The weekend, it was a pretty good one. I got the taxes dealt with on Friday and got a little work done. Saturday, Bill and I played gun nuts, stopping by KGS to talk to Mark, and then heading over to the big gun-show at the Fairgrounds. I ran into my step-uncle and aunt there, and talked to them for a few minutes. I also fulfilled my BAG Day obligation. Then Bill and I hung out and just gabbed for a while. It was nice to catch up. Sunday, up to mom’s for shopping and lunch, then down to St. Paul for the Saints Season Ticket Holder Party. More catching up with people I haven’t seen for a few months, plus some pretty darned good beer. When that was done, it was home for a quiet evening, since I figured this week was going to be one that should be full of work, and I wanted to hit it full-steam this morning.
Which brings me to today. I’d already gotten one bit of news over the weekend that’s going to affect my business some (I haven’t figured out how yet), and when I checked my email this morning, there was a message telling me of another change that’s really going to affect my business. Now this isn’t completely unexpected — I’ve known for months that I would have to spend some time refocusing the business. We offer too many different services: Mac programming, web programming, web design, and QA and tech support. I’ve tried to be too many things to too many people. And much of that was by design. I would like to be a full-service operation. The problem is that there are too many of those different tasks that fall on my shoulders, and as such, I had to turn down what sounded like a perfect gig for my company because I wasn’t sure I could handle the responsibilities that would come with it.
I’m not looking for sympathy here. The biggest problem is that I’ve been trying to do too much, and haven’t been successful in delegating. I knew that. I even had some ideas about how to improve. But with the news that hit this weekend, I’m not sure if I want to improve, or whether I should maybe just update my resume and start looking around for a full-time job. That would definitely be simpler. And probably a lot more remunerative, if what I’m hearing about the job market is true. But it would also be more restrictive. I’d be working to someone else’s schedule, and at someone else’s location.
Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’ve got a few days before I need to panic, and I’ve still got a lot of work I need to get done this week, so I’ll probably concentrate on that, but it’s also time to sort out the long-term plans. If you see me in person, and I seem distracted, that’s probably what’s got me thinking.
- Why did the US government decide on Remotely-Readable Passports? From the sound of it, because some salesman sold them on RFID so he could make a big sale, and they didn’t ask about potential problems until changing to something more secure would mean admitting they were wrong and stupid when the picked the technology. There’s a reason I have that line in my quotes file where a NASA spokesman says,
In the U. S. Government, there is a lot more incompetence and a lot less conspiracy than is generally believed.
Then again, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, you already know that’s disinformation. [boing boing] - Jim Heid points out that the web is A Work in Progress, and points to a number of pages that make that abundantly clear. [zeldman]
- Tim Bray is thinking about Unswitching. It’s not so much that there’s anything better than his Mac out there, it’s more that he’s mad at Apple, and frustrated by the lack of speed-bumps in laptops. John Gruber responds, saying Mac OS X Is Great for Fortysomething Unix Hackers. [zeldman]
- With google maps having satellite imagery now, people are finding that Surprises Lurk in Satellite Snaps. There are all kinds of events that have been caught by the eyes in the sky. [wired]
- IEEE Spectrum offers Apollo 13, We Have a Solution, which tells the story of saving the astronauts in Apollo 13 from the point of view of the ground controllers. It’s a fascinating story of engineers who came up with some pretty impressive solutions under pressure. [vodkapundit]
- It appears there may be Unintended Consequences of Using GPL Fonts, namely that any documents you write using them become licensed under the GPL. While that’s an interesting result, and a reason to avoid GPL fonts, I’m thinking it’s one of those license issues that’s going to be pretty tough to try and enforce if someone wants to just ignore it. [slashdot]