SUMMARY: Social social social! And a recommitment to working at home, at actual home, by spending some time organizing my workspace and arranging for the things I need to be nearby.

Friday – I woke up late-ish, and then drove to a new Jelly that had started in nearby Chelmsford, MA. The Jelly, a co-working event being held at the Chelmsford Public Library, was pleasant. I made a new contact in the video training world who seemed very professional and competent. I limited myself to meeting just one person; that’s all the energy I had. The work I got done was to set up a test theme on my staging server for another client, using the Gantry framework. I’d been writing specifications on the ideal WordPress development framework, and as it turns out Gantry fulfills many of those needs (at least on paper). I stayed at the library until around 3:30PM, I think, then grabbed some McDonald’s on the way home and got back at around 5:30PM. Then I fell asleep on the couch until 6:45PM, when I had to get ready for the Float Left Labs bowling fundraiser at 7PM. I got there late, around 7:30PM, and stayed until 9PM or so. I bowled rather well for me, and decided that this weekend I would try to get a bowling ball for more consistency. The bowling fundraiser also ended up being something of a strategy session, so we’re going to try to do this more often. Got back around 9:30PM, and stayed up rather late watching a LOT of TV on Hulu, until about 3AM. Also played some STO.

Saturday – I woke up at 10:30AM, and puttered around with email and not doing anything until heading to the Northeast Chogokin Summit at Alen’s house, arriving around 2PM. I’d been to the very first one back in the late 1990s, and the most recent one was packed with food, music, and people. I really didn’t know the crowd, though some of them knew me from over the years being associated with Alen, but I enjoyed myself immensely. Passionate nerds who love their toys and know each other from long-time forum association, sharing their goods and making trades. All of them quite creative people with good attitudes and sharp senses of humor. I stayed for about 90 minutes, and then got home around 4:30PM. Listened to Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin’s podcast on the drive down and back. I forget what I did next…oh, I fell asleep at 5PM (I see a trend!) until around 9PM, exhausted by the drive. Then I went out to get cat food and bread, got home, and puttered with email. There were MANY things I thought of doing, but just didn’t feel like doing. I was exceptionally lazy. Around 10PM I logged onto Star Trek Online and hung out with the STORPers while leveling my current char to RA2, taking advantage of the experience point bonuses granted this weekend. Got to bed around 3AM, again. I need to reverse this trend on Sunday.

Sunday – Woke up around 10:30AM, stayed in bed until 11:00AM conferring with the cats. I had two thoughts related to the Chogokin Summit last night: first, it’s awesome to see people with such passion, especially the people who are creating things. Some are media pros, some are designers, some are illustrators. All of them making things, or aspiring to make things. That’s the kind of crowd that Alen seems to attract. That got me to thinking about what I do; I’ve stopped short of being passionate about my own business, and I think this is has been what’s changing for me recently. Before I wasn’t sure. Now I am, not because of any new epiphanies, but because I have decided on general principle that I am in it. That recasts all the marketing material chores I’ve been putting off into something I now am more interested in doing. Before, I was just feeling very alone in my endeavor, and this kept me from moving forward because i thought it would be too draining. But NOW, I have embraced my solitude, finally accepting that no one really is going to “get it” except for me, and I have to build it so people can recognize “it” in themselves. That “it” is the stuff that I do, packaged in unique forms.

That brings me up-to-date for right now. It’s 12:30PM. There are two things I’m thinking are important:

• Marketing – Explaining the Printable CEO forms and tapping into markets.
• Technology Platform – Web Software / Interactive / HTML 5

The latter, technology, is something I’ve put off for so long. This morning, I have concluded that by NOT mastering this now, I won’t be able to unleash the next wave of awesomeness, which is prompted productivity tools and knowledge systems. There is no one I know that can do this the way I want to, so I must do it. And how hard can it be? In two years I’ll be in a good place. In two months I’ll probably have my first product. That’s a goal.

A third leg:

• More digital downloads

I have to streamline the listing process, and I’m not really that happy with e-Junkie’s look. I think looking into wp-ecommerce will be the way to go, to have much better listings on the website here. People can ask me for custom designs, and then I can list them for 5 buck downloads. Bam!

Cooking lunch, or rather I am heating a pork pie I bought yesterday. Mmm. Then, I think I will go to Starbucks and outline some recent thoughts and organzie for a two week sprint. Or I’ll look at bowling balls. We’ll see. It’s 12:30PM.

1230 to 1430: I ate lunch while playing Star Trek Online, pushing my current character through some missions to grab a good engine, sensor, and shield set. Then, I took a nap.

1530: Went to Starbucks. Have been writing in The Wave for the last hour or so, puttering. Also was looking up bowling balls and reading about them for about 30 minutes.

1715: Time to go home. I feel an intense need to clean up the house. The fact of the matter is that I leave the house because I can’t work there. I wonder what I can do to make the house a more productive environment, distraction free, and comfortable.

1715 to 2100: Cleaned up the house, moved some shelves, filed some junk. Also, was trying out different flavors of Linux on a laptop I am resurrecting for a friend. It keeps getting taken down by viruses, so I’m putting Linux on it to try to put it to a stop.

2100 to 0130: Hung out on Star Trek Online, taking advantage of the 2x experience boost weekend. Also, finally got to try RP for the first time aboard someone else’s ship. Improv characterization. Not a bad test. I did OK.

Very late, unfortunately. I’ll try to do a 4-hour cycle.