Plugging away....

Nothing has been "normal" this year.

Is that good? Well, depends on when you ask me. Life was definitely more simple having a regular 9 - 5 at my former company. I had what I would consider a stable position. I had professional respect and good seniority, so by all means, I had what many would consider a dream position. I had a room with a view of the ocean for goodness sakes!

But over the past 3 or 4 years there, I had definitely felt......bored? I suppose that's the thing.

I woke up one day and thought to myself, "What is my purpose in life...is this all there is?". I wake up. I go to work. I go home. I sleep. I wake up. I go to work. I go home. I sleep.

Rinse and repeat. I was there for EIGHT years!! So that's somewhat in the ballpark of 2920 (minus the weekends) where I repeated that pattern. HOLY SHIT!!! Then I thought to myself...where am I? Am I better off now 8 years later? I didn't own my own home (prices in Hawaii are ridiculous, but that's another story), I didn't have any solid relationships with someone special, and I had nothing set aside for retirement.

Life was just TOO routine and I was treading water. Perhaps I wasn't taking the risks necessary to move ahead like some of the other friends I knew who were more aggressive then me. I can see how successful they have become....

Now here I am, I TOOK huge risks this year and now let's see what I'm made of. I don't think I'm any closer to owning a house in Hawaii as prices are constantly rising, but at least I got on eye on the market and I think if I work hard, I'll get that accomplished.

I can't say I have any girlfriend yet....but these past two years have been quite interesting in that area because I've actually open my eyes to taking some risks. I've met people who have become very special to me. It's been up and down in this area...I've been extremely happy these past two years, but I've also been very hurt as well. It comes with the territory.

My last goal? Retirement.... well, it's getting there. With the help of loved ones I managed to stash some money away for retirement and at least start that process of building for my future. It's not a whole lot. But it's something, and I'm proud of that.

I can't say I'm totally comfortable with this situation now that I'm on my own. Nothing is ever the same each day. But at least life is more interesting now.................

Finally.....

Finally found a way to get another personal project off the ground....

For a few years now my dad's had these beautiful antiques he's got stored up nice and snug in his storage room. My aunt (my father's sister) owns a business up in Hong Kong basically where they travel to these obscenely remote areas of China to find these things, bring them back to Hong Kong, and then restore them into showroom condition.

They basically look better then they probably did when they were first made....

Anyway, my dad had it in him to try to sell these things here in Hawaii....but he just never got around to it. Now they've basically been sitting around taking up space in storage for a few years now. Such a waste!! They're pretty awesome in my opinion. The method's my aunt uses to restore these things are actually quite superior to most of your normal everyday run-of-the-mill restoration sweat shop. If you see these things up close you can tell a lot of personal care was put into them.

Most, if not all, of these things are over a 100 years old. One or two generations back some Chinese family was using one of these things to carry their toddler around or lugging water back home for miles. It's quite fascinating.

ANYWAY, basically I'm on a mission to get my parent's some space back in their home so they can consider remodeling their home. Check it out! I'm going to ask some local antique or interior design shops if they might want to buy these things at wholesale prices or maybe even get them on Ebay.

Breakfast......

The thing about working at home....

Holidays and weekends no longer mean as much. And it's incredibly frustrating not being able to just "go downstairs" for breakfast, coffee, and lunch.

I got the coffee covered. I got some great Lion Coffee and a tiny 4 cup coffee maker that brews me some good 2 cups of coffee whenever I need it. It's actually quite delicious. I went down the street to a local coffee cafe this weekend and I can honestly say my own coffee was better. I think they used some Folgers crap, it was aweful. BLAAAH.

But breakfast!? I'm STARVING. I'd kill for some pancakes. My usual staple when I was working with LavaNet, was at this place called "Carrot Patch". Jessie, the main cook (maybe she was the owner), used to make me this plate of food that had a perfect ham & cheese omelette. Served with 3 scoops of rice. With a little soy sauce that was SOOO good.

GREAT, now I'm so hungry I'm going to start eating my own body parts soon.........

Why am I working?

It's a Saturday! Well, I guess these days that doesn't all that much matter does it? So much to do. Got some projects to take care of this weekend and at least one giant proposal to write. I guess it's better to be busy then to have nothing at all. One day at a time.

I got my business cards back from the printer a couple days ago though, I totally love it. I've gotten pretty good comments from it. It's achieving exactly the response I needed from it...if it makes people take just those few extra seconds to look at my card, I've accomplished what I wanted.

It's a picture of me when I was 3 years old. I had this old image of myself in a red-hooded sweatshirt ("shamma lamma ding dong"), that I thought was so cool. It's your typical 3 year old look of innocence, like I didn't have a care in the world. How often in life will we ever look in peace like that again?

So I thought, "Hey, little did I know then how I'd turn out.... I could go either way for the rest of my life - good or bad." That's when the idea came about to create the devil and angel versions of my image. There's a little bit of both in me. I'm easy to get along with, but don't get on my bad side!! hahah.

Business cards are fun........

My first day...

Day One: My first blog ever. What exactly IS this and how will it turn out? Would this be something I need? I think it may be fun to find out. Who knows how many people might find any of this interesting.

I suppose I need to say at least something fantastic to mark this occasion. But try as I might nothing seems to escape my thoughts. It's as if a giant wall were in the way holding back a giant body of water. I can chip away at it, but all I got is this little tea spoon.

The picture is one of my more recent photos. That's my funny mug on the right...yeah,the skinny asian guy standing next to my two Hawaiian friends. We just won an award together on a site I had designed. (Papa Ola Lokahi)

These past two weeks have been mad. Since leaving the company I had been with for the past 8 years everything has been a whirlwind. Getting my design business going has been a mix of incredible excitement mixed in with periods of extreme panic as well. There's just never enough time in the day.

Top if off, it seems like every damn government agency is out to get me for my money...before I even earn a cent. I need a license for everything. Now I'm cool with that, I understand Uncle Sam needs a way to get paid. But do they have to make it so difficult? They want my tax money the very least they should make it easier to do it!!?

Part of it was my fault. I followed the advice of a friend to try to start my business as an S-corporation. Now it wasn't necessarily a bad idea....I know enough about S-corps to understand there's a potential long-term advantage to setting it up that way. But suddenly jumping into that while still shivering from the aftermath of being newly unemployed is a BAAAD idea. It was just too much to handle for a single business person with no employees.

Now of course I go all around town getting all my licenses switched to LLC....of course the government and banks charge you AGAIN to file the cancellations, and then recharge you for the new name. New name?! It's just changing "Inc." to "LLC"!!

And so my company is born LOWE STUDIO, LLC....rough going, but I finally got everything done!