2007 review
And so 2007, the first year I employed the four-pillars metaphor of organizing my life, draws to a close. The metaphor serves as more of a mnemonic than a scorecard, but let me nonetheless look back and see how well I balanced the year across them.
Dating: Well, yes. The first time I've had a relationship as long as a year, and isn't it just ducky that it happens to line up with the calendar year, too. All is well. (And I don't have much else to say here, because it's not really a bloggy topic.)
Video: It fell short of expectations, though what output I did make was great. The year saw only two Gameshelfs and two Jmac's Arcades. The Arcade receives an update only when I get inspired to spend a day stitching a show together, so its having a pokey pace is fine. But Gameshelf was supposed to see three shows in the first half of the year. However, both episodes we did make were better by a giant leap over the four shows (plus demo reel) that we shot in 2005. The improvement was entirely a matter of better overall planning by the whole crew. It leaves me really looking forward to what we'll do in the coming year, but that's a topic for another post.
Volity: Quite a ride. My relationship with Volity was stone cold through the winter and into spring. I was totally burnt out after throwing my life into it for most of 2006. A cafe conversation with AET re-ignited my interest in leading the web client project myself, and zthen I spent several months completely absorbed in it, culminating in a working pre-Alpha in August. And things haven't exactly stalled there; better to say that we've been caught up in highly devilish detail-work, which was slowed down a lot by my entanglement with personal financial setbacks in the autumn.
Money: Another crazy ride. At the start of the year I figured I'd be working for ITA indefinitely, but by spring I couldn't resist seeing what putting another iron in the fire felt like. So I got an hourly contract job with a remote client, and I liked it, enough so that at the start of the summer I officially started calling myself a software consultant. But I made a mistake in not building up more clients than the one, so when they silently stopped giving me work I was left in the cold. After two months of scrambling, I find myself with several new clients, and looking forward to a new year of self-directed work.
I don't know yet if I want to carry the pillars metaphor into next year. I probably will anyway, out of intertia. It's served me well and my areas of desired focus have not changed much.
2008: Stay the course, except moreso. Unless I don't. I admit to feeling that all my meeples are on the board, if you know what I'm saying. I want to be able to do new kinds of art, too, but I'm so invested that it's hard. We'll see what happens.
Ohioans have a chance to speak up for their financial freedom. This election day, consumers who depend upon the availability of payday loans for unexpected emergency expenses they hadn’t budgeted for must speak up. HB 545 is not a Robin Hood that will “steal from the rich and give to the poor.” The reality is more like the Sheriff of Nottingham appointing more vassals. That’s what’s happening when banks and credit unions throw as much money as they do behind this measure; they seek not only to snatch up the business payday lenders who have been squeezed out of business will leave, but to subject consumers to a product that will be even more profitable for banks: overdraft protection. Opponents make a big thing out of a “monster” 391 percent APR on faxless payday loans, but overdraft protection typically costs in excess of 1,000 percent APR. Which one’s the moneymaker? Keep in mind that payday loans are typically only two-week loans to begin with, so it’s an apple to orange argument. Moreover, voting NO on HB 545 will help prevent a mass exodus of jobs (in excess of 6,000) from leaving the state of Ohio. Odds are that many who lose their jobs due to such government overregulation will leave to work and/or live outside Ohio, which creates a tax and spending power deficit for a state that’s already suffering severe budget problems. Then there will be over 1,600 empty storefronts. How will that look when you’re courting businesses to move to your state, Mr. Strickland? Maybe you should be reading the discussion people are having about HB 545 on the blog at http://ideatreks.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/ohio-house-bill-545/. NO on HB 545 makes sense if you want to fix your state’s economy.