What is it about clients?

It seems like every day I have a Client Moment, when something truly amazing happens with a client. And I’m not talking about “WOW, that’s cool” amazing; I’m talking about “HUNH?” amazing.

Take today. For weeks I’ve been waiting to finish the installation of a computer network for a client. I asked several times when the wires might be in place, so I could come in and hook everything together, and heard absolutely nothing in response.

Today I get a call around noon. “Jeff, all those network wires are in place. Can you come in this afternoon and hook them up?”

(Their office is about 45 minutes away.)

Uhh, no guys– I’ve got things to do today. Maybe if you’d given me more than a FEW HOURS of notice, I could’ve arranged something. Guess you’ll have to wait.

Ahh, clients.

So Laralee sends me a picture that’s scanned from a 1950’s-era magazine. It includes “instructions” about how to be a Good Wife when your husband comes home from work. It includes such gems as:

“Remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.”

“Prepare yourself. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair, and be fresh-looking.”

“Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgement or integrity.”

It goes on; suffice to say it’s hilariously anti-feminist.

Of course my friend Steve learned (through who knows how much online research; he doesn’t appear to do much at work during the day) that it’s a hoax.

But the best part was my friend Stef’s response:

“I don’t know what you mean, Jeff… You know me…

I NEVER question Derek’s actions or judgement – I have no right to!

I know that his topics of conversation are MUCH more important than mine
are.

I always speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

I always put a ribbon in my hair so I can look fresh for him.

… I have to go now… Oprah is on and I haven’t taken my
medications…”

Okay, so maybe you have to know Stef.

And so it begins.

After a lot of stop-and-go, a lot of good intentions but bad follow-through, and a lot of “no, really, someday I’ll do it”, I’m going to start keeping a journal. Oh, sure, it’ll be this online thing that’s not very impressive and probably contains only rambling thoughts… but you’ve gotta start somewhere.

Ready… set…

It’s been a while.

Some exciting news on the house-hunting front, though. Last weekend we decided to visit a couple houses in our search list. One in particular didn’t excite me; the MLS listing said something like “unusual floor plan” and I immediately thought it would suck. But Laralee convinced me to take a look anyway, and I loved it.

It’s up in Longmont– about 15 miles due north of here– and not only is the house bigger than our current one, but the lot is a full quarter-acre. Huge for around here. I think this is the best we’ll do, considering our tough criteria. So we moved on it right away, and signed the papers Monday. We move at the end of next month.

Now comes the fun part: selling our house. It’s on the market, and we spent a frantic week preparing for that. Cleaning, dumping clutter, doing touch-up work, fixing things, and generally making it look better than it’s ever looked while we lived here. (Isn’t that always the nature of selling a house?)

I sure hope this works…

(Insert brief hiatus here.)

Well, things are interesting as always. A few weeks ago La asked if we should try to find a new house with a bigger yard. That got me thinking, and before we knew it we were caught up in the whirlwind. We started the Great House Hunt, with the singular goal of finding an acceptable yard, a decent house, and all without spending any money.

So far our luck has been poor. We found an unbelievable yard, but the house was cramped. We found a great house, but the yard was all hill. We drove into the mountains, we drove out to the plains. We found horse properties and empty lots and backyards no more than five feet deep. No, no, no.

We still have a few months, but I wonder if it’s even possible to find what we seek. It seems the builders in the last couple of decades just decided that people don’t want yards, and there you have it. We don’t have enough money to get a grand layout, so we have to hope we get lucky.

We’ll see.

Boy, it’s been a while since I wrote anything here. Time flies, I guess. First there was a trip to Idaho, then my birthday, then a week of being sick (and taking care of the rest of the clan when they caught it).

Then, interestingly, I had a really hard time getting motivated to do anything. I think having nearly two weeks off put a dent in my interest in work. I found that I wasn’t excited about my job, or the things I was doing for clients. It was a struggle, because I had a lot of things to do (which is a good thing) and I knew I had to do them. But I didn’t want to work long hours; I didn’t have the drive to work during the evenings like I had been.

So my laptop didn’t sit in bed with me late at night; instead, I read sci-fi books or simply went to sleep. No more 1:00 am nights. No more late-night “research” into network security or the latest web and database doo-dahs. No more journal.

Now it’s been a couple of weeks, and I feel that I’m starting to get some of that ambition and drive back. I hope I can get back in the “groove” and do good work, enjoy it, and continue my success. It’s important, because I see the point (only a few weeks away) when I’m going to be hard-pressed for work. I need to move, to find new things, to keep my inertia.

We’ll see.

I think if work ever slows down, and I find myself wondering where my next contract will come from, I’ll plan a vacation.

See, what seems to happen (with frightening regularity) is that Laralee and I plan a trip somewhere. We plan it a month or two ahead– giving us plenty of time to make arrangements for everything. And just before we’re slated to leave, all sorts of stuff begins to happen with work.

This week is no exception. We’re leaving Friday for a trip to Idaho (a five-day weekend in all), and all of a sudden I’ve got clients calling from all over. New contracts… proposals… old work resurrected. Couple that with a few “fires” I’ve had to fight this week, and I find myself putting in long days trying just to keep up.

Don’t get me wrong– this is a good thing overall. Every client is an opportunity to make money and market myself, so I welcome the challenge. Plus, I always thrive on the chance to jump between projects and keep myself from getting bored doing the same thing day after day.

So in the end, I’m a happy guy. It’s just this week I happen to be a busy guy as well…

What? Another new business?

For some reason– I’d like to think it’s my natural sense of ambition– it looks like I’m going to be involved in yet another new business venture. This time it’s in the arena of network security, something which I’ve been meaning to learn more about anyway. All the other technology (read “geek”) work I do can benefit from a greater understanding of security and its implications; why not start a company and do it on a paying basis?

So I had some initial discussions, and developed a sketchy plan to start figuring out how to make it work. Initially it will be a “side” job for me– a way to broaden my skills and find new clients– but hopefully over time it will become more mainstream.

So here I go…

Why is it that my little projects wind up taking ten times as long as I think they will? Tonight I sat down to put together a little book of pictures and artwork for our friends up the street. It was a simple concept: twenty pages, each with a picture (from our album) or a drawing by Alex or Kyra. A little blurb about each page, and that was it.

Elapsed time: 4 hours.

So I had to pick out the pictures. Then I had to crop them, resize them, edit them. Then I had to come up with an order. Then write the blurbs. Then lay it out on the pages. Heck, even getting WordPerfect to print properly (the pages were 6.75 x 5 inches– hardly a standard size) took a half an hour.

In the end, the finished product was pretty cool. Most of my projects turn out that way; I just don’t understand why every single one has to take so darn long…

It sucks being sick.

I don’t get sick very often (maybe every few months), but when I do I always wallow in self-pity. So here I sit, with a stuffy nose and a bit of a sore throat, feeling like I’m going to expire any minute. There are so many people in this world with far worse problems than a stuffy nose, yet I feel like I’m in the worst shape of anyone. Go figure.

I suppose it’s some form of selfishness– concentrating so much on one’s own mundane problems that all other issues fade into the background of unimportance.

So I tell myself, every time I’m sick, that I’ll buck up and not be so morbid about it. I’m trying. Really.

It’s official. I’m not a home improvement guy.

Over the past few days I “worked on the house” to run wiring between the stereo and my office, and between the loft and my office. For the former, I wanted big speakers downstairs and MP3’s upstairs; for the latter I wanted ethernet access that didn’t involve a wire draped out the second-floor window.

How hard could it possibly be to drill a few holes, install a few face plates on the wall, and plug in the wires? Well, apparently it’s much worse than I imagined. I ended up drilling into studs, measuring wrong, punching holes through the drywall, and generally getting frustrated with my complete lack of ability.

It’s not rocket science.

Anyway, all the holes are patched, all the face plates are screwed in, and all the wires seem to work. But if I can’t do something this simple, I sure as heck shouldn’t try something more complex…

Late again. After a long day of work, I find myself– as usual– sitting in bed finishing up some stuff.

I learned a lot today; I had to configure a handful of security things in Linux and needed to figure it out as I went. Not too bad. Something that always amazes me about Linux is the incredible degree of control you have over the configuration of it. I can do as little or as much as I want (or understand). Since I’m trying to really get into the network security world, I sometimes go a bit overboard in locking things down… but heck, that’s what the customers pay me for, right?

Oy.

Today’s been a busy day. Four different projects to work on– which is good, in a way, because it means I’m gainfully employed. I can only hope that things continue in this vein. It’s nice to get paid occasionally.

Zack really enjoys sitting next to me as I work on my laptop. I think the blinking lights on the ethernet cable are interesting; he’s always trying to grab the wire and yank it out. A little while ago he managed to pop the right-arrow key off the keyboard (these laptop keyboards aren’t the most sturdy things). Hopefully I won’t have to scroll right any time soon…

It’s funny how productive I can be late at night. The house is quiet; everyone else is asleep. I can sit in bed, my laptop humming quietly, and work on whatever whim-of-a-project comes to mind. Sometimes it’s work-related; more often it’s just goofing off. I used to write fiction with this time, and I’d like to get back into that. For some reason I’m in a dry spell.

Maybe this journal will help inspire me. Heck, maybe I’ll start writing snippets here and see what happens.