Brandon's Thoughts On........

My Parents.

2014-11-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

Personal rant that I've been avoiding posting because of the sensitive nature of the rant. But it needs to come out. Please recognize that this is a part of how I cope with my baggage. I release it for the world to read. Even though I'm not looking for anyone to comment with sympathy, or for anyone to try to help, it is helpful for me to own up to it and put it out there in black and white.

Mom.

She passed away when I was 9. She had Lou Gehrig's Disease. According to my birth father (dad is the man who raised me, father is the man who gave me dna), she showed her first symptoms while I was in the womb. I never knew her when she wasn't bed ridden. I never knew her when she wasn't eating baby food or using a bedpan or having her children help her balance her checkbook because she couldn't write. In many ways I never knew her. I knew who she was after her diagnosis, but she had limited communication skills and could barely talk so I never really got to sit down and have a heart to heart talk with her and get to know who she was as a person.

I remember watching an episode of ALF where there was going to be a new baby in the house who would be growing up with ALF and how ALF being there would always just be normal for that baby because they didn't know any different. I remember identifying with that after mom passed. She was always in that state since I was a very young child, so I never knew any different. In what I can only describe as an act of intended kindness on her part that went horribly wrong for me, she never told me she was sick. That's just how she was. She never told me she was going to die. Everyone else knew, even my sisters. But she couldn't bring herself to inform her youngest son that she would be passing away from a horrible disease that no one could cure. I'm positive her intentions were good. The result was disastrous for me.

Imagine being the only person kept out of the loop on something huge that will inevitably impact your life. It's a betrayal, and an enormous painful lie. I harbored a lot of resentment toward her for a long time over that. Unlike everyone else, who had some time to mentally come to grips with the fact that she was going to be passing away soon, for me it was as though she had passed away in an auto accident unexpectedly. I had no time to come to grips with it, and no time to understand what was going on while I still had her in my life.

One day in April of 1990, she could tell apparently that if she went to sleep she wouldn't wake up. She stayed up for two days, and on April 26th kept my two sisters home. She sent me to school. I was furious. I didn't understand why I had to go to school if they got to stay home.

Around 10:00 that morning, she passed away. My sisters were there. My grandparents were there. I was at school and completely oblivious.

I held on to some resentment toward her for most of the years that followed. About two years ago or so, my fiancé Laura told me that she understood mom's actions from a parental standpoint. How could you look at your child and knowingly rip their heart out? She was trying to protect me because I was her youngest son and unspoiled by all of this so far. That perspective put me at peace with it finally after 22 years. That peace didn't last long.

My father wasn't there to raise me. I was the result of my mother and father being unfaithful to their spouses, and when I was born my father went back to his family and I never saw him. Mom told me a couple of years before she passed that he existed, and that the man I called dad wasn't my biological father. I was still too young to understand this, but maybe I'd have been mentally better off if I'd have not known of him. I don't know.

I made contact with him when I was 15. I met him over pizza and he told me I had siblings. He told me briefly about his life, and then I didn't hear from him for a few years. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was let down.

I met my siblings through an accidental encounter with a musician in town who said that I looked just like them. I was 17. My father still wasn't really a part of things though.

I tried a few times through my 20's to get his attention, but to no avail. Finally, I decided that I was going to move on with my life. I moved to Colorado, and just before my 28th birthday I receive an email from my father. He tells me he doesn't expect me to forgive him, but he wanted to apologize for having never taken the time to get to know me. He recognized that his actions were unforgivable, but if I was willing to try he would like to get to know his son.

I struggled with this for two weeks, trying to decide whether or not there was room for him in my life. I finally decided that if he wasn't going to be a part of my life it wasn't going to be my fault. I called him, and over the next year we spoke on the phone semi regularly.

I went home that christmas. I lied to my job that he had just been found and that I wanted to go and meet him. Truth is that I wanted to go and confront him and get more information about who I was and who he was and why he was never there. This was the only way I could think to get the time off of work to do it, and it worked.

So I drove to his apartment in Marietta Ohio. I sat outside his apartment for what seemed like an eternity, but was likely only 5 minutes. Then I asked myself what the fuck I was afraid of and went inside.

We talked for about 5 hours. We talked about his life, as well as my own. He explained to me some of the circumstances surrounding my birth, and how he never believed that I was in fact his until he had seen me when I was 17 and I looked just like his son Ryan. He said he realized then that he'd made a big mistake, and that he didn't know how to fix it so he just stayed away.

I left somewhat satisfied. I called him a day later after reflecting on it at mom's gravesite. I told him that I was forgiving him. I meant it. I've forgiven him for not being there when I was a child. The wounds don't go away when someone is forgiven though. You just realize that you can't stay mad forever, and it's a part of the process of moving on. I was initiating that process.

When I moved back to Ohio in 2010, he was living in the Columbus area. I stopped by to see him now and then. When things went south for him in his relationship, I spoke to him and worked out a plan for him to stay with me for a while. He agreed to it, and I started prepping a spare bedroom. The time came, and he stopped answering his phone. Two days later, I see a status on Facebook about him moving back to Marietta. Everything came flooding back to the front. All the resentment and mistrust that I'd tried to squash came flooding back like a tidal wave, and I lost any respect I had gained from him. Was it too hard to just pick up his phone and call me to tell me he'd changed his mind about moving in? Why did he need to keep that from me?

I decided he was a coward. I stopped contacting him. He'd email me and the other siblings now and then to tell us about his life in general terms, but he made no efforts to reach out to me either.

Then I got a call in July. It was 1 day after hearing that my friend Joseph Moore had passed away, and I was coming to grips with that. He told me that the doctors had found a small cancer that he was going to be treated for, but it was likely nothing to worry about and that he'd keep me posted. I didn't hear his voice again.

In october, my sister Laura was going through some of his pictures and ran across one he had of my mother. She sent it to me asking if it was her, and we got to talking. I realized that if she was going through his old pictures, then things must've taken a turn for the worst. I asked her to level with me, and she told me that she thought I knew. According to the information I received from her that night, they had given him 12-15 months and there were about 12 tumors. He'd lost a lot of weight and was in a decent amount of pain. The official diagnosis wasn't given to me that night.

Thinking I had 12-15 months to make peace with this and try to make one last attempt to get to know my father, I decided to take two weeks to think things over and sort out my feelings just like I had done when I turned 28. I wrote to him and told him that I had heard of his diagnosis, and he gave me his new phone number and told me to call him when I got the chance. I held off on doing that til I had sorted things out.

A few days later, I get messages from my brother Mike and my sister Laura that they'd just moved him to hospice and things weren't looking good, and that they were calling the family in. I had received a call exactly like this one month earlier when my grandmother Jackie passed away, but I couldn't make it as I was out of town and she passed before I got back in. Getting a second call of that nature in the span of a month is hard enough. When it's involving someone who is associated with so much personal baggage within you, it's even worse. So I get in the car and drive to Marietta. I'm numb the entire trip there. I'm not sure what I'll find, and I'm not sure what I'll say to him. I did expect him to be coherent when I arrived. He was not. He was in a great deal of pain and had been given a healthy dose of morphine.

I asked my brother to leave the room, and I told him that I wasn't mad at him and that I loved him. That may be the first time I ever told him that. I told him about my beautiful children, and I told him that I was going to do ok. I was preparing myself for his passing, and saying goodbye.

When my sister and my other two brothers showed up, we were all hanging out in the room with him. I was trying to keep calm and just sort through the oncoming loss, when I heard Laura asking the nurse what had happened. She mentioned that she knew it was stage 4 lung cancer…and the rest of the sentence she said is lost in my memory. Those words hung around in my head echoing a painful reminder to my past.

I was not told this. It's hard not to make comparisons to my childhood, when yet again I'm the only one in the room who didn't know what was going on. At least this time I was given a heads up that he was dying, but it was too late for me to have had time to come to grips with it in any way. And now I'm the last to know the specifics surrounding what he has that was taking his life.

I became flooded with anger. He didn't bother to pick up the phone. I became enraged and extremely emotional. I had just been hit by a truck that dug into an old wound with a rusty ice pick.

I said my goodbyes to him again and left. If I stayed, I was going to turn it into me processing my wounds in front of everyone, and that moment needed to be about them saying goodbye to our father. I couldn't be there, so I said goodbye and walked away. To walk away from someone who is alive and know that you will never lay eyes on them again for the rest of your days is a very surreal thing.

I drove home slowly, and just thought. I was again rather numb.

The next night, I was told that he was given only another 3 hours or so. I hopped in my car and went for a midnight meal at Steak And Shake while watching my phone for updates. While I was eating, I got a message that his vitals were slipping. I wrapped up my meal, and started to drive. I drove through the streets of Columbus that night while staring at my phone for any word. At one point, thinking that it had likely happened and that they were too emotional to call me (which would be understandable), I call the hospice and got an update that he was in fact still alive. So I decided to go home.I tried to get some sleep, and had just fallen asleep when my brother Ryan called with a choked up voice to tell me that he had just passed away.

It was 3:20am.

Numb. I went back to sleep and tried to ignore all of this for a few days. I went about my normal life and routines, while not letting my brain go anywhere near the subject of my now deceased father unless it had to. Finally, I broke down. I was angry. I was furiously pissed off.

How could two parents deny their child the knowledge that they were going to leave this earth, while making sure that everyone else was informed? How could two parents die of terminal illnesses and purposefully not brace me for impact? How could they both have done this?

I broke down crying in my fiancé's arms that night. It wasn't a mournful cry, it was a rage filled cry.

To feel lied to and cheated when it comes to someone's death is the hardest betrayal feeling I've ever had to come to terms with. And I've failed so far.

But now all that is left is me and my emotional wounds yet again. So over the next 48 hours, I'll begin the processes of analyzing my anger at both of my parents so that I don't bring any extra baggage to the funeral of the father I never really had a chance to share my life with.

Red Bull Does NOT owe you money!

2014-10-09T06:47:00.002-07:00

Why Red Bull may not owe you money.

A few days ago I saw links on Facebook to the class action lawsuit against Red Bull that has gone into settlement negotiations. A lot of people were talking about how Red Bull owed them $10. But they don't. At least not yet. They may not ever. Let me explain.

1. Saying that they owe you $10 implies a guarantee of payment. But if you go to http://evergydrinksettlement.com/faq#Q7 it says in plain english that the court has not yet approved this settlement. That hearing won't even happen til May, so even if they do approve it you likely won't get anything out of it for another year.

2. Saying that they owe you $10 implies guilt on Red Bull's part, when no litigation against them has brought forth a ruling or judgement against them. This is a settlement, not a court ruling. Red bull didn't lose a court case against them, they decided to settle out of court. That is not an implication of guilt. It outlines that pretty clearly here - http://evergydrinksettlement.com/faq#Q3

The articles circulating around Facebook with headlines like "Red Bull Owes You Money! Here's How To Claim it!" are written as click bait. They are written in a misleading fashion that is designed to get people to click their links and drive traffic to their own web pages where they discuss the settlement. Those links go largely unread by many, who merely share the link and it's misleading headline. Then mass misinformation spreads about the nature of this case.

At that point, if the court decides not to approve the settlement and nothing happens, people will think Red Bull are being dicks. But it is not their fault that misleading information was perpetrated by click bait headlines trying to get a share on Facebook.

If you want to know the facts, go to http://energydrinksettlement.com/faq

One final note, I titled this blog post with a definitive on purpose. I said that "Red Bull Does NOT owe you money." That was designed to grab your attention with a definitive counter point so you'd pay attention. The same tactic is being used by these click bait articles to say "Red Bull OWES you money!" This is why you shouldn't believe everything you read online. Someone is distorting the initial message for some benefit to them, be it web traffic or otherwise. I did this on purpose so that I could drive the point home. But every article out there is sharing the same misinformed headline and people are falling for it left and right. This clickbait "journalism" is dangerous at best, as it completely distorts perceptions of the facts.

Thanks for reading. I'm going to file, and if in 2 years I get a check for $10 I'll put it in my savings account.

Don't Stop Me Now

2014-03-25T06:44:00.000-07:00

Hello blog, my long lost friend. You've helped me through some very tough times in my life, and always been there to allow me to explore myself when I've needed to. On this morning, as I sip my daily breakfast smoothie and listen to Fiona Apple, I call on you again to help me sort out a new thought pattern circulating in my mind.

I'm a stay at home dad. This means that my life revolves around the care of my girls, who have autism and are both teenagers, and that I have little time for going out to hang with friends or seek mental stimulation. I have very little interest in going out to do most things these days, truth be told, so this suits me fine. But I would still seek certain things to stimulate the mind and rejuvenate the body and soul. These things included spending time outdoors, as that remains one of my favorite ways to get the stimulation I seek. This would usually be a quest for solitude, intending to place me in an environment without the challenges of kids on the spectrum, but also getting me away from people who mostly can't relate with a double-minority like myself (stay at home dad to two teens on the spectrum…how many of those do you know?). Honestly, I have other interests that are relatable to people, but most people are unable to see my side of life because they don't live it. I'm always feeling like they don't fully understand or comprehend unless they are somehow in the same boat. So this makes me feel less and less relatable to other human beings.

The natural consequence of this, of course, is that I've become pretty socially awkward. I never was a social butterfly. However, if you put me in a room with a stranger I get uncomfortable. It's not a setting I find myself in often these days, and I have no idea what to talk about, so I begin babbling. That never ends well, at least from my perspective.

There are a few adults in my life consistently. Laura, my ever loving and ever patient fiancé. The other caregivers in the house, whom I spend more time with these days than I do with Laura due to her busy work schedule. The faculty and staff at the girls' school, with whom I keep an open line of communication to make sure home and school are a unified front for the girls. A small handful of music friends, as well as my partner in crime in Project DIVIDE…other than that, I'm pretty much by myself most of the time. There's my sister, who adopted a special needs daughter over a year ago, and since we both took on roles in special needs families we've attained a new level of understanding and camaraderie with and for each other. However, outside of my own household and the adults surrounding the lives of the girls, she's one of the very VERY few that really get the challenges I face.

And so I'm mostly alone. I'm mostly at home. Over the last 6 months or so I've had the overbearing feeling that something was wrong. I'm mostly these days very bored. I've blamed many things, unable to see what I see today. I've blamed my recent ADHD treatment regiment of Strattera. I've blamed the weather. I've blamed not being able to go out hiking. I've blamed depression. I've blamed stress. But this morning, I'm seeing things differently. I have always had a little trouble seeing things within myself for what they truly are, and have always overanalyzed my life (usually to a negative result because I've overblown a situation and worked myself up). But this morning it seems clear. I'm bored. I'm a bit lonely because of it. And I need to find some new ways of stimulating my brain. The old ways are unproductive and lead to laziness, and the newer interests I've explored over the last few months always seem to wane in and out of my focus. I look forward to my Saturdays, which are my once per week reprieve away from home to focus on my musical endeavors. But lately, as a happenstance, other people have been requesting my production abilities on that day. Who am I to say no? But this makes down time wait for yet another week, and then another artist calls, and so it waits for another week, and the cycle continues. The work with clients is mentally stimulating, and always fun. I'm by no means complaining. I am however thinking that, since this pattern is in place, I may need to focus yet another day for Me-stuff. Either that, or I just need to start saying no to new projects. That's hard to do though. I know that I need Me-space though.

So perhaps the reason I've had so much trouble coming to grips with myself over this past super-long-super-cold winter is because I've become bored with little outlet for stimulation. Maybe it's time to change that up a bit. Don't stop me now!

A moment of me.

2013-12-31T19:46:00.003-08:00

Optimism.

I normally have it in spades, coupled with the crippling downturn of anxiety that I always inevitably cycle through, only to find myself reeling back up toward optimism again.

It's a fun ride at the top, and I enjoy the view.

At the bottom, it's not a very fun place.

Welcome to the bottom.

As 2013 comes to a close, I sit here typing in a dark house. My girls are in bed, and I hope they stay there through the night. Laura's in bed, and I hope SHE stays there through the night. I sit here awake, and alone.

This morning I was feeling so optimistic. I hate these cycles. But here I am, at the bottom of the wave. I'm sure I'll be heading back up again just as soon as I can get my head in a different space.

But for now, all I can think about is being lonely. The one person I really want more than anything to spend time with is sequestered in bed with what appears to be a 60 day migraine (the chiropractor visit this morning didn't do anything either, so 2014 comes in on day 60). I've been picking up slack at home, and I'm trying to relax, but what I want is for her to feel better. The selfless part of me wants her to feel better so she'll be happy and vibrant again (she'll balk at the suggestion that she was ever that way, but I see it in her). The selfish part of me misses her. While she's in bed trying to suffer through what can only be indescribable pain, I'm downstairs being Mr. Mom (dinner, playing, supervising, intercepting meltdowns, doing housework). I don't mean to imply that I wasn't doing these things before she was smacked in the head with a migraine that will not stop no matter what doctors throw at her.

I know she'll read this, and she'll feel guilty for being locked away tending to her pain instead of being an active part of the household, and I can't help that. I hate that, but I have no one to really talk to at the moment about it. So here I am, posting my dirty laundry for the world to see.

Fact is, I want nothing more than for her to be better now. I'm more than willing to pick up the slack, and do anything I can to make her more comfortable. We're in this together, there is no I in this family. When one is down, we lift them up. So I'll do what I can to help, even if that's something simple to make her more comfortable.

Happy new year.

What is strength?

2013-08-24T07:19:00.002-07:00

We all have our ups and downs. That's life. You deal with it and you move on.

I've always been a strong believer that strength is weakness, at least in the traditional sense. Strong people can roll with all of the punches and never let life phase them, at least in the eyes of those around them. It matters little that inside they are crumbling to the very foundation, as long as externally they appear to be handling life's storms the way water rolls off of a ducks back.

In my view, true strength comes from being strong enough to recognize your weaknesses, admit them to the world, and get it behind you. True strength comes from being able to show that something has rattled you, and that it's ok to be rattled, because we all get rattled. True strength comes from being brave enough not to care when you appear weak. In my view, the only way to improve upon your weaknesses is to hang them on a wall for all to see, and then attack each one with vigor until that weakness is no more.

This morning I had a moment of weakness, and it hit me very hard. I made a mistake that could've had very dire consequences, and I got called on it. At the heart of the issue is my forgetfulness and lack of focus, symptoms of my adult ADD. This is an aspect of my life that has gone untreated for 12 years, and I fear looking back that it may be a very large factor in the things in my life that have crumbled into oblivion.

But it's one thing to recognize this in yourself.

It's another entirely to have those who matter most recognize it in you and call you on it.

I learned a valuable lesson from a book (well, a movie made about a book) that has helped me to get through a lot in life, and I don't give it enough credit. Tuesdays with Morrie, where Morrie is allowing himself to feel sorry about his situation. He says it's human to feel sorry about a situation, and he allows himself to feel it because to feel is human. But he gives it only a moment, then puts it away because it's useless for him to wallow.

Too many people don't allow themselves to feel very real human emotions because they are too afraid of appearing weak to others. This is classic weakness at work, as there is no man who can carry on a perfect persona every minute of every day. Instead, I allow myself to feel what I feel, and I allow it to overtake me. I acknowledge it, share it with Laura, and try to work past it because wallowing is useless.

But storing it up inside without any real resolution could be catastrophic. With special needs daughters, life can get very frustrating at times. I need to keep my cool in situations that would send some people screaming and breaking things. Believe me, it's FAR from easy, and I get quite frustrated myself. But like other human feelings, I allow myself to feel it then try to move past it so that I don't waste time wallowing.

One of the ways I move through these negatives is to share them. I post my dark moments on Facebook, often when I have no physical person to share it with. It helps me release it so I can begin to work through it.

But an odd thing happens from time to time. I get the occasional person uselessly trying to cheer me up, not understanding that I don't want someone to give me advice because I'm trying to simply vent. But I also get someone who tells me things that I don't feel I deserve. They tell me about how I give them strength. They tell me about how I give them inspiration. And occasionally they say something profound that tells me that by sharing my victories and failures, I'm doing someone else some good. They remind me that when I relish in my victories, and share it online, it's doing good not just for me. At that point, it's about someone else entirely, and I get reminded that I should embrace that and remember that my words for some reason are being paid attention to by others. My words evidently hold some motivational weight, and I'm confused about that, but at that point it's not about me. It's about someone else needing to read what I've written to help them get through their own struggles.

Earlier today, I posted on Facebook the foliowing: "the more I let my thoughts get the better of me, the more I just want to run away from life for a day…or more."

In response, from Selena Davidson, I got the following comment: "Most everyone can relate I'm sure. You, however, always stay so motivational, especially about the girls, that you have to fight off the negative just for the sake of the rest of us…"

wow.

I'm humbled. I'm not sure I deserve to be a motivational mouthpiece for some, but I'm extremely flattered. I'm really not sure what to make of it…

Thank you.

My Experience "Camping"

2013-08-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

My first "camping" trip was in my front yard. My dad set up what seemed to be a GINORMOUS tent (cause I was so small) in our front yard when I was knee high to a grasshopper, and my sisters and I all slept in the front yard…at least until I couldn't sleep from all the noise from the bugs around us. The sound seemed almost deafening, and I went back inside the house to actually sleep. The sound was too distracting.

I grew up camping with my grandparents. We'd haul a trailer camper out to Shawnee Forest and set up by Lake Roosevelt, roast hot dogs over the fire, swim in the lake, bike around the camping loops, and "creek crawl". We had some fun times, but it all seems so luxurious and typical of a modern camper. I'd take along every modern convenience I could fit, including battery powered racing cars that I inevitably left out in the rain to ruin. We weren't "roughing it", we were sleeping outside surrounded by modern convenience. I didn't learn a thing about being an outdoorsman from these trips.

I would also camp with my dad in various locations, usually outside of amusement parks we were visiting. I learned a little more from him, but he still did most of the work. I was a teen, and totally didn't mind that arrangement.

At one point when I was 22 years old, I moved into my (then late) grandfathers camper for two weeks. I would rather have lived in a camper than in the situation I found myself in at that time. I stayed there til I could find a place in Columbus, 2 hours north, and escape Scioto County once and for all…

But through those experiences, I never learned to start a fire, or how to live in the woods if need be.

Over the next decade, I'd take a dozen or more camping trips with my then-significant-other. We bought a tent at Walmart for around $40 that fit two people, and we got some hardcore use out of it. We camped in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, at various places in Ohio and Indiana, quite often at Twin Knobs and Zilpo at Cave Run near Morehead Kentucky, once in Salina Kansas on our way through to Colorado, and the most memorable was camping in Yellowstone National Park.

Our (now deceased) golden retriever pup Olive was our shipmate on the Yellowstone trip (photo on the left taken at our Yellowstone campsite), but her yapping got us kicked out of the campground. That's ok, because we had both contracted swine flu and needed to not spend another night in temperatures below 20F. It was fun and totally worth it getting caught and nearly trampled in a bison stampede late one night. It was also the only time I've camped where food had to be put in a steel lockbox to deter bears. It was an intense feeling to think we could be visited by a bear in Yellowstone, and I hoped we wouldn't become a late night snack.

Through my camping experiences with my ex, I learned a lot that I didn't learn as a kid. How to start a fire, how to quickly pitch a tent, etc. We had camping down to a system, and had a big grey tupperware tote always at the ready in case we (she) decided to take a spur of the moment camping trip (they were always her idea, I never planned our trips).

We had a lot of cool camping gear, including a camp stove, the aforementioned tent, a small grill, lanterns, flashlights, and other necessities. But all of that somehow went with her when she left. Not dwelling on the past, this all has a point. Read on.

I'm experienced enough now to know the basics of camping, but have never really challenged myself at it. I've always done what I now see as a modern bastardized version of camping, where you pull your car into a concrete pre-designed lot that is 30 (often less) feet from the nearest neighboring camper (who was often loud and obnoxious). We had plenty of running water, showers, flushing toilets, and many camp sites had electricity. I've never truly experienced life in the woods in its primitive form…and I want that.

I find myself now fantasizing about taking a trip camping in complete isolation from society, where I can truly be alone in the woods for a few days and just take it all in. No modern distractions, nobody's stereo playing fucking Lynard Skynard for the zillionth time, no motor boats on the lake, no engines at all unless it's a plane overhead, and if I don't see another person at all while I'm out I'll be perfectly ok with that…ecstatic even.

Why? It would seem that since I moved away from the natural paradise of the Rocky Mountains, my love for the natural world has grown thousandfold. Not to mention the influence of people like John Muir and Stephen Mather, the Sierra Club, and others, I've found myself finding something in nature I've never really found in a church and have only otherwise found in the arms of the woman I love (my fiancé Laura). What I've found is a spiritual connection that goes deeper than any other connection. I've never found that connection in a church or brick-and-mortar manmade institution. I've only ever found it in the things that come naturally to us as humans. This includes the deep love I have for Laura, the deep love I have for our two daughters, and in getting back to the natural world and away from distractions and stresses.

I find myself desiring some time away from the world as a whole. I have some big decisions on my plate to wrap my head around. After my exit from the label I founded, and with the possibility of closing my studio, what is to come next? Who am I? What do I want? I know where I want to go, but that's a long term goal. How do I want to get there? Do I even still want it, or am I just clinging to a perceived goal and telling myself to push forward without analyzing it to see if it's still logical? If not, what DO I want? How do I get there?

I also need a break. I'm far from the point of being stressed out and frazzled by my girls, but with teenagers on the autism spectrum life can get stressful. Although I don't equate the two, some studies suggest that the stress level of autism parents is paralleled by that of combat troops. While I'm not facing bullets, I am always needing to be on the ready and act at a moments notice. I've got to triple check locks to ensure they can't get into things that could hurt them, or escape the house and be lost to us forever. A lot is riding on my shoulders, and if I screw up it could be a HUGE deal.

So we've both opted to try to keep something for ourselves that we can use as a decompressor, a hobby, or something to work toward that doesn't revolve around the girls. We have to be on guard all the time, and it's nice to have an escape. For Laura, it's the gym and figure competitions. For me, it was supposed to be the studio and the label. The label is gone, and the studio may be next. This has me trying to latch on to things quickly, and moving on from them quickly, while I scramble to find something for me to occupy my time and my brain.

…which is what led me to camping. After discussing it with Laura, we decided that I should have my little weekend oasis trips to escape life and refresh myself every once in a while. I need the chance to decompress, think, and reset my psyche. After all, I need to be on my A-game for my girls, but the A-game starts playing like a C or D-game if you don't take a break from it now and then. Nerves can be pushed HARD by autism, and if nerves are already pushed hard it can wear a person down.

So we've decided that I should go ahead with my idea of camping by myself for a few days. We talked it over, and since this would be my first ever backcountry camping trip, we decided it shouldn't be somewhere drastic. For example, I wanted badly to go to North Manitou island in Michigan, but the area I wanted to camp is on the west side of the island and the ferry goes to the east side. This would mean I'd have to walk all of my gear across a sandy island, and be completely cut off from society for two days as the ferry only runs every two days, and I'd be 10 hours from home. There would be absolutely nothing I could do if something happened at home and I needed to leave, and I'd have no way of knowing.

So we picked Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Laura and I took a cave tour there earlier this spring as a mini getaway before the girls started a stressful behavior plan. It's less than 5 hours away, they have plenty of backcountry options, and the terrain is similar to where I grew up. Despite the fact that the worlds largest cave system would be hundreds of feet below me, odds are good that unless a new opening sprouted right under me in the form of a sink hole, I'd likely not fall into the cave and die. The wildlife there is pretty tame, just the typical Kentucky stuff. The park tells me no bears are in the area, but they have had very rare reports of big cats. They say they are so rare, they don't consider them an issue in any capacity, and they implied that the likelihood of me seeing a big cat would be less than winning the lottery.

Combine that with the peace and quiet I experienced there this spring, and you have a perfect environment for my first ever backcountry camping experiment. So now I'm planning, and training myself for carrying a backpack over a long distance (cause I've been quite lazy as of late), and am piecing together a new camping rig. I got a single person air mat for $8, and tents are cheaper than they were a decade ago! $25 will get me a decent two person tent at Meijer, and I'd prefer to get a two-person tent so that now and then Laura could join me on a camping excursion.

But this one will be just me. I don't know what I'll experience yet, but I'm looking forward to it pretty hardcore. I'm starting to walk on our treadmill while wearing a weighted vest, looking up all the backcountry camping tips I can absorb, and trying to figure out the right fit for me.

The biggest challenge I'm facing is coffee. I have an adult case of ADD, and I'm not on any medication to treat it. This is something that I've been self medicating with caffeine, as the caffeine acts like a stimulant in my brain to keep me focused. Because of this, I've accustomed my body to obscene amounts of caffeine, which leaves me feeling lethargic and prone to headaches if I don't get my fix.

"So boil some water and make some coffee!"…yeah, but I'm seeking isolation on this trip. The fire rings are only in designated areas, and I don't wanna be around people, so I'm doubting I'll be building any fires. This means the prospect of brewing coffee on site might be challenging. So I'm trying to devise a solution, and I've come up with the following…

The park as a whole isn't a vast array of hundreds of miles. The surface area of the park as a whole is 82.63 Sqare Miles, but lets face it, I'm not gonna be covering near that amount of space. The place to park the car is not a horrible distance from the place designated for backcountry camping, and walking through the woods is a pleasing enough prospect. According to the map, the places to park are within 2-5 miles of the backcountry camping areas. So at the very least I plan to have backup supplies that are kept in a cooler in my car. This should allow me to travel light to my campsite, meaning I can take enough water, food, and cold-brewed coffee concentrate to last a day and go get more from the car the next day. I'm only planning 2-3 days after all, and I'm admittedly a novice, so having backup supplies at the ready in the car will help me avoid miscalculating and carrying more weight than is necessary.

So to summarize, it would seem that Backcountry camping at Mammoth Cave will be a great way of getting my feet wet with regards to backcountry camping. I'm planning a backpack hike through Hocking Hills with Laura later this week to help me prepare physically, and to help give me an idea of what to expect. We'll see what happens, but I'm pretty stoked about the whole prospect. It's a chance to test what I'm capable of, and embrace a new hobby, while giving myself a chance to clear my head without distractions.

Happy camping.

The future of Skyline Sound Studios?

2013-06-09T04:19:00.001-07:00

My dream for years was to be a record producer. Technically, it was to be a famous record producer. I decided that the best way for me to do this was to own my own recording studio. Now I'm not so sure that was the right path. The studio has been a tool, but it's also become a major liability. I'm seeing now that I could still work as a freelance engineer now that I have some work under my belt and a name that has some respect to it. I could do all of this without the overhead of owning my own recording studio.

The other factor: My daughter's have autism, and have begun a behavior plan. This means that I'm now needed at home to care for them and ensure the success of the plan. At any given moment a behavior could happen that needs my attention, and that's impossible to predict. They've been doing great on the plan, and I'm proud of them!

But if family comes first, and my family needs my full attention for the foreseeable future, then where does Skyline Sound Studios fit in?

It really doesn't. I do use it on rare occasion for Project DIVIDE, and for the occasional client (that I no longer have time to hunt for). It even serves as a great place for Laura and I to hang out and get away from the house for a bit. But for the most part, it's sitting there, eating a decent chunk of my monthly income.

I've discussed this with Laura many times, but this is the first time I've made a public statement about this.

I'm giving the studio until Halloween this year to pay for itself. If it hasn't, then I'm closing it. The amount of money I'm spending to keep it open, and the amount of stress it causes just sitting there…neither are worth it.

Project DIVIDE can happen anywhere. If it came down to it, I could rent a rehearsal space to record in for the day at $10-hour locally and block off a day every few weeks for a recording session. This would be much cheaper than paying the rent at my studio.

So if I can't work at my studio because of family commitments, then how will it pay for itself?

My plan is to search for engineers to work from the studio for a cut of the hourly rate. I've already begun searching, and have interviewed at least 1 HIGHLY qualified engineer. I'm looking for engineers who already are getting clients on their own, and perhaps are looking to branch out of their home studios and into a better facility.

I had a couple in mind off the bat. One, a good friend, lives too far away to prospect for clients. He said he'd run sessions for me if I needed coverage, but he's not able to find the clients himself. The other person I had in mind doesn't value his craft enough to charge people what I charge. So those two prospects are out.

I'm going to begin the search this week for engineers. I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing in the mean time to give this a chance to bear fruit. And if I don't find enough engineers who can bring in work, I'm closing Skyline Sound Studios this fall.

This may be temporary. This may be permanent. This may be a chance to re-brand my studio and open it after my family's needs have been tended to with a different image. I did take a major credibility hit thanks to the flack I receive on Craigslist. But one thing is for sure. I don't see any of this as a failure on my part. This is a chance to focus on my priorities and re-tool my operation. I'm going to focus hardcore on freelance work as a producer, rather than as a studio owner. After all, I may find myself in stable financial footing for the time being, but that's temporary. It's time to step in the direction I always wanted to go, and the path is becoming more and more clear.

We'll see what this has in store.

War Games:

2013-04-23T03:49:00.000-07:00

For privacy reasons, I will not go into detail. However, I will say that life at home is about to become a little more stressful. This is not a bad thing, but it will be frustrating at times.

What I will say is that there are certain behaviors that my step daughters with autism both have. The behavior specialist has observed these behaviors, and indicated what the solution will be. While we're waiting for the formally written behavior plan, I already know what's in store. It's going to be all hands on deck, and potentially very frustrating.

But this is what is needed, so I've got to bring my A-game. This is for the good of my girls, and I will do what is needed. Time to work.

The more you know...

2013-03-12T04:50:00.003-07:00

When I started my 5.5 year plan almost 2 years ago, I had a long way to go. I've come a long way, but the further I come the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I evaluate. I thought I was so smart then with my plan, although looking back I didn't really have a plan. I merely had a destination, and was guessing along the way how to get there.

I now have some of the tools needed to make this a plan instead of just a destination without direction. I don't have them all, I'm working on that though. For instance, I'm in school.

About that. The more I learn about money and interest rates, the more I feel like I'm wasting my time taking out student loans to get a second degree in what I'm already doing. I own two small media businesses, and I'm bored in school already. I haven't even made it to the media labs, but the storyboarding class just has me not interested.

But in one class I've been a very attentive student. This class has me geeking out on the course topic in ways that I used to geek out about media production. This is because the information learned in this class can help me and my family in the long term, and it just seems like a good direction to go in considering my current interest level.

I'm talking about Finance. The class is Personal Finance 101, and it has me absorbing finance materials outside of class. I've even become a regular listener to the Dave Ramsey show!

So I'm considering changing course to get a Finance degree. After all, if I learn more about finance, it can help me with my business endeavors and help me learn how to grow my finances for my family. It just seems like a no brainer right now.

So I've got some thinking to do. Time to discuss it with Laura in depth and make a decision together about what I should do, as that's the way I like to make decisions in this relationship. We're in it together, so my new ventures impact her. We're equal, we're family. It's for this family that I consider this change. So we'll see what happens.

No Place To Hide...

2013-02-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

I'm finding myself overloaded. No one to take the load from me, they have too heavy a burden themselves. No one to tell me where to put it, they don't understand it to know what to do with it. No one to give me any direction whatsoever. There is someone who I know would give her everything to help, but as I said, she has too heavy a burden herself.

So what effect is this having on me?

I'm scatterbrained. My Adult ADD is kicking it up into hyperdrive. I can't focus. I find myself pacing the house trying to get my brain to work, which reminds me of a child with autism pacing the house because he can't think of anything better to do. I have things that I get really excited about, and when I get my brain able to focus on them, my brain goes into hyperdrive on them. But then when my brain is distracted from them, it can't grab hold of anything else coherent. So I turn to netflix and Xbox 360 to give my brain a chance to unwind and decompress…

Problem is…that kind of downtime is detrimental to a father of two teenagers who have autism, a full time student on academic probation, a former business partner in the midst of an ugly contract dispute, a full time caregiver to two young adults who have autism who are not my children, and an owner of two small businesses.

…and that only compounds my scatterbrained-ness. Add the pressures of the above lifestyle to my brain wanting to detach, and you have a person longing to get away for some serious decompression. My brain just doesn't wanna do it anymore. My brain is craving a few days to just get away from everything that troubles me and relax in the woods. But I can't have that. I need to bust my ass right now to get to the other side of this trench…and while I'm here, my brain is making the challenge even more difficult.

Fun times, for sure. We'll see how long I can keep up with myself here.

Lost

2013-02-08T13:15:00.002-08:00

I'm feeling overwhelmed and confused.

I can't exactly explain it. But then, that's why I write blogs. They are an attempt to sort through my baggage, after all, so what better place to figure out what might be bugging me than here.

I made a visit to a mental health facility in Central Ohio today. My intent was to seek treatment for Adult ADD that has been self medicated by caffiene for 12 years now. I also wanted to see if there was anything else going on, as I feel like I may be suffering from anxiety and depression issues that have gone unresolved.

So I go to the clinic. It's a free service that is designed to ensure the community has access to mental healthcare. Wow, what a fun place to be (sarcasm). I won't talk about what I saw, because that's someone elses privacy, but since the facility also offers drug counceling it's a pretty safe bet that some of those in the waiting room had some severe problems they were trying to address. It just makes me worry about the segment of the population that ISN'T seeking treatment, and how bad things might be for them.

So I'm waiting, and waiting, and waiting...then my name gets called and I go back to speak to someone about why I'm there. They do a 20-30 minute questionaire, then send me back out to the waiting room to await a 2 hour assessment. But by 1:00 I knew I couldn't stay for it, so I left and told them I'd be back the next week.

This seems like a bad system. It seems really difficult to get treatment through this system. If those who need treatment but can't afford it themselves have to go through a ton of hoops to be treated, then no wonder the rate of poor people who are mentally handicapped is so high! It was very frustrating. Think of all those who have gone as far as I did today, then left and never came back?!

So I'm frustrated about that. But I'm also frustrated by other things. Laura's in pain in her abdomen. We suspected kidney stones, which she was diagnosed as having, but they determined that her pain was not caused by kidney stones. She's feeling worse and worse, and her spirits are dipping down as it takes longer and longer to get answers.

Meanwhile, my own puppy-dog like need for approval kicks in when I see her in a bad mood due to her pain. My head knows she's in pain and doesn't feel well. My brain tries to tell me lies, like that she's closing herself off to me and that she's mad at me. I know these things aren't the case, but the worry is so real that it's getting me pretty down. My worries go as far as making me feel that there's a division between the two of us, and all because she's not been open and receptive to my demands for affection.

This tells me that I've got other issues to settle with regard to my own mental health. I know logically that her seeming distance is indicative of her pain level and not indicative of how she feels about me. But I also am going crazy and on the verge of locking myself in a dark room while playing emo goth music like I did as a teen when I was down, and my brain is screaming for her to come and comfort me. I know I can't have that right now, so my head panicks and worries that she's drifting away from me.

It's an endless cycle.

Then there's work. CLMastering.com is off to a slow, albiet profitable, start. The studio, meanwhile, is a money pit that causes me stress. I get stressed at times at my job as a PDP provider, as it can easily be a place where one minute things are fine and the next minute all hell has broken loose.

The prospect of working 30+ hours each week while going to school and trying to run two small businesses seems daunting enough. Factor in me trying to control my frustration when dealing with an unruly teen who has autism, and upcoming obligations of my time from a business deal I am trying to get out of, and you can see that things aren't all that pretty on fantasy island right now.

So maybe that's why I feel lost. Admittedly I've taken on quite a lot, and perhaps I've taken on too much. But at 32 and being broke with two special needs teens to look after, I don't feel that I have any other option. I have a lot to do to get where I want to go.

Celest asked me recently to take her to see mountains.

As soon as I can sweetheart. As soon as I can.

Getting back on track. Lessons learned, and moving on.

2013-01-26T13:36:00.000-08:00

I'm getting a steady paycheck once again! It's a great feeling knowing that I'll be able to easily keep my bills paid and get my 5 year plan back on solid financial footing. It was a scary ride, quite stressful, and some things fell away during it all. But that was 2012. This is 2013. I'm working hard to make 2013 my bitch.

Now that I've received a little bit of pay, I'm trying to focus on getting my bills paid back down. When I started 2012, I had just paid off a credit card and only had one left. I left the paid off card open so I'd have an emergency credit line, and used that to replace a vital piece of studio gear in the spring. My finances weren't stable enough to justify that cost, and a $500 purchase turned into a $700 credit card bill that was $200 over limit. The account was closed by the bank to prevent it from growing any higher, and I was given a $15-month payment plan to pay it off. It'd take me 4 years at that minimum, but that's all I've been able to do for a few months now.

But now that I've got steady income again, it's time to get all of that out of the way. I'm actually excited right now! 2012 was full of bad habits that I was forced into in one way or another. For example, with the studio only breaking even and other ventures not getting any returns yet, I found myself forced to wait til the absolute last minute to pay my phone bill. Just as I was about to get the money to pay it, it would get disconnected, and I'd get a $50 fee for that month. This happened almost monthly, I swear I think AT&T is psychic and knew what day to cut me so they could get the fee that month.

Today, I paid it before it got cut off! Today, it all turns around! I've still got a mountain to climb, but the expedition team was gathered when I got the new day job. The last month was spent preparing for the climb, and today we started off toward base camp #1.

It's just a shame that things went the way they did with some of my plans last year. Feelings were hurt, friendships damaged, and I doubt that'll ever be able to mend. I just wish those affected understood why things have been so hard for me and why I did the things i did. I'm not trying to play the victim here, but the only one walking in my shoes was me. The only one who sees it the way I do was me. They see it from their perspective, and that's the way it goes. Nothing I can do about it.

So now that I've taken the steps necessary to reclaim my financial future, let's outline some of the challenges directly ahead. I've got rent to pay at Skyline Sound Studios, and a damaged car to diagnose and repair. I'm going to need to budget very very very carefully, and file my tax return asap, if I'm gonna get over this hurdle quickly. But the beautiful thing is that once I get over it in the next couple of months, things still won't be easy but they will be easier than they are now by quite a big margin.

Regarding budgeting very very very carefully, that's tough. I've got a little sum of money right now to apply to my expenses, and there's a compulsion in me to start paying down certain liabilities with it right now since I know I have it. But that's not realistic, as I have to ensure those car repairs and that rent for the studio are paid for. Then I have to pay for certain business related expenses that are owed to other parties. It's not going to be easy, it's going to be very very very tight. But I have to refrain from spending money unless not doing so will cost me more money.

The general reason for this particular blog entry is the fact that the expedition has left once again for the mountain top. I'm excited as hell about that! It's been way too tight for way too long, and it's about time something changed. But the universal factor in all of that was me. It wasn't changing because I was thinking too short term in some respects. I took a chance, but didn't calculate all of the risks of that chance. I paid for that miscalculation, and fortunately it didn't do enough damage to completely de-rail me. But that's the learning curve in business (and no, I'm not referring to the damaged friendships I mentioned above, for a certain someone who is likely reading this). It's about calculated risk, and I miscalculated. It was tough, and I'm rebounding. Time to take the lessons learned from my failures in ALL aspects last year and apply them to a more successful and profitable 2013!

2013...yeah, I'm hittin' that!

Stress relief?

2013-01-10T16:17:00.001-08:00

Last night was a tough night at my new easy going day job. Having to restrain someone with a Developmental Disability plays a mental toll on someone like me, as their screams echoed through my head all day. But it's part of the job, and it's in their treatment plan, and I like this family quite a bit, so I'll deal with it.

But the stress from that had me scatterbrained this morning. Couple that with a week full of my own daughter's autism meltdowns (every morning about the same thing all week, lasting for hours, and requiring physical intervention), and my brain is just tired. And yet somehow I managed to lose my debit card today, and not find it til 3 hours after my shift was over, but my empty gas tank kept me from going to work at all today.

So I'm stressed. I need a release. I need some way of relieving it. I just have to figure out how. I'm calm, but a person can only suppress that kind of stress for so long before it starts causing tension headaches and wearing down at you. I feel that this is starting to happen...and school starts Monday. YAY! More stress!

So in the midst of my stress I let my own anxiety get the best of me today, and I had to bring my brain back to reality because I was going overboard worrying about the most ridiculous things. I felt like everyone was out to get me, and my brain was running wild with that feeling. It's quite debilitating.

Laura, whom I normally turn to for help when I'm feeling mentally weak, is on call this week and quite stressed out herself. So I'm trying not to lean too hard on her, at least for now. But this means that it's easier for my head to run wild.

So I'm trying to bounce back from that. It's a work in progress, but I'm fighting. Today was not a good mental health day.

Confidence Roller Coaster

2013-01-06T07:07:00.002-08:00

I'm a person who has a ton of confidence. It takes a lot of confidence to do what I do, considering all of the business ventures I attempt. After all, what person without confidence would think they are good enough to try this?

But that confidence is shaky under stress. It's more of a roller coaster ride, with many pitfalls that dip deep down into over-analyzation of self. That can make me crash quickly to the point where I'm desperately trying to figure out how I'm going to keep going. In this state, it seems quickly that the whole world is against me, and that I've done so very wrong by everyone I know. It's tough to hold my head up to my family, and it's tough to look myself in the mirror.

Moments of desperation that severe usually are rare. But when you factor in money issues, they become far more frequent. I've got a plan to remedy my money issues, but it'll take some time to implement. Meanwhile, the cycle continues, and all I can do is watch and hope for the best.

But the fucked up thing is that when this happens, I'll dip down REALLY low, freak out for a while, then boost right back up really quickly! This could be indicative of some sort of mood disorder, who knows. Maybe depression that's gone untreated? Whatever the mental cause, when I do start my climb out of that deep of a fall, it's very quick as if I've been launched up. I feel suddenly like I can take on the whole world, and the whole world can kiss my ass! It's not a fun ride, but it happens like this every single time. It gets exhausting.

Why saving money isn't a good idea for everyone.

2013-01-04T15:32:00.001-08:00

As kids, we're taught to save. As teens, we're taught to spend. As young adults, we're taught to use credit. And if you're like me, by your 30's you've got interest bearing debts and no savings.

If you're like me, and wanting to get out of that situation, your first thought might be to start saving money. If you had no interest bearing debts, this would be a FANTASTIC idea! But, if you're like me, you've got two maxed out credit cards and a car payment. With all of those lines of credit, someone like me would be commiting a slow financial death if they started putting money away in savings!

Let me explain!

Let's just say for example purposes that my credit cards are both maxed out at $700 each. We'll give them an interest rate of 17%. The minimum payment we'll say is $17.50. It would take you 77 months to pay off just one of these cards, and you'd pay approximately $475 in interest. That's over 2/3 of the balance you borrowed, JUST IN INTEREST!

We can apply the same logic to the car payment, which is also an interest bearing loan. When you look at it this way, you begin to see that keeping these debts around is just like throwing money away. So why would you put money into a savings account that earns less than 1% for you when you're paying 17% on several loans?

The ultimate goal is to start saving. But before you can get out of a hole, you have to stop digging. It makes more sense for someone like me to pay off the high interest debts first, that way over time I'm paying less in interest and can put back even more in savings!

Stop wasting money by saving money! Pay down interest bearing debts as soon as possible. Figure out what loan is costing you the most money in interest. Put as much of your available resources to that as you can until it's paid off. Then, take the amount you were paying on the debt you just paid off, and pay it on the next one in line! This is called Snowballing, and by snowballing your debts you can knock them out quickly, once and for all!

Once your interest bearing debts are paid, now it's time to start saving! Take the whole amount that you were spending each paycheck on debts and put it into a savings of some sort! For me, that would equal $200-each month! After a full year, I've saved $2400!

Knowing that in a year I can save $2400 tells me that I can pay off $2400 of debt in that same year. Make it happen, and build a better life! Pay yourself, not the bank!

Yes We Can! Avoiding my own fiscal cliff...

2013-01-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

Since part of my goals for 2013 included a better financial footing, I went over finances this morning with Laura. It turns out that if we had too, we'd be able to survive on one single income this year. With that in mind, there's no reason why we can't turn ourselves around by 2014 with two incomes! I'm pretty excited about this! This is an ace in the hole, and acknowledgement that we're on the right track.

Snapping....

2013-01-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

I've been getting stressed out a lot lately. I think I need some serious Me time. I'm starting to feel like everything is compounding, and I need to walk away for a bit.

Its 9 degrees in Blacklick Estates today. The pipes in the kitchen are frozen, and although they haven't busted, they make it a huge hassle to wash the dishes. The dishwasher feeds off of that line, so it's handwashing time. But since the pipes are both frozen, we have to bring water in from the bathtub to do anything. This is a Major hassle, and even though Sylvia is doing them today, just knowing that it's fucked up is enough to cause me to want to scream. We've been trying to thaw them for a day now, and no luck.

Also, the door to the basement is coming off of its hinges.

I have no money, and couldn't really afford groceries for the house last night, but if I have to rent at the business late in order to keep my kids fed, then so be it. The paperwork for my new job, that I've been working at for 3+ weeks now, just came in for me to submit in order to get paid. I may not get my first check til Feb 1st, and other revenue streams are completely dry. Right now, with the holidays having just passed, no one's beating down the door to the studio, so I'm not pulling in anything right now at all.

There would be some hope in knowing that my overage check would be here soon, as school starts on the 14th of January. They would have to have the check to me in time for me to buy my books....BUT, Columbus State's new policy fucks me on that one. They keep the money at the book store for the first two weeks, then disburse it to you after you've bought the books. They did this to fight people using school as a way to pay the bills, then not going to class. Ok, I'm falling in the "I need the school money to pay the bills" situation right now, and I understand where they are coming from, but this is REALLY fucking me right now.

My dad said he'd send me some money early for my Birthday, which is the 23rd, but it's probably not gonna be enough to cover things.

I'm on edge constantly, and I just feel like it's all against me. If I can get on top of it, I'll be ok. But it'll take me at least a month to get there. During that month, my resources will run completely dry, and I'll have to figure something out. I'm considering selling plasma again, which I haven't done since last time I was in College. I'm also looking for anything I can sell at the local pawn shop to keep something coming in.

I'm about ready to snap. Photography isn't helping me. Time alone isn't helping me. I think I need to just spend a day at the studio working on my own projects and de-stress. I'm gonna try that today, as I'm gonna work on The Metal Shop today as well as Project DIVIDE. I may even work on some of my solo music.

I just need a day away.

January 2nd, 2013. Setting Goals, and Resetting Phase 1.

2013-01-02T08:31:00.000-08:00

On August 29th, 2011, I posted "5 Year Plan: Phase 1 - Stability And Forward Motion."

Since then, my life has changed in so many ways, but now I find myself needing to get back on track with my 5 year goal. I've got just under 4 years left to achieve it. I'm broke as a joke, and even though some things in my life are far more stable, my biggest struggles right now are financial. It's time to get back on track and restart from Phase 1. So let's retune it for my life now.

Stability.

Ok, well at the time that I wrote the original Phase 1 post, my life was very unstable. I was on the verge of homelessness, and was clawing out of that situation tooth and nail. My living situation is far more stable now, and I'm not relying on my income alone to keep myself bathed and fed. But the problem is that I'm not contributing, and am not furthering my family's financial future in the state I'm in now. It's time to fight again for some financial stability.

I've already got things in place, including school, a 30 hour per week day job, and new revenue streams in development. My student loans will pay my tuition, which will help me gain an education. But they will also give me a decent overage to park in the bank for emergencies, or to pay down debts. Sure, this money is a liability since it'll be a debt that needs repaying later, but it'll be at a far lower interest rate than I'm currently paying on my debts. So it's a smart move to displace a higher interest liability with a lower interest one. These include my car, and a couple of credit cards. I had paid all but one credit card off last year, but my income lost it's stability just after that and I wound up maxing out the one I had paid off and never touching the one I didn't pay off. Now they are both closed accounts, and I've made an arrangement to pay down one of them. The other is in collections. Getting rid of these soul sucking liabilities once and for all is a major goal for this new year.

My car is another. I still owe money on it, even though I shouldn't, but I made poor choices about financing it in order to appease a previous relationship, and am paying the price now. One those credit cards are gone once and for all, it's time to snowball that car loan and get it out of the picture once and for all. My goal is to have the car and all credit cards paid off by years end. Once that is done, I can establish a savings again. Also, 2014 can be focused on cleaning up the nasty trail of unpaid debts I left around the country through my 20's.

I turn 32 in a few weeks. I pledged at 30 that I would be in better shape at 35. I'm running out of time.

Notice that I don't mention my family's needs. Well, I want to get married to Laura asap. The problem is that we've pledged not to get married until we're on better financial ground. This doesn't mean that we'll wait till I've built up a large savings or anything ridiculous like that. Rather it means that we need to be able to pay our bills together. There are certain details that I won't go into, but know that the above steps of eliminating liabilities is a key factor in that financial stability.

Right now, as stated in a pervious blog post, I'm in a tough spot financially. The next few weeks will be likely a 3x-day Ramen diet for me. Not fun, but I will do what I have to do. But in February, things will look a lot more stable. I just have to weather this month and then I can focus on digging out of this hole.

Phase 1 is officially back in action.

Dear Autism...

2013-01-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

Thank you for helping me learn patience. Thank you for helping me learn to control my anger. Thank you for helping me learn that it's ok to depend on someone else, and for someone else to depend on you.

That being said...FUCK you.

Fuck you for making things difficult.
Fuck you for robbing my children of a chance at self reliance.
Fuck you for making every day tasks a struggle.
Fuck you for making every day a struggle.
Fuck you for all the sleepless nights.
Fuck you for all the meltdowns.
Fuck you for robbing my daughter of the ability to speak.
Fuck you for robbing both of my daughters.
Fuck you for all the stress.
Fuck you for making it 5 times more difficult just to get ahead in life.

Fuck you Autism.

2013

2012-12-31T21:37:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Now that that's out of the way…

I'm actually feeling pretty good. I dunno what it is about the changing of a date from one day to another that can fill a person with hope for the new year that lies ahead, but it's likely the feeling of a fresh start that occurs when a new year rolls over on the calendar. So what am I up to this year?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

January is gonna be fiscally tight. There's no way around it, I'm in a tight spot. But no worries, I've got a lot of promise ahead in the very near future. I just have to get over the next few weeks financially.

With that being said, I'm back in school. I start classes in 2 weeks. I'm on academic probation, but it's time to turn that around too. In person classes, a degree change, 6 months away from school to re-stabilize my life…all things that were needed to renew my thirst for an education.

I've also officially launched CLMastering.com as of a few days ago. I've been lighting up twitter building a buzz, and although I've not sold any masters yet, it's good to know that it's now officially available for the public to use. Now to just keep up the marketing…

I've helped Laura start up her own fitness blog too, and now she's blogging and tweeting, and is making it her own! I'm so glad to have helped her get it off the ground!

2013 sees my daughters turn 15, and I'm so excited to see the beautiful young women they are becoming.

2013 is a blank slate and is full of promise. It's time to take that promise by the reigns and make something of it.

Happy New Year.

Boiling Point

2012-12-27T10:02:00.003-08:00

Money makes the world go round, but it also is a great divider. It also can show a person's true character and willingness to understand your plight, and it can be a major point of contention and stress.

That's what I learned tenfold in recent weeks.

With studio revenues down to the point where I wasn't even breaking even, and other income sources running dry, I found myself faced with a lot of stress and anxiety. I found myself forced to make a decision. I blogged about that decision, which was to find a day job. I'm now working as a Medicare PDP provider for a teen who has autism, and it will pay almost the same as the job I left in February 2012.

I also re-signed up for classes. I don't want to live on student loans, but I can't lie and say that there isn't a financial reason I'm in school right now. Realizing it's debt that will have to be paid back later, I'm willing to take that in order to get a cushion that will help me stay afloat now. It's a gamble, and I don't like to gamble, but while I'm gambling I'm also gaining an education. I'm investing in myself. The major factor in this isn't money, but it is a vip in this game.

Bottom line is this. I've been broke my whole life. I tried to turn it around a year ago, and was on the path to doing just that. I had a savings, and was paying down credit cards. But 2012 has been a financial disaster for me. Unfortunately some didn't want to see that, and partnerships broke up because I couldn't be in a relationship where my time wasn't respected and I was expected to constantly work for the promise of "maybe we'll make a lot of money down the road"…when my kids are needing food now, getting paid down the road isn't a bet I'm willing to wager anymore. Writing was on the wall, it was clear that priorities were no longer aligned. Tensions were rising. I'm getting out.

Meanwhile, even though 2012 seemed to have a lot of promise as the summer came around and the new studio location opened, it became clear very soon that I didn't have enough clients to sustain it and I've been struggling just to pay the rent for a few months now. Business is business, and I'm working on turning it around, but when I can't contribute any of my income to pay the bills at home and feed the kids because I'm trying to keep this business afloat, it's clear that something has to change NOW.

Business is risk. I choose to take risks because I can see the potential payout later. However, I'm only willing to take calculated risks with low overhead and high return on investment. Sure, that's smart, but never a sure thing. Meanwhile, every business venture I've attempted this year has taken me down the road to the poor house while demanding tons of time away from my family and forcing me to stress to no end about how I'm going to pay for it all.

So I devised a business that would be completely online and have a very low overhead with a high profit margin. This business would have my daughters initials in the name, to remind me of what I was fighting for, and would be in place as a way to ensure their future in uncertain financial times. I'm still developing this business, and even though I don't know how to make it what I want it to be just yet, I know how to make it work and bring it to market. That's one thing I've fought with all year. I can't fine tune and tweak endlessly without bringing the product to market, because I can't afford to put that much time into that. However, when it was brought up that I was putting my time into this new venture, that was evidently the straw that broke the camel's back for the partnership I referenced above.

So here we are. I'm broke. In in that long period where I'm waiting way too long for my first paycheck from the new day job, which will be very small, while watching my available capitol dry up around me days before major bills are due (rent, ect). I'm also having services shut off.

Enough.

This cycle has to end.

So what can I do differently? Not really much right now, other than keep plugging and trying to get this new business operational before classes start in a few weeks. That's my window. I have to get this new site up and running by then, or the amount of time I'll have to focus on web development will be a lot more constricted. The business is designed to be easy to run with minimal effort, which would work out well for a guy like me (running a studio while working a 30 hour-week day job and taking 12 credit hours of classes and raising two teens who have autism…). Essentially I focus on marketing, do some minor file maintenance and billing, and then collect money. With a social media model rather than an advertising model, the advertising budget is minimal. This leads to high profit margins, and an overhead that is so low you can't limbo under it. I can run this business from anywhere that I have an internet connection, so I can take it with me on vacation as long as I have my iPhone.

But the business isn't live. So I'm caught in another struggle of putting time into something that hasn't paid me a dime yet. The difference this time is, no one is here to argue that it can't go live until it reaches a certain arbitrary point, and no one is here to set that arbitrary point so high that it's impossible to sustain with no returns on the investment. I'm in this alone, with guidance from others, but the decisions are ultimately mine. I'm in charge of my own destiny here, and no one can dip their fingers in the bowl and fowl up the original vision. So this one makes me happy to put time into, because I can see this one having a potentially high return with unlimited growth!

Besides, I'm doing this one for my daughters. They'll need lifelong care (thanks autism), and I can't provide that on promises and unemployment. They are my number one priority in life now, and every move I make is to give them a better life.

But even at home there is frustration. While in training to be a PDP provider, they tell all new providers to ensure that we have adequate down time. It can be very frustrating to assist someone with special needs, and you can't take that out on them, but if you don't give yourself down time from it to relax and recover, you'll get burnt out quick.

I've been on my job for a week now in the home, and then coming home all week to my daughters. Where is my downtime? Just as I try to find some, a money issue or a weather issue throws a wrench in my plans and I have to postpone my recovery yet again. Then there are people who are constantly hounding me about things, or changing their plans, and further complicating my life. Yeah, I signed up for it, but that doesn't mean it won't have it's consequences on my health. I'm tense today, and can't pull out of it. I'm not making enough money, my daughters are acting up and becoming defiant little teenage firecrackers (atta-girls!), my new day job has had a lot of unpredictability in it's schedule thanks to the holiday break and illness in the family, people are getting pissed at me left and right and acting like I'm letting them down (while failing to see just how hard I'm fighting)…

I've reached a boiling point. I've also reached a new level of thinking. My first priority is, and always will be, to ensure the future of my children. Second will be to ensure the longevity of my future marriage to Laura. My own needs and wants will come third, but before business I have to ensure my own sanity. Running a business can make you insane, and raising children who have autism doesn't exactly relieve stress. With as much as I've been forced to pack on to keep it together (whatever the FUCK that means), I can't be an efficient business man if I'm not taking care of myself. So my needs as a person come third.

Part of those needs include my own future. Owning a business isn't a guarantee of success, and while others got mad when I'd point out the unlikely odds against us, I choose to live in the real world and understand that just because I make it doesn't mean they'll come. So if all of those business endeavors fall through, I've got my education to help me find new opportunities to survive and thrive.

Part of those needs also include downtime. I find solace in photography, and in downtime with Laura. Those things I'll always have to make time for. So…

1. Kids.
2. Laura.
3. School / Personal Downtime.

4. Everything and everyone else. No exceptions. Period.

On The Cusp:

2012-12-20T23:06:00.002-08:00

I pledged a few weeks ago that I never wanted to see Laura upset about bills again. I pledged that I would find a way to turn our financial situation around asap. Later that night, I was blessed with two finds on Craigslist that turned things around.

Ad #1: Seeking video editor.

I leave a message outlining my video editing skills. The next day, I receive a call from a business who needed a video edited together. It took about 18 hours over almost 2 weeks, but I got the project done by his dead line and he was very satisfied. The next day, he was calling me with another project, and the day after that with a referral for the studio! This guy has been a steady client with a quick turnaround on new projects, and it's because he's in business himself and needs it done asap. So this has meant a quick turnaround on payment. I couldn't be happier, and am keeping my eyes peeled for more clients like him.

Ad #2: Seeking Medicare PDP provider.

It's no secret that my daughters-to-be have autism. This gave me just what I needed for this ad, because this was for a family looking for a PDP provider for their autistic children. Knowing the potential for a steady income this could provide, I quickly emailed a response and outlined my own experiences with autism. The next day, I had received an email from the home asking me to come in for an interview. I did, and we had a nice long 2 hour conversation. She hired me on the spot, and now I'm making a nice part time income.

These came along at the perfect time. Stress about money was reaching critical mass, and it's become clear that my focus needs to be spent on being a provider asap. It was time to take a long hard look at what I'd been doing and evaluate it's importance. I prioritized a few things, and de-prioritized a few. I got off my ass and got back in school after taking 6 months off to get my life stable again. I'm signed up for full time classes in January. I built a new web site for the studio to help it attain a more professional look, and pulled the trigger on the new rates I'd decided to implement after much debate.

And now, here I sit, on the edge of the bed as Laura sleeps behind me, thinking about how great it feels to not only have worked, but to have been paid for it, and to know that the money is going to help get our finances back in order once and for all. I worked 14 hours today, it seems like it spanned 2 days, but I love the feeling of getting something done and being rewarded for it.

Laura and I have been talking recently about ways to get ourselves out of the hole and build a better life for us and our daughters. Part of this involves financial security, but I won't go into that too in depth because that's partially about her, and she's more private about those sorts of things. But we've pledged to wait till we get our finances back in order to get married, and I don't wanna wait anymore. There's nothing more important to me than this family, and I can't wait to be a part of it legally.

Renew and review

2012-12-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

I think I'm coming to a head with a few things in my life. Financially, mentally, physically…

The studio is a great asset, but let's be honest. It's not paying the bills. It has been barely breaking even, and now that revenues are down 25% it's practically not even doing that. So if I can't break even, I can' t profit. If I can't profit, I can't put food on the table at home. I'm working a job that, while tons of fun, is getting me nowhere in life. It's not advancing me or my family, and my family has to eat. So I've been working on a few other things to try to spur revenues and keep the bills paid.

1 - I got a job. I start next week at my first day job since I lost my call center job in February. It's time to face facts, this ship isn't sailing. It's merely treading water. Meanwhile, I've got a hold to dig out of. The first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging.

This will be a temporary situation, but it will be a rewarding one. I'll be providing respite care for a family who has children with autism.

2 - I've also re-enrolled in school. This time, I'm going not for business or marketing. I'm going to re-sharpen my production skills. I'm getting work in this field, I wanna sharpen the skills I'm already using. I start in January, as long as my financial aid comes through, and I'll be taking classes on campus rather than online this time. After all, online classes were so easy to let go that when life got tough I let them fall to the wayside. Time to start fresh and go to campus.

3 - I'm starting a new business. CLMastering will offer audio mastering worldwide. Unlike the studio, where I'm paid per hour of my work (and therefore has limited growth opportunity because there are only so many hours in a day), CLMastering has unlimited growth potential and will cater to a worldwide market. More on that to come, but I hope to be active by February or March.

The bottom line is that I've seen the writing on the wall. My family needs me to bring it home, and if the studio isn't catching on it's time to focus on what will. I'll keep the studio open, and I'll hope it grows, but my back is against a wall. If something isn't serving my family, it needs to be lowered in priority. Period. I'll never achieve my 5 year plan if I don't turn things around NOW.

So the next few weeks will bring a lot of changes. Let's just hope they are for the best.

What we can learn from squirrels this time of year.

2012-10-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

This time of year, in the Midwest, if you look out your window you'll Likely see squirrels scampering about as they forage for nuts. The pressure is on, as they are trying to store food away for the winter. Since the leaves are falling, their food is no longer in constant abundance, and they must plan ahead in order to survive.

In business, you've got to plan ahead. You've got to make sure you're prepared for an upcoming shortage. In business, once you run out of liquid assets, it's game over. Too many of us, myself included, play this game with too much risk. We take out lines of credit, which increase our liabilities, banking on the hope that it'll work itself out. However, if you run out of revenues, and can't repay the line of credit, it may be closing time for your dreams. In any business venture where i've had complete control over the finances, I've only taken out debt in cases where it was a dire need for immediate assets. I've taken steps to keep my liabilities at a minimum, and worked toward having enough assets to weather a dry spell. In other words, I hoarded my nuts to feed myself if winter comes, just like the squirrel.

If I could carry that burden in your stead....I would in a heartbeat.

2012-10-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling of helplessness when someone you care about is having a hard time and you can't do anything to turn them around? I'm feeling that pretty hard, especially over the last few days. I don't wanna go into specifics, but I know this person is finding it hard to fund anything positive right now and this negativity is starting to take it's toll on them.

It's hard seeing someone with such a generous and caring spirit carry the weight of the world with them everywhere. It's even harder knowing I can do nothing to turn it around.