A personal look back on 2009 and forward to 2010

It’s 2010, time is surely going faster and faster.  It’s seems like just a little bit ago, the year was starting and I was planning all that I’d do.

The steady march of time beats on, and I’m not sure if in fact it is going any faster, but it sure does feel that way sometimes.

2009 was a hard year.  Seems that with everything crashing around you in the financial markets and housing industries, we couldn’t help but all be impacted by the arrogant greed of others.  I was slapped across the face with the realization of exactly how external influences such as a major market collapse can really impact my family.  I’ve never felt the squeeze of hard economic times like we are still feeling today.  It’s all very new to me.

Making money online finally!

I needed a way to bring more income flowing through my own struggling economic system, and I found help through a very nice guy from Mississippi.  David Cooley and I were introduced through Garry Conn.  You see, one thing I was lacking was experience.  Not the experience of building web sites per se, but instead, the experience of how to piece the various technologies together in such a way that covers all the bases that need to be covered in terms of building a site that will be indexed, is structured properly, and doesn’t require very much time from me once it’s built, and will be able to continually generate a bit of income.

David shared with me a lot of stuff that he’s been doing and currently working on.  I’ve offered my own advice back, and we found that while we shared similar skills, we both approached things very differently.  I won’t go into the details of that, but we noted how very different we both are.  David is your southern gentleman by all respects, a God and country loving family man leaning off to the right.  While I’m a bit more loose and free-wheeling with my own life style.

And here’s the irony of that: I tend to be more structured (corporate) in my approach, planning, putting a lot of thought behind what I do, David doesn’t, and that isn’t a bad thing either.  We both fill our roles differently.  David tends to be a really creative guy with how he molds technology to fit a problem, he’s fast and extremely “agile” when it comes to solving a problem.

I, on the otherhand, having an extensive history with corporate development practices, have always been more the pseudo-project manager with myself and my development, causing my own efforts before meeting David to be incredibly slow and drawn out.

Neither is right or wrong, we’re just different in many, many ways.  I guess you can say he is the molder, while I might be the polisher.

But we hit it off and I was able to lend him a hand where I could, and provide some different ideas to him.  He provided me with some base code that I’ve gone on to modify a bit to suit my own tastes and thoughts on what might improve upon what he already has.

David has been the one thing this year that has helped me overcome many of my own problems when it comes to making money online.  I fully credit him for bringing me where I am today with my make money online efforts.  I’ve also thanked him as best I could this Christmas season, because he really deserves it.

A new president

We also have a new president this year, President Obama.  While I’m quite thrilled with our ability to raise a black man up to the highest level that we can, I’m still very saddened by the state of our government.  Each politician seems to have both hands out, one grabbing for money, the other giving money.

I’m proud that we as Americans seemed to have overcome a little bit of the racial issues that have plagued this country for so very long.  I don’t think we voted Obama into office because he was black, but I do believe that was part of the equation for many people.  Why couldn’t it be?

America has a history of racial prejudices that seem to stem strongly from the “angry old white men” that have run this country since it began.  It’s always made me sad to be a white man, and sometimes I wish I could say I wasn’t white, but instead Native American Indian.  After all, I tan well enough, why couldn’t I change my race to reflect my beliefs and show my disgust towards those that believe any one race is better than the other.

We’re all just silly humans anyway.  No one is better than another, we are all equal.

I have high hopes for Obama, and I’ve always said that after a year has passed, I will then cast judgment upon the president.  There are things that happen in Washington that no one can prepare for, and I believe that one of the biggest problems Obama has is getting control of a government that is run by special interests, now more than ever before.

Not to mention, the ever-present back and forth of conservative views vs liberal views.  If there is one thing that I feel is a complete detriment to this country, or any other country for that matter, it’s the lack of give and take amongst it’s people.

I’m also of the opinion that once you become president, even with all the speeches and promises one can make, it’s a completely different reality once you step into the captain’s chair of America.  And then you have to deal with that reality and try to find a way to reconcile those promises with the reality of a government that is run by greedy corporations.

Our whole system appears very flawed and dangerously close to complete collapse unless “we the people” begin to take charge and stand up and fight the powers that be.

Unfortunately, they keep us distracted pretty well don’t they with the media always attempting to control our minds and thoughts.

2010 will be an interesting year in politics, you can bet the farm on that.

Errata and meaningless other stuff

I’ve discovered my limits on how many projects I can have moving at one time.  While I was working with David and building my own network of sites, I began to realize that when I looked at my blog, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to write.

I had writers block.  It might have been self-induced blockage, but that doesn’t matter, it was still block.  I’ve had to overcome it before during my first year blogging, as I tend to be more quiet and reserved than you might imagine a tattooed, biker, computer geek might be.  So when it comes time to write, if I don’t have a topic to write about, I’m not writing a thing.

Especially when most of this year my head was swimming with ideas and thoughts about making more money online.  Each post I write has now got to be carefully thought out.  I don’t want to leak any trade secrets, nor the secrets that others may have bestowed unto me.  But then, that’s just me trying to make sure that I don’t piss anyone off, nor shoot myself in the foot.

You see, I haven’t really played around on the Internet all that much.  Sure, when MySpace came out, I created a page for myself, but I soon became disinterested in it. Same goes for Facebook, and all the other social networking sites out there.  I don’t really care to be social, so I’ve missed out on several technologies and discussions that might have ultimately led me to where I am today.

I’ve had some catching up to do.  I had more to learn than ever before, once my eyes were opened to the possibilities.

It’s akin to finding a whole mess of parts in front of you, and none of which really describe what they can do when it’s all put together.  They’re all just parts.

The Internet is nothing but a great collection of parts, that when put together in a certain way, they can provide you traffic, which then you can turn into money.

It’s all about finding the parts you need.  I think next year I’ll dive more into this subject.

Speaking of next year

It’s upon us now.  Everyone has posted their “Happy New Years” posts, and I’m here still working on getting one out.

I won’t be doing much of the things I’ve done last year again this year.  I’m changing my focus.  Each year it seems I like to do that.

I’ll call last year the year where I did actually find myself over-worked (granted, by my own doing), as the tag line suggests, as the year where I launched 100 sites in a effort to not only make money, but to analyze how Google operates.  I’ve made a few discoveries through that effort, and I’ll be sharing them with you over the course of this year.

I have several people in my life that I’ve been trying to find time to build a web site for that I just wasn’t able to get to last year.  I plan on making time for them this year, and getting a whole different set of web sites built by the end of this year.  Sometimes it’s best to focus on yourself and allow yourself to do what YOU want to do.  After all, it is your life, right?

No point in helping everyone else if it doesn’t make you happy, or if doing so means that you forgo something that is very important to yourself.

So with 2010 here, and having built a nice large network of sites in 2009, it’s time to switch gears, create a new tag line for 2010, and focus more on those around me and start to give back.

You’ll see that translated to my blog as well, and to you, my dear reader.

To everyone that makes my blogging experience pleasurable, thank you.  It’s you, commentator, reader, subscriber and random visitor that makes blogging fun.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and wish you the best of everything in 2010.

Peace on earth,

Wayne

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