Blah
Today I finished an absolutely awesome 1-hour funky breakbeat mix, and its playing on the radio right now. But the uplifting music doesn't really match my mood anymore....suddenly I'm hit with a sudden bout of blues this Saturday. Normally I keep this shit to myself, but today you get to see me self-analyze / bitch.

First of all, I work my fucking ass off to put together The Funkyard. I network with all kinds of breakbeat artists to get permission to play tracks, import loads of records from all over Europe, digitize the vinyl into WAV format and spend time listening and finding tracks that blend well together, then spend more hours actually mapping out the show, matching tempos and downbeats, crossfading, recording voice-overs, rendering and normalizing the audio, encoding into MP3, and loading it at the station. All of this just to put together an hour of hot dance music.

For me its a fun process, and I am honored to deliver funky-ass sounds to Eau Claire on my Saturdays. But I get absolutely no positive feedback from my friends or the community, I don't even know if anybody is listening! To put in all that time ... for what? Personal enjoyment yes, but I'm not enjoying it unless others are. So I'll wait for my show to load at 5pm and go for a cruise around town with my stereo bumping. Its fun. But when its over, then what. It's 6pm and my Saturday is gone, I don't know what to do or who I can call, except maybe the usual crowd that just wants to drink booze and fuck around. It gets old.

Part of this might just be that I'm just bored and don't see enough people... I've got a new place, but I'm living alone until Scott moves in around September. Like I said, even the friends that I normally hang out with can seem boring or depressing at times, with their constant routines.

I've got a great job that pays well -- self employment with Fresh Software -- but I am sick of doing everything myself. When I was 15, it was one thing to make cool software programs. But now its a whole 'nother ballgame to actually GROW a business to the point where I will be able to live off of it comfortably. That is, I want to at least make as much as I would have if I worked a lame job from my forthcoming MIS degree.

The way I look at it, I've got a year to make Fresh Software a cash cow, or get a "real" job. The pace of the IT world is staggering. If Fresh fails and I'm looking for a job 2 years after graduating, I'll be hard pressed to find someone who will hire someone without "real" experience in much besides Delphi development. Yeah, it doesn't help that I seem to be invested in a dying programming language. And since switching to MIS, I've forgone Java classes or learning some of the more advanced programming techniques.

Basically, I am completely overwhelmed with trying to run Fresh Software myself. There's too much to do. I'm trying to maintain 3 products and still develop new ones -- as an independent developer my time to market is often huge, and I'm really invested in whatever I do. In addition to being a solo developer, I have to answer emails, figure out and pay taxes, maintain a web site, learn new technologies, etc etc.

What I need is more people to work with to develop great software programs and web services. But I can't afford to hire anybody and pay the wage that most MIS graduates can easily get. And I don't know many who will put up the risk that I'm putting up.

Fuck.

So here I am, that's my scenario. I'm in a bad mood. I'd smoke a cigarette right now if I didn't quit 6 days ago. Maybe I'll just do what everyone else does and drink myself silly tonight.

I've got to stand and fight
In this creation
Vanity I know
Can't guide I alone
I'm searching to find
A love that lasts all time
I've just got to find
Peace and unity

Blah
Today I finished an absolutely awesome 1-hour funky breakbeat mix, and its playing on the radio right now. But the uplifting music doesn't really match my mood anymore....suddenly I'm hit with a sudden bout of blues this Saturday. Normally I keep this shit to myself, but today you get to see me self-analyze / bitch.

First of all, I work my fucking ass off to put together The Funkyard. I network with all kinds of breakbeat artists to get permission to play tracks, import loads of records from all over Europe, digitize the vinyl into WAV format and spend time listening and finding tracks that blend well together, then spend more hours actually mapping out the show, matching tempos and downbeats, crossfading, recording voice-overs, rendering and normalizing the audio, encoding into MP3, and loading it at the station. All of this just to put together an hour of hot dance music.

For me its a fun process, and I am honored to deliver funky-ass sounds to Eau Claire on my Saturdays. But I get absolutely no positive feedback from my friends or the community, I don't even know if anybody is listening! To put in all that time ... for what? Personal enjoyment yes, but I'm not enjoying it unless others are. So I'll wait for my show to load at 5pm and go for a cruise around town with my stereo bumping. Its fun. But when its over, then what. It's 6pm and my Saturday is gone, I don't know what to do or who I can call, except maybe the usual crowd that just wants to drink booze and fuck around. It gets old.

Part of this might just be that I'm just bored and don't see enough people... I've got a new place, but I'm living alone until Scott moves in around September. Like I said, even the friends that I normally hang out with can seem boring or depressing at times, with their constant routines.

I've got a great job that pays well -- self employment with Fresh Software -- but I am sick of doing everything myself. When I was 15, it was one thing to make cool software programs. But now its a whole 'nother ballgame to actually GROW a business to the point where I will be able to live off of it comfortably. That is, I want to at least make as much as I would have if I worked a lame job from my forthcoming MIS degree.

The way I look at it, I've got a year to make Fresh Software a cash cow, or get a "real" job. The pace of the IT world is staggering. If Fresh fails and I'm looking for a job 2 years after graduating, I'll be hard pressed to find someone who will hire someone without "real" experience in much besides Delphi development. Yeah, it doesn't help that I seem to be invested in a dying programming language. And since switching to MIS, I've forgone Java classes or learning some of the more advanced programming techniques.

Basically, I am completely overwhelmed with trying to run Fresh Software myself. There's too much to do. I'm trying to maintain 3 products and still develop new ones -- as an independent developer my time to market is often huge, and I'm really invested in whatever I do. In addition to being a solo developer, I have to answer emails, figure out and pay taxes, maintain a web site, learn new technologies, etc etc.

What I need is more people to work with to develop great software programs and web services. But I can't afford to hire anybody and pay the wage that most MIS graduates can easily get. And I don't know many who will put up the risk that I'm putting up.

Fuck.

So here I am, that's my scenario. I'm in a bad mood. I'd smoke a cigarette right now if I didn't quit 6 days ago. Maybe I'll just do what everyone else does and drink myself silly tonight.

I've got to stand and fight
In this creation
Vanity I know
Can't guide I alone
I'm searching to find
A love that lasts all time
I've just got to find
Peace and unity