crickets

For those of you who had to sit through unbearably long wait times to view this blog, I want to thank you for your patience and apologize for the inconvenience.

I am going to do my best to remedy this problem tonight! Transferring from a DreamHost basic shared account to an InMotion VPS account should do the trick.

With a little luck, SomeVenture and GrapeShow will be blazing by sun up.

A few months back, my dad told me he was going to quit working on Sunday’s and instead take a day of rest. I remember thinking how great that was for him and how impossible it would be for me. We’re talking about an entire day that could be spent working on building the business here. So I carried on working two hours every week night and eleven hour days every weekend. It was up at 5 am and work work work all day long. And we’re not talking the whistling kind of work, we’re talking veins shooting out of my forehead. My entire world was business and nothing else mattered. No time for family and friends, exercise, eating decent meals, cleaning up, sleeping in, or having a split second of fun. My eye was looking through a narrow tunnel at the prize and I could not allow myself to lose momentum. I could not fail! Everything and everyone I care about was outside this tunnel as I pushed myself to reach the other side. My stress levels were sky high, I was completely miserable, and a couple weeks ago I finally crashed! For a good visual, picture me rocking back and forth in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, as you repeatedly kick me in the groins while laughing at my girlish figure. I crashed pretty hard!

Now the crash has subsided and I am in the process of picking myself up off the floor and rebuilding, which makes me a bit like the Six Million Dollar Man, only on a much tighter budget. The passed week I’ve been reading the book Stress Management for Dummies which my girlfriend bought me a while back but ironically I was always too busy and stressed out to read. After taking one of the tests in the book and finding my stress levels to be in the EXTREME range, I realized it was time for a change. I had to ask myself: is the business that important? Is it worth killing myself over? Is it worth giving up everything good around me? Obviously it isn’t and now I am taking steps to relax and de-stress myself on a regular basis. My eyes have been opened and my surroundings are becoming visible again. Stress levels are getting back to the comfortable green zone and my mind is clearing up. Now that things are in perspective and my priorities are back in line, the business is really not as important as I once thought. It used to be everything, now it’s just something. Not to say I won’t continue to go after it because I will, just at a lesser intensity. Future happiness is not worth killing myself today.

I guess I’ve had a bit of an epiphany and am realizing that I take myself and life in general way too seriously. I take little pleasure in the little things in life and my expectations are off the charts. It’s time for me to start enjoying life again and have some fun. Take up some new hobbies, travel more, spend more time with family and friends, and basically just live a little more. This isn’t to say my ambition and business dreams are going to die out, far from it. It just means I’ll be taking my expectations down a notch and finding a better balance between my business and personal life. It’s time to appreciate the space between a bit more. It’s time to spend a little more time in the present and a little less in the future. Not just for me but for the business as well. I’ve found that putting too much of myself into the business actually hinders potential for success. It makes me miserable and reduces the quality of my work. It robs me of inspiration, motivation, and creativity. Taking breaks from the business and getting out in the world will open up doors of possibility for me and who knows what/who I’ll find out there to help me fly this thing.

Long story short, I’ve decided to follow my dad’s lead and take breaks from the weight of the world more often. Sundays are now a work-free zone around here as it is going to take a strong and healthy Zack to build a strong and healthy business. The trickiest part is going to be finding that balance between an ambitious, work-a-holic, stress cake focused completely on the future and a fully content, happy go lucky, carefree hippy living completely in the here and now. Wish me luck.

I was just pondering some of my old jobs today and thought I’d share a few with you fine people. It’s interesting to reflect the work path that got me to where I’m at now. There have been some pretty worthwhile stops along the way but not so much to keep me from moving on. I’m positive there’s something better up ahead.

Farm Hand → House Keeper → Hayer → Car Cleaner → Seed Sacker → Forklift Operator → Train Operator → Lumber Grader → Coach Builder → Gas Attendant → Bullet Inspector → Customer Relationship Associate → Ranch Hand → Database Wizard → Desktop Support Specialist → Web Developer → X

What comes next I wonder?

Wait, does that say “10 days until I launch”?!?

Huh, how ’bout that? It turns out X = Heart Attack Victim!

I was stuck in a traffic jam this morning and my commute took a good 30 minutes longer than it normally does. Man, was I steamed. My Friday was already off to a bad start. Why must everyone go to work at the same fricken time as me? That’s what played over and over again in my head the whole way to work. When I finally arrived, late, I was pretty ticked off. As I was getting ready to bitch to one of my coworkers about the stupid traffic jam, I learned what had happened. Evidently there had been an accident further on down the road, beyond my turn off, where a pedestrian was crossing and got hit by a car. The pedestrian was killed! My coworker actually saw the lifeless body.

At that point, I bit my tongue. I quickly realized that I had absolutely nothing to bitch about. God forbid I had to sit in traffic for 30 minutes, while someone else lost their life. That person will never again be able to enjoy everything I take for granted on a daily basis. Was my morning really that bad? I got to spend a little more time in my nice new car listening to the radio. That equates to less time at my crappy job. But is my job really all that crappy? Well…actually, yeh it is! But, my point is how pathetic am I to wine about the traffic, when at least I’m alive. Now if only I could act like it more often, instead of dragging my lifeless zombie corpse around everywhere I go.

So keep that in mind the next time you think you’re having a bad day. Perhaps instead of bitching about it, you should just be thankful you are alive in this moment in time. Don’t waste it by focusing on negative thoughts toward things in the past or that you have no control over. I do this all the time and what good does it do me? Except feed my ulcer and ensure that I’ll be dead by age 35, my life expectancy at this point. From this day forth, I am going to spend less time angry at things and appreciate life more damnit! It makes me so damn angry that I get angry about this crap. No no Zack, calm down, that’s the old you talking. Deep breaths now.

I’ll just smile and turn up the music in a traffic jam from now on. As anyone who knows me could tell you, I am the last person on earth that should be giving advice about being happy. I let everything get to me. If someone doesn’t laugh at one of my jokes, for example, I’ll spend the rest of the day plotting their death and making it look like an accident. Ah-hem, that was a joke people. Oh, that’s it, you’re dead! Anyways, I think many of us could probably spend less time being angry/depressed/zombies and more time celebrating life! This is obvious advice, but it never hurts to be reminded now and again that you are, in fact, ALIVE. So why not act like it?

At last, Autumn is upon us! The air is crisp and refreshing, the temperature is perfect, colors are changing, all that crap. Maybe I’ll actually be able to get some work done without sweating to death. There’s no air conditioning in the den in my apartment and, with all the machines in there, it gets insanely hot.

Perhaps one of my favorite things about this time of year is night walks. During the summer it’s way too hot and basically daytime out for good night walking, but now I can head out and the moon is up, temperature is nice and cool, and I can strut on down the road and clear my head. And when I’m not being honked at, barked at, or screamed at, it’s quite peaceful. Not only is it good exercise, it’s a nice escape from all the insanity and it helps me stay balanced. Basically, it’s a nice mini-vacation from work, technology, distractions, life, etc.

Video of Zack on Night Walk

Sometimes it’s hard for me to drop everything and go out for a walk, but it’s always well worth it. I come back with a refreshed outlook on things and ready to get back in the game. Most of my best idea’s were actually thought up on night walks (the other hot spots being in the shower, on my mountain bike, and lying in bed at night, but almost never in front of a computer). Getting away from all distractions and pressures of work, my brain just relaxes and lets down its guard a little, inviting some great ideas through the door.

How about you? How do you remove distractions and reboot your mind? Other than sleeping of course, which hopefully you do once in awhile.

I just happened to be checking my blog stats this morning and discovered that I had a decent amount of traffic coming in from digg.com. So I did some investigating and found out that…I’ve been dugg! That’s awesome, you can check it out here: Web Start-up In Real-Time

Thanks unclepedro, whoever you are. Sidenote: I’ll be sure to drop that $50 off at your place later on as per our agreement. Seriously though, thanks for digging me! I’m glad you like the blog.

If you haven’t heard of digg, it’s a popular web-app that provides you with the most happening sites right now, as chosen (aka. dugg) by the users. Once a site receives so many diggs, it gets promoted to the front page where the real action happens. It’s a cool site, you should check it out. And while you’re there, why not register (it’s free) and digg me up. Of course, you could also “bury” me if you prefer, but know this…I WILL FIND YOU!!!

So what do ya say? Lets see if we can get this puppy on digg’s front page and laugh as my poor little web server EXPLODES!!! Who’s with me?

Hello? Where did everybody go? Hello???