Freelance Work Week

Found some interesting stats on FreelanceSwitch.com:





That's pretty close to what I'm experiencing as a freelancer. There are weeks where I'm working more that 50 hours a week but it's rare. Sadly, most of those hours aren't billable...

Travel Modal Style for Next Week

I leave tomorrow morning with Jahan (Modal Software's Account Rep) to visit some prospective clients.

First stop is Seattle where we're meeting three or four companies to demo Actionrev. One of the prospects is very interested in the software and wants to implement for the first of the year.

We return Tuesday night but leave Thursday the same week down to Vegas to visit our client. They've been good to us and we'd like to drop in and take them out to dinner plus show them some new features.

It's exciting to see what happens to a project once it gets out in the wild. The project grows from infant, to toddler, to small child, and so on.

I hope to report good things from our trip!

(Self)Employed

What does it mean to be self employed?

(Self)Paid Sick Days
(Self)Taught Hours
(Self)Paid Holidays

Today I woke up sick with allergies. After taking the kids to school this morning I stopped back home to rest. When I got to the office we had a few fires that had to be put out. Then I made a few phone calls to follow up on some receivables. By the time 2:00 rolled around I was finally able to sit down and code. An hour later, for the same client, I took a phone call to consult with their programmer in Oregon. 5:10 I'm out the door to pick up my kids to enjoy the intense thunderstorm.

It's days like these that I can't determine if they are win, loose, or draw. Some days are easy wins...6 billable hours and I'm home at five. Others are losses...no billable hours and a headache from being spun around. But days like today could fit any of the labels. My hope is to learn something to make tomorrow better.

Today I realized that being self employed is about making the elements work together. It sounds like freedom to do what you want but it's really freedom to be creative about finding work, being trusted to do it, making time to do it, and making sure you're paid.

... and it all works out:

(Self)Esteem

Work Week

With the Zygote beta rolling out the door to three clients, existing custom development work ramping up, and pistachio harvest knocking on an early door I found myself in the fourth quadrant of that cartoon above...

... I'm glad I booked that 3 week trip to Portugal before all this work hit...now I'm forced to go!

ModalSoftware Blog

it's up....we'll be posting often...

http://www.modalsoftware.com

Hello World!

I made a big change last week folks! I resigned from Pelco as a senior software engineer, packed my bags, and am on a 6 month backpacking trip across Europe!

Well, half true! Even though I wish I could do the backpack trip the truth is I did resign from Pelco.

I co-founded a small software shop and we're quietly working away on a product to sell. To supplement my income I'm working as a software consultant and contractor.

The name of the company is Modal Software Corporation. Modal in reference to both musical modes and modal software design (everybody in the company is a musician =). Our office is on Main street in beautiful downtown Visalia.

I love working downtown. It's a quick 10 or 12 minute drive from where I live in Tulare. Main street also has a thousand and one paths to walk for coffee, food, or just to get out. Reminds me of when Fahrni and I used to chat up a storm on software! He used to telecommute for Visio from here.

It was a hard decision leaving Pelco. The company is by far the BEST place I have ever worked. On top of that I was working for the best managers I have every meet. Barry, Arjen, and Greg are all high class folks who take care of their people.

On top of everything else I'm excited about the lifestyle changes that I've been making. My goals have been shaped around building a sustainable lifestyle for my family, career, and personal life. This is something that I want to expand into with another blog post.