The Real Ryan J. Parker

So this post turned into spam… shoulda upgraded earlier!! Wow.

I found this very good Lou Holtz quote at Eric Musselman’s Basketball Notebook:

The only thing that’s going to change you from where you are now to where you’ll be five years from now are the people you meet, the books you read, and the dreams you dream.

I find this very applicable to me as I transition from my 9-5 job. Although I am pursuing a career in basketball, I feel this quote is applicable to any profession outside of sports.

Something Lou touches on in the video compilation is the aspect of maintaining, something he feels he should never have done at Notre Dame. In a way this is what I was doing at my 9-5, and I became increasingly turned off by it. I don’t really regret it, as I feel it’s played a key role in motivating me to change, and plays into another quote I found in the video:

embrace change when change is necessary for success

I could easily apply for and obtain a job similar to what I was doing before, but this would be counterproductive to me being successful. Although I’d be paid fairly well, I would not consider that a success as many others would, as my room for growth and being happy with what I do would be severely limited. Change is very necessary, so I’m going at it will open arms (even if my wife cringes at the thought of it).

Success is more than money, and I figure everyone should ask themselves from time to time: “What am I doing to be successful?”. I don’t have a problem if you define success as money, but I hope there is more to it than that for you.

So I’m in the process of making a transition from my 9-5 job to working from home. I originally anticipated making this transition sometime next year so that I can finish my math degree, but my 9-5 has been forced to reduce its workforce. Unfortunately for me, I was one of those to be reduced. My wife cringes when I say the words laid off, but that’s what they call it. At least it comes with a severance package.

My first attempt at working from home will be freelance programming. This seems to be the best way for me to generate income in the immediate future, so I created profiles on eLance and Guru:

ryanjparker.elance.com
profile.guru.com/994494

So far I like eLance the best, but I haven’t even been doing this a week, so that is subject to change. I’ve had a small success so far, as I accepted my first eLance project on Friday.

To be honest I haven’t heard rave reviews about freelance coding services, as the feeling seems to be that most people want the world at a cheap price. Hopefully I can avoid those sorts of projects.

My plan is to develop one of my own websites during this process, WhichTeamWins.com and work on some open source software. Hopefully I can generate some meaningful income (either directly or indirectly) through those projects as well.

I’m interested in hearing from anyone that has made a similar transition (successfully or unsuccessfully). If anyone has any tips I’m all ears!

The video at http://thewebsiteisdown.com/ is hilarious on many levels for me.

First, the nonchalant attitude the guy gives with respect to the people calling him is classic. The “I didn’t read the e-mail you sent me so I deleted it from your sentbox to make you think you didn’t send it to me” is another goodie.

Top it off with the fact that he keeps going back to pwn n00bs on Halo and it is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in some time. It really hits home with me. I give it 5 stars!

For what seems like forever now, I’ve used the iGoogle home page to keep updated with the latest from the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Over time I’ve had a tough time keeping up with all of the subscriptions, but I never really felt moved to try anything else.

That changed, however, when my iGoogle feeds stopped updating properly.

Today I finally imported the RSS feeds into Google Reader, and I’m in love. The interface is great. I can quickly navigate to the content I’m looking for.

If you’re stuck in the stone age like I was with the iGoogle Homepage, it’s time to give Google Reader a shot!