Starting Anew In Austin

I moved to Austin, Texas the weekend of April 10. I drove a rental truck with my car in tow from Orlando, Florida, and the whole trip took about 30 hours, including a five hour stop at a motel to get some rest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Packing and getting underway was made a good bit easier thanks to the help of some good friends in Orlando who helped me organize and box up my stuff. Much appreciated!

So now I've been in Austin almost two weeks. It's gone by fast, and I'm finally just about settled in where I'm staying, a room share in a beautiful four-bedroom house up in the Arboretum area (northwest from downtown). Although my ultimate plan is business ownership and development, I have allowed myself to be courted by a couple of software companies for full-time employment. One of them had previously extended me an offer in spring '08, but I took a competing offer in the DC area instead.

Why would I participate in job interviews if I want to go into business? This is the question I am living with currently. There are a few ways to look at it: 1) I'm selling out on my dreams by pursuing full-time work, postponing the "real" life I keep telling myself I'll have someday. 2) It's something practical to do while I keep my ear to the ground and get a feel for the best avenues of business opportunity that are available. 3) It's a way to practice some of the best wisdom I've ever learned, being willing to be "open to everything and attached to nothing". (Wayne Dyer)

I am truly blessed. I followed opportunity back in 1995 and built the kind of career and skills that get me noticed in the job market for very good pay. But sometimes I wonder if this situation has also created a kind of gravity that keeps me from moving up into an orbit that is higher still. When I read the business stories of people like Richard Branson, Felix Dennis - even Bill Gates and Michael Dell - I feel like I may be settling for something less than what I have the potential of becoming by taking on a salaried position. You see, it's always a good time to take a job, and it's never a good time to jump into business. A software job offers me good money. The benefits are nice. There's a lot to like about it and I would never dishonor the value of working for a paycheck. It's just that something deep inside of me wants to the one who creates jobs, who puts capital at risk, who makes a difference (of whatever magnitude) in this world by creating and promoting his own products and services.

I was recently re-reading a chapter in Ken Fisher's excellent book The Ten Roads To Wealth where he writes about managing other peoples' money. Wealth managers make up the largest percentage of the annual Forbes 400 list of the world's richest people. Fisher himself is on the list for that reason. He was saying in his book that the most important part of getting started (from a business survival standpoint) is learning how to sell. In fact, he recommends a person interested in this path to learn selling even before learning investing. That got me thinking - maybe what I want to do is take on a sales job and get some more real-world experience there. I say "more" because I have worked as a salesman in the past - my first job was concession sales at the Toledo Zoo, after which I sold computers at KMart. Back in the '90s, I occasionally took up holiday sales work at Circuit City. Most of my friends think I have this skill in spades, but like so many areas of my life, it's mostly raw talent that hasn't been developed in a focused, sustained way.

One thing is for sure, I feel as energized now as I did when I first took computer programming seriously back in 1995, when I had a sense that the world was my oyster and only opportunity was ahead. As my dear friend Mimi Munroe would remind me, "You can't get it wrong." No Mim, I can't. I remain clear about my eventual outcome, yet the path to that destination is an unknown adventure that I embrace with abandon.

"Getting" Twitter

When I first heard about Twitter.com, it was through a co-worker in the computer games industry. He didn't get Twitter and he described it to me in a way that made it sound like a crack pipe for narcissistic ADD sufferers. It was only recently, during emergency relief efforts for the Haiti and Chile earthquakes that I even gave Twitter a second thought. Turns out Twitter was very useful as a communication tool of last resort for hundreds of thousands of people during those crises.

I'm currently attending South by Southwest Interactive, a conference that features the latest information about all the cool technology that makes Web 2.0 happen. (Facebook, Farmville, Twitter, etc) I arrived here without a Twitter account set up and with a very basic (read: non-"smart") mobile phone. It was a riot. Whenever I introduced myself to someone, they either wanted my Twitter ID or they wanted me to use a smartphone to scan their badge barcode to get their info. I felt like an armless man at a canoe-rowing party. It certainly didn't help that I decided to come just two weeks ago and didn't print up any personal business cards. Yes kids, it turns out that spontaneity can have its drawbacks.

But being immersed in this conference and it's amazing sea of digitally connected people had a very positive effect on me. I came to understand that Twitter's model of following others and very short update messages really does enable something positive. It allows the rapid creation and destruction of networks of helpful acquaintances who have the information you are interested in right now. It helps break people out of the dreadful fright they have about "tooting your own horn." As the wise advice goes - if you don't toot your horn, who is going to toot it?

So Twitter isn't about narcissism in a negative sense. I've come to see that it is a useful platform to allow natural leaders in various areas to emerge organically, based on their insight into topics that matter in any given context. It basically allows instantly formed chat rooms around topics that suddenly become relevant. The readers and other contributors to the topics can get to know very quickly who is and who is not relevant with regard to the topic and can choose to follow those who distinguish themselves. Since we all are more conversant on some topics than others, it is a true democratization of information - each of us can contribute to the benefit of all of us, based on the topics that matter to any of us.

I hope you will go to twitter.com and give it a try. Create a free account, upload a profile photo, and let it's introductory screen try to locate your other friends (based on your email contacts). Then start "tweeting". Go one step further in the setup screens and turn on the ability to send updates from your mobile phone. It's really easy and it allows you to "get the word out" to the people who matter to you very very easily. (even if you have an old phone that only sends text messages - btw, standard text fees apply of course) Open your mind to the possibilities, and you'll be surprised at the benefits you gain, both socially and personally.

That Was Easy

Last night I installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux (9.10) on my main PC. Went off without a hitch. I was able to quickly get up-to-speed with the app (called a package manager) that lets you find and install other programs. This is a more impressive job by Ubuntu than it sounds, because I installed the "server" version of the OS that doesn't come with a graphical user interface by default. Finding the window manager I wanted and getting it up and running quickly (with all dependencies and a sensible set of default graphical programs) "just worked". This is something that couldn't be said of many Linux experiences of years gone by. Sound didn't work right away for me, but hey - you've almost got to have some kind of glitch or it wouldn't feel like a genuine Linux experience! It was a known issue with an easy fix.

Since I've been vegging out with Windows 7 at home for just about a year now, (though I used Linux at work) it was fun to observe my brain zoom back up to speed with the UNIX command line mojo I've developed over the years. Like riding a bicycle - it all came rushing back. On a philosophical note, I, by far, prefer a system that does everything via command-line processing with GUI sugar added on (like Linux) to a system that starts with a GUI and then tries to expose some of its functionality via command line later. (like Windows and the old Mac OS) This makes it possible to easily create scripts that do useful things - easy to make a system run the way I want it to rather than the way its creator wants me to: Legos versus a jigsaw puzzle.

I've already installed the latest versions of several programming languages. Among these are the usual suspects like c++, Java, and Python. But I did a little digging and installed Google's new language, "go!", as well. I figure any language co-created by a guy who helped birth UNIX (as well as the obscure "Plan9" OS - the name was inspired by the title of a cult sci-fi movie) has got to have something going for it. Well, more seriously, go! is interesting to me for two reasons: it exposes multiprocessing in the language itself, and it is the first new well-backed "systems" language (you can build low-level servers with it) in decades. This latter point makes me happy because it is a pie the face of snobby academia elites who decry, "We don't need any more computer languages! It couldn't possibly bring anything new to the table!"

So yeah - geekin' out, coding, trying out riffs of ideas that have been rolling around in the back of my mind for a while.

Losing An Uncle, Gaining A Family

I'm not sure why it takes a death in the family to spur us to reconnect with loved ones we've lost track of, but that's what the last few days has been like for me. My beloved Uncle Stan died on Valentine's day and I traveled to his part of the country to attend the memorial service held in his honor last weekend.

Stan lived a long and interesting life and he was rich in the areas that count most, love and life experiences - as well as being well off materially. Like a star, his homestead attracted the nearby dwelling places of his natural and extended families. His own fascinating house commands an incredible view at the top of a low summit aptly named "Love's Hill". It's tempting to write about the cool cars he drove and raced, his pilot's license, his professional ascent to Chief of Medicine at the hospital where he worked, as well as the less auspicious but satisfying medical work he did at local schools and prisons. My dad says that his brother "Wanted to do everything, try everything." It's pretty clear from my life history that I inherited that part of the family's genetic sequence myself.

Whether it was the turbulent transition from the sixties to the seventies or personal transitions in their own lives, my father and uncle left the wives of their 20s and 30s at a similar time, stranding cousins and aunts from the regular contact that would have happened if it had not been so. We all went by nicknames back then. I was "Buddy" (Bernard II), Stan Jr. was "Chummy", and his brother John was "Johnny". My paternal grandparents were a hub of occasional re-uniting, and it was always fun to get together. Well fun for me anyway, I was the youngest of us three. I'm sure I was a bit of a pain in the butt to Chummy and Johnny, but it was the good kind of pain in the butt - they got back at me whenever we went outside and played catch. Guess who got to be the eternal and everlasting monkey in the middle? Good times.

And then the inevitable high school commencements and goings out into the world, some to college, some to the military. We were spread out all over the country. Every once in a while one of us would make an effort and re-establish contact. But like in the parable of the sower, "the cares of this world" took their toll and it would often be years before we would hear from one another.

So last weekend, I got the chance to hug the necks of some dear people I hadn't seen in a good long while, not just Chummy and Johnny and their mother, but Stan's second family and friends of the family as well. Miss Baltimore came with me (I had been visiting her for Valentine's weekend when I got the news) and it was a delight to introduce her to them and vice versa. It felt so good to be so connected again after all the years. I hope we all make the effort to keep in touch and visit from time to time.

Back On The Horse

Yes, yes, I've been neglecting my blog, but it's never too late to get back on the horse. I got so used to updating my status on social networking sites that I got away from posting "big picture" articles here. But I intend to create the kind of structure in my life that supports taking care of both.

Thanks for reading, and staying with me!

Happy Thanksgiving '09

Miss Baltimore flew down to Orlando. She and I are driving to the Florida panhandle to visit her mother's family for Thanksgiving. Here's hoping all my readers enjoy a great holiday!

What I am most thankful for: That I matter to those who matter to me.

Fall 2009: Stock Market Likely to Decline

If you have exposure to the stock market, you may want to dial it back to a money market fund or cash. Both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ composite indexes pierced below important levels of support today. (their 50-day moving averages) This often happens when the market is going to decline for a period of time.

All in all, not a terrible run since March when the market turned positive: a 58% increase for the NASDAQ and a 45% increase for the S&P 500.

Several companies declined sharply this week after reporting earnings that just barely missed estimates. Some declined even though they beat their earnings estimates. This is typical behavior when the market is turning south, when even good news is not enough to keep stocks moving up.

I have sold all the stocks in my personal portfolio and am looking now for opportunities to make money on declines.

Remember - don't blame the government or your retirement plan company if you fail to keep an eye on your nest egg!