Today I leave for the west.

I'm going to spend about 2-3 weeks in the Edmonton, Calgary and hopefully Banff areas to decompress from these past few months. I'm taking this computer and some clothes. The two goals are to a) have some serious relaxation time and b) have some serious party time.

I'll also be starting the groundwork on a big multimedia NG collab while I'm out there, keep an eye out for it in the non-General forums in the next week or so.

Update: So it's been real fun so far, though I haven't had NEARLY as much access to the Internet as I thought I was going to have so the above collab thingie will be delayed a tad. No big deal!

Because it's currently more entertaining than trudging away at these projects.

December 10th is freedom and freedom will be nice.

Edit: I got an implied extension... so freedom is suspended for about 36 hours but I've been much less stressed.

Edit 2: FREEDOM! (as of time of the latest edit)

This is a dusty and still place. The silence is deeper than ever before. One foot in front of the other and I'll come out somewhere; I'm finding I don't really care where. The sun is too bright and helps to drain the colours from everything around. Maybe when it sets the stars will show me a path and a cool breeze will be soothing, but that sun isn't going anywhere for a long time.

Off I go.

Ever! After like, 7 years in post secondary and 12-13 years in grade school, the education train's caboose is here. Maybe one day I'll get another Master's or PhD or something... but right now I'm antsy to start this "real life" stuff that I've been slowly easing myself into. A career... a house... those things.

It looks like it's going to be the busiest school year ever though. I dunno if this will better prepare me for the working world or not. I guess it depends on the pace of the industry I find myself in. Anyway it works out to be an effective 6 courses with a bunch of extra curricular stuff thrown in like running and eventually selling my little consulting firm, greasin' the wheels for the job search and a spattering of volunteer gigs, networking and opportunity scouting.

I'm sure I will find solace in NG from time to time. This place seems to never change (despite the annual assertions that it was better 2-3 years ago) and there is a certain amount of comfort one can get from that.

Wish me luck.

School? Let's do this: one last dance.

I posted that last blog right on the 10 year anniversary of this account and didn't even notice. Goodness!

In other breaking news, I'm halfway through the corporate residency portion of my MBA and have happily discovered my future career direction in business (social media / social strategy). I've done some cool shit, such as meeting with a director at Facebook while in Toronto and visiting several sweet ad agencies. I am currently doing whatever I can to build my social media portfolio in terms of experience and wherewithal (I just wanted to use that word... might not even correctly apply, whatever).

The goal: be employed full-time by May 2011 working closely with or directly with social media.

Pow!

I drank some beer, then proceeded to interact with the BBS for an hour so today.

It was a good time. I was posting in like 10 threads and getting some traction discussion wise. The topics ranged from the simultaneous use of two sex toys, the viability of the video thread (that shit never gets old, apparently), the 5th dimension and Twitter. Sounds about right. What made if enjoyable (besides the beer) was that traction. I'd rather talk about the dual sex toys and have a back and forth than come in and do nothing but lock a bunch of terribly shitty threads.

So yeah, thanks BBS, for the burst of online socialization that's become more and more scarce as I try to make some dough with this consulting business.

Speaking of that, landed a fairly big contract the other day, which made me happy. I also found a place to live in for the next year, and it is huge and sexy and has a dishwasher and a fireplace and won't drain my money nearly as fast as I figured it would.

Cheers <3

I have officially purchased the consulting firm now!

There's still a smidgen of paperwork left to sort out to make it straight with the government, but for all intents and purposes, the transfer is complete!

Been going to the office (9 x 13, no windows, wooo!) since the 5th of January. These first few weeks have been relatively slow as I've eased into the role, but as more and more projects rear their heads, I can see the future being quite busy.

We signed our first contract and make our first bit of dough, and are set to sign probably two more contracts within a week. Also within two weeks I hope to have made some sales; we sell adspace that is actually one of the main drivers of income for the firm.

On top of all that there's about 5 other potential projects/clients in the "maybe" stage of things.

And as a bonus, I've been exposed to some web design and hosting techniques as I attempt to tweak the old website. I successfully gained some rudimentary knowledge of CSS! Fun.

Stay Tuned, all ... 3 of you? Heh.

Cheers,
Zerok

Didn't fail the Finance midterm: this is good.

Less than a month away from completing the first of three phases of my MBA.

Come December 1st, there's a good chance I'll be purchasing a small consulting firm.

[update]

It's pretty much official now. Gonna make a down payment on the first. :)

[update 2]

Looks like we just made our first contract =o. Hoping to get it in writing within 2 weeks.

Hey.

So it's been about 7 weeks since I've even really logged on here for any length of time. Unfortunately the June MWC suffered because of this. I recognize that while I might not care all too much about the goings on of your particular lives, that the entrants did put effort and hard work into their roles as participants and having to wait a couple months (or more) for any real notice is a bit harsh.

So I'd like to apologize to all those who felt irked about the whole thing. I'm usually pretty good at sticking to commitments, even online NG ones.

For anyone interested beyond that point, I've been going on all pistons here with my MBA. It's not kidding when it says: "intensive." Thus far we've covered full courses in Economics, Accounting and Statistics in about 4 weeks. Now we're being wrung through the interview prep process and team building; on the 9th of September we have a day full of interviews that will likely decide which company we work for during the 8 month Corporate Residency in January.

Any free time I manage to find myself with I'm spending out with folks, decompressing and generally away from the computer (and thus NG).

I'm sure I'll be "back," I'm never really gone from this little place.

Cheers, and thanks for your patience.

It sounds like a tense moment from a Halo game, but I'm speaking about the past 72 hours of my life.

My MBA classmates are some of the most high caliber people I've ever met. They are engaged, incredibly smart and knowledgeable, have global experience in a lot of cases and are just generally awesome. I'm not intimidated only because I've quickly gotten to know a lot of them on a personal level in this short amount of time; otherwise I would be.

I am so very lucky to be sharing my educational experience with this group of future world leaders and innovators. Usually in a group of 40+ people you find quite a few people you don't quite care for but this is different. They are all stellar and to be part of it makes me flattered and humbled at the same time.

It's like the real world came dressed to the nines to meet me.