Cody

Alright, it’s time to take the Queen CD out of my player and put Linkin Park in… this is a job for Linkin Park. Storyline: I took an opportunity for a company called Cost Captain from the P3 website to blog about CostCaptain in my personal blog here. Cost Captain was offering $9 for the post and only required 50 words, for a link that said www.costcaptain.com pretty easy right? I thought so! In fact it was too easy… CostCaptain sells Microsoft products, Cost Captain specialize in the order of selling Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows Vista packages at student discount prices. I wrote a 100 word article about such deals because the more my site relates to Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows Vista products the more they get the value for it to their website which in turn translates to more search engine queries for the terms Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Windows. The problem with my post was that I also included CostCaptain’s description on the P3 website IN ADDITION to the article that I wrote, because it gave them a much better link rating because of the keyworded specificness of Cost Captain description. I thought I was doing Cost Captain a favor, Cost Captain thought otherwise. This is the description:

CostCaptain.com is a Microsoft Authorized Education Reseller. We sell the brand new Office 2007 Suite and Vista to students and staff of schools, libraries and research labs. Home schools qualify too. We have served hundreds of schools, colleges and libraries and thousands of students and staff members.

We offer:

- 100% Authentic Microsoft products at academic discounts

- Microsoft Office 2007 from $129, Vista Upgrade from $89

- Friendly customer service.

- Buyers provide academic eligibility and after that the product is shipped

- Gift certificates that are a great way to give especially during holiday season

Very good keywording if you ask me… but hey, I’m no SEO expert or anything, just because I ranked number two and three on Google for the term “Cost Captain” simply by writing the Cost Captain article on my website… I mean I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about apparently… so therefore I won’t know what I’m talking about all over the net. Cost Captain said that they wouldn’t pay me and denied my post until it was rewritten because I “wrote the article using their description” Obviously the company didn’t want any sort of SEO relevancy so I rewrote the post, I put a 150 or so word description of why I rewrote the article the way I did on top and left what I had described before on the rest… just translated it. You see not only am I a blogger, webmaster of over 9 websites, internet marketing coach, but I also use Opera as my main browser of choice… I just like it. It’s not for everyone, I suggest FireFox for most people (as most of you already do since my stats say that 2/3 of my visitors are FireFox users). I used a widget on my Opera browser to translate the article into Ł337 5ρ34|< (or more commonly known as 1337 5p34k the translator is just hardcore). They didn’t like that either and banned me on P3 which is fine, ban me all you want… my site is more SEO friendly and optimized than your site will ever be, that’s your loss. Of all the bloggers who took your opportunity who ranks for your websites keywords? Oh that’s right, it’s me. I just want my money from the deal… that’s all. So therefore I’m taking my money that Cost Captain won’t pay me. If I can’t get it from the P3 website I will make damn sure I get it from ad revenue on my website.

I love the line from Stranger than Fiction where Ana Pascal is explaining to Harold Crick how she got to being a baker from going to Harvard Law School then says to him “So I decided that I would change the world with cookies.”  That statement is so profound, and so amazingly true.  So many people just never get it though… they think that the only way to change the world, the only way to make a difference is to join some great “cause” or devote their life to a monastery… when in actuality it starts with a batch of fresh baked cookies.  Who are the most effective people in history?  Just to list a few we’ve got Beethoven, Hans Zimmer, Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bach, Albert Einstein, etc.  But what did these people actually add to society?  I mean seriously… nothing they did or created was, or is necessary to human existence… Some of them made our lives more convenient such as Nikola Tesla, and Henry Ford… some of them added beauty to our lives like Hans Zimmer, and Beethoven… but still yet none of these things are absolutely necessary for life, or are they?  Are we programmed by God to always excel and change, redefining and extending the definition of what beautiful is?  I like to think that the reason these people were so efficient at what they did is because they were doing exactly what God made them to do, they pushed the world aside and distinctly said they were doing not what the world said it needed (have you ever heard someone telling a small child they should be a doctor, or a lawyer, or a politician so that they could change the world and make lots of money?) they pushed aside what their parents told them to be, they pushed aside what their neighbors said they should be, they strove through times of extreme poverty to pursue their passions… Where as many people have said such endeavors are fruitless and vein… but I say differently.  I say that these people actually got it, most of which weren’t Christians, and I also say there is no mistake about that.  Sadly enough the church often is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to allowing people to do what God created them to do.  If you think about how up until recently the Catholic Church was the dominant denomination for followers of Christ… the whole hierarchy and system of the Catholic Church is dead set on limiting the creativity of God.  Pillar’s song Frontline which I’ve got on my MySpace profile says in the beginning “I’d be willing to bet that if we don’t back down in the end we’ll be the ones holding the crown” Of course Pillar is a Christian band, and they’re talking about standing on the front lines of Gods war against evil, but I think this is a huge part of that.  How can someone doing a job that they’re not made for, or trained for be anywhere near as effective as someone who was born to be who they are?  I like the quote from the movie 300 (even though I did have a few qualms with the historical accuracy of the movie) where the two Greek armies meet up and the one commander says “Why did you bring so few warriors?” Leonidas proceeds to ask those brought with Daxos what their professions were, farmers, potters, all normal professions.  Then Leonidas asks the Spartans what their profession was they respond “Ha-ooh Ha-ooh Ha-ooh” and Leonidas says “You see, old friend? I brought more soldiers than you did.” It makes a difference when you’re doing what you were made to do, as opposed to doing what the world tells you they need done.  The world isn’t changed by doctors, politicians, lawyers, and others in positions of power… the world is changed by artists who follow their dreams and do what they were designed for.  I’ve used the quote before, but I still love it from the movie Man on Fire Creasy’s friend say’s “A man can be an artist at anything, Creasy’s art is death… and he is about to paint his masterpiece.”  That is such an awesome line!  A man truly can be an artist at anything, and if you’re not living out your art you’re probably dying each day little by little.  I recently got an email from a Christina Lee who found my website from some article on a jewelry website… I’ve gotten a lot of praise from large websites that I have no clue how they even found out about me, but they write these awesome stories about my work and what I do… but anyways Christina wrote me an email saying that she loved how I stood for Christ in my work, and also that she really liked my work.  Her and her husband a few years ago finally quit their jobs as she describes to “Return to the gifts and talents that God gave us.” She makes glass beads and jewelry out of that along with silk paintings, and her husband makes beautiful handcrafted guitars!  She goes on to describe how they’re moving into a studio loft in a neighborhood of artists, they’re literally the 40th art studio to go into the neighborhood and how it is such a blessing to be a missionary to that artists community.  It’s like what John Eldredge says… we need to quit asking what the world needs, and start asking what makes us come alive because what the world really needs is real men, and real women who are alive in what they do.

This last month has been odd for me… Not to say that there haven’t been very good things about this month, but it has still been odd. First off it has been a little over a month now that I’ve been talking about going on this “bike trip.” The whole bike trip in itself is an odd deal… It all started with one day me feeling an overwhelming sense of “what in the heck am I doing in this world, or with my life?” Which then immediately lead to me asking that very question to God. Conventional wisdom from people like my dad has been pushing me towards “hey just get a job at McDonalds go to school for a while, learn a trade and make a good living” where as something inside me has been poking back with “hold strong, keep running your business and when the time comes that you need it, the money will be there.” Ok, so I’ve been holding strong, I’ve been building my business… or at least trying. I’ve spent countless hours, and small fortunes in establishing myself… and guess what I’ve got to show for it…. nothing… I can count the number of orders that have been placed on my website on a single hand, heck I don’t think I really even need half a hand to count all the orders. After a while conventional wisdom begins to creap in… these seeds sown by my father and some others about what I’m doing being irresponsible, lazy, and worthless start to flower. So that night in a rather depressed state I asked very directly for God to show me in a physical way which path I should take, and in fact I gave God almost 2 weeks to answer. Less than 6 hours later I had it… and it was exactly what I had asked for showing me to stay the course and continue doing things the way I am…

Where does the whole bike trip fit in though? That’s an odd one as well. When I asked God to show me some sort of sign as to what I needed to be doing with my life I lumped together staying at home and running my business with a minimum 500 mile bicycle trip across Missouri… why? uh… I don’t know. It’s actually been something that I’ve wanted to do for some time, but I wanted to do it on the Katy trail the whole way… I didn’t want to start from my house, ride to the Katy trail, ride the Katy trail, and come home the same way…. that’s insane! But for some reason that’s what I said for this one. The original plan was to leave the Sunday after the Leadership Summit, upon telling Jordan about the plans he said that he would love to come as well if I gave him a little more time…. What he needed was to get another paycheck from Reece and Nichols which required that he made a couple of websites. I offered to completely design and build the websites for him along with optimize them and do everything necessary for him to get paid… he agreed and it never went anywhere… All I needed was FTP access and the sites hosted, and it never happened. Tired of waiting I decided to just go alone again. One of the big reasons why I even agreed or wanted Jordan to go with me is because one of the themes at the Leadership Summit was that of not fighting this fight alone… being that Jordan has always been one of my closest companions I really think that we work well together… what I fail at he succeeds, and vis versa.  So it only made sense that this discovery journey I was taking before leaping out to follow God’s direction of sticking it out with my own little business would be taken with someone that I work so well with.  Never the less I couldn’t wait any longer for this so I was to set out alone again.  Within a matter of days I get a call from Jordan asking if I was still planning on going, and he said he could go… He had gotten fired from his job for putting family and this “church thing” above his job (he was working for our Uncle Guy and he’s a little crazy).  This was great news!  I wasn’t going to have to go alone, and we could have a great devotional time as we traveled across Missouri on bike.  Now Jordan has gone and signed up for a Quintiles study so once again I will be going alone.  The odd thing is that I was to leave last week… however God in his infinite wisdom plagued me with customers on my website (here’s a site that has been dormant for some time all of a sudden gets tons of customers right when I want to head out).

As I understand it from several events that have occurred what God wants to teach me is to trust him completely, and with no strings attached, and that it isn’t good to go alone.  The second part has been made even more clear with Jesse coming into my life.  I think one of the common topics that always comes up is how we’re both “willing to walk alone until God brings someone else, if he brings someone else to walk with us.”  maybe not word for word that, but it often comes up… ironically just about everything that we’ve talked about along those lines the other of us could be that person.  When it comes to trusting God he has been so amazing this last month with finances that there is no way I couldn’t trust him in that respect.  Every time I’ve looked at my checking account and said “woops… I forgot about that one” there is a random purchase on my website that fills in the gap just about to the dollar.  I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m never going to have an over abundance of money in my life, and that’s fine.  I’m also slowly coming to grips with the fact that there probably won’t be a spare dollar until the very moment I need it… So the question is if I’ve already learned these lessons why am I still going?  Besides the fact that it is something that I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years now… I made a promise that if God gave me the sign to stick it out and run my business I would take some time off to unrestrictedly follow Him and spend time in his word… I think it’s more about the promise I made to God now than anything… Don’t get me wrong the idea of being out far away from all the distractions that keep me from reading His word as often as I should is great… but the idea of going without “proper supplies” and some sort of emergency food source scares the crap out of me.  God has been very generous to me lately so I’ve got spare money to stop and eat along the way… the problem is on some of the routes before I make it to the Katy Trail there are spurts of 50 - 60 miles between towns… That’s a long way to go before being able to stop for… well anything!  So maybe there is still a lot of room for me to grow in the trust area with God… The biggest thing I’m struggling with now is that the whole trip has just become my stubborn pride pushing me to still go when I really shouldn’t.  I’m afraid that if it is my pride that is taking me on the trip now that… well it’s going to sound silly… but I’m afraid that God won’t take care of me because it’s not what he wants… of course it is a ridiculous notion… I think I’m going to just have to grin my teeth, close my eyes, take a deep breath and leap out to watch what amazing things God does.

<disclaimer> Warning, reading this entry may cause loss of attention, dyslexia, or other more serious syndromes commonly associated to rants by Kodie that have no moral, point, or concluding thought… in fact I’m not sure if this one even has a common theme.  You have been forewarned. </disclaimer>

Every man’s art

“A man can be an artist at anything. It just depends upon how good he is at it. Creasy’s art is death, and he’s about to paint his masterpiece, just stay out of his way.” I absolutely love that line…. It’s so true though isn’t it?  I could sit here and give you some word perfect definition of what an artist is, but what’s the point?  Who could really define an artist anyways?  If there ever was an artist I most certainly am one and most certainly could not define for you what one is.  Art is not solely based upon how good someone is at something, as Creasy’s friend put it in the movie Man on Fire (which by the way is an awesome movie).  No art goes much deeper than just some measurable value of how “good” someone is at something… of course that is a big factor, but art has a much deeper emotional, almost spiritual aspect to it.  Which is in part why it is so hard to define what an artist is.  There has to be an attitude about it as well.  Creasy most definitely was an artist… an artist of death at that too.  How would you like for that to be the way you are remembered?  That would be freaking awesome!  To be known as the guy who was so good at death, yes death that single handedly sent a shock wave through the community of criminals in Latin America.  When I die I don’t care how much money I’ve made throughout my life, or care what my accomplishments were… I just want the words on my gravestone “He made an impact” don’t even put my name just that line, but only if it is true.

A circle of job security

Most of you guys know that I’ve been working for  Viacom as of late… which at first I did something, and actually helped them to make a couple of websites not only more secure, but more fun for the participants.  In fact I deserved every penny that I earned if not more because they surely made it back in advertising cost.  However my job with them has simply become what my cousin described as a circle of job security.  My job any more is to give third party “expert” reports that give another guy a job to present these reports to a board of directors and eventually gives another guy a job to do programming on the websites… the programmers however are making sure to keep their jobs by purposely not taking all of my suggestions or ignoring them on later website projects so that I might review that website give the SAME kinds of report and begin the cycle all over again.  Things aren’t all bad with it since this circle has reached a major apex it looks like I’ll have some money to pursue some of my passions, which leads into my next section (since I do make more money than both my parents when I’m working full time).

Forging a passion

When I say that I’ve got a lot of money from this cycle of job security I really do mean it.  There is a lot on the list of what needs to be done with the money however… being that I might be moving out here shortly means we need monies for rent, food, etc.  There has been another option presented though, if my mom marries Scott which has been a serious discussion here lately then they’re looking at moving into Scott’s place and I’ll be taking over the house (including the house payment).  So I’ve got to keep a good reserve of cash for numerous reasons of those being that this cycle can’t last forever, someone is bound to either catch on, or the new sites will end eventually.  Although I need a cash backup there are a few things that are on the list of being purchased one major thing is some stainless steel rings for Xandra (yes Tiana Xandra will be finished but since I can no longer find the black I’m going to have to go with a purty stainless steel option instead, which isn’t too much of a heart wrench since the blackened mild steel is dirty, and it must be oiled to keep from rusting so wearing it is just bad.).  The other thing that crossed my mind with the expendable funds was to get a sword *insert ominous smile here* Now there’s a few things that go into me wanting a sword… first off it must be from a time period that I know a good deal about and has to be something that fits my fighting style.  For me the most obvious choice was a Katana they fast moving single/two handed slashing swords, which is a great fit for the way I like to fight with a sword.  The problem with Katana’s is that I don’t really want to cut into my cash reserve and spend over $800 on a sword… and in fact would like to spend less, but I know that with swords you don’t really get less than $800 and being an artist who does not compromise on the price of my jewelry I understand and would never be so rude as to ask them to go lower.  Mediocre Katana’s start at $1,200 and go up to $1,700 for one that you can actually go out and play with… which was another huge requirement for me, I need to be able to use whatever sword I get… I don’t do SLO’s (Sword Like Objects) a big reason why I don’t own any of the swords from the LOTR movies because they’re just not swords they’re 100% overpriced SLO’s and couldn’t be used for a sword if you wanted.  I then started looking for European swords, especially either Celtic, or Roman short swords (the Celts invented the sword style used by the Romans and the Romans improved upon it with brutal efficiency and made it the most feared weapon of it’s day).  In this search I found a company by the name of Generation 2 which is based in the Philippines and makes great functional swords of high quality steel.  They make swords in the sub $300 range that will hold up to a lot of punishment with a quality constructed hilt (often the hilt is the weakest point in any sword no matter how good it is made).  The problem with Gen2 is that they make UGLY swords.  No kidding, all of their swords come with a mirror finished blade, and often black VERY shinny accent pieces.  They’re also often times a little heavier than swords of the time period as well… which I’ve heard they’ve improved upon.  All of this kept bringing me back to a company that I’ve lusted for one of their swords for a long time Albion.  If you know anything about swords you know Albion, and in turn brings us back to art.  Albion has made sword making into an art, and they are unmatched in beauty, historical accuracy, and quality of construction.  There are two styles of sword that I would go with either a Roman short sword, or an Oakeshott XII I could go with an Oakeshott XV possibly… but XII is really where I like to stay because they still retain their slashing ability.  The further up the Oakeshott scale you go the closer to a rapier you get and to be honest yes, most the time when I go to kill you I’m going to stab you, but I want to be able to cut your heard off when the mood strikes… and lets be honest you’re not going to cut someones head off with a rapier, I mean you could if you sat and sawed on it for a while… but that’s getting into the realm of sadistic.  That’s why I like the Oakeshott XII it’s not like the Oakeshott X where it’s like the viking swords and really just a big metal club… type X’s are clumbsy and you really need to keep them in motion and just crush your enemy with the first couple of blows… which is fine for people like Chris who like to fight like that, but for me I want a nimble sword that I can also stab with.

After weeks of invested time into “where should I get a sword from” and “is it really worth it to pay double the money for an Albion when I could get a sturdy sword for less?” another solution came to mind.  One that is not new either and that is “Buildeth me an army worthy of Mordor.”  oh wait… NO!  that’s not the thought that came to mind… jeez, what’s wrong with you, get out of my head, you are hence forth banned from taking over my body to type your random movie quotes.  Begone demon!  The thought that actually crossed my mind was to build my own forge and make my own swords :-D  Problem here is that it’s a good 3 years down the road before I start pulling out quality stuff and probably 4 before I can really make swords… I can do blacksmithing here pretty easily, but need more equipment for full fledged swords.  What I was going to do was get a cast iron anvil from this tool company that I buy a lot of cheap crap from, build my own forge, and build a small concrete covered patio section in my back yard since I’ll be taking over responsibility of the house here pretty soon anyways.  Problem is that everyone I’ve talked to online or read articles about beginning blacksmithing says absolutely do not get a cast iron anvil… which is fine, a quality Peddinghaus (<– the best) anvil will only cost me $600 shipped.  Problem with that is after paying that then I don’t have the money to build a shelter area… which kind of ruins the whole forge idea… so unless the cycle of job security continues then I think I’m just going to get an Albion… which may make me sad in the long run that I can’t make my own… but if I got a Peddinghaus and had nowhere to work at then I’d be just as sad…

Moral

Moral of the story is “Don’t be like me. Don’t you be like me!” *shakes dog* for those of you who have seen As Good as it Gets and could relate to the movie as much as me
Oh, and I really wanted to put a bit in at the top about how even in Creasy’s sin God still used him as an instrument of his wrath.  In the Bible God say’s “Judgment and vengeance is mine”   But sometimes God uses men to play out his vengeance.  Much like Samson who pulled down a temple to pagan gods onto himself destroying many evil people in the process Creasy pulled down a temple of corrupt money driven men onto himself destroying the hostage machine in Mexico City, and sent fear though all those in Latin America doing the same things.  Just like Samson it was Creasy’s sin that got him in the situation he was, but once there God used him as a mighty weapon to pour out judgment upon an evil peoples.

Ok, so… I’ve got to go. uh… maybe I should explain myself a little bit. I’ve been having this weird series of dreams lately, and I’m not sure what they mean. In fact the worst part about them all is that they’re not dreams at all… You see night one I have one of those dreams that you’re not sure if you’re asleep or awake and it’s even so bad that you don’t even know when the line was crossed from the dream world to the real world. As the dream starts out I was sitting up in my bed (not something I do often being I sleep on the top bunk of a bunk bed and the ceiling fan is right above me) staring at my closet for what seemed hours when all of a sudden this black… almost cloud or liquid begins moving from one end of the closet to the other infecting everything it touched as it crept slowly and ominously into my room. Armed with nothing else I picked up my pillow and chucked it at the black cloud scattering hangers everywhere and cutting the vial creature like darkness in half. Separated from its source the cloud began to wither with a moan. What seemed to be a few minutes later I then went to the rest room, got in bed and laid down without thinking when my head landed with a thud on a barren surface. I looked around everywhere for my pillow clearly remembering the dream, but so sure that it was a dream that I didn’t bother looking in the closet… but when I did I found my pillow and hangars scattered about.

On night two the dream was rather unpronounced and in fact I don’t remember much about it until I was conscious… or… well halfway conscious anyways. What I do remember however is waking up in a cold sweat, and instead of just pushing my blankets to the side I very meticulously rolled them up into this perfect ball, carried them out of my room and placed them in the hall. Then came back in and went to sleep…. an odd situation since I never sleep without a blanket even if it is 105° F outside, and really can’t stand being without something to hold onto.  I woke up a while later cold and rather confused… after looking around for my blankets for a little while I remembered the events of the night before and not wanting to venture out into the hall this early yet I just grabbed one of my spare blankets from beside my bed and pulled it around me… I soon came to my senses and decided that others would think it odd if they woke up and saw my blankets in this perfect pile in the hallway so I got up and gathered them.

Night three I went to bed with several questions for myself and life.  I’ve never been one to live the “stable” life so much.  Never had a girlfriend for more than 3 months, never had a job for more than 5 months, and I jump around from task to task all day long at home.  I posed myself with this question after going out to eat with Scott, mommy, and Brittney.  The restaurant we were at was somewhere I knew several people worked during high school I was rather shocked to find them still there… obviously a fun and just good place in general to work… or was it just me?  You see it’s not like I’ve not had good jobs, I was talking with a bunch of my friends the other day who all work 40+ hours a week and live on their own.  They were all talking about how they were looking forward to some good promotions and stuff so that they would be making a little more than the $300 a week they currently are making.  In all honesty I was floored by what they were making… Jobs where I just kind of sort of reluctantly took the job because I have bills to pay and needed something to do for a little while I was making in upwards of $500 a week, and I left those jobs either out of boredom or because I wasn’t getting paid enough to be doing what I was doing… and here these people are happy to be making what I would of laughed at someone who said I’d be making that even at 16.  Kind of funny even when working at Lifetouch everybody was kind of talking about how they were all getting paid different amounts and nobody really knew why Zack asks me what I’m making and I not knowing what they were making just simply said $10.90/hr he looks at me kind of funny and says something like “Dude I’m not talking to you anymore.” not really knowing what was going on I asked the other guy who said that I was making about $1.50 more per hour than both of them.  It’s not like I have some great track record with businesses or anything, I’m a horrible employee and I’ll admit it… I pack up and leave whenever I darn well feel like it without much or any warning at all.  So that night I went over how school never really was my “thing” nor was working for “the man” and I definitely cannot stay stationary for very long.  I was thinking about this thing Scott had said about how when he was a kid him and some friends went on a bike ride across Missouri to Arkansas for a fishing trip, so I was thinking that I should totally just get on my bike and head out… no real destination, no money, and not a clue what I’m supposed to do, it just sounded fun.  I’m at that point right now where the money is gone…. like seriously GONE gone and I have to get a job or something to survive… but nothing seems right and I’ve kind of been feeling God tugging at my heart saying “go” so somewhat joking around I thinking “yeah, I should go, pack up all my jewelry stuff and just ride… somewhere, setting up shop at all the Starbucks I come across to make stuff and sales will come magically so I can afford to continue on” Anyways that night I had another dream, that I woke up to.  What I remember about the dream is that I was standing on an old dirt road that didn’t make sense, staring at a bridge that was destroyed that also did not make sense seeing as there was nothing but prairie land and only a small stream, with no road connecting the bridge.  The bridge was broken, tattered, and flaming, but managed to mend itself with the coblestones below that had fallen into the stream during its destruction… only thing is that the bridge was still burning with flames high enough to keep it’s occupants from their destination… at this point I woke up.  Knowing that I need to make a move soon I asked God to give me some sort of sign that I should be heading out.  What did I ask for?  Either a random sale of jewelry that couldn’t really be explained, or a mended bridge… sales meaning I’m heading out on my bike to… uh… well who knows but I’m going.  Bridge meaning that I need to stay and just work a job quit running based on feeling and just buckle down for a while.  Guess what I woke up to this morning, I’ll give you one guess.

So I opened up my email this morning, still half asleep as the spam messages pile in I see this one email that just says #4 in the subject line, but it wasn’t caught by my spam filter… slightly aggravated at the performance of the spam filter lately I go to mark it as spam so that I can go through all the legit emails when I realized that the email was from myself… I went ahead and opened it to find out that it was order number four on my site (I had done two test orders on the site to make sure everything was working good, then Brenna’s parents ordered her a bracelet).  So needless to say this was an unexpected and unexplainable order that I had been looking for.  Oh, and I had said that it would need to be within the next two weeks since I wasn’t going to head out before the Leadership Summit and God gets back to me within 24hrs

So I have definitely decided that this has got to be how I shall live.  Nothing else would suffice… nothing else would satisfy… and most importantly nothing else would survive.  Haha that’s so great!  Have any of you noticed that I really like alliteration?  I mean seriously I do it all the time, sometimes purposefully, other times with little or no effort.  Then I go and ruin whatever cool thing I said by blurting out “Dude that so rhymes!!” then I get ‘corrected’ by people “well, that doesn’t really rhyme because it has to be the last of the word that matches in order for it to rhyme.”  “Oh, well thank you for that.  Just so you know, next time you go and say something stupid to someone who is of a much higher intelligence than yourself make sure that you are correct before you speak.  First off it does rhyme, it’s called alliteration one of the three main rhyming schemes for the english language.”

Oh right… where was I… ah yes, I was starting my story with the usual nail biting intro of utter confusion because even those that know of what I speak know not of what I speak because of how I spoke it!  By the way, Caffeine is a very, very bad drug.  Now normally I don’t drink caffeine at all, but my tummy was feeling icky and I wasn’t really feeling like eating anything, but I was hungry so rummaging through the kitchen which wasn’t really much of a rummage at all since I just walked in and saw a bottle of Coke on the table where something in my mind said “COKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and somehow I ended up warping to the table because it’s really too short of a distance to “run” and I don’t really remember making any kind of stepping motion I just ended up there… next to the table where I sat and finished off the entire 2 liter bottle myself.

And back to the story.  So right there I was contemplating my life thinking “Dude this is awesome, and it most definitely works” even though I didn’t say any of that, and I never really stopped to contemplate anything I was just kind of like thinking and for a brief moment I thought about all the conversations of “hey what’s going on in your life” that I’ve had this week, cux there were most definitely more than usual, and I got the same response from just about everyone of “You’re doing what?  And how exactly do you pull that off?” when I realized that no other lifestyle would even work for me.   Honestly I’ve never kept a job for more than 3 months, and I’m sure that no relationship has ever gone much longer than that either… stagnant is most definitely not something that I deal with well.  I’ll spend summers running around to various Ren. Faires and town crafts faires like Parkville Days here, then most Winter I’ll do webpage design stuff, freelance work in that arena.  Of course I won’t limit myself to those time windows either but I kind of like the idea of being able to tell people that I’m doing freelance work for MTVN then next weekend I’ll be heading out to St. Louis for the next couple of weekends for the St. Louis Ren. Faire.  People just kind of give you this look when you tell them yeah, I just got back from Jamaica, working for MTV, and then next weekend gotta pack up and head out to St. Louis for some more work of “who do you know, and how can I meet them?” when in actuality… God is the only answer I can give because I never asked for any of this, it’s just any time I’m in need someone walks up to me with the solution before I even have time to ask for a solution or announce to others that I have a problem.  Met more completely than I could of desired or imagined before I would of taken action… now that is a God who cares.

You know, I find myself more and more living my life in segments. Every morning that I wake up for work I count the days until Saturday when I can actually get on and do some sort of work for MY business… and while I’m at work I’m always looking towards the next segment to get me by. How long till first break, when is lunch, where is second break, and finally when to go home. I find things more manageable this way… that is one thing that they say about OCD people is that we tend to get overwhelmed very easily, and if it keeps me from going crazy or shutting down I guess it’s alright. Just sometimes seems like I’m wishing my days away… then when I get home I’m SOOOOOO freaking burned out from working on the computer all day that I don’t even want to get on here and do my blogging or webpage design, which then keeps me stuck working for someone else which is nothing shy of miserable.

Wow, so you guys will be noticing some changes around here! (well the one person who reads this may ). I plan on starting to post every day, generally I don’t because I like to let stories sit with me for a while as I formulate the perfect storyline out of it… that’s not going to happen so much anymore. Going to try and post a new story every day… or well at least queue up one for every day. Such as this story was actually written yesterday! But with the big G it looks better when a new story is posted every day.

As some of you know I’ve got 11 websites, and none of them really make me much money, they kind of support themselves, but not really “making” anything from them. What Jordan and I have decided is that we are going to create and open blogs on each one of them and pimp ‘em out. All of them need to be networked together and have stories coming in every day, so that’s what we’re going to be up to! The goal here is $100 per day by the end of 3 months (for myself at least, Jordan has a much grander scheme in mind).

Anyways, if you see lackluster stories, and more content than usual this is why… I will TRY to keep this site mostly unique and new stories every day but I can’t really promise because I don’t really write that much… but I’ll find stuff to talk about. Start by reviewing all the movies I’ve ever seen, make up crud daily, and possibly start quoting unique content like Home Star Runner.

[disclaimer] This post is all about ME, unlike many of my other posts where I try to have a moral, and an ending that makes you think this is just a rant nothing more.  A rant about me, and what I would like to see… sorry, most the time I keep on track but for today, not so much. [/disclaimer]

I had a bit of an interesting weekend. Well more so funny than interesting, and definitely not in a bad way. I’m still not sure exactly how everybody knows when I get ready to make a move, but it’s not so surprising when I do. Maybe things just work in time cycles for me, and people have gotten used to them, or I show outwardly what I’m feeling inside more so than I’d like to admit. However it is that everyone knows, everybody knows that I’m unhappy and ready to start a fight. I guess it’s not necessarily that I’m unhappy or anything, just get bored easily…. and of course I don’t get along with many people so it’s easy to get me going, plus working for other people just doesn’t work for me. Anyways, what is spurring this is that this weekend I got asked by two different people to go into business with them! Now at first I was a bit puzzled, being that one likes to call me lazy for trying to run my own business’ and constantly tells me to get a “job” the other knows that I’ve NEVER been successful at any kind of business that I’ve run despite several endeavors over the years. Thing is I’m ready to take Tiana up on her offer of opening a tea house, if I had the resources I would do so right now… and even though 1 year is an early time frame of taking a business from the planning boards to physical operations I’d really like to push the envelope to 4 months from now. Of course that is mostly due to the fact that in 4 months I won’t have a job and don’t really want to go get some petty job to fill in the gap… although, since I’m getting serious about this I should get a job somewhere like starsucks just to get into the industry. Thing is I can’t work two jobs and expect to be able to research and write any kind of legit business report (not to mention designing and maintaining 4 different websites right now).

Oddly enough the way that I knew I was ready for a move to start fighting for my own business was because of my “girl situation” if you can even call it that. Those of you that know me, know that I thrive in ultra high stress environments. For example, in high school I never did a single homework assignment… that’s right… not one. I was a good enough test taker that I could pass classes by doing classwork from time to time and pass all my tests… thing is that put the stress on that I HAD to pass every test with at least a 95% or higher or I would fail the class, to some this always seemed foolish, but it honestly is the ONLY way that I could ever make it through most classes… ultra high stress situations bring the best work out of me. Even though I work best when the heat is on I’m still a very comfort based person… if that makes any sense. You see, when working stress is great for me, often times I use my OCD to put extra stress on myself (things like deadlines, and any kind of numbers, one thing about my OCD is I love numbers such as at LifeTouch they keep track of Pages Per Hour which is perfect for me because I can access that and put extra stress on myself to keep those numbers as high as possible). Stressful situations keep me moving, keep me alert, and get the wheels turning so I produce the most creative amazing things you could ever imagine… unfortunately high stress environments do bad things to my already insomniac lifestyle. I can not sleep when my mind is turning and things are running at 150% there’s always a new idea, a new plan, a new toy, something can always be done… often times I will work 50-60 hours in a row until the project is off the ground and just completely burn myself out. This is one of my biggest problems with starting a business, I will spend 3 months sleeping a total of 30 hours a month and build one of the most ingenious, creative, just plain cool business/sites you could ever hope for then crash and never visit the idea again. Part of the problem is that ever business has the 3 month slump, that is when you start a new business there are 1,000 things to do after 3 months you can generally have that all done… but that doesn’t mean you’ve got customers yet. For the most part it takes a full year to build a good client base, and since the first 3 months you’ve been working on actually getting the business ready for business unless someone else has been working in the foreground getting a client base you’ve got nothing at the 3 month point… which is what I’m not good at, I can keep going at an insane rate for as long as needs be… but as soon as the workload goes away, I’m done. Which then brings me back to the “girl situation” a big lose, lose conundrum for the Cody. As many of you know I’m a very physical person, love giving/getting hugs, love being close to someone, and I love having someone to take care of. Problem with this is that having someone to be close to is a huge stress reliever for me, which makes taking on the extreme workload of starting a new business impossible. The thing is I know how I’m built, and where all my weaknesses lie. Most the time when I’m up late hours thinking about a project and the wheels are turning from the stresses of the day there is no productivity going on, only insomnia. The ideal situation for me would be to have a girlfriend when I’m starting a business so that I don’t crash so much at the 3 month period… unfortunately this would have to be a VERY unique situation that most people don’t get, and I have a hard time verbalizing. The only way that it would work is if I had 8-12 hours during the day (depending upon how on fire I am at the time) to work, then have the opportunity to hang out with said girl at random times later at night to just watch a movie, go to a park walking around hand in hand, lay on the hood of a car outside the airport watching the planes land…. something of that nature to calm my nerves so I could sleep at night. Things like this have never worked for me though, because to ask something of the such is far too selfish and I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I understand that when you’re dating someone who is home all day it’s easy to say that they’re not doing anything and want to hang out… I know I would. For the most part it seems harmless, but when I get thrown off track you may as well forget about me working, especially if my stress level goes down. Every once in a while it’s fine, but after so many times it always ends the same with me freaking out about not getting anything done, but unable to say anything for the fear of being selfish until I push everyone away going into seclusion. This is one big reason as to why I like to sabotage myself on the front of people I like before anything could ever go anywhere. Any time something comes up such as the business proposition from Tiana I always start to like someone, or someones. This time I was just more aware of it, and it was one of the big reasons I knew that I was ready for this undertaking. God programed this thing in me to help balance me out because the only way that getting anything running for me would work is if I have high stress to keep me going, and someone close to destress with. Anyways, this weekend my mind went back to Rachel… which was somewhat odd. After having the week to consider it I finally figured things out. The only other person that I really can say that I “like” right now would be Brenna, who by the way lives in Montana (even only visiting once a week or so would soon become a very costly endeavor). So just for entertainment sake, and so I had something to obsess about my mind regurgitated someone that I’ve only met once but at least lives close enough that if by some crazy coincidence we might be able to hang out again. Of course thinking of her is something completely selfish, because I don’t want someone to date unless the fully understand the situation, and show obvious, strong Christian beliefs. I only met Rachel once, but that was enough… generally I’m a very good judge of character, and along with that I can spot someone who’s more physical like myself from a mile away. When I met Rachel I was kind of in the same situation as now (maybe another reason my mind is regurgitating) and went to the school musical which she was in. Kenna invited me to the movie party, and I wasn’t about to resist. Rachel’s a very pretty girl, and after watching her for a short time it was obvious that she was a kinetic learner type of person. Through a completely random and unplanned series of events (yeah right) I ended up with the opportunity to sit by her and kind of snuggle close and put my arm around her. Even though after this point not one word was exchanged between us it was probably the greatest moments I’ve had in the last couple of years. I’ve gone on other dates with people and not felt so much of a connection as I did with Rachel, which is another big reason why my mind kind of wanders back to her. This is where the sabotage comes in though, I know that I don’t have any way of contacting her, and it has been long enough that who knows what her situation is now. Not to mention she’s 15, which of course age has never been an issue for me, but I would most definitely go to jail for even thinking about dating her
I’ve always wanted to date someone who I could also work with, but even that would take someone very special.  I mean sure I’ve worked with people I could fool around with, but those are the Kenna’s and Anna’s who I could hug and be close to, but could also push away and have no feelings for when I needed to get things done.  Yes I am a selfish person if you’re wondering.  In order for either to work I really need to find someone that I do care about, but understands my need to work and can help without interfering… that’s where I’ve run into problems before…

I’m most certainly ready to test the odds again… but that fear still resides in me that things won’t work out because I’ll just go, and go, and go until I burn out… hopefully going into the project with two friends who are equally interested, and invested will keep things going without my “expertise” or they’ll be able to go during my low times.

Yesterday the internet server for our work went down, so page submissions were slow, leading to them saying we didn’t need to come in today. In my time off I took the time to get caught up on some much needed rest, and also worked on some “house cleaning” items around my site. I’m sure the first thing you noticed if you’ve been here before would be the new template, which took a while to get working and the way that I wanted it to look with my banner. Next thing I worked on was the banner itself.

Last night, while working with Tiana on some Flash stuff I realized that my banner looked like crap on IE… so I went ahead and fixed it. I then moved on to finish the intro (which still isn’t finished but should be very soon). Afterwards I plan on making the rest of it, the “hidden” aspect so to speak. With the new template I would also like to remove the sidebar that is currently there, and replace it with a flash banner sidebar. Instead of having simple text links they will be in flash and much more entertaining. Working a lot hasn’t really left me much time to play around with my flash stuff. Either way I need to get this site pimped out with flash banners and things that actually look/work well since it is my goal to have a flash animation company up and running by mid-summer.