Will Bridges

I haven’t been writing in my blog much because I have been trying to finish up this never ending conversion from PERL to Ruby on Rails for my client. Though I am leaving tomorrow anyway and plan on launching the site this weekend. I can’t wait to get back to Nashville. I’m from Front Royal, Virginia but I can’t stay here for more than a couple weeks without realizing why I left and the strong desire to leave hits me. So, I’m getting ready for my 10 hour trip back to Nashville tomorrow, finally.

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Not everyone should start their own businesses. Some people are more suited to be cogs than to manage the whole wheel. When you start your own business you actually start at the top instead of starting somewhere at some point in a ladder of an organization chart when you work for someone else. With a small business you start at the top and put people under you to gain position. When you work for someone else you climb above people or stay at your position for years. The good thing about working for someone else is you usually make a substantial amount of money only managing your particular area of expertise. This makes you vulnerable as well because overspecialization will lead to eventual uselessness. Especially in the tech industry. You can’t depend on your position, ever. Working for yourself is dangerous if you overspecialize because you will need many different types of expertise or pay others to handle those things you aren’t good at. If you have no seed money you have to specialize in everything. This means accounting, personnel management, negotiation, and possibly many other areas including your individual skill you are selling. You must love all of these things or your business will stifle and have troubles growing. Many businesses fail because people actually realize they have to deal with more than they bargained for but they still need to feel in control of each of these areas. I say if you have the money, hire an expert but to keep from getting taken advantage of still have some decent knowledge of the skill you are hiring someone else to do. I don’t mean become an expert but the internet is out there full of information on everything you can imagine. So, use it and find out information on what you need to know. Don’t hire the first schmo that comes along. References say a lot but only if you know the references, otherwise references can be manufactured.

Owning your own business is hard work. Be prepared to take on any role you may need to before you make a decision to leave the herd. Good money can be made if you are skilled and have faith. Negativity will destroy you faster than anything.

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I finally found a programmer who I think I’m going to be able to use for some of my overload of work. He’ll work for about half of what my other programmers will. I’m not going to stop using my other American programmers but I’m going to use him to be able to be able to take on more projects and provide more profit.

I’m going to give him one of the projects I’ve been sitting on for a while and needs to be done in February. I have 3 projects that are due in February and I’ve been desperately looking for help. I have some friends locally that are helping but I wish to expand my resources beyond that.

So, wish me luck on my first outsourcing venture!

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I’m working on putting together a side business. I’ll be recovering gold from old scrap jewelry. I found a system that uses chemicals to turn metals to fluid and then you use a catalyst to turn the gold back to solid. The gold stays solid but the other metals stay fluid. The the process refines the gold to 99.95% pure. Then you can use a small electric furnace to smelt the gold in to ingot bars if you want. Most of the gold in the world in the world is in jewelry and gold is over $600 an ounce right now. So, it seems like a sound investment. I’m working on getting the materials together now.

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So, I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles while I was here in Virginia. It was great… well a great waste of time anyway. They suspended my license by mistake. I was supposed to take a class in Virginia because I had so many tickets before I left but after I paid my fines and reinstatement fee Virginia told me all I needed to do was get my Tennessee license within a certain amount of days and I wouldn’t have any problems. The people at the DMV treated me like I was an liar when I told them this story. I finally convinced them to call the Virginia DMV headquarters and they told them my story was correct and they had mistakenly suspended my license since November of 2005. That’s over a year! And I drive to Virginia all the time. I could have got pulled over at any time and been stuck! I did get pulled over and harassed because I and my car were searched for no apparent reason. Further the police pulled me over because ‘my license plate lights were too dim?’. That’s absurd. Not only that but I couldn’t drive over the New Years holiday so I had to spend it in a local bar doing bullshit. Though I still had a pretty good time. I lost out on work because I couldn’t travel to my client’s office.

I’ve decided I’m going to send the Virginia DMV a bill for the hours of time they wasted and the work lost due to their mistake. I’m going to bill them the same rate as I would bill my clients. I’ll report back what they say when I send the bill. I’m just annoyed with the waste of time and resources they cost me for a mistake that was their own and not mine.

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I messed my credit up when I was very young. I’m actually happy about this in some ways. I’m glad I never had the ability to get caught in the credit trap. This is the trap where you finance a car, a house, nice amenities. and then you have to stay at a job in order to support the bank loans. I screwed up my credit by leaving bills unpaid in places I moved away from. I never screwed it up with credit cards because I have never owned a credit card. Because I could never get a credit card I could never build serious debt.

I only buy what I have money for and I save money for what I want. Sure, credit would make having nice things more convenient and easier. But, I don’t like banks and feel like it’s a trap for the middle class to be nothing more than working slaves to goods.

I saw an interesting site that lets people get loans from other people. Prosper. It’s part of the new trend of microfinancing which has been highly successful in bringing wealth and prosperity to people of the developing world. It’s a pretty interesting concept and for investors it seems like it would be a good way to diversify investments.

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Okay, so I’m kinda stuck here in Virginia till the 12th of January at least. Why? Because my driving license is suspended in Virginia. That really doesn’t make any sense because I would have never been able to get my Tennessee license if that were the case. I paid over $500 in fines and a reinstatement fee to Virginia when I moved to Tennessee so I could get my Tennessee license. So, now I find out my license is suspended here in Virginia. I could get Yendis to drive but this time I want to make sure in person that I can verify it is not suspended and I can drive in Virginia. I can do my work from here or anywhere so I am no worried about that. I’m just not as comfortable doing my work from here because I don’t have my own office or all of the creature comforts I would have at home. But, I guess I can ‘tough’ it a few days here. I have a couple clients I can make money from while I am here as well. So, it might be to my advantage to be here a few more days that I expected. It’s just annoying because of the fun stuff about the govt.

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I spent all day yesterday lounging as many people did after drinking too much the night before. I know I should have been working with all of the tight schedules I’m under but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, being a holiday and all. I did call a couple of my international clients and discuss some things with them. But, I really didn’t do much. New Years tends to be one of my favorite holidays along with Independence Day. I’m sure as my son gets older I will find Christmas more appealing.

I had my son Christened and Baptized on New Years Eve. I’m not a big fan of baptism this early but it seems it was part of the ceremony. I don’t want to force religion upon my son but I want him to know it exists and understand it. Yendis (my girlfriend) is more religious than me, as well. So, she really wanted to do it more than I did. Anyways, it turned out to be a beautiful ceremony. Further, a lot of my family attended and seemed to enjoy the church service. The church I go to here in my home town is really lively and they really get in to the message and worship. So, it was very different from my own family’s church. They highly enjoyed it.

This year will be one of prosperity and growth for my family. For many families it will still be a year of struggle and we need to think about how we can help bring those families up. Education (not just in the way of schooling) is the primary way people can bring themselves up. Learning how this society really works and it’s history would benefit every person. Yes, people can’t eat education but they can eat what is produced by education.

Any readers of my blog who need any help feel free to ask. I’ll do what I can to help. Any readers of this blog who can offer help to another, please do. We can improve the world one person at a time. Happy New Year and may your year be a prosperous one.

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