So exactly one week after I quit my job (read: after exactly one week of laziness, beach days, day drinking, partying and sleeping in until noon) I sent a random email to a old client as I was cleaning up my email. He was a guy who reached out to me via reddit almost 3 years ago for some tech copywriting and freelance work. Nothing big ever came of it but his email was still starred so I figured, "what the hell" and shot him a reply to his 3 year old email. Side note: I wouldn't realize until later that his email wasn't in my standard, professional gmail account. No. It was in my insomniasexx email account. That only makes this more impressive. He gave me 10 minutes and zero interest. I called, we caught up, he was busy and not interested, I shot him an email with my recent work and outdated portfolio, and patted myself on the back for at least reaching out to him. It was kinda scary but it felt good after. Like, "Oh - that wasn't so bad or awkward." I emailed Thursday at 2am and the call was a Tuesday, Sept 2nd at noon. The next day, my friend and I decided we were going camping. On the way to Jalama Beach in Santa Barbara, I ignore a call from an unknown number. Seconds later, I receive and email from the guy I had talked to the day before. I call him back and he patches in his creative director. They ask me all sorts of questions about my process, the work on americhip.com, etc etc. Then they say they have a meeting with [two huge tech companies that you all have heard of] on Sept. 26th and need a site / company built out. The product exists and works, the funding is there, contracts with suppliers and distributors and all sorts of stuff have been signed. They just need to look like it's an actual company before Sept 26th. Naturally, I said, "sure why not. I love a good challenge." I sent them a scope of work and estimate from a grocery store parking lot, from from my phone, and figured whatever. I over estimated my hours and gave the highest hourly I've ever given. I figured, even if they want 6 months of work in 1 month, they're still going to pay for 6 months of work! I let them know I won't have cell service until 10am the following day. That was Wednesday, Sept 3rd, 10am. I drove up the hill to the cell phone spot and I had at least 6 emails of varying degrees of urgency. I find myself unexpectedly on a call with 6 guys with Big Ass titles to go over the project in more depth. I was in gray sweats, gray sweatshirt, greasy hair, no makeup, and sandals. I was sandy, dirty, and covered in smoke from last nights fire. I was standing on a hill with a foot of thorny grass poking my feet. My moleskin was propped on a decrepit old fence / barbed wire and I was trying notes faster than I could think. There was so much information to take in and this was so not the state to take it in. Oh well. They tell me they've emailed me NDA, vendor service agreement, and signed off on my stuff. They will need an invoice and my banking info so they can wire me my 1/3 deposit. That was 9am Thursday and I hadn't showered since 9am Tuesday. I received the deposit (about 125% of what my total monthly income was at Americhip) when I was driving back to town the next day. Since then, I've successfully built a site essentially by myself for an industry I know nothing about. I learned Eclipse and the ridiculous Java based back-end their using so we don't have to code all the user permissions, accounts, etc. I still have to integrate the Java though. I don't know Java. Fuck Java. I've learned how to set a tomcat server and build the template / theme / project / permissions to it. I've learned what a permgen mem error is and how to fix it - even when the server won't restart. I've read heaps of documentation and averaged 60/hours a week of work. I just got off a call with one of the guys regarding content, which should be done by tomorrow night. Because having content done 12 hours before a big meeting is the way to do things. I worked 17 hours yesterday and went to bed at 3am. I woke up at 9am today and will probably work until 3am again today, with a sex/sleep break somewhere in there. If you read my initial post on quitting my job, you know I went into it not expecting to make money, especially this soon. I'm making 3.5x what I made at Americhip from one client this month. I have 3 other clients I'm not even including in that number. In addition to the nice, unplanned income increase, I've done exactly what I wanted: I've worked with new people, learned new skills, and challenged myself to grow every day. So far, I've done it. Fuck yes. All I can say is, thank god for sex. Otherwise the stress from this turnaround time would have most certainly killed me by now. 2 more days and I'm back to beach life. This was a nice little break though. :) Checking my email on the hill: The fence & sign at "Cell Phone Spot": Hubskified that shit Holy shit I just made a butt load of moeny and I look like this Let's go surfing!
cans u gives me sum of urs sexes pls Two month dry spell, haven't so much as kissed anyone or touched anyone non-platonically, haven't been on a date. Have barely looked. This may be a good move for me, but that doesn't mean I can't be a tiny bit jealous. Also just like great for you and I'm very happy for you and how things are turning out C:
I've left a wake of semi-heartbroken boys with sex parts after a pretty insane summer. Come to CA and I'll introduce you. I'm sticking with this piece of amazingness (for a bit).
Badass. Seconding thenewgreen's suggestion of LLC.
Yeah, you need to just incorporate as SGT Marketing LLC and never get another "job" again. Build a team, get them to do the grunt work and spend more time finding projects, building the ones you want to and shuffling the others to your team. In 5 years you will have 50 employees. Do it.
I'm going to! I have a meeting with my dad's team of business people next week. Otherwise I'm going to end up fucking myself in the butt during tax season.
Definitely this. insomniasexx, good accountants save you more money than they cost.
As someone who works with accountants all day every day and gets their taxes done for free, you aren't a kiddin.
You totally need an ironic bad greenscreen infomercial for SGT ENTERPRISES in a Tim And Eric style. May reduce client intake to zero.
I know this is 62 days old, but If you're still doing any Java I recommend you ditch Eclipse for IntelliJ IDEA, and if you need any help I'm pretty good with it. :)
Good with IntelliJ or Java? If you are with Java and looking for side work I could easily bring you in on this ongoing project.
I hope I'm at were you're at at somepoint. I don't see it happening anytime soon, but I still hope so. Also. Here here. The secret is that nobody knows java. Not effectively, at the very least. Everyone just pretends like they do and then go home and embrace the sweet, sweet syntax of python.Fuck Java
I've written my first actual useful and working piece of Python yesterday. It's a script that converts coordinates from decimal degrees to degrees/minutes/seconds, and I found such a nice way to do it in less than a dozen lines of code. Python is amazing.
you can probably get that less than a dozen lines down to less than seven. I love python.
Oh absolutely. Here's my finished, neat-ified code. Could be muuuch more simple but this was an assignment to show that I can, in fact, write a script.
LatCoord = input('Enter the latitude coordinate here: ')
LongCoord = input('Enter the longitude coordinate here: ') #Puts the coordinates in a list
coordinate = [LatCoord, LongCoord] #Check if the coordinates are valid, and if it isn't, end script.
if abs(LongCoord) > 180 or abs(LatCoord) > 90:
print: 'Invalid coordinate!'
break #Loop to convert the list of coordinates
for x in coordinate:
D = int(x) #Calculate the Degree decimal1 = abs(x - D) #Calculate the absolute Minutes (only D can be pos/neg)
minutes = 60 * decimal1 #from the remaining decimals
M = int(minutes) decimal2 = minutes - M #Calculate the Seconds
seconds = 60 * decimal2 #from the remaining decimals
S = int(round(seconds)) #and round the number if x == LatCoord: #Checks if the num is lat or long
print "Your Latitude is: ", D, M, S
else:
print "Your Longtitude is: ", D, M, S
That is a very neat script, reminds me of the days when I first started using it, and wasn't hacking together a MUD server/client. I really need to go back and do more with that... I've written some awesome tools for work to automate some things, notifications being one of them. And damn if it isn't the first or second prettiest code I've ever written.
I love this language. I'll never understand it but damn if it isn't perfect. A cold beauty.
It is a very lovely and elegant language - I wish I had more opportunity to use it.
I worked through "Learn Python the Hard Way" a while back, and really enjoyed that. At that time there was a lot of turbulence about Python 2 vs Python 3; not sure if that dust has settled yet or not.
they've announced python 4... holy crap, I still haven't converted to 3...
(my post before I heard 4 was going to drop) If you're just starting, definitely go with 3. It really is superior (enough to count) and you'll be ahead of the curve. It's hard to get out of old python habits.
The series follows a cast of 15 men and women who are placed in isolation and filmed twenty-four hours a day for one year. The cast must create their own society and figure out how to survive. The series is shown twice a week, with online streaming 24/7 with 129 hidden and unhidden cameras all over the Utopia compound. The live streams began on August 29 2014, the day when the 15 pioneers will enter Utopia.[3] Over 5,000 people auditioned for the series.[4] Every month, three pioneers will be nominated for elimination -- to be sent back to their everyday lives. The live-streamers will decide which new pioneers get their chance to become Utopian.
-If it were "real" meaning, Hunger Games, some people are going to die from Dysentary kind of real, it would be compelling. From the sounds of it, the only one likely to be suffering that via food poisoning is kleinbl00. -Looks like it's modeled after a Dutch version, I wonder if that was interesting at all? veen, you ever catch the Dutch version of Utopia, the TV show?
See this guy? This guy right here has a gluten sensitivity. This guy right here has ostensibly agreed to "live off the land" up in Canyon Country. Know what this guy didn't bring with him? FUCKIN TEETH They're running about 1100 calories a day right now. Nonetheless, they spent two hours two days ago arguing in a meeting about how to spend their $500 on groceries. Last week, they bought a 5 lb bag of Sour Patch Kids. But hey. Today, the cows didn't kick over the milk. First time in a week. the lake is green
-If it were "real" meaning, Hunger Games, some people are going to die from Dysentary kind of real, it would be compelling.
I just laughed -- at all of that. What does it say about us as a society that this show exists?
How do you eat sour patch kids without teeth.....I guess...at least they don't get stuck in them?
Yeah, and I got bored in the first minutes. It's sponsored by Hornbach here, a DIY store, so most of the discussions are about what to build and the rest of the time they're slowly constructing things. Whenever they run out of money, they invite celebrities to do a thing and make money for them. The only appropriate reaction to watching it all is uggghh sighh and to zap away to something less shitty.
I've got 44 hours but I'm going to sleep tonight - tomorrow is going to be the roughest. We should do karaoke Friday!
Tomorrow I go out for my first orchestra concert dressed all in black instead of the male tux uniform. Frankly, i still present as a guy, and I'll be wearing men's clothing, but it's a pretty big step on my road to transition in what is not always such a liberal field. I guess we'll see what reactions will be from my classmates. My orchestral director knows and is supportive of my transition, so it's good to have someone upstairs in my corner. That's my big news.
I don't have much to say this week -- been buried under a pile of work and running on about six hours of sleep over three nights. But in the next month I'm driving to New Orleans, Denver, Taos and possibly Dallas/Tulsa. And I'm getting laid this weekend. So. Anyway, I mostly wanted to say I enjoyed reading pubski so much today. It's becoming a highlight of my week. Congrats insomniasexx, galen, ButterflyEffect, veen, anyone else I missed. thenewgreen, mk, kleinbl00, I loved the look-in on your children, work, music, etc. Just great vibes from this thread. Thanks all.
Just because it's the Beach Boys, doesn't mean it's always summer in BeachBoysLand. I don't think there's a single reference to summer in the song. The song is aseasonal. It's about getting good vibrations, as you said "Just great vibes from this thread." EDIT: I'll grant you that "the sunlight plays upon her hair"
EDIT: oK, ok, "she goes with me to a blossom world" -- Spring? Good call veen
Have a great weekend Flags.
The song isn't about a "season" it's about the aura that people omit as explained to a young brian wilson by his mommy:
Cordially disagree! Ya can't listen to that song any other way than with the window down and the wind in your face and the hot sun bathing you. I feel that way with about half of their songs. I have an annual ritual involving the Beach Boys' "summer songs," my car and a stretch of beautiful open road on the first good weather day of the year. lil I shall have a fantastic weekend. I have much to read in preparation for being out of town most of October. Make sure you have a great one yourself.
THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK Taos is fuck'n'gone from anything. Also touristy-spensive. You'll have a much cheaper adventure if you stay in Espanola, which is halfway from Taos and Santa Fe but also a crime-ridden shithole. But hey - Back when there were 9 low rider magazines in the United States, the only two that weren't Espanola were mastheaded in Albquerque. Take that, Los Angeles.
There is no off-season. Taos is 24/7/365 tourism. As is Santa Fe. Don't for a minute think it has ever been otherwise. There are two ways to get to the parts of Colorado that actually matter. The obvious one is I-25 - the Shotgun - which is heavily policed by some of the shittiest cops in creation. The lesser choice is 285, which is almost untraveled by anyone. You want the 285. It starts with a 1-lane bridge out of Espanola. Back before Google one had to have a carefully-annotated map. Nowadays, it's no sweat. That will give you a back-of-beyond view of rural New Mexico that you won't get anywhere else this side of the 64. You will notice a stretch of road out of Monte Vista that stretches straight and unbending for more than 40 miles. If you see a cop in Center, you can rest assured you will not see one again - he's the only one in 100 miles.
Things near Taos: - Taos Pueblo Things near Albuquerque: - Santa Fe - Tesuque - Abiquiu - Los Alamos Cheapest hotel in Espanola on Kayak: Rodeway Inn, $45 a night Cheapest hotel in Taos on Kayak: Don Fernando, $69 a night Look - I hate New Mexico. I avoid it at all costs. But I really fucking hate Taos. I know two people who were murdered in Espanola, but you're better off staying there. Proximity to Colorado is a null issue; anything outside the Triangle of Awesomeness (cornered by Aspen, Leadville, Denver) is moot anyway because it's New Mexico with white instead of brown assholes.
Ended up taking highway 285 from Antonito to, I think, Tres Piedras. The best stretch was actually a little mountain road west of 285 into Colorado out of Chama. Did a loop there. Didn't get as far south as Espanola/Santa Fe -- wanted to go into Colorado backroads etc. Stayed outside of Taos, above it at about 9300 feet, near the ski area. No skiing right now so it was reasonably cheap. Went into Taos once out of misguided curiosity, hated it, reminded me of every little tourist shitheap (ever been to Sanibel?) I've seen. But didn't stay in-town so not a loss.
I didn't take enough pictures. I'm not a picture-taker really, and fall color doesn't stand out on iphones. And my phone died on my best hike, to a place near Wheeler, which meant I lost track of time, which meant I had to run three miles over rocky ground with a pack on in order to make the first pitch of the Cardinals game. Chama was beautiful, if I go back (and I will because I want to do the train daytrip that leaves from there) I'll be staying in Chama.
Can I brag for a sec? Ima brag for a sec. I GOT A MUTHAFUCKIN' 36 ON MY ACT! YEAH! Backstory: I took the ACT back a couple months ago, and got a 33. Not a bad score, but I wanted to get a better one just for 'insurance' purposes. I took some test prep classes, and then retook the test earlier this month. And I got a perfect score on 3/4 sections! 34 on the math, which is still an improvement from my previous score.
That's awesome! I remember when ACT / SATs were the most stressful thing - and the utter relief I felt when my SAT scores came back better than expected. I'm really happy for you! Fuck if I remember what my score was today.
Hell yeah! That beats the crap out of my 26 :) well done galen, way to put in the time and effort. I'm glad it paid off.
Currently I'm sitting in lecture, wrapping up one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen. It's about a Snake Handler church in West Virginia in the late 1940's, early 1950's. Terrifying because the film includes pretty much a full church service, and I feel this weird connection to the atmosphere, the music and the type of language the pastor used, and the fundamentalist Lutheran church my parents grew up in, and that I went to for a few years as a small child. The snakes are dangerous, and many people died over the years from the bites, because they refuse medical treatment after a service, but the really scary part to me is the impulse that would cause a father to shove his sons hands into a basket full of poisonous serpents. Edit to include: I'm meeting my girlfriends mom thursday night. My girlfriend had eye surgery yesterday, and unfortunately because of class I couldn't be there while she was in the hospital. She's resting comfortably, and I'm going to cook dinner/see her/meet her mom tomorrow night. I'm only a little worried, parents tend to like me.
Second edit! I just want to say I'm a huge fan of pubski, because while we all have our challenges, we all have our successes too! I really enjoy having this community to brag to and commiserate with as needed, and I think it makes the discourse in all of the other parts of the site better. I know that thenewgreen has expressed that it feels strange to call people on hubski 'internet friends' because that feels like a delegitimization of the value this place has. Cheers.
I like to call you guys my "internet friends" to people "in real life" because it makes the people "in real life" go "Eurgh" and that amuses me. I like to make people think I am weird? I also like to be crushingly honest and that fills the description as well.
My wife and 2yo daughter are leaving to China for three weeks tomorrow. I have a list of things that I plan to get done with the free time (I even passed up a conference near Monterey Bay, CA), but it will be strange to not see my daughter for such a time. She is a noticeably different person month to month. I am going to learn some Scala.
My daughter was in Michigan for two weeks. When I saw her again, she was definitely more mature. She had hundreds of more words in her vocabulary and was puting together much more complex ideas. Thankfully, she didn't forget me. Enjoy your time, Skype often and you'll be fine. She's going to speak more Chinese than you. -does she already?
There's no comparison. I will never achieve the is fluency that she already has. Just recently she has started to favor English over Chinese. I expect that these three weeks will reverse that trend.She's going to speak more Chinese than you. -does she already?
That must be frustrating at times, to not be able to know what she is saying. Is your Chinese improving as a result of her fluency?
It's not frustrating, actually. She knows I only understand English, and uses it with me. I guess I am pretty used to hearing Chinese spoken about me and know enough to generally get a feel about whether the topic concerns me or not. My own Chinese has improved slightly. I can now say things like "Where is big bear sleeping?"
Just got out of a meeting with a therapist who leads the group session that was recommended to me by the centers intake person. I went in planning to request one on one appointments but after meeting with him I think I'm going to try this and here's why: This guy seems to be exactly what I want in terms of a therapist. By which I mean my "ideal" is basically Robin Williams from Good Will Hunting in the sense that he pulled out all sorts of references that resonated with me, and I strongly feel that he's going to challenge me, and maybe I'll challenge him too. Here goes nothing.
We'll see after tomorrow! Two exciting things about tomorrow: 1. First session of therapy, which I'm actually looking forward to. 2. Going to see a movie with a girl and some of her friends. First time in a long I've been interested in somebody beyond just wanting to have sex with them. Only met her last week but I think it will be fine.
That's great, nice work! I'm really glad to see that you've followed through with this. The one piece of advice I'd give is to be open to suggestions (which clearly you are) and to be completely and 100% honest with your therapist and with yourself.
That's awesome Butterfly! Therapy can be a terrible or wonderful experience. I've found that the times I felt like it was therapy are the times where it never did any good. It should feel like a conversation and a place for you to talk about things you can't talk about. Like a really good non-judgmental friend who actually gives sound advice (with a fat amount of schooling behind that advice). It sounds like what this guy is. That's awesome. I will tell you that the idea of therapy is much scarier than the therapy itself. I can also tell you that like school, you get as much as you put into it. Low expectations also seem to help. I hope that you are able to get something positive from this experience - even if it doesn't end up being some extreme, life-altering experience.
Yes, it should be nice. From today it was being described less as an arena for people to share stories and such, unless they want to, and more of an informational and informal meeting. I have no expectations right now which is likely a good thing.
I am sitting at home doing a pro and contra list. The question is whether to take the PhD position I got offered and I think I might go for it. Even though I dislike this city (expensive city), I would be working in a promising and cool group and would be close to my family. Time to make lunch and then head to the daily boule game in the park, I just love those boule-playing grandpa and grandmas! Edit: My 2nd pair of Koss porta pros arrived today (the last ones were chewed off by cats during my travels). They sound so good for 30€ headphones!! Any hookah/shisha/nargileh smokers here? Been smoking for the past 10 years! I got this new German tobacco to try, have heard a lot of good stuff about it. It took me 4 tries (that's a lot) until I was able to get decent taste and smoke production, but I am still not satisfied! You guys in the US have some good brands btw :D
This is my daughter's favorite shirt, by far. She asks if she can wear her "hubski dota com" all the time. She then insists that I put mine on too. It's pretty damned adorable. You recognize the rocket?
Is there something in your life that always makes you happy or feel better but for some crazy reason you don't make enough time for it? I've been a bit down of late and then, as is usually the case I realized it's been too long since I've made music. -It literally has a major impact on my psychology. I recently changed my setup in my studio and I'm looking forward to making some music, perhaps tonight after/during the IRC hangout. I've just been so busy with work, projects, family that I've not made the time. Shame on me. I decided to pick up my guitar yesterday and played for my kids. I make up goofy words/melodies while my daughter dances around, it's fun. While doing that I started riffing on a melody that I might try to record. You never know when inspiration will hit. jonaswildman, ghostoffuffle, rezzeJ, T-Dog, mrjasonetaylor, theholywombat -I miss hearing music from you guys. A reminder that rezzeJ recently contributed to this song and it's ripe for more collaboration. Also, if any of you have songs that you recorded in the past that are not complete and you don't think you'll work on them again, throw them in to the fold. It can be really fun to see what others hear in them.
I joined the university's radio station (CJSW 90.9 FM) to volunteer. Best idea ever, lil, there are some really great people there and everyone loves music. I really like the way they run the station, with a focus of boradcasting not just music that is often missed but also opinions that are not represented enough. The next weeks I'll mostly help out in their music library sorting & organizing stuff as I'm still in the let's-get-to-know-each-other stage, but I'm definitely gonna do some awesome stuff soon, like learn how to use Logic, help finding new music and put my Illustrator skills to good use. I'm in a bit of a fight with my home university over how many coursed I need to take here. I want 4, they think I need to take 5 but that is just an insane amount of work - I want to have some free time, thank you. Edit: leaving in the typo, lol
Can we just talk about college radio all the time?
I'm almost regretting that I only have three months left here. If I would have been here longer I'd definitely start a podcast / host a show / do something big at the station, but it takes a long time to get to know everyone. I'll do as much cool stuff as I can, though.
It's a nice world, as long as you steer away from big commercial radio. There is, sadly, an inverse proportion to the amount of money you make as a host and the amount of good music you can play. Production and editing doesn't have this as much. My courses are nice, but they're just one too many. I have to write lots of essays, one of which is 4000 words, write a program in Python, do multiple case studies, tons of assignments, read 6 books and that's just the 4 courses that I like. I'm now anxiously awaiting the judgement of the exam committee back home.
Jamming. I've been playing music almost every day and it's fucking awesome. I play the keyboard/piano, and I finally feel like a musician and not just someone who plays. Here's my baby: It gives me more joy than anything else in the world. It goes through this: ...and sounds like pure sex. I've got a wah pedal I put the sound through when I want things to get out-of-control funky. I'm currently working on two projects: One of them is a blues-rock band, who I pretty much instantly clicked with. After a couple weeks of practicing they told me they wanted me to play shows with them, and now a month and a half later we'll have played five. We had an awesome show last Saturday and we killed it--I still feel a positive afterglow from that. This coming Saturday we've got two shows: one's at noon, and one's at 7PM. I've got an hour and a half of work in between (I'm currently a tutor) but I can swing it. Just have to throw on a dress shirt and put on my professional face for a minute. The other project is a twice-a-week jam with a couple old friends and a couple new ones. This group's music is a bit more complex, with less 1-4-5 and more complex progressions and lyrics. My friend has transformed his basement into a de facto recording studio and we've been recording twice a week. It's really coming together, too. Within the next couple months we should have enough material to put together an album, and my friend wants to start playing shows as well. I really feel like I've got an opportunity to put something amazing out there with some amazing people, and I'm going to take full advantage of it. Bullshit career plans can wait.
What new hobby have you picked up? I started making crafts pretty regularly and started practicing with a 12 hole Ocarina. Did a 6 hole before this, but it was too high-pitched for my tastes. Edit: Also I got a free 3-month trial to Spotify and I don't see the point.
Finished hosting a writers retreat for 2 x screenwriters working on an adaptation of a kids' book, 1 x screenwriter creating a radio play and 1 x novelist breaking the back of a historical drama about 18th century prostitution. Me? I got some good tips on how my plot was confused, threw out a third of a screenplay and think I have it cracked. We drank deeply, swam at midnight under an electrical storm (not directly under, mind) which rolled off into the gloom over the waters, and I cooked chorizo al cava. Now silence and writing.
hey thenewgreen you've haven't happened to gone to Canada, have you
Not sure I understand the question, but I'll answer it in two ways: 1. I am not currently in Canada, nor have I been in Canada in years 2. I have been to Canada many times. I enjoy spending time in Toronto in particular, but also find the BC area to be some of the most beautiful country I've seen. I grew up in Michigan, only an hour from the Canadian border. For my bachelor party, we all went to the Windsor Casino and got a sweet there. It was nice. So "yes," I have happened to go to Canada, just not any time recently. I hope this helps