and editing experience. On top of that I've also been actively helping other writers get established in the field, with my list topping a dozen writers now since the first of the year. Nothing against you guys personally, but it's time for me to start charging for consultations, because that's just another aspect of business.

I've also debated two other business ideas. One is starting a freelance writing community site. The other is to start a short-story critiquing site for burgeoning writers who are looking to get started in the industry, but don't want to have to wait 2-3 months on critiques like other organizations do, such as Critters. On the record, I love Critters, and I think they do a great service to the industry, but they have gotten so large now that it takes literally 3 months (or around there) to hear any feedback on your stories, and when you add to that the 2-3 months most magazines take to get back to you on a story, you are looking at 6 months of downtime before you realistically know how your story is doing. That's unacceptable for working people who are trying to realistically get established in the field.

I've also debated about starting a fantasy and science fiction e-zine for the English speaking European market. I have to look into this with a little more detail over the coming months, and it's absolutely not something I will be doing this year, but I'm looking at actively pursuing this because there aren't a lot of high-quality fantasy and science fiction 'zines on the European front. I would also be funding this venture out of my pocket, and as with any business venture you want to research the industry as much as possible before you invest any money. Still, it's an idea that's brewing.

So....these are all business ventures which are on top of the other irons I already have on the fire. As you can see, I keep myself pretty busy outside of freelance writing and working on fiction :) In any case, the first step towards any of these is getting the website going sometime in September, at which point I'll be making this blog my "personal" blog, and using the other blog as my professional blog, in conjunction with the website itself. Part of my research for the month of August is seeing if I can find someone willing to do the work for a relatively inexpensive rate, as well as researching a few more sites to find what I feel is a good design for me, or determining if I want to do the work myself. It's not that I can't...it's just that I'd rather pay someone else to do it if they are affordable, and focus my efforts on other areas.

That's the mid-day update :) Time to get back to writing.

Slowly but surely

We *finally* had the time to get crafting supplies.

It's largely her project, with me simply providing some consulting and doing some helping when I can. Largely I'm just her go-to person when she asks "what do you think about this idea?". Everything she's coming up with is absolutely her creations, and there are some really, really cool ideas. Also, like I said in another blog post, she's going to be taking a pottery course starting in September and gearing up to do ceramics as part of her shop as well.

We stayed up till nearly 4 a.m. Friday night discussing her quitting her part-time job. There are a lot of issues behind it, and she's not entirely sure if she will or not, but she will have a final decision on it by the end of August. Basically what it comes down to is the fact that she's working at a clinic here, and they pay Bulgarian wages. Which is essentially the same as Mexican wages. She works 40 hour weeks for a baseline salary of around 300 USD a month. She gets a 30% commission on procedures, so if she gets clients, that edges up to around 500-600 USD a month. She is the lowest person on the totem pole there. The doctors, and the girls who have been working there for several years, make comparable wages to most American and European workers...40k USD a year, roughly. However, Evy is nowhere near that level of expertise, and she is forced into working for what is considered the "average" Bulgarian wage....400-500 leva a month, or 300-400 USD a month.

This is why she is so keen to do "something else" while she's finishing up school. Now, the blessing with her job is that it's so relaxed that she can literally take a week off of work...whenever she wants. One of the girls just came back from 8 months of maternity leave. In America you would have been replaced for taking maternity leave that long.

It's not that she hates her job. She actually likes it, most days. It's the pay that is the issue. I'm sitting at home working a fraction of the hours she works and I'm pulling in significantly more than that. I basically make 25-30 dollars an hour at present with all my clients combined together, and I work 4-5 hours a day, so I'm doing about 2200-2500 a month. If I bumped up to full-time (which I was supposed to do for July but I've been spending half of my time helping her with her crafting stuff, which is fine...it's still income) 40 hours a week I'd easily be clearing 4k a month, or basically 50k a year.

As you can see, her frustration lies in the fact that's she's working 40 hours a week and making less in an entire month than I make in a week, working half the hours. Enter the frustration of most Bulgarians, because they don't get paid a fair wage. It will be interesting to see what happens when the country finally switches to the Euro and companies are forced to pay on a European pay-scale, rather than on the antiquated Bulgarian pay-scale.

The downside is she really doesn't want to do what I do, but she is terrified of "not contributing". This is a huge issue for Evy. She cannot *stand* it when I'm the only person putting money in the bank account because she feels worthless. But as I discussed with her the other night, there are so many benefits to staying home and working out of the house that it would outweigh the fact she doesn't really want to write content for websites. But as I explained to her, she would only need to do a couple hours per day to make the same amount of money she's making in an entire month now, and she would have the rest of her time to spend working on her crafting business. Not to mention she wouldn't have to take the tram, deal with people, traffic, the heat, and otherwise.

In any case...it's progress. She'll know by the end of August what she wants to do. Her school starts back up in late September, and we are going to head to the seaside for a week around the first of September for a little vacation before she gets back into it. She's also looking at her Masters degree, and determining how she wants to do that. She also has the benefit of a mother who is funding *all* of her business outings. Her mom offered to pay for her pottery course, she is already paying for Evy's school, and she has already said she will give Evy a significant portion of start-up funds when she's ready to branch off with her landscaping business in a few years.

So, lots of irons in the fire. On the flip side, I've honestly been debating getting some tile tools and getting back into the industry on a two-or-three-time-a-year basis, with the emphasis on third generation, traditional craftsmanship. My clients would not be Bulgarians, but rather Westerners who are moving here, building vacation homes, and looking for skilled labor. I don't miss the business side of the industry, but I do miss the hands-on, arts-and-crafts side of designing and building something from the ground up that you can take a step back and be proud of. The issue would largely be pricing, because my rates back in the US were based upon 3 generations in the industry and 15 years of personal experience in the field. I'm not sure what that translates to here. Most spec homes that have around 1500 feet of natural stone in them go from 15 thousand USD on the low end, to around 30 thousand USD on the high end, just for labor alone. When we went up to the mountains yesterday for a picnic I happened to see a luxury home going up, and the entire face of the house was 18"x12" travertine stones, and the only thing I could think of watching the Bulgarian laborers was "those poor sods are probably only making 10-15k leva on a job that should have them making 70k USD minimum".

Just have to wait and see. They do things drastically different here in terms of construction, so I'm not sure if I would want to deal with the head-aches. But then again, if I could get into the right client base based upon my expertise in the field, it might be worth doing a couple few projects per year as long as I can pull a good 15-20k per project. A decent spec home job should run you about a month, and I could easily afford to pay a few local grunts double or triple what they currently make to give me a hand and deal with all the Bulgarian technicalities I'm not familiar with. Again...this is something that is absolutely nothing more than a little pea idea at the back of my head to simple make some extra blow money purely because I find myself with a *lot* of spare time on my hand since I'm not forced into working a 40 hour work week.

We'll see. Evy and I have sooo many ideas that it's hard to pick which ones we want to try out. At the end of the day it's just nice to know that I can make an easy 25-30k a year working part time, with our total living expenses around 6k USD...maybe 8k at most if we REALLY splurge on entertainment. We are at an interesting cross-roads right now. Debt free, and nothing but prospects on the horizon. I've honestly never been debt free, not since I was a teenager, so it's an interesting feeling. I mean, there is literally this weight lifted off my shoulders and both of us are looking ahead going "well, we can actually afford to try a lot of different things because our money isn't going towards living expenses. Let's try and make a couple of them pay off and see how it goes from there".

So yeah! It's exciting. I've already got the novel I'm working on, I've got short stories in rotation, I'm firmly established as a freelance writer and journalist, I've got a cook-book planned, Evy has her crafting shop about to launch in August, we've been talking about publishing a couple of magazines here in Bulgaria, I'm debating looking into a small-time custom ceramic tile and natural stone business here in Bulgaria for 2-3 projects a year, and who knows what else. Her mom mentioned starting a remodeling business last year with me playing supervisor to projects, but I'm still bound by the language barrier. I really need to hire a tutor this year, because I'm never going to actually go take classes, and when all my clients are English, all our friends speak English, and everywhere we go in Sofia people understand English...yeah, I'm not really learning Bulgarian at all.


That turned out loner than I expected :) Needless to say, I'm entirely grateful, I'm eternally blessed, and I'm absolutely hopeful. We are in a really unique situation right now in the sense that we are both young, we have our health, we have a multi-million dollar family business backing us up if we need it, and we are able to try out multiple projects simply to find out what we really want to do for the next 30 years or so. I love writing, and it's something I always wanted to do, so the last year and a half have been an absolute blast establishing myself in the field. I'm pretty much where I wanted to be (with the exception of having a novel published, but that'll happen eventually), and she's still spreading her wings and figuring it out. I can honestly say that I'm really, really looking forward to the rest of this year and next year.

Latest MMO Life Article up

My latest MMO Life Network article is up. It is a continuation of the "gaming with your significant other" series. Enjoy.

Slacker!

Sort of. But not really.

I generally try to avoid working weekends, and I also don't work more than about 5 hours a day on the weekdays. I'm lucky in that I have a series of clients who don't really give me deadlines, other than on a month-to-month basis, so my schedule can be as flexible or as tight as it needs to be, depending on the circumstance. While this is a boon in one sense, it's a bane on the other hand because sometimes the knowledge that you can slack off leads to extending your personal deadlines a bit further than you would if someone was breathing down your neck about submission dates.

On the flip side...I don't miss the days of being a slave to the clock back in the States. I highly enjoy the European way of doing things...or rather, the Mediterranean way of doing things. Work a few hours in the morning, take the afternoon off, and maybe put in a couple more hours in the evening, spending the rest of the time enjoying life.

I skipped writing yesterday, not necessarily to slack, however. Evy was asked (and paid) by her mom to come paint her bedroom at the other downtown apartment. What she initially thought was a simple two day project looked like it was going to take her 4 days on her own, because it was significantly more challenging than she first anticipated. So I took a couple hours off on Wednesday to help her out, and then decided to spend the entire day yesterday helping her finish off the room. It took us about 7 hours, but we got the project finished.

So while I didn't get any writing done, we made some money anyway, which means it wasn't "wasted" time. And it's actually another branch project because her mother has been suggesting that Evy perhaps do painting part-time for friends of the family and such, basically doing projects every couple of months when they come up for some extra money from time to time.

Evy is about to take a pottery class starting in September. It's a professional class that takes 3 months to complete, and it's several hundred dollars. It's worth it, though, because it's another aspect of what she's going to be doing for her hand-crafted shop, which is making custom ceramics, ranging from kitchen items to decorative pieces, and with a professional course behind her she's not just some person who picked up a piece of clay and says "look what I made!". I'm tempted to take the course as well...I guess we'll have to wait and see where we are at by September and if I really want to take that extra creative load on my shoulders when I already have so many other irons in the fire.

I like diversity. I don't like being locked into just one source of money. Especially in today's climate, where you never know if the business which made you money prior is suddenly going to drop the bottom out from underneath you, leaving you without a job and no income. Right now we have three different sources of income, and we are about to start two additional. Also, if we follow through with these two magazines we've been talking about publishing, then there will be that additional income stream as well.

And at the end of the day, if something goes tragically wrong, there's always her family's business to fall back on. They've opened three new stores this year alone and I'm pretty sure by the end of this year they will be worth more than 20 million Euro as a business, which is saying a lot. Evy doesn't want to work for the company, and I don't blame her (her mother *never* has a spare moment to enjoy the money she works so hard for), there's always that last-ditch if the carpet gets yanked out from underneath us.

In any case...while I slacked on the writing, I don't feel that bad about it, because we were off making money in another area. I've also spent some time doing additional drafting to the outline for my novel, and refining ideas for the middle section, which I will start work on again in September. We are also planning a 5-6 day holiday to the Black Sea in September, for a much-needed seaside getaway. It's nice to be able to take half a dozen vacations of the year. LIP lifestyle ftw!

More scary stuff

Another article I read last week but saved until I had time to write about.

China is the last great communist nation still clinging to the old socialist ways. Well, other than Cuba, I guess. And nothing against the Chinese (every one of them I've met has been an absolutely friendly and upstanding individual) in general, it's kind of scary what this article talks about.

It's kind of frightening to think that this sleeper country, who for centuries has been laying dormant in the background, suddenly emerges as this burgeoning global power with more money in their bank than the US Government owes in debt. I was kind of shocked to find out that the US actually owes 25% of their overall debt to the Chinese government.

But what was most disturbing about this article is China's snatch-and-grab approach towards resources in the past few years, and how the only option left to the Western countries is to try and block them from making purchases via political measures as a last-chance, last-ditch act of desperation to keep the balance of power from shifting from Western society to Eastern.

Are we all going to be speaking Chinese in the next half a century? I wonder if I should start prepping now.

An interesting read. My wife and I are actually planning on taking a 3-4 week backpacking trek to China next September. I'll say this...I love the country, love the people, love the landscape...but communism scares me. It's a great principle, but human nature keeps it from really working, and if you look at the VAST majority of people who have lived under communist rule...they live in absolute poverty, while only those associated with the Party actually are allowed to advance and reap the benefits. It's just not a fair system.

On the other hand, as we've seen with America and Britain, an unchecked Capitalist society can swing too far in the opposite direction, leading to companies and fiascoes like AIG.

In any case...enjoy.

Abuse of power.

Credit. A controversial subject.

Back in 2002 on the night before my 22nd birthday I had congestive lung failure. Long story short, I smoked 3 packs a day, smoked a lot of grass, and on top of it all, I worked in an environment where I was sucking down concrete dust all day, every day, and I never wore a respirator or a mask or anything.

It was fairly serious. I couldn't work for 18 months after that, as my lungs were healing up, and I was going through some serious recovery issues in terms of health. I ended up having hospital and doctor bills over 20 thousand dollars. At the time I had 16 thousand dollars saved up in my savings account, and every penny went to pay for bills, as my employer didn't cover me with health insurance and I had never bothered getting it, believing at the time that I was invincible.

As a result I ended up getting my vehicle repossessed after I was unable to pay the payments on it, and I ended up with a few thousand more that I couldn't pay to the hospital system. Enter bad credit.

My health improved, I went back to work (wearing a respirator around dust this time!) and I had quit smoking. I bought a new vehicle, and when I went to get insurance on it, I was shocked to find out that my credit could affect more than just my ability to get a loan. When the lady initially quoted me 80 dollars a month on full coverage insurance, she called me back 15 minutes later and said that because my credit was bad, my rates were going to be 300 dollars a month.

!?!?!

The system didn't care that I had a health reason for my credit. They lumped me in with all the people who don't pay their bills because of drug addiction, lazy attitudes, or because they are welfare abusers. And all of a sudden I found myself being judged because of a rating that I hadn't previously ever been affected by, because I had always been a pay-your-bills-on-time kind of guy. I still am. Always have been. The only time I didn't was when I had a health crisis that kept me from working.

The worst was when I first went back to work. I had a six thousand dollar check in hand from my first job after coming back into the industry and I was in a new city and needed a new bank account, since my old account was 4 hours down the mountain. I went into the first bank I found. Imagine my surprise when they told me I couldn't open up a checking account. When I asked why, they said that my credit was bad.

The next 4 banks I went to did the same thing. Sorry. Doesn't matter that you have a 6 thousand dollar check in your hand. We can't give you a checking account, because you are a BAD PERSON! FINANCIALLY IRRESPONSIBLE! We don't care that you had a health reason for your unpaid bills. YOU ARE NAUGHTY!

Finally Wells Fargo let me start an account. I've been with them since 2004. And it's been a long climb out of that hell-hole that is bad credit. It took me 5 years, but as of right now I'm over 700 on the credit rating, which is pretty good compared to the really bad number I had a few years back.

My issue with the credit system is that it's abused. It should only be used to determine whether or not you are a financial risk when it comes to loaning you money. Instead, companies use it as a way to judge your character. This is wrong! People have all sorts of reasons for why their credit is "bad", and not all of them are just because people are "bad" people. Especially in today's climate where people are losing their jobs left and right, their wages are getting cut, and people are having to make decisions like whether or not to buy groceries for the kids, put a tank of gas in the car to get to work, or pay the electric bill to keep the heat on.

I stumbled across this article the other day and it made me sick to my stomach.

Employers using your credit rating to determine whether or not you are a responsible person? The one that really made me sort of puke in my mouth was the example about the college kid explaining why his credit rating was poor. His response to the interviewer was "I'm sorry I was a bad person and extended myself too far. Please forgive me for being a bad person. It was wrong of me to do such a thing".

Are you joking? We've got people like Madoff doing pyramid schemes for billions of dollars, AIG execs living abroad and making millions on bad management schemes, and a college kid has to worry about whether or not he forgot to pay his beer tab? And the one about opening up a line of credit at Vickys and having your bra and panty tab be considered as to whether or not you are socially responsible is just...laughable.

Does anyone else out there think that the credit system is out of whack? I totally support it for what its intended purpose was for...seeing how much your debt to income ratio is and figuring out if you are a delinquent payer or not on a frequent basis...but isn't it going too far when employers, insurance companies, banks, and others can look at that number and attempt to put a LABEL on you?

Score below 700? BAD PERSON! NO JOB FOR YOU! HIGHER INSURANCE RATES FOR YOU! Score above 700? Welcome welcome, would you like a towel? How about a beer? Some chocolate? Enjoy our low, premium rates, higher income bracket, and lower taxes because you are a fiscally responsible person! Score below 400? GO TO JAIL, YOU CRIMINAL!

I'm appalled. Happier and happier every day that I don't live in the States anymore.

LAWL @ Credit Card Companies

The saga of my Chase credit card payoff continues.

Here we are, a few days after I paid off the account in full. The day I called up to cancel my account, the CS rep was a hag. She wouldn't let me close out my account, even though it had been paid off in full. The reason? She said the company had already closed down my account and had sent me a letter.

How did they send me a letter, I asked, when I am 100% paperless and have been for years. Where was my e-mail? Why was my card closed down without me being given any warning? (not that I care, because I was going to cancel out the card anyway; it was the principle of WHY they closed it without my knowledge) Several scripted moments later I asked her to transfer me to her manager, which she refused to do. I hung up. I called back. I got another CS rep who also refused to transfer me to her manager to answer why they had closed out my account for me, BEFORE I called in to cancel the card. She also mentioned the letter, AFTER I explained to her TWICE that I live overseas and said letter would never arrive. She just kept reading off that little script.

Whatever.

Today I log into the account to make sure it's been closed out. Imagine my surprise when I find a fifty dollar balance that I supposedly owe. WTF? I call, and this time I actually get to talk to a guy who will answer my questions. The card was shut down by them simply because I hadn't used the card in over a year, and their policy is that cards which are inactive are shut down. Sweet, ok. I was all panicked that there was a credit issue or some identity theft or something. So what's up with the 50 dollars?

Apparently there is a Chase finance charge that they charge ALL CLOSED ACCOUNTS on the final balance of the account on the day it was closed. How bogus is that? They wait until I pay off the card in full (2600 dollars) and then they nail me with a 50 dollar finance charge which, btw, is non-negotiable.

I fuggin' hate credit card companies. Especially Chase. Apparently now I owe another 50 bucks, which just rubs me the wrong way. What's to stop them from charging me another 50 dollar fee after I pay off this fee? Where does it end?

I'm glad we are debt free now. Our last few credit cards are getting cut up and shut down over the rest of the year once we get a little more money bunked up in our savings, because I don't want to have to deal with this crap ever again. I'm all sorts of stressed out right now :)

Mountain trip pictures.

Remember those ones I said we'd have up on Facebook?

Evy just posted a handful of them on her blog. Go over and take a look at our trip from Saturday.

Suicide Doctors: Your Thoughts

I know it's been about a week or so since I read this article, but I'm a bit behind the times on my blogging lately as I'm simply too swamped with work.

The basic gist of the article is this: here is an old couple who have lived their lives. They are in their late years, and both have degenerative conditions. Rather than spend the last few years of their lives in agonizing misery, wasting away while their families watch on in despair, not to mention each other, they decided to go to a clinic and have some doctors put them to sleep.

The moral issue is something I'm undecided on. I can totally agree with them in their situation, but where do you draw the line at who should or shouldn't be allowed to have a doctor help them bring their life to an end? Who gets to be the judge of when a person should or shouldn't have the right to determine their own way off this rock? I can understand if the person is in good health but simply has a death wish for whatever emo reason, but what about the truly suffering people, like this elderly couple, who have already lived their lives to the fullest extent and rather than wither away in agony they decide to make a peaceful end, together.

Still not quite sure how I feel about this. It's definitely a morally questionable issue, but one on which I can see both sides of the fence.

Day trip

We will have pictures up on our Facebook pages later on today. Still too early to worry about it :)

Took a nice hike up the mountains yesterday. We left about 6:30 in the morning and took the train out to the base of the area we were going to, a little village called Milanovo. There are a few different ways to get up to the town, but we took the road, hiking up the switchbacks. Took us about 2 hours of vigorous hiking to get up...it's about 6 miles, all up-hill. Then we had a couple hours around the town, visiting her grandmother's house. Sadly, the grounds have been let go to waste in the last 15 years, as the people who inherited it (her aunt...her dad's sister) have no desire to do anything with it. Which is sad, because it's an awesome house out in this awesome village in the mountains, but the yard and trees are literally so overgrown that you can't see the house from the road, which is barely 20 feet out. It's literally so thick with vegetation you can't see anything.

Then we took the hiker's trail back down from the village. This was where I started cursing the fact I wore sandals, rather than hiking boots, but we were sort of exploring along the way, so we know what to expect for future trips.

All I can say is...wow. We are absolutely going back. There were tons of people our age camping along the trail, and there are a couple of points where if you are easily sickened with vertigo (like I am) then it's a bit stomach-wrenching, especially the top point. VERY high up!

Neither one of us can move today :) Thighs are absolutely in agony, but it was sooo worth it. Going to go back in a weekend or two for another hike, but this time we will take the trail up and have a picnic, and then come back down. Yesterday we did around 12 miles which was a bit too much for people who haven't hiked in years. It's one thing to do 12 kilometers on the elliptical, quite another to do 20 on a hiking trail.

In any case, stay tuned to the Facebook pages, where Evy'll have pictures up later on today (Sunday)

yargh!

On one of the hottest days yet this summer our living room AC decided to kaput again.

It did this last year. We just had the technician out (as I stated in an earlier blog post) a couple months back to figure out what was the issue. He filled it with freon, assured us that he couldn't find a leak, and charged us 80 bucks and said that if it ran out again they would replace the freon for free and look into it further.

Here we are, 2 months later, and the damn thing just ran out of freon again. As I've mentioned in earlier posts...I am a REALLY GRUMPY PERSON when I have to swelter in my house. It is the one non-green feature of my life. I refuse to live in a hot home. I absolutely want a maintained temperature of around 68-70 degrees F, or 20-22 degrees C. The worst part about it is the sun is moving around to the western side of the building as I type this, with the hottest part of the day about to hit (3 to 7 p.m.) as the sun beats down on the side of the building that our bedroom and office are situated on. I am *not* looking forward to spending a sweltering night in bed. I literally can't sleep when I'm hot and cranky.

Now we get to see how quickly they can get out here and fix the issue which they SHOULD HAVE FIXED the last time they were here.

Not looking forward to having no AC. Worst part about it is that it's Thursday afternoon already, and I guarantee you they won't be able to get a guy in here until next week, which means we are likely looking forward to an incredibly hot and incredibly uncomfortable weekend. Thankfully the AC in the kitchen is still working (and has ran continually for 5 years now without running out of freon, so I KNOW there is a leak in the living room one...I just don't know why the technicians can't ever seem to find it despite the fact they've had to come here THREE times now over the course of 18 months to "fix" the issue.), so if I get really hot and cranky I can go hide out in the kitchen for a little while. Sadly, I don't have a laptop, and I'm not moving my whole office rig to the kitchen just to work.

*hides in a corner and whimpers while he melts*

One down...one to go.

Once upon a time there was a credit card. The credit card had a nice home. His family gave him a nice room to sleep in, they fed him on time every time he was hungry, and they treated him with absolute care.

One day, the little credit card decided that he didn't like the family anymore. He didn't care that they had fed him, clothed him, and taken care of him his whole life. He felt that they owed him even more, so one night while everyone slept he snuck out of his room and ran away and joined a cult. The cult convinced him that he needed to sue his family because it was the American way.

I've been very careful in my life to not rack up a lot of credit card debt. We always simply used it for groceries and a few other things, but since we moved, we have only used them twice: to buy new computers.

We had 6 cards, three of which we never used. I cancelled those earlier this year, and kept the three larger cards. One of them has a zero balance, and my Capital One card has about 1900 on it, and our WaMu card had about 2300.

Enter the WaMu buyout by Chase.

My monthly payment due date changed. I was given no warning. No notice. I am 100% paperless, and have been for years. I never received an e-mail telling me that my due date for payments had changed. It had been the 19th of the month for years, and suddenly the new company moved it up to the 14th of the month. Not only that, but they raised my monthly payment by 100 dollars. Imagine my surprise when I log into my account one day and see that I have a juicy little 300 dollar payment that is expected of me (this was a couple of months back).

I call. I complain. I get the run-around. I dig deeper. Not only did they change my monthly payment requirement, they changed the due date. And, as I found out the next month...they raised my interest rate from 8.5% to ....30%.

No, that's not a typo. 30%. Chase Bank moved in, took over WaMu, and not only did they raise my monthly minimum, but they changed my due date without warning, nailed me with a 100 dollar late fee for being late on a payment I didn't know was going to be late in the first place, and then they proceed to raise my interest rate from 8.5% to 30%, meaning they effectively started charging me 80 dollars a month in interest.

It became priority number 1 to get rid of that card. We paid it off today. I am cutting the card into little shreds and literally telling Chase to go **** themselves tomorrow afternoon when I call customer service. I feel sorry for the poor customer service person who is going to have to sit through me raining down hell through the telephone at him, but I'm going to vent. I am going to positively freak out over the phone and get all this stress out of my system at how retarded it is that companies can get away with crap like that.

Meanwhile my Capital One card, which still has about 1900 dollars on it, has been a nice, steady 9% interest for 4 years. I have a nice, low, 30 dollar a month minimum payment, and I continue making 50 dollar payments just like I always have while we save up the cash to pay that one off (which will be paid off next month).

I'll keep my Juniper and my Capital One cards, just for emergencies. But that Chase card is going to be shredded, burned, shat upon, and desecrated in every way I can imagine. 30% interest my ass.

On the plus side, Evy and I will be 100% debt-free next month. No debt. Period. No rent, no mortgage, no car payments, no credit card bills, nothing. Our only bills are the living expenses and fluff. Good times, good feelings, and I'm stoked to finally have this monkey off my back.

Now back to your PG rated reading. Enjoy your stay!

Something I wonder...

Last week I had a couple new rejections on a couple of stories I have circulating, looking for a home. In both cases the editors had the same positive note: we loved the story. One editor went so far as to include line edits along with his note, and said that the story pulled him in from the very first moment and kept his attention all the way until the end, which he felt was a little too "weird" for their publication. Fair enough. Not a weak ending, just a "different" ending that he wasn't comfortable with.

The second editor gave me similar praise and editing tips, and also mentioned that he loved the fleshing out of the world around the character, the action of the story, and the pace, but he felt as though the ending was too contrived because the main character really didn't have any serious challenges to overcome. I can absolutely agree with him, because I even said to Evy that I didn't think the ending on this particular story was very good, but I was going to send it along anyway and see if I couldn't get some positive or negative feedback from an editor on it.

So, with that being said, I'm wondering. With the first case, the editor felt that the overall story was great, but the ending wasn't what their publication wanted, as it was too "weird". He didn't suggest "bad", just "weird". I've had three rejections on that particular story and his was the first that gave me specific feedback. Personally I feel comfortable that the story will sell somewhere, just that the ending won't work for some publications.

The second story, on the other hand, definitely needs a revision. Which I plan on getting to sometime this month. The question I have is...after I re-work the ending, is it worth sending back in to the same publication with an editor who loved the story, but simply disliked the ending?

I'm going to e-mail the editor back this morning and ask. I have to admit, this is one of the few times I've come across a situation where I wasn't exactly sure with how to proceed. I'm still learning how the fiction process works, and I'm unfamiliar with protocol, but I'm just going to do what I normally do in the non-fiction world, which is talk with the editor and see what they say.

Just some ponderings for hump day.

Monday's musings

Not much today. In the middle of crunch-mode, as I have that personal deadline I'd love to hit by the end of the month, but we'll just have to wait and see how much of a reality that is when we get closer to it. My initial estimates was that my larger project would run into the first week of August, and more than likely that's going to be the case. I wanted to do more per-day, but it's just not proving realistic with the 4 different clients I have going at present. There's only so many hours in the day, and I'm unwilling to work more than 8 hours a day at most. That's what happens when you get Europeanized :) You turn into a slacker who only wants to work 4-5 hour days!

Having fun, regardless. Doing some short-story revisions this week in my spare time, and Evy and I are going over the final details of her crafting stuff. We decided to delay her launch of the Etsy store, because the people who were supposed to get in touch with us about those china sets never got around to calling us, so....that got put on hold.

Other than that...not much for this Monday. I finished another article for the MMO Life Network over the weekend and submitted it this morning, so I'll wait to hear back on revisions (if any) for that one while I move ahead with my other projects.

Latest article up.

Looks like my first article for the MMO Life Network went live yesterday. There will be a lot more of those coming up in the future months as I expand on the social aspects of MMORPGs, as well as work on features that the company asks me to write. It's looking to be a very fun experience. Enjoy!

A hard decision

Today, I came to a crossroads. It was the first time in my freelance career that I have determined that a particular client, who has been incredibly fun to work for, is no longer a viable option for me to continue working with. While the exposure has been great, as I progress in my career I simply cannot afford to work for clients who pay a wage which is below what I consider to be my minimum standards.

It was a difficult decision. I have literally spent the last week determining whether or not it was worth it to continue writing for this particular client, because I do enjoy the work, and they have been very good to me over the past few months. However, it comes down to simple numbers, and as a businessman first and foremost, I simply cannot continue at the present rate of compensation.

This morning was spent drafting a letter of thanks to the editor of the publication, as well as a request for a higher rate of pay. If the publication is unable or unwilling to compensate me accordingly, I simply let them know that I would respectfully be moving on, and that I hold their publication in the highest regards.

It's difficult making such decisions. You obviously want to keep your professional relationships at the highest standards possible. Burning bridges is not something you want to go around doing with regularity. And if you do your job correctly ( which any writer worth his salt will), then your request/resignation will read well enough that the client understands that it's nothing personal, it's just simply business. In this case, I really don't want to burn the bridge, but I simply can't continue working for exposure combined with a ridiculously low wage.

It's not simply about meeting your financial needs. It's about climbing the ladder of your chosen profession. Everyone starts out at the bottom and works their way up. Monetary compensation is simply the first step in moving up the rungs. I started out as a grunt pushing a broom when I was a teenager working for my dad's company for 8 dollars an hour. By the time I was 22 years old I was making 25 dollars an hour. By the time I was 24 I was making 35 dollars an hour, and I started my own company. By 2007 I was making 400-500 USD a day. It's just the rules of advancement. They hold true no matter what the career is. As you gain more experience, you earn more money.

So, while it was a hard decision to write a letter to an editor and put an ultimatum on the table, at the same time it's for the better. My career is advancing, and I am not simply writing for the exposure. My resume has expanded exponentially over the last year, and I am to the point now where I am no longer considered a fresh-faced newbie, and the rates adjust accordingly. It's nothing personal against past publications, it's just that the wages need to be acceptable according to national averages based upon the level of experience. It's business.

Anything new?

Almost to the end of the first week of July, and I have to say, it's been a productive week. A lot of planning going on.

Firstly, I've got to start organizing things and figuring out for next year how to deal with taxes. They get kind of convoluted when you are living overseas, and the US is anal-retentive about how you have to deal with it. Technically you can make up to 87k a year overseas without having to claim it, but you have to first "prove" that you fit all the criteria for working and living overseas. I didn't worry about last year, because we lived off our savings in 2008 and I didn't make a red cent, but this year I most certainly have been making money, and while 95% of it has been from non-US sources, I still have to worry about filing next April. So I need to call the Embassy and figure out the ins and outs of how to deal with accountants and filing from overseas. I also have to figure out about a driver's license for Bulgaria. I haven't worried about it to-date because we live in the heart of the city and use public transportation, but we are talking about buying a car next year, so I have to look ahead to that eventuality. We have no plans to go back to the US, not even to visit (at least not for the foreseeable future of 5+ years) so it's not like I can go back and get another International Driver's Permit (mine expired back in January; they are only good for a year)

Secondly, my wife's Etsy shop. I think we are launching this weekend. That was our initial plan, although that might be backed off till next weekend depending on how much crafting we get done this weekend. She is waiting on a bunch of tea cups and plate sets from a friend of the family who has had them stashed in the attic for 20+ years, and we are possibly getting our hands on those tomorrow...we'll see. Evy also informed me she is taking the first two weeks of August off work to focus 100% on crafting for 8+ hours a day, in order to get a bunch of hand-made items up for sale and see about making her crafting business a viable business, and not just a part-time hobby. If she can make enough money off of it, she'll quit her part-time job and work from home, like me, while she finishes up school. She has quite a large reader-base now, and it's not just people from the US and the UK who we are targeting. Her mother's business means that we have significant connections to the wealthy, ritzy people within Sofia, and a great many of them have expressed interest in Evy's hand-crafted goods, and her mom has been helping promote the idea, so we may get an unknown bonus set of clients from here in Bulgaria as well. Not to mention all the girls Evy deals with at work have been oohing and aaahing over all the things she has been making and then taking in to work for them to see. I think she's going to do just fine.

What else? Hmm. Paying off the last credit card. I thought that would be done a couple months back, but things got sidetracked a bit with some RL expenses. Still...the first of those is paid off next week once I get my next client's payment, and the last 2k worth of debt will be paid off at the end of August when I get paid for the work I'm doing this month. Then, it's ship our last boxes out of the States, see about closing down our US bank account (which will be interesting considering Wells Fargo won't even let you do a simple wire transfer without physically being in the office to sign the paperwork, despite the fact that a court of law considers a digital signature legal and binding), and sever the last of the ties we have back there so we can show the IRS that I have, in fact, "moved on" and am not still using the US as a base of residence while living abroad in a tax haven. My wife's family is here, the family business is here, her school is here, and she doesn't even have a green-card, nor have we applied for one (thinking about it, but haven't gotten around to it when we have no plans of heading back anytime soon), we have a bank account here, the apartment is in our name and it's here, we have our cell phones here....etc. etc. etc. It's amazing how the first thing the IRS looks at when a person files from overseas is whether or not you did so just in order to use one of the many loopholes that exist. You aren't ever allowed to have an actual, viable reason to move overseas that has nothing to do with taxes (like, oh, I don't know...a WIFE?)...everyone is immediately presumed guilty until proven innocent, which is bassackwards from the way it's supposed to be, which is innocent until proven guilty. Needless to say, while I have never been paranoid about dealing with the IRS before (I had a kick-ass accountant in Colorado), I have to admit I'm a little irritated with the amount of paperwork I'm going to have to do in order to prove that I'm not here simply to avoid paying taxes. It's really stupid. Meanwhile, people like Madoff and AIG are ripping American taxpayers off for hundreds of billions of dollars and I have to sweat simply being honest. It's ridiculous. You can't imagine the sheer number of hoops I've had to jump through in order to transition to a foreign country, and the amount of money we had to spend getting everything taken care of, but knowing that I have to deal with even *more* hassles is just...ugh. Thankfully I really don't have to "sweat" any of this until next year, but I want to start looking into it now so I can have a gameplan when the time comes and give myself plenty of time to deal with the interviews with various accountants and paperwork and etc.

My cook-book is also on my "hot" agenda. Chapter work on the novel is on hold until September. I also have no plans to do any more short stories (for those of you just checking in) for the 2009 fiscal year. I have 5 in circulation. I had a 6th that I was requested to write for another publication, but I canceled it after a significant disagreement with the owner of the publication. One of those 5 has been on hold in Australia for 2 months, and according to their reading list the main editor should be getting to it in a week or two, and their slush editor said held stories usually have a 35-40% chance of getting "in", so I'll keep my finger's crossed. I pulled another one off the rotation list because I feel it needs a little more refinement. The other ones are good to go, and I've been getting favorable responses from editors, rather than just form letters, which is a good sign. The last two editors, in fact, have gone on to give me lists of their sister publications where they think the stories might fit better, and have been including their personal reasons for not accepting the stories.

One thing I've noticed is that as my freelance and journalism resume gets thicker and thicker (I include my background in my cover letter) editors are actually physically replying to my queries and manuscripts. True, 99% of my work isn't fiction, it's journalism and content creation, but when people see you are making a living doing this, it tends to lend some credence to your work, even if you haven't won any awards yet. The simple fact you are landing clients and keeping them long-term means you are a reliable, solid writer. That doesn't necessarily mean I've mastered fiction writing, and I'm not too arrogant to know that I have a long way to go in that regards. Still, I've sold 2, had positive replies on a few more, and I'll keep refining and circulating the 5 I have finished until they find homes. The other good thing is that I'm not a starving writer so desperate for a credit that I'll put up with haughty editors and hack publications. In the meantime, I've got my plate full with writing gigs outside of the fiction world, and I'll get back to work on the novel sometime in September, after I get this cook-book finished. I still haven't decided if I'm going to go the route of e-publishing or talk with a friend about getting it published in paper format. Just have to wait and see.

That's it for this Thursday's update. I've got some work to do, so I'll yap with you guys next time around.

Latest Green Diva Mom article

Latest Green Diva Mom article up.

Enjoy.

Moving forward!

As we move into the month of July, I think we are bumping up my wife's time-table for launching her Etsy shop. We initially thought towards the end of July, but I convinced her over the weekend (and today) that we should put the finishing touches on some things this weekend and get the damn thing live by next weekend.

Now if only someone would ride my ass about my cook-book that I wanted done by the end of August....

In any case, I'm stoked about that. The key is to see if we can't get her making more than she makes now at her "job", in which case she'll quit and work full-time at selling her crafted goods while she finishes school. Not that she has a crap job; she has a great job, but she'd rather be self-employed like myself, and allow herself the freedom to set her own hours, work at her own pace, and determine her own paycheck.

That being said, I totally nerfed my paycheck today, because I spent about 3 of my working hours researching some prices on some of the things we are going to be offering for sale, and doing some rough figures. It's all good, though :)

This weekend is going to be fun, as well. We are taking the weekend away from games and other things and focusing entirely on crafting. We have several tea-sets we plan on working on, some wind-chimes, some little boxes, and some general nick-nacks to get up on her Etsy shop.

That's my Monday morning update. Cya!

A new day for Bulgaria

Big changes have been a part of this country for awhile now, but today marks a *big* step forward. The last decade has been spent underneath the socialist/communist party despite being a democratic country (to some degree), with some of the most rampant corruption seen world-wide. That's not to say countries like America don't have corruption (let's face it: America is one of the most corrupt these days. Just watch the news!), but the corruption in Bulgaria has been very much in-your-face-tied-to-the-Mafia type corruption. Some perfect examples can be read over here.

The new legislature is all about change. I'm too tired to go into all the details here at the present, but the new political party is promising a slew of arrests with the changes. The mayor here is likened to the Chuck Norris jokes that ran rampant in the US for the last couple of years, and one of his first statements tonight after finding out that his party had won was to declare that anyone who stole money from the government and the people is going to have to pay the piper.

This is a good day. I know my wife is really excited, as are every single person we associate with here in Bulgaria. The money that the EU was giving to Bulgaria that was subsequently getting robbed to pay for yachts, real estate, and corrupt officials and prompted the EU to put a hold on any additional funding should finally start funneling in the right direction. With more funding comes more changes. Better schools. Better roads. Higher paying jobs. A better economy. Better education system. Better health system. A pyramid of effects.

A good day, indeed :)

Green Fingers, Opposing Thumbs

I try to be a "green" kind of guy, I really do. We have switched our light bulbs out to the more energy-conservative kind. We recycle, avidly. We take public transportation and walk rather than driving. We try to do everything we can, no matter how "little" it might be. Evy has her spice garden, we are starting to plant some veggies, we hang our clothes out to dry instead of using a dryer, we take the stairs instead of the elevator (which doubles as a great physical activity for burning calories when you live 6 floors up) and we try to conserve everything in order to consume as little as possible.

But there is one exception to the rule. The air conditioner.

Don't get me wrong. When I'm walking around town, out and about, I don't mind it. When I'm on vacation, hiking around the ruins of some ancient Roman or Greek city, I'm all about the sweat factor, and getting dirty, and being part of the environment. I love hiking, camping, and getting out in the elements. But when I'm sitting in my office in a leather chair, in the comfort of my home...screw sweating. I want comfort.

I'm sure everyone out there has their own personal limits. I've seen some green-thinkers who go so far as to buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere and build their home out of peat and sod and completely abandon electricity and technology. I'm not one of those guys. I do what I can, but I do it within the boundaries of my own comfort zone. Some people would call that hypocrisy. I call it "living smart".

Finding a balance is key. We can't just go back to the Middle Ages (who would want to, anyway? All that plague, death, disease, no deodorant...ugh, no thanks) and abandon technology, because technology is what is going to help us overcome the problems of tomorrow. What we have to find is a natural, healthy balance between technological advancement and green-thinking.

In any case...I was seeing some of our guildmates talk last night while playing Lord of the Rings Online, as well as some of our friends on Facebook, and a great number of them were complaining about how hot their houses were, and how they had 2-3 fans going to keep things cooled down. Sorry...that ain't me. I get really, really cranky when my house is hot, so the AC is a must, and it's one thing that, no matter how green I might be, I refuse to get rid of.

AC ftw!

First of July

...is the first of July. Amazing, isn't it!

Plugging along. Had a bought of insomnia last night, which means I'm running on 3.5 hours of sleep and several cups of coffee. Debating skipping my workout routine today, and taking a nap instead :)

Some really fun projects lined up for July so far. On further reflection I think the larger one may spill over into August, but I don't have a deadline on it, which is nice. At rough glance last night it looked to be 30 working days worth of content, tied in with my other projects, so I'll be finishing it up sometime in the first week of August.

Mostly, I'm really looking forward to the MMO Life Network articles this month. I should have the first one done towards the end of the week, with three more to do this month, and I've already started jotting down ideas for the next few in August to discuss with their editor. It's really awesome to have fun with your work...and to make a great paycheck on the side :)

Back to work! Was taking a bit of a break here, but time to get back to the grindstone. More later!