JediWright.com

Continued infrequency in my posting comes as no surprise, since I’ve been working so much this spring/summer. But, a brain dump feels in order now, so here goes.

I’ve been busting ass at the Home Depot mostly, with a few hours woven in here and there at the first part-time job I picked up here in Akron back in April. I finally got my operator license there about a month into the job, at Home Depot, and thank god since it was really proving counter-productive working without it. So along with getting the gist of their “reach truck” (hmm, pretty much what it sounds like) and “tow motor” (forklift), I’ve been learning a lot more about pesticides (yuck), herbicides, fungicides, seeds, plants, various equipment, and more.

It’s actually kind of a nice little education into a number of things I can tie in with Green Gurus and any related consulting there. And on the Exchange front (the other part-time job), I’m learning the systems they have in place for an interesting buy/trade they deal in. Could provide an interesting entrepreneurial option at some point, either with them or in one of my own ventures I’ve had shelved for awhile now.

On the parenting front, the wee pup is getting big. He’s eating solid foods (insofar as bottled veggies and fruit can be anyway) and loving it. He’s gotta be pushing close to 20-lbs now and is finally starting to hold himself up in a seated position, on his own.

And as I can squeeze it in, I do what I can to tend to Distinctivefabric.com, which has been making steady headway at knocking away at its debt (I think largely in thanks, to me having opted out of my salary indefinitely). Along the way, we’ve parted ways with its first founding member and are now just in a weird limbo of knocking out our debt, exploring any liabilities associated with assuming 100% ownership, etc.

Other than that, things are very routine and boring. Just trying to make it through the summer, with the help of what I hope to be a nice break with a short trip to PA to visit with mi hermana Amanda in from Spain, then a 10-day stint with The Do LaB in Ireland for their third year there for Electric Picnic. Hopefully afterwards, some moving plans will really come together and life will pick up more.

Until then, I’m just reading as much as I can, the oldest refuge I know.

So today I get one of my fabric partners regular shipments of my mail from the last few months from my west coast office.

These deliveries are always so horrific to open, since still nearly half if not more of my life routes through the LA office: all of my DF responsibilities (taxes, corporate filings, chargeback notices, merchant notices, etc.), Green Gurus (nearly the same minus merch stuff since we’re not active), much of my personal stuff (subscriptions if I have any, health ins crap, etc.), and a host of other misc items.

Today was no exception of course. Not. These last few weeks have been killing me and everything I’d come to create in my nearly 7 years in LA, has been coming to a head, rather their end, including: Green Gurus, sustainably powered hosting and data storage plans, etc. I’ve been doing the best to minimize this but now into my 6 month here in PA, things just are really fraying from either end, faster and faster.

The only good note I can think of these days is my son Lee. I’m doing my best to not dump my negative energy into him and more and more am coming to enjoy time spent with him. It’s tough though, what with my losing my salary last week, amongst everything else: Rivertribe plans were just winding up, SolarHoster/InfinityDrive were still hanging on, barely, Tristan’s wish to move us to Ohio, my enrollment into ITT Tech with full tuition coverage but no living expenses covered, and no vehicle of my own still.

Anyway, Lee’s gaining about a 1-lb a week right now and still looking very handsome and cute.

Incidentally, my Flickr uploads haven’t been coming through in about a week or so and Yahoo is taking forever in identifying the issue. I’ve uploaded half again or more, of what’s there already, but they’re just not showing up. So I’m thinking about switching over to Picasa maybe. I don’t relish the idea of having to recreate all my sets there, but at least it’s free and it works.

I must vent. Now.

DistinctiveFabric.com, Inc. is tanking (or so Josh and I think), but what the hell do we really know anyway? We’ve only been running this damned thing for four and half years now and barely with any involvement from its founder and our chairman, Adam. Guess this is what you get for putting a couple of first-timers in executive seats and a declining economy. Ironically enough, our sales have only been going up since last August, but our previous debt carried over, coupled with an inconsistent cash flow, just hasn’t weathered the dip in December as well as we’d hoped and planned for.

SolarHoster.com is failing before it even runs.

InfinityDrive.net is failing. Again.

GreenGurus.net…is all the above and more: I can’t even log on or into the damn site.

The baby is due any day now and we’re broke. Tristan wants to move back to Cali. I want to stay and I want to go. I wanted so much to birth Rivertribe finally.

Now all of my business ideas are crumbling. And I can’t get a job because either:

1. My credit is so bad they won’t hire me
1a. I’m overqualified on paper due to past employment
2. I never finished school and got a degree and the necessary experience
3. The economy sucks ass cause the rest of this country shares in some of my misery

I’ve lost hundreds of keyword domains I never should have bought in the first place.

I’m now thirty freaking years old and my life is miserable. Okay not really. I still fight and fight and fight for success. I have no idea of what drives me. I had hoped to figure that out with a whole lot more in life before having a child.

Now what? God only knows. Actually, I’m now giving serious thought to starting up a church. A fucking church. Jesus Christ. I must be insane.

Either through “Order of the Jedi” – I now own orderofthejedi.net and jedichurch.net
Or through “Moon Temple” – I now own moontemple.org and moonchurch.org

I’m fucking crazy. I’ve always known it. And I always see people thinking the same freaking thing, even if they deny it when asked.

Well, if I’m crazy I might as well build my own crazy house, heh?
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Update 1.15 10:50am: Feeling a might bit better now. Course, the wee hours of the night often leave me despairing more so than the light of day.

I’ve been trying to get my solar powered webhosting and green data storage services online for what seems an eternity now. Seems like every time I gain one step forward, another two set me back.

I’ve been working to varying degrees since this all began, with about six or so different sysadmins, making incremental changes to the solar server setup. To date, we’ve got our dedicated server account setup with AISO, our Plesk control panel installed, along with Plesk Billing, which we still need to figure out how to use; a secure certificate for InfinityDrive.net and a dedicated IP from AISO for it; and a few other random things, but still not enough to be up and running for business.

And it sucks: it really, really sucks. My business partner in this, Ryan Wartena, and I have been pumping money out collectively since March to get the account activated, the server setup and various related software licenses from Plesk (which is where they get you by the way).

Everyone we’re working with is great at what they do, but don’t share the vision that Ryan and I do. They just don’t seem to get it. Not enough to commit whatever they can to help bring this to life. And I just don’t have the time to learn everything I need to know to do it on my own: UNIX, PHP, etc.

It’s so damned frustrating, especially since after this upcoming monthly service charge will probably be the last we can afford. It has to happen now or it quite possibly won’t.

And all along, I have this growing sense that maybe it’s all just been a mistake from the beginning. It’s great to have a dream and even a potential great business idea, but if you can’t make it work, then it’s worth nothing. And that’s what I feel like it’s worth too often than not these days.

My biggest hang up with this is that I’m not the supreme sysadmin/programmer geek that I want and need to be. But everytime I sit down to try and learn some of the core skills I so desperately I start to feel the tears of frustration rise up at the seemingly unconquerable learning curve I face. Then all I can see is the money going out. And now someone else’s money. Someone that I feel like I’ve sucked in promising success, yet I know I made it clear that there was no guarantee. But I keep feeling guilty and around and around it goes.

It seems like I’m nothing but hype and everything I’ve ever preached is coming to a head with this. I hate being a goddamn Capricorn (and a double one at that). I hate being me. I am so sick of starting and stopping things. I just want to succeed with one goddamn thing for once in my life.

Fuck.

My primary source of income has recently dried up and am in great need of immediate employment. Require a net minimum of $2,800 per month in salary just to cover essentials for me, my partner and our baby due in two weeks.

Any leads anyone can share with me would be immensely appreciated!

Employment history below.
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EMPLOYMENT
Distinctivefabric.com, Inc. – Present
2079 E 15th St, #330, LA CA 90021

Chief Executive Officer
*Management of corporate affairs, taxes, corporate filings, license/permit renewals, etc.
*Oversee web development, product creation and launches, marketing campaigns, sustainability integration, etc.
*Excel in dynamic and fast-paced order fulfillment, Internet startup and management environments.

The Do LaB / Lightning In A Bottle Arts and Music Festival – Present
2023 Bay St, LA CA 90021

Senior Production Artist, Assistant Director of Sustainability
*Assist in design, building, installing, and transporting large-scale art installations and event productions
*Co-manage client-relations pre- and post-production
*Assist Director in greening company operations and country’s leading sustainable arts and music festival
*Co-manage 200+ paid and volunteer staff
*Excel in management and coordination of multi-tasking, high end installations and client-interfacing

Green Gurus, LLC – Present
2079 E 15th St, #330, LA CA 90021

Founder and Chief Executive Officer
*Manage team, clients, corporate affairs, marketing, web development, etc.
*Excel in dynamic and fast-paced Internet startup and management environments.

Rooftop Promotion: April 2003 – April 2004
Gardena, CA

Director of Media Relations
*Coordination of artist promotions through press and radio contacts
*Managed Filemaker database of press and radio contacts
*Excelled in multi-artist PR

Hidden River Adventure: August 1996 – November 2001
Monocacy, PA

General Manager
*Managed inventory, equipment, group bookings, ecotours, transportation, staff, maintenance
*Lead carpenter and builder of corporate offices
*Excelled in customer relations

COMPUTER EXPERIENCE
*Applications: Microsoft Office XP, Word and Excel; Apple OS X; Google Docs: Document, Presentation, Spreadsheets, Adwords, Adsense; Open Office, KOffice, The Gimp; Adobe Photoshop, Dreamweaver; QuarkXPress; Transmit, Fugu, Telnet Launcher, Filemaker, Drupal CMS, Plesk and cPanel; Abelton Live, Reason
*Languages: Basic UNIX, PHP, HTML/XHTML, CSS
*Browsers: Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera
*Social Networks, Utilities and Apps: Basecamp, Wiki, WordPress, Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Posterous, Facebook, Myspace, Tribe, LinkedIn, YouTube, Revver, Vimeo, Digg, Hugg, etc.

EDUCATION
Santa Monica Community College
Santa Monica, CA
Computer Science
Pursued completion of undergraduate degree

The Bradley Academy / Art Institute
York, PA
Multimedia
Pursued completion of undergraduate degree