11.22.07

Determined

Posted in News and Announcements, Small Business at 3:58 by lnxwalt

Determined To …

Determined To Build A Business

I have been home less than a month. In this time, I have not had a lot of time for anything. When I left, there were some things in progress, but opportunities and people rapidly move on when you tell them to wait for an indeterminite time period while you are preoccupied with X, whatever X may be. I returned to find some network and system administration issues had arisen in the household. And that the users had forgotten how to do things like upload the photos they use for their own writing.

In addition, I have been busily trying to get another job (preferably) or assignment. I prefer if it is fairly close to home this time, so I can come home after work and work toward starting our family’s business ventures.

If you are seeking to change major and important things in your life, you can expect some opposition. It can be as simple as the family member who wants to stay in the Victor Valley area [or the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for that matter], even if it means that you will continue to struggle. It can be an overhang of debt from your lower-income college student days. It can be a household that has gotten used to your present income level and is not not willing to accept the necessary sacrifice for you to pursue your dreams. If you have no opposition, you must be a loner—family and friends do not want you to change, because it might change their situations or they might even have to change in response.

When you know you really want to accomplish something, you also know that you have to change what you are doing, or you will never get different results. If you live in an area like the Victor Valley and you are not independently wealthy, you have to work. If, as is the case here, the local politicians believe that attracting large chain retailers to build stores and create low-wage part-time jobs is what progress is all about, then you have a few choices:

  • Shut your mouth and work for “Big Blue” or another retail or restaurant chain, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with three of your co-workers so you can afford to live here.
  • Buy lottery tickets. Ignore the fundamental unlikeliness that you are going to win a big prize. The odds are, if you buy enough tickets over a long enough time, you will win, even though your winnings will only be a portion of what you spent to get them.
  • Commute fifty miles or more one way to obtain better-paying employment. Be sure you understand that you have to make enough to cover the costs of vehicle maintenance & repairs, fuel, and the additional hours out of your day that you will spend on the freeways.
  • Find some miraculous burst of funds that enables you to start a business providing some kind of service to local residents who commute outside the area for work, since they haven’t the time to take care of things themselves.
  • Get out of Dodge. Yes, that’s it—move away, to a place where you can live and work in the same area.

If a family member or so-called friend is standing in your way when you are trying to liberate yourself from financial bondage by moving out of the local area, you may need to just leave them. Cut them off like a gangrenous leg, and limp away to your future.

Determined To Build A Family

The family is actually more important than a business, at least in my eyes. When I’m gone, it isn’t a business that will be my legacy. It is the people whom I have touched that will best reflect who and what I am.

That may seem to conflict with the “gangrenous leg” comment above, but it does not. I used to have friends where all we ever did together was watch television. As television has become a smaller and smaller influence in my life, that is, as I recognized that there were other things I could be doing with all those hours that were being wasted, we began to grow apart.

Your family is the reason for starting a business. If you are starting a business simply for yourself or for strangers, it is time to “stop, turn around, and skate in the opposite skating direction.” The same applies if you are starting a ministry or other non-profit: If your family is not part of the reason you are doing it, then you’d better stop. Now.

Thanksgiving Day In Southern California

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:54 by lnxwalt

I have been pretty silent lately.  It has been a busy time at work, and there has been little or no time for anything outside of work.  I have not, however, been completely unproductive.  (As if being at work was not productive in the first place.)

As I have pondered the fact that my present employment is becoming repetitive—I never would have imagined ten years ago that working with computers could bore me—and this job is also acting as a brake on my skills development and career advancement.

I’m currently positioned at a place 48 miles from my present residence.  It is not a bad commute most days.  If there was a longer-term opening in that general vicinity, I would most certainly look at it.  With the long hours and limited time off, it is becoming a problem—I am fighting sleep during my nearly three hours a day commuting time—and yet, I am glad that I am not at another one of the local sites.  But I think the overall solution is one that is harder: I have to relocate away from the often-beautiful Victor Valley to be closer to a location where there is opportunity for me.  It is always hard to force this kind of change upon unwilling family members, no matter how much it will benefit them as well as yourself.

I am anticipating responses along the lines of “Go if you want to, but I am staying right here.”  If you are the person who would say this, you should know that you are making a serious mistake, with long-range consequences for your entire family.  Instead of looking only at the ideal, look at the actual conditions around you and consider those conditions in the choices you make.

As we watch the financial industry implode (primarily because they were able to put buyers into “fool’s loans” for several years without any action by regulatory agencies and now a large number of buyers are being pummelled by the effects of these unsavory loans, which is pulling greedy lenders down with them), we realize that it portends an era of financial danger for individuals and families.

To any buyers in that situation, I want you to know that it can be a very liberating experience to get rid of that weight.  If you can find a way to get out from under the loan without losing money, such as finding a quick buyer that will pay enough cash to satisfy your lender, you may want to take it.  The alternative is to go through foreclosure, with all of the attendant damage to your credit (and possibly your income also).

Do not deceive yourself.  If you have a fool’s loan, such as an adjustable-rate mortgage or an interest-only loan with a balloon payment at the end, there is a real chance that you will lose your home no matter what you do.

In the meantime, if you still have a home to live in, give thanks to God.  Thousands of homes reportedly burned in Southern California last month and early this month.  A typhoon (hurricane) recently struck Bangladesh, killing thousands and devastating many villages.  While you have a place to sleep and food and clothing, be thankful.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.&160; Let it be more than just a time to overeat and listen to the same boring stories from your relatives.  Return to our national roots—give thanks unto God for all the good things you have—remember that you very well could be one of the have-nots this time next year.