It’s amazing how beautiful a sunset can be, no matter its location or vantage point from which seen. I often catch fleeting glimpses of some very pretty sunsets at work. Though admittedly, when inside the company’s gates, the experience feels awfully restrained and oppressive…and as I did yesterday, pause for a minute to consider just who’s in control of my job: me or the job.
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.
Today marks two weeks since our move here into Akron, Ohio. It’s a return for Tristan to her hometown and a departure from my own, in Pennsylvania. Neither of us are super thrilled about it; we both just really miss pre-parenthood right now and our lives in Cali.
Regardless, I see some potential here. Downtown Akron, though small, still has some measure of vibrancy to it.
The job search is proving the most frustrating so far though, out of anything. One month online and nearly two weeks in person should have returned at least a call or email, but I’ve gotten nothing (other than spam/scam email responses). As an entrepreneur, I see a lot of potential – I always do. But as an employee, I’m losing confidence. More than likely, I’m just getting impatient due to the stress of landing an income and admittedly, of going back to work as an employee, not the employer. Though in some ways, I’ve been craving this, since the stresses of self-employment and entrepreneurship have taken their toll on me over the last few years.
It would be nice to find something cool, engaging, challenging, and stable. And maybe on the side I’ll pursue some more modest startup ideas here, time and resources permitting.
On the homefront side of things, our house, known as “the Chitty farmhouse” is cool, though it does have a few issues (what house doesn’t?). We’re mostly settled in now, though short some bedroom storage since we have little closet space. Our cats are adjusting to our roommates cats nicely, as we ourselves work to adjust to living with roomies again. We have a separate studio/garage space that I look forward to modifying for my future office/studio use, once I’ve secured a job.
Other than that, things are pretty low-key. I’m enjoying the relatively quiet neighborhood, more reading and getting to know the area.
So, as our friends continue on with their rockstar lives in Cali, we struggle to shift our lives for the necessary stability of parenting, all the while wondering what is to become of our own lives.
Finding purpose outside of parenting is a must for our survival, I think.
I’ve been looking for a job now for over a few months (actually I’m always looking, but I’ve been scouring the ads intensively since we moved to PA and even more so for the last month when it became clear we needed to move) and have gotten zip-zero-zilch in the way of response from any of my resumes, submitted or posted online or otherwise.
I’m so fed up with my failure rate at finding conventional work and the criticisms from family. It’s no wonder all I’m getting is shit from them and apparently Tristan’s too, about how my priorities are wrong and so and so forth – I’m dead in the water when it comes to entering the conventional workforce.
Though in my defense, I have been taking as many hours as are available, while here in PA with an old boss doing some carpentry. And I’ve had to continue working for DistinctiveFabric.com for the last month unpaid, since my salary was frozen. As CEO and co-owner, I have a lot of responsibility that I can’t just write off, so a good deal of my time is taken up each week dealing with things there. And I had started a company last year with a friend who’s been investing since August or so, so I can’t just walk away from that. I have my obligations to him to see things through there with that. Also, I HAVE A BABY for the first time and a partner who’s struggling with post-partum depression on top of a previous depression (due to me moving us here). And oh yeah, I have no car of my own. That’s the real decision-maker there: no wheels = no job commuting (I borrow my old boss’s truck when working for him).
I’ve known I don’t fit the conventional mode for most of my life. And besides school, I’ve noticed it most acutely while in the general workplace. That’s why I’ve always found myself always pursuing some startup idea or another, cause I know the only way I’m ever going to make real money (short of moving back to LA and working for The Do LaB indefinitely) is to create my own company.
I’ve lost track of how many resumes I’ve put out over the last month. I’ve had an offer from The Do LaB though to go work Coachella again with more paid to me in a day rate than I’d make in nearly a week at any other job. But Tristan sees it as the wrong course, stating that it doesn’t make any sense and I need to focus on finding stable income once we move to Akron (in less than two weeks now). I don’t completely agree: it’s a great paying gig, they’d cover my expense (including travel) and as a plus, I’d get out to check in on DistinctiveFabric.com after having been gone for six months. On the other hand, the time spent in Cali would require some expense while there, so I’d probably lose about a 1/5th of my pay to that.
I’ve never totally bought into a conventional path to anything and I guess it really shows at this point in my life. It’s almost as if employers and family latch on to that immediately and steer clear (or cast harsh judgement on me for leading a different life).
The only route I see offering any sort of solution here is joining the military (okay yes that’s drastic but I’m venting here 
, cause I sure as hell don’t wait tables. I tried once and it was a complete nightmare. But if I’m down to minimum wage jobs or the military, maybe a move back to LA is the best choice. I’ll have to see how things go with the in-person job hunt first before turning everything upside down considering another move to LA.
Today I took another much needed break from office/computer work to work up the street at the River.
Yesterday I returned to work on one of the many ongoing projects there, picking up this time from where I’d left off before Lee was born in January: the floor installation. So yesterday I hand-carried a truck full of white pine tonge-and-groove flooring half an acre or so to the job site, since I couldn’t drive on the wet, soft ground. I got the job site prepped for installation, my workstation organized and installed my first few pieces, then called it a day. It was a short day at only three hours, but a very busy one.
Today I got in a decent amount of work in only five hours, installing up to nearly 3/4 quarters of the flooring. I also helped Tim install the main, front window, which was really nice as it really brightens the room and makes working amidst stone and block that much better.
Tomorrow, time permitting, I’ll be back to finish the flooring installation. Then it’s on to finishing the window and door installations, the ceiling, the interior wall, wiring, heating, and some other odds and ends.
These last few weeks have been some of the most intense I think I’ve yet experienced. Not like I haven’t been through some bad spells before or anything but this latest round has been really drilling and consistent.
From having had to freeze my DF salary, to filing for unemployment, to continuing to adjust to parenthood, to having to cut my health insurance out, then Tristan’s, to filing for medicaid for her and Lee (which still isn’t sorted out, so he’s still without coverage), to wrangling with two startups, to enrolling back into school (with ITT Tech for computer network systems) with full tuition covered but no way to start due to a complete lack of income.
In addition, I had some issues with communication between family and friends that added to everything else, really put me close a breaking point I’ve not recalled reaching before.
Thankfully, things started turning around a little this past weekend with the arrival of a reimbursement check from my canceled Blue Cross policy, confirmation on the start of my U.I. from California and most significantly, the long overdue activation of my solar web hosting service at SolarHoster.com. Granted, it’s still a far cry from what I envision it to be, but at least I can start hosting sites.
Meanwhile, Tristan and I have continued our discussions over what we’re doing concerning our living situation. She doesn’t want to stay here in PA and wants to move back to Ohio to have the support of her old friends and family there. Admittedly, it’s not a bad idea as it’s much cheaper there, she’ll be more grounded (in theory) with her friends, family and hometown, and we are exploring discussions of renting a house with her best girlfriend, Amanda.
We’ve submitted a rental app on one house so far and are waiting to hear back from the landlord. If that goes through, we’ll probably be moving around April 15th.
What this means for Rivertribe, my other startup exploration happening here in PA, is uncertain. Though it’s uncertain anyway as I’m having a hard time getting movement from my friend with the equipment that would allow startup of operations. This is actually kind of okay with me anyway, as I had only wanted to explore the possibility of starting Rivertribe up. Then I asked another friend to go in on it and things started getting out of control and I failed to manage things properly.
So as I should have learned from before, don’t do business with friends. Period. But if you insist on doing so, be very explicit about every little detail from the get go. Otherwise, things can get twisted fast. Which they have done to some degree in this instance, which is unfortunate, but not surprising considering where my life’s been these last few weeks.
Concerning startups and partners in general, I’d venture to say in some ways business mirrors people’s ways and gives greater clarity into the type of person you are. So maybe business together with friends is not such a bad thing, cause it helps cut away to the truth of things that you might not have otherwise seen before.
Anyway, my real priorities are certainly obvious now regardless having lost my salary. All else gets put on hold when you’ve got to find immediate income. It’s tough times to be job hunting though, especially when you don’t even own your own car and are sharing your partners. And more so in my case since I moved us to a rural setting without any public transit. Doh.
Thankfully, one of my LA contacts recently offered up a freelance gig with his company Ijhana. Hopefully things pan out, they’ve offered a few times before but nothing ever came of it. Hopefully now is the time. I/we can’t afford it to be otherwise.
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Update: We’ve found a house and put a deposit down (thanks Amanda!) and we’ll be moving sometime after April 1st.
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.
