UnrealisticExpectations 3.0

In the 7-8 years that I’ve been pulling down this blog, I’ve always enjoyed it most when I spewed random pieces of life and observations, so I don’t know why now should be any different!

• I started using Twitter and I’m just not sure if I’m going to keep using it.
• Fortunately, there’s a facebook application that shows all your twittering, I guess.
• And speaking of Facebook, even though I did assloads of research on it in the past year or so, I’ve really started getting into it more and more. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.
• Halo 3 has been kicking my ass.
• But to be fair, it’s been kicking Wil’s and Shane’s asses, too. Mostly mine, though.
• Sydney’s turning 4 on November 13th! Party on November 10th! Stop by and share the fun (and Sangria and Cider Beer and the wings and all the rest of the party delights!).
• We did our annual trip to the Pumpkin Farm and I’m constantly reminded how much I enjoy spending time with the 2–soon to be 3–ladies in my life. It’s okay to envy me. I would.
• I’ve been at my job for 6 months now, and it started off pretty rocky and turbulent from where I sat. This wasn’t really anyone’s fault–well, in retrospect, it was a time when it was tough to be in just about anyone’s shoes and I had the good fortune of landing in the middle of it. There was no honeymoon period, really. Since then, I’ve learned a few things–and sure, it may be a bit kiss-ass-ish–but, I’ve grown like–and respect–my boss quite a bit. I think we’re still sort of feeling each other out a bit from the beginning, but it’s one of those things that a beer may be just what the doctor ordered to lube the gears a bit. Anyway, I’ve felt some uphill battles, but not with people as much as process, and at the end of the day when you can bitch more about process than people, well, that says a lot.
• So, tomorrow, I’ll, like, get fired, right?
• Monolith Press work-stuff has been pretty fun this time around. I wish the world were just different enough that Wil and I weren’t half a continent apart to work on it and that, well, I was a better writer and more internets popular (hahaha! like in the Blog Wars of ‘02!) so we could really put some oooomph into. Then again, we’d need a money printing press, too. Or some deep pocketed-dumb guys who’d let us do it on their dime.
• Chirstmas, for most of us, is between 4-6 paychecks away.
• That last one really sucked to read, didn’t it?
• Our basement has been at 90% complete for about a year now. We’ve nickled and dimed our ways into getting most of it done, but we’re finally really, truly on the cusp of wrapping all of that up now. We’ve got some drywall repair to do from where the tape is pulling off the wall in a couple of rooms and then I’m going to get that TV mounted in my office, run the electrical to the outside lights, run the pull light in the utility room, finish the shower install, fix the leak under the sink (can ya tell I’m no plumber? water scares me.), turn on the heated tile in the bathroom, cover the circuit breaker and home run boxes on the wall in the basement, move the 25″ monitor to the “good” MAME box and get rid of the spare to free up some more room for that pool table I’ll never get, fix a couple of minor door issues, install and turn-on the outside electrical jacks (finally), paint all the remaining upstairs room and finish up the baby’s room.
• I’m jonesing for an Apple TV, but I’m feeling a little too rectally-tensed-up to purchase one new, so I’m watching CraigsList and eBay for a used one. Hint. Nudge.
• The gigantic douchebags at AdminiStaff lost one of their laptops that had over 150,000 names, address and social security numbers on it. In general, I don’t call someone a gigantic douchebag unless they’ve done something to deserve it, so you can safely bet that I was one of those names. Oh! And fortunately, it happened on October 3rd, the news reported it about a week ago, and I just got a letter in the mail about it yesterday. They’re offering 1 year of credit protection from Equifax, where I can pay the low price of $250 per incident. Because, you know, I’m the one who fucked up and should have to pay any money out of pocket, right? Sure, 19 people get suspended for looking at George Clooney’s medical records, but one fucking moron leaves his car running with his laptop on the front seat while he walks into White Hen to buy a pack smokes and suddenly some swarthy young turk is now Russ and buying up all kinds of hookers, coke and Atari 2600 games on my dime. Fan-fucking-tastic.
• I’m an Information Architect. Or a User Experience jerkwad. Or I draw ugly boxes and arrows on paper to help people visualize how something could work before they build it. Sounds boring, but I love it, think I’m good at it, and I’m in conversations to be on a panel about it at a convention next year. I think that’s pretty cool. Toot toot!
• I’m editing my first article for Boxes & Arrows. Cool.
• Baby Got Book is my favorite cringe-video of the moment. Me so holy!
• Since I’ve started my job, I’ve found that more companies have found interest in me and my skills. No toot toot on this one; it is what it is. I’m certainly not busting my ass putting myself out there, but I do keep my LinkedIn profile current. I’m surprised by this, if not flattered. Years ago, when I first starting working, I dreamed of being in the advertising industry–I’m not sure why, really–but I did. Now, I’m there. Now, other ad agencies seem to have smelled it in the water or something and it’s just bizarre–I mean, I certainly wasn’t that good at the softball tournament this summer!
• Feloniously Stupid may be one of the best descriptors I’ve seen in awhile.
• Wil booked a role on Numb3rs. It’s cool he could finally share that with people; he’s pretty proud of himself, and after the way he’s been getting assassinated on Halo, he really did need something like that. ‘Grats, fucker.
• I’m a closet Perez Hilton fan. Oh…and Go Fug Yourself, too. Some guilty pleasures are just awesome, like closing your office door and jamming out to Little Red Corvette and MmmmmBop until someone peers through the clear glass slits and catches you. Bastards.
• I got a call from Microsoft to do what I do for them. Sure, maybe they’re the evil empire, but it was a huge feather in my cap, pat on my back and a fist-clenching “Oh YEAH!” moment for me that soon past. No relocating to Washington for me, but… Microsoft and Disney are big on my “These guys get it” list, and it’s nice to know that 50% of that list at least thinks I’m worth a long distance telephone call to.
• I’m totally gay for Dumbledore.

My ramble has run dry, so I should stop before my ramble falls to shambles.

It’s been a slice, y’all. See ya real soon, now, ya hear?

Perhaps a bit in the name-dropping linking department Wil’s latest book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives has gone into a formal launch on our old friend Monolith Press.

The last few weeks have reminded us of a different time when we first launched Monolith Press–the world was a lot scarier, times were tighter, and we were working hard at creating something, trying to not flame out in failure and prove that we could make this thing happen. I was working a craptacular little gig waaaaaaay the heck up north in the lovely little area called Uptown in Chicago. I had to ride the train to the city, walk several city blocks to the Red Line, transfer to the Purple Line, get off the El and walk the block to the little boutique with the owner who robbed Peter to pay Paul and was famous for bouncing paychecks. I was, for the most part, customer service, and the guy who took his first foray into building a PHP website, per Wil’s Open Source request demand.

When we were updating the site with the new project, it was the first time either one of us had really taken a dive into that little space since shortly after the Awesome Deal cluster frack with O’Reilly. To be honest, I’d forgotten just how well I had built it–sure, there were a couple of minor database issues since we’d moved servers a couple of times and naturally, as we were making some of those minor changes, a couple of people just happened to stumble across it and send Wil emails (it ALWAYS happens that way!), but in the end, creating the new project, adding the press release and updating the bio really only took about 5 minutes of our collective time.

Figuring out some of that other crap took longer just in trying to sort things out.

But, it was pretty much… straight forward. All in all, updating the order page took the longest. That, and some light strategizing and some lessons-learned recapping as to the approach to purchases and how to handle certain customer requests, took the most amount of time.

We both were sort of feeling it: When’s the other shoe drop? What have we forgotten? Holy shit, did we really end up with something that stood the test of time? Have we really been through the ringer so much that the experience kind of added up in the right direction?

Pretty much… Yes.

Wil’s the book-man. He’s the real author here; he’s got that knack of really making you feel like, even as a blogger, he’s your friend. I know it’s true–y’all think you truly know him, what’s going on in his life, etc. His voice is Warm Like Home, to quote a great Freddy Jones Band song. He’s one of the reasons you decided that you, too, could be a blogger.

Me, I’m just the friend who knows some of this web stuff and who gets to play like I’m his “people” from time to time. It’s a little fun and we work well together. It makes me wish we could come up with The Next Big Thing(tm) to do together and get rich off off weak-ass websites and good writing skills.

Or that I could be a voice over actor, too.

Or better looking.

Or funnier.

You get the general theme of where I’m going here.

Regardless, the big lesson here is that with a lot of will, determination and even some Wil (and Russ), you can achieve just about anything. We’ve got a small little publishing company that we (okay, by “we”, I mean “Wil”) can run–we’re out of the 100% guessing phase of things and now it’s a bit more educated guesses and calculated risks.

And it’s cool.

And that made us happy.

Go buy a book–it’s good stuff!