Mini-Vacation to NYC & DC

Here’s the link to the pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/lostwithdaryl/sets/72157594430668764/

Wow, my last plane landed back in Greenville yesterday. Everything is such a blur now. I’m glad I took all the pics I took. It was really a whirlwind vacation! But when Rich and I got back to his apartment in DC I told him that I really fealt like I am in vacation mode now. He agreed. We felt exhausted too. We didn’t go to bed that night till about midnight. At that point we had been awake for over 36 hours. Monday was a very tired day. It’s a good thing that we had only to go to the Statue of Liberty and then get on our bus back to DC. I’m not sure we could have handled much more.

We did everything we wanted to do and more. We photographed a giant NYC rat. We saw a Broadway show (“The Drowsy Chaperone”). We went up in the Empire State Building & the Statue of Liberty. We found the Chrystler building (by accident). LOL! We played some Starcraft. We visited the NYSE. And much more. We also found several things that we weren’t expecting like the Grand Central Station, the Trump Towers, the Mac store and many many beautiful females. We are both single. So we enjoyed noticing all the beautiful well-dressed women. We didn’t wait in too many lines but when we had to at least it was easy to fine some eye-candy help pass the time.

We even went to a Broadway show. “The Drowsy Chaperone.” It was a comedy and was very funny. It was based on a 1920’s-style vaudeville musical. We got good seats. I’m still amazed at all we fit into this trip. 

My feet were sore about halfway through our first day in NYC. We did a TON of walking. My legs are still sore. I didn’t notice it much while we were on the go. Hey, at least NYC is flat. San Fransisco is built on a steep mountain. Ben and I found ourselves out of breath a lot when we were walking around Frisco.

 Rich and I both agreed that we’d love to live in NYC someday. We just love the mega-city feel. We agreed that the locals in NYC are very friendly. We found ourselves asking for directions in the subway. That subway system is definately handy but it’s loud and old. The DC subway is much nicer. The NYC subway is smuch more quaint though. There were musicians and a lot of old and interesting tile-work in the subways. I invented a subway game to make the time waiting for the right train very enjoyable. The point of the game is to wait till a train rolled into the station. As it was flying by and coming to a halt you look through the windows and spot a girl that seems pretty to you. When the train stops enough to get a better look, you see if she was really pretty or not. I noticed that blond hair always caught my attention. Sometimes she’d be pretty but other times she’d be about 30 years older than me. It was a fun game though!

We only encountered a few beggars. We walked through Central Park at 2:30am hoping that some mugger would try to mug us. But all we saw was a huge rat. Oh well.

I had fun in the Mac store. I changed the default web page on one of the Mac Books to a Microsoft site! I bought an iPod though. I thought it would make me cooler than most Macaddicts to have purchased my iPod from the actual Mac store on 5th Ave. in Downtown NYC. I do feel pretty cool. But my iPod has a bug that I spent over an hour on the phone with Apple Care today about (and they haven’t been able to fix it yet).  I’ll say, that Mac store is sweet though.

After we got back to DC we went to the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. We only covered 1 of the floors. But it was amazingly cool to see and read about everything there. I can’t wait to go back someday! Almost everything they had was real. Not models or mock-ups. They had real moon capsules, real ICBM’s (minus the nuke warhead), real rockets, real satelites, real turbine engines, real rocket motors. They even had the real X-15 rocket plane that broke and still holds many aircraft records. They even had the real Space Ship One hanging from the ceiling too. An amazing place.

Well, that’s the big summary of my mini-vacation to DC and NYC. I can’t wait to go back! It was a lot of fun.

Wheels Up!

I’m watching a big purple red and yellow Southwest 737 taxi to the gate. My flight was supposed to leave this morning at 9:11am (yea, 9-11. nice, huh). But because of fog I didn’t take off till 11pm. So I missed my connecting flight and now am scheduled to take off at 5:30p. So I’m officially 5 hrs behind schedule.

I don’t really care though. I’ve got a good book and my Verizon card on my laptop. A guy saw me on the Internet and said, “Oh, they’ve got Wi-Fi over here?” I said, “Nope. But I do cause I’ve got a Verizon card in my laptop.” Yea, I’m spoiled.

Anyway, I’m just having some unexpected emotions today. In years past when I was on vacation I basically didn’t want to think about work at all. I wanted no calls or emails. Nothing. So when I finished my recent big project this past Monday I was sort of expecting that when I got to the airport today I would just read a book and not think about biz. And I certainly wouldn’t want one of my clients emailing me about stuff he wanted me to look at.

But my plane was delayed so I pulled out my laptop. I got an email from him and suddenly I realized, “Hm. . . it might be cool to go ahead and address his question. So I did.” For a sec I thought, “But I’m on vacation! I need to chill.” But I realized that it was actually kinda fun to run my biz while I’m waiting in an airport. I guess it’s just one more perk to owning your own biz. No longer do you need a vacation to have fun. You have fun while you are working. Plus when you’re on vacation you’re can also have fun running your biz too. Man! Life just gets so fun when you are truely on your own.

I suppose it helps that I’m making some nice piles of money. Vacations are much cooler when you know that if you get the urge to do something you can do it. You don’t have to worry about whether you’ve got the money or not. I tell ya, I’m a pretty happy guy. I’m finally doing what I’ve longed to do for years. And it is even cooler than I thought it would be.

 So anyway, here’s another thing I’ve been thinking. With the way the mortgage broker biz has come together my mentality is starting to change about “what I do”. I basically am getting handed that biz because I have a friend who has too many opportunities for himself to handle on his own. So he’s giving me a biz because he trusts me to run it right. In return, I’m giving him a stake in the biz. Wow! So what if I basically became known as a guy who can take any type of biz and run it well? If I continue to grown my network of friends in high places this could be awesome! If they know that I love taking a biz idea, building it up and making it a success then they would think of me when they have the inside track on great biz opportunities. They give me the biz idea and a handful of customers and I give them a stake in my new company. It could be very cool. My recent step to become self-employed with PNL has given people an opportunity to see how I can handle a biz. The mortgage broker biz will be a great way to show people how I can run multiple bizs. It will give me a great opportunity to learn how to hire and manage employees as well as setting up the whole that a biz requires to run efficiently.

I think this would be a lot of fun. Well anyways, the guy that’s sitting next to me is from Hawaii and he’s traveling to DC on vacation. So I’m gonna find out what his line of work is. Should be interesting. . . btyl!

Focus Pokus

Well, a couple days ago I decided that I was going to have to drop the Mortgage Broker biz. Guess what? I’m not dropping it. Yea, did you really think I was going to leave half a mil/yr on the table? Well, I did. So I wouldn’t blame you if you did too.

I’ve got a buddy that I’ve talked biz with for years now. And we tentatively worked out a great deal that fulfills some of his major life goals and fits beautifully into my plans too. So I really think it’s going to work. I’m excited about it.

Also, I’ve all but inked another deal with a new client. This first project is a new web app. If it is successful it will lead to further upgrade projects in the future. It’ll probably be a 2 week project that’ll earn me about a month and a half of Rubbermaid pay. Plus the client is a good friend and will be great to work with!

Keep it comin’ baby! The biz just keeps clickin’ along! Somebody once said, “If you want to go, let go.” That’s been very true in my experience. You never know what opportunities you’ll be able to grasp if you have a wide open schedule, few committements and the right attitude. The world will be yours for the taking. And you will take. And your life will never be the same. Every day will be new. Every day you’ll feel free. If you need to work hard it’s only because you’ve got clients. Contratulations! If you don’t need to work at all, it’s because you’ve got freedom. Contratulations! If you take on a new opportunity it’s because you have the confidence that you’ll be able to handle it. If you take on new risk, it’s because you have the guts to do what most people wouldn’t consider. If you try something and fail guess what? You learned something that risk-averse people will never learn. You’re more bold now. You know that failing won’t kill you. And that you can get back up. Risk-averse people think that they’ll never be able to recover. And, in truth, they probably wouldn’t ever let themselves. But you’ll get back in the game again.

You’ve got to love the game. I remember my soccer days. I just loved wiping out in the mud. Getting kicked in the shins. The messier the better. The more sore I was the next day the more I loved the game. I’m afraid that my obsession with business is turning out just the same way. I want to have the whole range of business experiences thrown at me. I’ll get knocked down, knocked out, set back. But I’m just like a ping pong ball in a pool. I’ll just keep popping back up ready for more.

I remember when I first told my parents that I was quitting Rubbermaid. They didn’t try to stop me. But my mom’s reaction was basically, “I’m glad you’re getting it out of your system now before you’re married.” I think she half thought that I was just throwing out a crazy idea to see what reaction it would get.  But when I sat down at the kitchen table with my laptop and started excitedly typing out my resignation letter she said, “Well, I guess you’re serious, huh?” Yep. I sure was. In fact I couldn’t wait to put in my “2 weeks notice.” I felt like a kid before Christmas. I just couldn’t wait for the day that I walked out of that company with nothing to hold onto but my hopes and plans.

When my boss came into my cubicle at the end of the workday (3 days before the actual 2 weeks was up) and announced that he would escort me out of the building because it was my last day I wanted to jump out of my seat and shout for joy! We walked out of the building and over to my Xterra. He wished me the best and said that he knew I would do well. I jumped into the X and drove away. For the first time in my working life I was without a job and didn’t have another one lined up either. That was July 14 2006.

My 4 month aniversary is in 4 days. I’ll be on a jet plane flying at 35,000ft headed toward Washington, DC to visit my good buddy R for several days. Then I’ll come back home and relax for a few days before leaving again to spend a couple weeks with my family in Myrtle Beach. Basically 3 solid weeks of vacation.

So, do I miss the corporate world?

Fun Party!

Okay, the Christmas party tonight was great. I’ll do this in random order because I really want to talk about M first. So I’m talking to a friend when I notice a cute/fun looking girl chattering away on the couch below. I think my friend needed to slip away to take care of something (he was hosting the party). So I was standing by myself for a few seconds when she turned around and introduced herself to me. I introduced myself and immediately remembered that I knew her from somewhere. Then she patted the empty spot on the couch next to her and said, “Hey, have a seat.” Cool! So I plopped down and I began to piece together where I knew her from. Oh, we sat next to each other at the last Christmas party! It was a couple of years ago. But it was a ton of fun. So, she asked me, “So what are you up to now.” I hesitated because I’m never really sure what to tell people when they ask that. But then I said, “I’m a software developer.” She immediately remembered all about that. She even said, “Oh I remember from last time you’re the software developer who isn’t nerdy.” I laughed becuase the part about me not being nerdy is something I pointed out at that last party. So I told her that I work for myself now so I’m legitimately even more of a businessman now. She seemed to like that. And then the conversation took a few little twists and turns before I ended up mentioning that I’m actually into all sorts of stuff but that I always just mention the software development because most people seem satisfied with that answer and don’t expect me to continue. I was just mentioning that more as a humorous thing about how people are, or something. But that piqued her curiosity and she asked, “So what else do you do.” I kinda shyly shrugged my shoulders and smiled like, “Oh come on.” But she gave me a look like she really wanted to know. So I started the list by saying, “Well, I’m starting a mortgage brokerage.” “A mortgage brokerage”, she repeated. “So you’re just an all around entrepreneur?” “Yes! Exactly! I’m an entrepreneur. I just love business in general.” I really lit up on that one. So that was awesome because the pieces came together and she really seemed to understand what I’m all about.

After that I asked her what she’s doing. I remembered that she was in undergrad at the last party. She said she’s a senior majoring in special ed. She then launched into describing the school she’s working at now (for her internship). She works only with kids that have been pulled out of normal school because they’ve committed some crime that put them in jail. All of her students have been to jail. I think she said they are all black. They have various problems from raging tempers to violence and etc. There are always two restraint teams ready in case a student gets out of control. I was very interested in all of this. I told her how cool I thought it was because I really do kinda have a “burden” for that sort of thing. (Sorry for the churchy/weasel word)

But anyways, we just kept chatting and joking around about all sorts of things. Then I remembered that last party she was the one who brought that toy that you stick your two fingers into the putty stuff and it makes a fart noise! Do you believe that! LOL! That’s such a mischievous Daryl thing to do (the toy, not the . . . ). Right, HEY! Shut it! Okay anway, so I just had a great time with her. At the last party she was a sophomore so I decided that she was probably so fun cause she was in that careless girl stage. But now she’s a senior in college and she’s still fun.

So then we had the white elephant gift exchange. I got #2. The absolute worst number of all. But who cares, really. So I think the 3rd person picked the gift I brought. And it was clearly the one to steal. Guys stole it for their wives and girls stole it from other girls. After a certain number of steals it was locked and couldn’t be stolen anymore. A.T. ended up with it. Which I’m glad about because she’s classy and really appreciated my nice gift. Plus she lives in my neighborhood. So I definately got brownie points with the ladies for bringing that gift. Thanks sis! You rock! It was the only gift to get locked.

M ended up getting a pretty nice mug and plate. And nobody stole it from her. We remembered that she got something pretty nice at the last party. And she managed to not get it stolen then too. But, alas, she had to leave after the white elephant exchange. So . . . I started thinking. I should really ask her for her number. I remembered that I wanted to get it at the last party but she was just really young then. I did my usual, “I’m sure she’s got a boyfriend, yadda, yadda, routine in my head to talk myself out of it.” But for some reason I just thought to my self, “Hey who care. I’m going to ask her just to be a man about it and not whimp out.” So she grabbed her coat and I caught her on her way to the door. I had my phone in my hand. “Hey, can I get your number?” “Sure, you can call me. It’s 864-555-5555.” Yea, no kidding. I thought the 555 thing was only in the movies. But whatever. So she left. And I proceeded to try to store the number in my highly advanced phone. I typed in her name, M. Then I clicked the button to insert the number I typed. Oh stink! I put the number in the name field. So I backspaced over it. Then I navigated down to the spot to insert the number. The Insert option was gone!!!!!! DANG! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! I started sweating. Nope, I hadn’t the foggiest what it was from memory. Ugh. I navigated around a little and found another option labled “Insert” but I had no idea if it would insert that number again or just some other junk I had in the clipboard. Click . . .  Yay! It put the correct number in! Whew! I saved the entry and just looked at my phone with this sense of Relief & Mission Accomplished!

So heck yea! That rocks! I got her number. I’m gonna call her soon too. She’s just the type of girl I can take to a fancy resteraunt. But hey ya’ll. She is very very pretty though. I’m dead serious. She’s way above average. Plus she’s just a ton of fun around anybody. So I’m sure I’d have a lot of serious competition if I wanted to jump in that ring. But honestly, I’ll just take her out and show her a great time. I already know that we have fun together. And that’s really half the battle, right? I’m genuinly interested in what she’s into and she remembered what I do from 2 years ago.

So now the guessing game officially starts. How old is she? What’s her name? What color is her hair and eyes? But you’re gettin’ nuttin! Nope. Nadda! You’re lucky I told you what I did!

Focus & Client Love

Well I’m considering dropping the one biz that is getting dropped in my lap complete with a guaranteed clientele. The mortgage broker biz. The reason is that I believe it will consume almost all of my time. I won’t be left with any time to pursue my Pro Net Labs goals or the stock market. The stock market is my #1 goal. And if I can’t follow the market closely then I’ll never make it. I am really enjoying my PNL biz. I love writing code. My code systems are slick and I want to keep developing them to become better and better. I make good money at my PNL biz and it’s the one thing I’ve been at long enough and am confident at that I can call myself the President of PNL and I’ve got the credibility to go with the title. Everybody who knows me knows I’m a programmer. And what can I say, I love software development.

Nobody reaizes I have the inside track on Real Estate. And I’m really fine with that. Real Estate is the one thing I’ll be a secret expert on. I’ll also be a secret expert on the stock market. I always tell people that my biz is software development with PNL. I’d just love it if everybody thought I was a business genious because I’ve earned tons of money running my software company. In reality, most of my money will come from the stock market and from a bit of Real Estate. But nobody will know that I’m into that. So they’ll figure that I got it all from my PNL biz.

And hopefully my PNL biz will prosper. It already has. PNL is my biz that I start from the ground up. It will grow mostly by word-of-mouth . I’ll build a biz from scratch and learn all of the lessons the hard way, like most successful bizmen do. I love that though. There’s nothing like being in the trenches and toughing out all the aspects of starting your own company.

The mortgage broker company would work out well if I wanted to go for that. I’m practically getting a $400k/yr biz handed to me on a silver platter. All I have to is get trained by a guy totally willing to train me. Then after about a year I’ll be on my own making mad cash off of Real Estate in Greenville, Columbia and Charleston. But, yes. I think I’m going to let that go.

In 5 years I’ll look back and remember the $400k/yr opportunity that I had in the palm of my hand. What will I think of it then? Will I regret that I didn’t grasp it? Or will I be so glad that I didn’t let it get in the way of my stock market skills and PNL? Who knows. Only time will tell. But that’s what’s awesome about having 100% control of your career. I may look back and decide that it was a mistake. But that was a choice that **I** made. I can’t be bitter toward a boss who didn’t pick me for a promotion. I will learn from it and know that if the opportunity ever presents itself again I have 100% control to make the better choice this time.

And if I decide to take up a similar opportunity in the future I’ll have the added experience of building PNL from the ground up. I created the product. And I created my clientele. I’ve got 100% control of 1) the product and 2) the biz.

 It won’t be a walk in the park. I’ll get ticked at my clients from time to time. I’ll get ticked at my biz partners from time to time. I’ll get ticked because I procrastinated and my back is up against a wall. But hey. I’ve had a taste of all of this and I still love software development.

So let me just change the topic slightly for a bit. I realize that what I need to do is not just get more PNL customers but to get bigger contracts. Bigger and bigger contracts. Right now I’m developing some pretty sweet software. And I’ve been fortunate to be developing software that will be used inside of a large company. But I need to be moving more and more in the direction of getting more complex jobs and more lucrative jobs.

The wonderful thing about every piece of software I develop is that the owner will naturally come back to me for upgrades. Even if there is no contract. If I made them happy, they will want me to do any additional work for them. I love situations like that. They want me just because they like me. I didn’t force them to sign a contract that they will promise to use me. Nope. They call me simply because they enjoyed their last experience with me and only want to use me. If I died they’d be bummed out because they’d have to find somebody else who is sure to not be as good as me.

Ah, isn’t it wonderful when your clients love you? They don’t just use you ’cause they have to. They truely love you. They’d pay extra just to have the priviledge of dealing with you.

And, of course, I can’t have a post where I don’t at least talk about the ladies a little bit. So ladies . . . I’d make you feel like the most pampered “client” ever. You should really consider giving this businessman a shot. I may not be Brad Pitt. But I’m definately exciting. Hey, have you ever wanted a Knight-in-shining-armor to sweep you off of your feet? Well, I’m just the guy. If you can catch my fancy I’ll really show you the time of your life. Every girl that I’ve dated will tell you that I like to treat my lady like a queen. And if you’re game, you never know what exciting fun I’ll get you into by the end of a date I’ll be the most fun software developer you’ve ever dated!

Yep, I’m a devil.

Free

I just want to talk about how wonderful it is to be free. To wake up in the morning and think to myself, “What do I want to do today?” I could hit the snooze button for a 10th time. I could take a shower. I could go to Williams & Sonoma. I could write a post on my blog. I could drive up to Ceasar’s Head. I could go back to sleep. I could stay up till 4am. I could go to my favorite BBQ restaraunt. I could play my music loud since all my neighbors are at work. I could take a motorcycle ride all around Paris Mountain. I could go to Zaxbys. I can do anything I want to. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do.

I really want to cherish this and dwell on it. Because from time to time I make a decision that takes away my freedom for one reason or another. I made one of those recently. I used to live my entire life like that because I didn’t know any better. But now I’m out of the bird cage. I want to make this blog entry all about the mistake I made so that hopefully it will be harder to make the same mistake again.

Why did I make the mistake? The basic reason is because I wanted to tell somebody what they wanted to hear. I knew that what I promised had a slim chance of working out that way. If I told them the truth as I saw it they would reply by questioning my reasoning. And at that stage of the ballgame I knew they could poke holes faster than I could patch them. But I also knew that my gut feeling on the issue. I knew I might have to compromise things I know are important to pull it off.

So there. Maybe I’ll have a bit more guts next time. Maybe I’ll just tell it exactly how I see it and just let the chips fall. Maybe the deal will fall through for me. Maybe it will go through anyway. On my terms. Either of those ways is better than compromising on what’s important to me.

In My Sleep

Well last night was one of the latest I’ve ever stayed up to write code. I didn’t go to bed till 6:30am. By the time I hit the sack I had no idea what to expect at my demo meeting with my client today. I didn’t wake up till 12:30p. The meeting was at 1:30p. Just enough time to take a shower throw my laptop in my bag and jump in the X. I got there on time.

I showed the client around their brand new software. They were impressed and very happy with it. There was not a single error. As I was driving home after the meeting I was kind of amazed. I just couldn’t help rember how my brain shut down right on schedule last night at 3am. However I kept typing for over 3 more hours. I could hardly make it to my bed without bumping into stuff. I think I was about as close to “coding in my sleep” as I could be without actually sleeping. And on top of that it was quality code. And I wasn’t just fiddling with layout or somethign. I was building pretty complex SQL queries. I created a new table and an entity class to match it. I was making a few broad-based interface flow changes. Quite the variety of difficulties and disciplines. But after it was all said and done it was good code and it performed flawlessly today!

I’m incredably satisfied with my software development discipline that I’ve developed over the past 4 years or so. The time I’ve spent writing my Foundation is paying off bigtime. It makes almost everything I do about 4X easier. When a client asks if I can do something the answer is always “yes”. On top of that it is always easier for me because of my AS3 that I took the time to write a couple years ago. My AS3 gives me a big edge over the competition. My AS3 is a perfect example of how I look far into the future and start off by building a solid foundation that perfectly caters to what I want to do.

I really do love my AS3. Have I mentioned that I love my AS3? In case you’re wondering what AS3 stands for, it stands for Application Services Sub-System. It’s a database-driven system that has a set of classes for Security, Settings, AppConfiguration, Messaging, greatly simplified DB Connectivity among other things. When I write a web app it automatically starts off with a whole set of functionality without even writing a line of code yet. Take my QTurret website for instance. I probably spent about 20 hours on it. But it is a db-driven site that already has multi-user support, role-based security, db-driven & encryptable settings. And all of the AS3 features are tested and rock-solid because I reuse the AS3 for every web app I write.

Along these same lines I’ve written what I call my “CTL”. The CTL is a Common Tools Library of classes and functionality that I rely heavily upon for almost all the code I write. It abstracts away the hairy details of many routine coding tasks.

What can I say folks? Coding in Daryl’s world is fun and easy! But that’s because of a lot of forethought and design. I’d love to go head to head with any programmer. Give us both the task to write a standard corporate web app, let’s say, a workflow app. My project will cost less and finish faster. And on top of that my apps are built upon solid best-practices with consistent, easy-to-follow source code that is self-maintaining and easy to upgrade.

So there’s my little commercial for Pro Net Labs. )