Brrrrr. |
I guess if you are on my mailing list, then you likely know that I am now "un-employed" which I guess I mean in a relative sense. We opted to end my contract a few months early, so I am having to scramble and up my plans to make the site profitable.
It sure is different not having a "day job". I don't think I have not had an official job since I was..uh…15 years old?
No more drives at morning and evening rush hours. I roll out of bed at 6am, toss some sweats and workout gear on. Walk 20 feet to my office and start working till 10am.
Then it's off to the gym to work out, and back home before noon. Then I sit at my computer for about 10 more hours. Some where in there I am doing photo and video shoots. Sure there are breaks to fold laundry, mow the yard, paint a room, but normally I am pretty driven in getting the site going.
Scheduling models, getting them from point A to point B, advertising, accounting, I don't know how I was doing it before. Initially, there was a sense of urgency, but I guess now I feel like I am on top of it, just as long as I can keep new members coming in.
Ben has been keeping me jumping as far as models are concerned. I have a dozen shoots this month alone. I will be out of money after all the films, but I will have plenty of content for the next couple months. Lots of excellent models too, so I am really pleased to be showing off a lot of these guys to you.
My mom has been out once also. I kind of started neglecting the house, so she came out and did a thorough "mom cleaning" and took care of all kinds of little odds and ends. She also took over my bookkeeping and accounting, and will likely take on more responsibility.
One thing I have learned in this business is trust is hard to come by, so I am relying on my parents a lot right now.
Birfaday Parties
I sure do miss some of the people I worked with. ~sniff~
I tend to make friends with my peeps, and thankfully I have noticed we are still getting together occasionally. I talk or text my former production assistant Chris (who moved to Pacific Northwest several months ago) and I have seen Kattie and Dale a couple time since leaving. So that's been good.
Sammi had a dinner at Island's. This place was right across the street from my old apartment and I never went in. It was awesome! Great burgers and fries. Pictured above is moi, Jason, Sammi, and Sammi's fiancé.
Kattie and I hung out under the heating lamps while we waited for our table to be ready. Isn't she sassy?!
Then a couple weeks later it was Kattie's turn for a Birfaday get together. She had it at the Kasbah- a dive bar in Little Italy that plays live music. The band that evening was an all Asian rap group, which sent most of running to the billiard room away from the noise.
Above is Julie and Kattie. Julie is off the hook, and don't they make a cute couple? ~smirk~
Above is me, Kattie and Dale. Dale's boyfriend Charlie were there also. I think Charlie has read my journal before, and asked me if I was planning on moving back to Austin.
Move back to Austin? Hmmmmmmmm..
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Ya know, the thought never even crossed my mind about going back to Austin. I was kind of surprised when Charlie mentioned it.
I could move back.
So it got me thinking. I still own my house, and Bill Evans say the renter's lease is up around June. That would give me time to sell the house here, and then get back to Austin.
If you have read this journal, then you know I'm not super happy with San Diego. Yeah, the weather is nice. It just hasn't felt like "home" yet. Like I am on an extended vacation. Part of that is likely cuz I knew I had a contract that would end, then after that, it would be back home.
San Diego is not without its positives.
I do like my house here. The reduced square footage is easier to keep up, and the skylight over the bed has been awesome on rainy nights. The house is extremely quiet too.
The city is nice. Great shopping, and there is the beach.
I also realized there is another subtle benefit to living here. No allergies. There must be 4-5 different times of the year where the pollen and mold is so bad that I was always fighting some sort of sinus thing. Since I have been here, hardly a tickle or a trickle! Generally speaking I feel a lot healthier here.
But SD has plenty of negatives.
Too many people, and it sure is expensive here. I also feel like I am cold all the time, though Summer is just around the corner. It just doesn't feel like home. Yet.
Moving back is possibility, but the biggest thing holding me back is I simply just don't want to move..AGAIN! The thought of boxing and hauling all my crap half way across the country is enough to make me flinch at the idea.
But if I move back, I can live off my savings a lot longer, plus I could probably make some cash off the sale of the house, despite only owning it a year.
Local talent isn't holding me back. My model pool isn't local. They come from all over the U.S. so it doesn't really matter where I live, I have to fly them in anyway. And in many aspects doing shoots in Austin is easier. Less people, and with Barbara's farm always at my disposal, I always had interesting locations to shoot. Here, there is ALWAYS someone around.
My studio here is nicer, but I could improve the one in Austin, and hell, with the money I am saving I could probably get my studio out of the dang house .
Ben's been helping out with sets and painting some of the rooms. Here is tackling some trim damage. The house is looking good...hmmm...good enough to sell?
So obviously I have lots of options. I will have to give it a lot of thought.
Changes to the site:
Now that I am not workin' for the man, I have more time to fix and tweak the website. A lot has gotten away from me.
I started tweaking the gallery layout on the photosets, as well as the videos. The design is a little more balanced, and I am trying to stop so many windows from opening up..keeping everything in the page.
I still have 5 years of content to go back and re-do, but I am going to wait for some other changes to take place.
I have a buddy in Toronto that is going to finally help me convert the site into a PHP format. That means the site will be database driven. It will make the updates easier, and since I have so much content, it will be a lot easier for members to find models.
Growing Pains
The site also has been growing here and there. Nothing major or jawdropping, but enough to clog the pipes so that members have noticed some pretty slow downloads on key evenings.
The biggest mistake I made was emailing everyone, telling members that a new video has been released.
I noticed lots of sites don't inform their members when content has been added, and I have always tried to pop out an email to you all after several updates are made.
Basically everyone showed up at once, and while it didn't tax my servers, my bandwidth pipe was clogged as hundreds of people tried to get the vids at once.
Not a huge problem to fix (basically I have to throw money at the problem) but was hoping that I wouldn't have to get a bigger pipe for another month or two.
On The Beach
I have had a lot of shoots lately. Mostly all the guys have been from out of town. Many of them have never been to the beach here, so they want to go while they are here.
Kurt has been here a couple times, and I think he was particularly fond of all the girls on the boardwalk at Pacific Beach. I thought his head would twist off from rubbernecking.
Skler also wanted to go the beach. He talked to his girlfriend the entire time.
Ben came down on both trips, and we both froze the entire time. Everyone else is in their shorts and we all huddled up in our sweatshirts.
Movies and more Movies
I rented a ton of movies. Been watching them on my iPod at the gym, then I watch them again on the big screen. Sure is nice. Glad I can stand watching a movies several times.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
This one was a pleasant surprise. Not a big fan of the media hype around Jolie and Pitt though.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Yeah, one had to be pretty forgiving on the plot, but it played well, and the whole thing was a great analogy of marriage.
But I did have one big problem. I have seen it a couple times, and I uh…don't know how it ended.
They got together and they walked in to a department store and shot a bunch of henchmen. And then that was it.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh…..what happened? Did I miss a scene where they got in to both of their employers places and held them hostages? Did I miss the scene where they started their own hitman company? How did shooting up a department store solve their problem?
Must Love Dogs
Loved Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun. One of my top ten films, and that is saying a lot given my love of Sci Fi. But only cuz I related so well to her character, and well, it is a beautifully shot film.
This film is basically a re-hash of the same theme but with online dating tossed in there. Not sure it was a good choice of rolls for her to take.
The delivery of the lines is often flat. They were delivered "Dry" in UTS, which is similar. They should have been dry, but they came out flat. I'd shake my head every time one came out of an actor's mouth.
Overall, I did enjoy it. Pleasant.
March of the Penguins and other sleepy movies.
I found that about 3 times a week I would take some Tylenol PM to get to sleep.
When you work right up to midnight, it is hard to get one's head from spinning. So I pop a Tylenol PM and turn on my dinosaur, blue planet, or nature show to fall asleep to.
I have about 20 of these shows, and I set my TV to play an hour then it turns itself off on its own.
I was getting pretty burned out on these shows. Seen them too many times and they weren't engaging my mind enough to stop thinking about work. Hence the sleepy pill. Which I really don't want to do.
I went over to Discovery.com and bought a bunch of new DVD's I got Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, which was the big dollar item. And about 8 other series and episodes.
I am happy to say I have only watched two of the films in the last two weeks…with no Tylenol PM.
It took me about a week to watch March of the Penguins all the way through
Those Penguins sure can make you sleepy!
Also, the video "What if We Had No Moon" also put me to sleep in about 10 minutes. What's ironic is I find this stuff so interesting, but the narrative voice puts me right to sleep. This one is narrated by Patrick Stewart, and obviously his voice is very soothing.
I have a pile of unopened DVD's just waiting for me to fall asleep to! Very exciting.
Pretty sure the Discovery channel shouldn't market their shows with this being a major perk of the movies, but it's been a boon for my sleep patterns!
The Book
It's pretty much finished. I have about 8 changes to make, and am waiting on some of the forwards. Bill will submit it to see how much the final cost will be, and then I will see if I have any money to print it.
Not having a job means taking the money I had saved in order to produce it, and holding on to it to live off of. So its likely it will delayed.
Unless sales really take off. ~hint hint~
Well, that is about it. See ya soon!
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