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I’m so incredibly disappointed with the way things have gone at my first company.

I was so inspired and thankful when its founder asked me to come on board nearly 4.5 years ago now. I was really struggling in Los Angeles at the time, couch surfing at the old Do LaB loft downtown on Olympic boulevard for the summer while hunting for work and a new home.

As luck would have it my friend had just started this internet fabric store and quickly found need of another set of hands to keep up with its pace of orders. I quickly assumed greater and greater responsibility and then became partner, operating as chief operating officer for a year or so. After the company had made several moves and substantial growth, I assumed greater responsibility as chief executive officer. And while serving as CEO was great for a time, it didn’t last long, nor did its respectable income.

After a year and a half, my pay had grown outdated as we had securely transitioned out of startup mode to focusing on our core competencies in a stage dubbed “Operation Cruise Control”, so had my daily tasks. Since this was my first startup and business, it took some major effort to switch gears personally, especially since we still had (and still do) have so much potential for growth. But my stake in the company was too limiting to say otherwise and so stricken of my joy of growing the company, my best pay ever and more, I tried to fit in and do as told, but having worked nearly independent for almost a years time and as a CEO (incidentally, a role I thought prematurely assigned) with a decent startup salary (from what I knew of those things then), it really grated on my nerves and natural instincts.

Not only that, but around this time we had brought in a third partner, who assumed my role as operating officer; so now there were three trying to man the helm. This proved to be both a blessing and a curse. In some ways I needed a 2nd mate to bounce things off of, since the founder had made it clear from even earlier on that he would be very much removed from daily operations (oversight was something that’s always lacked there). But in others, it could often be counter-productive.

So about eight months into this, I decided I’d had enough of the daily grind and moved to Santa Cruz to try and start up another company with another friend. In some ways it was a great relief from what had been and an exciting time to look forward at what could be, but alas, this venture wasn’t meant to be with this friend. After six months of trying to mesh our strengths and weaknesses and even less pay (zero from the new startup), I decided to bag it and head back to LA to clear my palette and figure out what was next.

I knew one of the biggest obstacles for me was never having completed college, so I enrolled full-time at SMC to try and get past my inexperience in programming to pursue my own Internet startups. I lasted one semester before getting pulled into someone else’s startup, again. This time, it was a full-on return as a lead production artist with The Do LaB guys. I worked my ass off for the majority of 2008 with them, traveling from gig to gig and country to country, crafting my event production skills further but still yearning for my own true baby of a startup.

And throughout these recent years of exploration and development, I’ve continued my role as CEO at DF to varying degrees, but never again with the sense of purpose and power I had previously. Far from power hungry am I, moreover is the desire for the freedom and responsibility that this role entails. And since now it’s only really in name that I serve as such with this first company, I find myself despairing again over the lack of quality, dedication, accountability, responsibility, and commitment that this company represents.

It’s really quite embarrassing and depressing to have my name attached to it but I have no choice until one of my own startups or my next round of schooling provides a financial out.

I’m overly hopeful but not disillusioned at my chances of success, but I’m going to keep trying, again and again and as long as it takes until I’ve found my freedom to exit (or buy-out everyone else and do as I please ).

Delaying my blog upgrade, I began preparations in earnest for my return to school again yesterday. Ironically to me, it is now ten years since my high school graduation and the third time I’m attempting to complete a higher education program. I am inspired by my fiance’s sister Olivia, who’s only got a half year left at UCLA, her third attempt to complete a higher education program (we’re just about the same age too).

Since my admissions application had been accepted at the Reading Area Community College (RACC), I had a few tasks to complete. First was to schedule my placement testing, then I had to get the necessary transcript paperwork from SMC, where I spent a semester at last fall. I ordered a rush delivery on this order as my placement testing is next Monday and they recommend delivering your transcripts at that time. I already have copies from my first stint back in 2000 at the Bradley Academy (now an Art Institute) for multimedia and my high school transcripts at Upattinas. My rush transcripts are costing me $42.25 for two copies, rushed via FedEx’s 3-day Express Saver service.

I’ll be resuming my efforts in working towards some sort of degree in computer science/technology, most likely their Web Site Development Concentration
Associate in Applied Science Degree. I’ve been trying unsuccessfully for the last several years to teach myself programming and such but I just don’t have the same level of concentration and memory retention that I do in a more structured environment, at least at this point in my life, hoping that changes as I get older and find my patience.

Hopefully the 3rd time’s a charm scenario holds true here, if not I’ll most likely have to on from my hopes of programming. Math never was my strong point and the kind of critical thinking involved with this kind of work isn’t always there for me. My determination only strengthens with time though so I’m really optimistic about my commitment to it now.

Whoa, it’s Thursday night or technically, Friday morning and I’m just realizing how incredibly swift seemingly slow this week has progressed.

Having finished the last of my school finals early Monday afternoon, my week’s been full-on busy catching up with everything that was pushed to the side in the last few weeks up to finals. Last week was especially tough as I had a group of investors in from out of town to inspect our operations at my first startup, in addition to my studying and final project work. The week before that was elections for the Mid-city council (which I’m still waiting to get some clear communication on, though I had heard I won my seat).

Now this week, I’ve been really focused on trying to tie up a ton of loose ends. Not only have I been attending such details as site updates for Green Gurus, posting new blogs in memory of an old friend, doing what little Christmas shopping I allowed myself to indulge in (I really don’t buy into this whole thing anymore but do it out of necessity for those select few that really require such a show of affection), but have also been ramping up opportunities for new avenues of exposure for G.G. and exploring some new business opportunities in related areas.

As I’m considering a career transition, I’m feeling a bit ancy about an as of yet undetermined, primary income source. Hopefully some fruits of my recent labors start sprouting up…soon.

I’d hate to work for just anyone again after being my own boss for so long.

I so totally rocked at least one class this past Fall semester at SMC. The other two, on the other hand, aren’t looking as hot. Results should be in sometime early next week.  I’m gonna’ go curl up in a ball and cry now…or something. ;0

Yesterday marked the 5-year mark until 2012.

And now it seems, everything’s lost its meaning: school, work, relationships..everything just seems kind of blah. Or, maybe, I’m just completely fried from the last 3.5 months of one-too-many things vying for my attention and energies.

I started school full-time, while running one existing company, started up another, continued work for another that I’ve been involved with on and off over the years, ended one relationship, started another, moved into a intentional, urban community, lost my oldest and best friend to a fatal accident, started my initiation into local politics, had my first-ever surgery with one of the countries best for…a lumptectomy, started counseling, ended short-lived new relationship, resumed other on-and-off again of 5+ years, began discussions and negotiations of potential sale of first company, started couple’s counseling in attempt to sort fact from fiction, and am now entering in on full-on negotiations for potential sale of said, first company.

Whew. I need breather or, a vacation from living for awhile…yeah, that would be nice.

What’s next on the horizon? Hmm, time will certainly tell.

What a three months it’s been, back in school at SMC, studying computers.

One of my classes was a lot more comprehensive than expected but to date I’ve managed to keep my grades up, even with everything else that’s been happening elsewhere this month in my personal and professional life.

I’ve attached a snapshot of my grades as a motivation to myself to study hard in this last mile up to finals. I’m hopeful that I’ll pull better marks than prior testing but knowing my history of poor testing (no matter what really), I’ll probably lose this cushy top-three percentile.

Just finished a paper with a topic on biomimicry for a sustainable future.

Why am I writing a paper on such a topic? And for that matter, why am I writing a paper at all, you might ask. Well why not? Even if I wasn’t back in school for the first time in over ten years, as a student at SMC, I think it still good practice for us all to exercise our minds in such a manner.

One of my classes is an introduction to programming, which spans a pretty wide range of computing elements, and quite frankly, has proven to be my hardest class…damned math. Anyway, we’re nearing the end of the semester quite quickly now with only a week and a half to go. Thankfully the professor offered up some bonus points with this optional project, in which we could select a topic of our choosing and write a 5-page minimum paper about it.

I’ve decided to post my first draft here in hopes of some critical feedback, I’d like to revisit it once the class is over and really run with it. I think it’s probably a little bit too general, short and well frankly…poorly researched; I should know since I only put about 10-hours or so all told, into researching and writing it.

Anyway, would love to get some feedback on it as I think it’s worth pursuing further. Also, as there were few real quality sources to draw from, I may have recycled too much from them at times. So, if anyone agrees with this and feels it’s too close to really consider viable content, please let me know immediately.

Nothing like a 6-hour data cram session at the ass-crack of dawn to get your day started right.

I had my general computer science class midterm shortly thereafter, so it’s been a nice, full day already. Again, I finished first in class (not that that’s everything of course, but it’s still fun to be the first one out). Material covered ranged from network topologies to security, WiMax to Wi-Fi technologies, and much, much more.

My brain is a bit mush at the moment, but nonetheless, I feel a bit like Neo in The Matrix when he asks for more training. My brain is buzzing with data and yes, “Mikey” likes it.

Welcome to the first of many, many overly detailed accounts of my day, many days, countless days, with well-nigh a fanatical commitment to repetition. So, on with it…
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Mondays and/or 18+ hour days are usually some of the most productive for me.

Take today for instance:

Up at 6:30am PST, off to school at SMC and in by 7am: parked, breakfast served and eaten, and pre-class review all before 8am. Then 3 non-stop hours of valid XHTML design work and review, followed by nearly 2-hours of uber-dry, lecturing on I don’t even (nearly) remember at this point in a required, entry-level, computer science class.

Then at a quarter to 1pm, it was off across town by the 10, to my new diggs at the Sugar Shack:

-for a little respite from the cramped computer labs, parking and what have you.

I finally got around to installing Office 2008 on my newish MacBook Pro, while cramming down a poor man’s lunch of PB&J and veggies chips (yum). Incidentally, this install was required for school, otherwise I stick with Google Docs, OpenOffice or NeoOffice/J, depending on the task at hand.

Yes, I’m digressing already, but I’m coming ’round the bend on a 24-hour day, so bear with me. ;o

So, continuing:

I completed my Excel assignment for my CS3 class, bounded out the door to beat down the Meter Maid…and, O.K. not really; but I would, damn them all to hell! So, with the narrowly avoided life imprisonment sentence, I was back on the trail West, via Pico blvd. Making a quick stop at BofA for a timely (insert Rubeus Hagrid voice) withdrawal, I was soon back in SMC student parking garage, and as luck (or something) would have it, was able to slip right back into my morning’s previous slot, just as it’s previous occupant was egressing for the day…nice.

Then it was a quick hike up three flights of stairs and into one of my more favorable spots in the lab, for nearly another solid 3-hours work in which I submitted my Excel project (after a few minor corrections to account for OS differences, all the school’s systems are Windows), a quick review of my 3rd class assignment and chapter material, then a self-administered, online quiz: bam, done and thank you may I have another, and it was on to the bulk of my work in XHTML; yay for validation!

Homeward bound, I stopped quickly for one of my fav’s from Trader Joe’s: their potato and cheddar perogi, which incidentally, was far from quick. Seems everyone’s jumped the gun on Thanksgiving this year. Then it was back on the road, another (real) quick stop for gas, then finally home by a little after 8pm. Set the dinner ta’ cookin’, fed the felines, finished prep on my new raw, soaked almonds and finished dinner prep, along with 2-3 other roomies. We all broke our bread over the last half or so of the 3rd, final and some say awful, Matrix: Revolutions.

Yet on to even more binary arteries and a quick back-story to my life and yes, even more digressing, woot! (-has this been trademarked yet? Hmm, I wonder…).

So, about 3.5-years ago a then acquaintance Adam Wiggins, through a SoCal crew called the Orangekids, gave me a great opportunity to pull my head out of my ass, working at his first of 10 companies (he figured 9 out of 10 businesses fail so why not create 10 to insure success? Damn good reasoning I’d say…). Well as fate (or something) would have it, the first of the 10 succeeded. Not long after he made me partner and well, now, fast-forward several years and he’s eyeing up his exit-strategy. Can’t say I blame him, he’s since gone on to form several other companies, including the Heroku venture.

Ahem, anyway I was talking about tonight, yes tonight I continued gathering data for one of the latest parties interested in our internet fabric company; I’ve posted some shots from over the years at our shared warehouse with The Do LaB, here on our new, Ning social fabric network.

And now, deliriously stupid as I’ve become writing this brain dump, it’s time for a blissful night of celestial ether-eavesdropping, on my sub-conscious self.

Yay and woot (to the power of 3).
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Onwards Christian soldiers!