94 Acres

After several years of planning Diane and I have finally pulled the trigger. A couple of weeks ago we went down to Tennessee to look at some land. Next thing I know we are making an offer on 94 acres of rolling hills in west central Tennessee.

The land is stunning. It’s off the beaten track 20 minutes from the nearest ‘city’. The views are amazing and the neighbors are anything but close. There is a lot of planning and work be done yet. We have a house to build, barns to build, critters to move, but step one of getting on with part 3, or is it 4?, of our lives is about to start and we are totally excited about it.

We been working on floor plans for the new house as well. Well, more accurately, Diane has been sending me floor plans and pointing out what she does and does not like. Then I get the fun, it really is fun, of making the design work for us. Finally, after many years I get to use my architecture degree again.

To go with the new house I’m thinking about starting a new web site to document the whole thing, but I need to come up with a name for the property first. I was thinking about calling it Texas, but Diane says that name is already taken so I need to keep working. She then came up with Rohan, but it sounded a bit familiar so we will have to keep trying.

I’m ready to go now.

So the walking thing didn’t go very well.. Bad knees, no time, walking takes forever, and it’s gawdawful hot no matter ho early I go out.. My friend Mark recently took up bike riding and has done wonderful things with his weight so I figured I’d give it a try..

I’ve owned this nice Trek Navigator 3.0 for 3 days now, and other than the incredibly sore ass, I think I like it.. A few more rides to get used to riding, then a new saddle to make things a bit more comfy, and I should be well on my way to losing some weight..

Now if my wife would stop making things like Zucchini Bread I might be ok..

Total miles so far : 10.5

I don’t post much on this blog any more, I’m just too busy with life and projects and other blogs to keep up with it.. Its sort of sad in a way..

Anyway, I’ve decided that its time to drop some of this weight.. Its been a long time coming, and a long time putting it on.. I’m hoping that it won’t be a terribly long time coming off.. I started adding the weight nearly 20 years ago after a pretty horrendous car accident.. I was rear ended in an intersection and spent about six months rehabbing my back enough to where I could just go to work.. By then I had already started adding the weight..

Then I spent 5 more years sore, in pain, and managing a pizza place where pizza was the meal 3 or 4 times a day.. More pounds were added.. Then I went from standing all day to sitting all day doing programming and IT work and drinking Mt Dew.. Oh Mt. Dew.. How I love you so.. Please don’t hate me for leaving you..

So here I am at 43 and looking at how large I have gotten and deciding that it may finally be time to get serious about it..

I’ve been slowly getting ready for the new diet over the last couple weeks.. Cutting back on the Mt Dew, trying to eat without snacking, and generally getting all of the junk food out of the house so my weak will isn’t tempted by easy access to chips and salsa.. Tomorrow I start the Joy to Life program..

Joy to Life is a high protein diet that Adkins was based on.. After watching my chiropractor lose weight over the last 4 months with what looked like ease, I’ve decided to follow him in to the program.. And it is a program.. You meet with a nutritionist, you do buy some of their foods, but you also add quite a bit of your own food to the program.. The program runs in phases with phase 1 being the hardest, at least in my mind.. Its the most strict and has the least variety, but supposedly it also offers the fastest weight loss while maintaining muscle mass..

You run on phase 1 until you lose 80% of your target weight and then switch to phase 2.. This helps avoid a shock to your system and lets you slowly adjust to eating more whole foods and eating better.. “If” things go well, and I can keep from cheating the diet, I hope to get through phase 1 in about 20 weeks or so.. Then I’ll get in to phase 2 and we’ll see how things go..

I’ve never rally been accused of being a part of the crowd. But for Mother’s Day I usually cheap out and give my mom a piece of jewelry that I made (its cool – I’m really a jeweler, but you knew that), or a plant that she will manage to kill in short order. So I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with something new and different..

Then I looked at the soup I just spilled on my shirt and it hit me. Ever since I quit the day job to live the glamorous life of an entrepreneur, my wardrobe has been modeled after Charlie Harper on Two and a Half Men. Shorts and a bowling or Hawaiian shirt, even in 10 degree weather. I just don’t go outside.

Hawaiian shirt for Mother's Day

The quest had started. Find my mom a Hawaiian shirt for Mother’s Day that she will love.

She is a green freak. Really, you should see it.. Anyway, I found this awesome lime green women’s Hawaiian shirt at Wave Shoppe. I like their shirts and they even have them in size “Fluffy” for guys like me (I might have ordered one for me while I was there, I’m just sayin’). Anyway, I think that this Mother’s Day will be awesome. Not that every day isn’t awesome, but this should surprise her. Now I need to figure out how to hide it under a pastic plant or in a jewelry box for when I give it to her.

If this doesn’t make me her favorite son I don’t know what will.

Seems like just a couple months ago I was talking about re-opening my internet marketing company, Metal Monster Marketing, and here I am again with another change.

It’s time to leave the jewelry business entirely. Effective Christmas Eve I’ll be leaving Images Jewelers as a full time contractor. I’ve loved the last 6 years there and learned a lot about something I knew nothing about when I started. I’ll miss the ladies, the designing, and just about everything else about the store. I’ll still be returning from time to time to give guidance on their web presence and help them continue to develop that side of the business, but it’s time to move on.

So where am I moving on to? Creadively, llc. I’ve taken over the position of director of Search Marketing at Creadively, LLC. Creadively can be classified as a startup company and for now we are working on internal projects only, but the opportunity to get in on a startup, and all that entails, again is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Juggling several projects at once, training a new staff as we grow, and until Christmas, working two jobs will be a real challenge to adjust to again from the one customer one project life I’ve been leading.

I can’t wait.

Wow, look at all the categories this one drops in to.

Just a quick note to let the loyal readership, all three of you, that I’ve decided to expand my company again and branch out from a single customer jeweler / web guy and hang out my developer shingle again..

Large Orange Pop is the name of my new internet marketing company and will be a sub division of SG Design Studio.. I’ll be offering internet market help, SEO, and web development as appropriate and needed.. While I have no real intention to stop “doing the jewelry thing” I find I miss the fun of helping build up a new business online and look forward to working 90 hours a week again.. Well, maybe not that last part so much..

I expect the marketing / SEO parts of this website to be absorbed in to LOP shortly, and hopefully this site will go back to being a little more fun with some geek stuff and generic weirdness..

I’m off to get my intravenous caffeine port hooked up –

I don’t say that very often.. It’s sort of anti everything I try to do.. But it’s time..

I have been a partner at ForTheWeb.Com since it was founded more than 7 years ago.. We started out as a small web design and hosting firm with 4 partners in Northern California and we have done a lot of good work in that time.. The company has grown and evolved in those years.. But somewhere along the line it quit being “fun”.. A couple of years ago we lost our first partner.. Personality conflicts and other issues kept coming up and three of us decided to buy the fourth out..

With that came more change and some growth.. But lately the “job” has stopped being fun.. It became something I dreaded doing and the extra hours spent on it, above my passion for designing jewelry, just left me tired.. And being a bit of a take or leave it kind of guy, I chose to leave it..

It’s always tough to leave something, especially something that isn’t “finished”.. Over the last 20 years I’ve owned or managed 11 businesses.. Some of them successful, some not so much.. ForTheWeb falls in to that vague middle realm.. The company makes money, has great clients, but doesn’t offer much fullfillment other than that..

This is an amicable parting of the ways, and I expect Shannon and Joel to do quite well in the future with ForTheWeb.. But my days of banging out code for food are behind me now.. Well, except for a couple of pet projects that is – you didn’t expect me to quit cold turkey did you??

Cue the Rockwell video..

A little background before we start.. I am a partner at ForTheWeb.com, but I also own my own design studio (no website – gasp) and do jewelry / CAD design over at Images Jewelers..

I came back from lunch today to my office at Images to see some mail sitting on my desk.. It’s addressed to our PO Box in San Jose for ForTheWeb.. My office at Images is in Elkhart, Indiana.. Now I have to ask you, why would a mailman in Elkhart, IN., know to deliver a letter addressed to ForTheWeb in San Jose, CA.?? And when he made that delivery, didn’t he think it was a bit strange that it didn’t even have my name on it, just ForTheWeb??

I’ve had neighbor’s mail misdelivered, I’ve had mail totally unrelated to me misdelivered.. But what are the odds that a misdelivery in Indiana would find the one person here that would know where the mail “should” have gone??

I think I need a new tin foil hat.. This one doesn’t seem to be working any more..

~Feydakin