Woodpecker (from First Fifty Words)

The other day as I waited in my car for the ice to thaw on the windshield, I looked out the passenger window to my right. My neighbor has a magnolia tree in his yard next to my driveway. On the trunk of that tree was a woodpecker.

He wasn't pecking. He was checking holes that he or some other woodpecker had already pecked for any new prey that might have shown up. I'm not sure how successful he was, because once my car thawed out and I put the transmission in reverse, he flew away. About that time I wished I'd had my camera with me to grab a picture of him before he flew away. He was absolutely beautiful.

I live in a part of the country that rarely gets below freezing. Birds come here in the winter to hang out, or at least stop by here on their way further south. As I sat there and watched that woodpecker I wondered how confused he must be. Confused about the cold. Confused about where his dinner was. After all, he's not used to all this ice around here. He may not realize that makes all the bugs dig in deeper - deeper in the ground or deeper in the tree. I hope he found something to eat.

New Writing Resource

Thanks to God's Child at Radio Ventriloquist, I have a new resource on writing, First Fifty Words. Every day, First Fifty Words will post a topic and a lead off of fifty words about that topic. You add your own fifty words on the topic. From the About page:

To practice writing, pick a topic, any topic, and start writing. Don’t judge, don’t edit, just write. For normal practice, after a certain period of time, perhaps 10 minutes, stop writing. For this blog, you are invited to leave a comment with the first 50 words of your writing on the topic. I’ll pick the topics–you write 50 words.

It goes on to say that if what you come up with turns out to start something in you, then go back to your own blog to finish it.

I know I won't do it every day, but hopefully I will do it fairly regularly. And I'm not sure if I'll put the first 50 words there or just here. But either way, it is a good idea as well as a good resource. Check them out and participate.

Dreams can come true

I've always wanted to own my own business. Work for myself, or at least be part of a partnership if I didn't own it outright.

I do web development for a living. I work full time for a software company, but I do small web development projects on the side for clients also. A few years ago, as I started a new project that very specific hosting requirements, I found myself spending several days (part-time) looking for appropriate and affordable hosting. After getting through that process, I decided to start providing web hosting for clients. The plan was to let charities host for free, and sell hosting at a very competitive rate to businesses and non-charity personal projects to pay the hosting bill. I wasn't trying to generate a profit, just bring in enough money to pay the monthly bill to host the server in order to make the charitable sites' hosting truly free.

I became somewhat successful at that, breaking even most months. After several late night phone calls from the data center when there was server trouble, I decided that it would be a better fit for me to get some hosting in bulk from some other provider and be a reseller. The same plan would work (sell enough to break even), so I moved my clients over and continued along.

Through word of mouth referral business, I built up a decent client list. After a couple of years being a reseller, the owner of the hosting company came to me with a proposal to merge our businesses and be partners. I had become his largest reseller by a wide margin. I explained my "business plan" and he was completely on board with that. As of Jan. 1, 2007 we merged and are now one company. I am a partner in the business and will share in the overall profits of the company. In addition, we are creating a non-profit subsidary to handle the charitable hosting and I will be president of that subsidiary.

I finally have taken a giant step to achieving one of the big goals in my life - to own (partially or completely) my own business. Is it enough to let me quit the corporate job? Not yet, but hopefully one day it will be.

Prosper update

I've been participating (investing?) at Prosper for several months now. I've received the payment every month on time, and started building up a small cash balance. So far it seems to be working out well.

I decided to transfer in a bit more money, just enough to bring my balance up to $100.00 including what was in the account already from payments received. I've since bid on 2 more loans for $50.00 each. The loans have closed and are pending review.

So far I've made 3 $50.00 loans.
Loan #1: 20.00% interest
Loan #2: 17.95% interest
Loan #3: 16.40% interest.

Now, before I get accused of being a loan shark, remember that these interest rates are set by the market forces in play at Prosper. The borrower posts the amount he needs and an explanation about why he needs it and what he plans to do with it, along with a maximum interest rate he will pay. They also show a very high level credit report on the borrower, along with a letter grade to summarize his credit history.

The market (lenders at Prosper) then start to bid on his loan - how big a piece of his loan they will take, and the lowest interest rate they will accept. The more people that deem the borrower a good risk and participate, the lower the rate goes, like a reverse Ebay. Every loan I bid on completed at a rate higher than the lowest rate I said I would accept in my bid - at least 2 points higher or more.

Obviously I'm still cautious about Prosper, but let's say that I'm cautiously optimistic.

The writing habit

A new year. New resolutions. New attempts at getting that writing habit going again.

The main thing that seems to be holding me back is the overwhelming sense of this project (for lack of a better term.) The prospect of having to post every day seems like too much to manage, especially after my typical long PITA commute home every day. And to some degree I'm the kind of person that says (to myself, in my head) "Self, if you're not going to do it 100%, don't do it at all." Not that all the posts need to be super compelling, or even interesting, but just be there and be something besides "Another post today because I have to."

Via Mark Lee's blog, I found a link to Creativity for Life. I haven't really had a chance to check it out yet, but maybe that site will be some help in sparking my creativity.

Stick it out with me. Comment and help motivate me.

Resolutions

I am firmly convinced that you haven't truly broken a New Year's Resolution unless you go to the end of January without having implemented the change you wish to implement with your resolution.

Therefore, as things around my household finally get back to normal next week, I'll start posting again, thereby keeping my resolution intact.

Not that anyone out ther cares or anything.