2008 in Review

I thought that I would jot down a few things from 2008, sort of a Highlights and Bloopers Reel overview.

• I started the year with no job, which I liked, but was really not good, money-wise. So I spent some time looking for a job, at the worst time of the year to look for Setup Authoring jobs. And finally I decided to work on building up my side business. I had two partners who had been working on this company for a couple of years as their main job and we were struggling so I thought that I could help ramp things up.
• I learned many things, but mostly I found that 3 computer geeks in the technology world have a really hard time doing effective marketing.
• I spent our savings on bills while I tried to get the business to ramp up.
• Eventually it became clear that what I was doing was ineffective and that I needed to get a normal 9 to 5 job to try to recover financially.
  
• At this point we nearly had to move to Oklahoma, because the job market in Dallas was pretty weak for Setup Authoring and I had found job there. And so for weeks I would get up at 2 AM on Mondays drive from Dallas, Texas to Bartlesville, Ok. Work the job I had there, stay in a cheap hotel, a very cheap hotel, a cheap hotel that had something crawling around in the ceiling tiles. Something big. Then I would leave work on Fridays and drive back to Dallas.
  
• Since then I have found one contract then another in the Dallas area so while we had to give up the house, we didn't have to leave the area.
• We started gaming twice a week, "So I got that goin' for me, which is nice." (two games currently, both 4th ed D&D)
• Several people important to me died this year.
• Some Greats made more music.
• Very excitingly a blog entry of mine got linked to by Lifehacker (here). Which increased my number of visits greatly.
  

And then the year was over.