Misteps.

Well, the train has been derailed again.

I fudged a calculation on my budget spreadsheet, and now I find that I've not only overdrawn my bank account and will be incurring an unfair NSF fee of $46, but may not be able to pay off the credit card this week as I originally planned. It's embarrassing, but here we are. I'm trying to find ways to bring in more cash flow to the house, but I'm also limited by work hours for the holidays......

.......yeah, it's January 10th, and I'm limited by work hours for the holidays. At my Monday-Friday 9-5 day job I've had December 26th off, January 2nd off, and will have January 16th off. This means that for 3 out of 4 weeks, I'm getting 30-32 hours each week instead of 40. This is a big deal for an hourly employee, and I'm kind of pissed that we would have so many holidays off in a row. It makes this whole thing even tougher to manage. I'd have been able to avoid the NSF I now have if I had worked a full 40 hour week over the last two weeks (......or if I had been more scrutinous of my spreadsheet calculations), but I'm starting to get to a point where I can't afford the income of this job if they don't start working me a 40 hour week. At this rate, I won't have regular 40 hour pay checks again until mid February.

The Enemy By Mourning record is finished, and now I can book other clients to bring in more cash flow to the studio, but I don't have any concrete bookings. I'm recording Jovy on Saturday, but that's for my label, so there's no cash coming in from that session. I'm possibly working with an artist on Sunday, but they haven't responded to my work agreement, and until that has been responded to it's not a solid booking. So that's not a guarantee. And now that I'm off of my day job Monday Jan. 16th, I'm trying to get studio bookings that day at a discounted rate. So far, no bites.

Obviously the only income I can project on my budget spreadsheet is the income from my day job, since studio bookings are virtually non-existant at this time and overage checks and tax returns are not a constant. The only way that I can see right now to keep the bills paid that I need to pay and keep myself from being in perpetual NSF with the bank is to not pay off the credit cards this weekend, which makes me feel like a huge failure and a dissapointment to the family members who gave me money to pay on them last fall (quick recap....I paid one off, and then needed brakes, so it was maxed out again after 3 days. The other, I needed the cash for other bills. I pledged to pay them off in January with money I was recieving, but here we are........).

I have a balance from a good faith client that needs to be collected. I've unsuccessfully tried to collect this on a few occasions, but the client has always paid toward his bill so I can't collect this aggressively. Better to have the client happy and paying in increments than to collect aggressively and cut off the revenue stream. In other words, on a business sense, it's in my best interest to not piss off this client and keep the revenue stream open.

Other than that, it's been tough. I fight, I budget, I cut out the fast food, I don't spend frivelously, but each month it's within single digits of not making it. It's cutting it too close. I've taken up ramen noodles again as a cheap source of food, though not on the same level I was eating them at after Sarah moved out. Now with winter gas bills at play in a large energy sucking house (I really need to move, but that takes MONEY!), I'm just thankful that we've had a reasonably warm winter in Ohio so far, although my gas bill is still tough to pay.

I've resigned myself to bundling up like crazy, and when I cook using the oven, I leave the oven open when I'm done to allow the heat to fill the house. Why waste the heat? I have a dishwasher that hooks up to my kitchen sink, and instead of using the hot water tap I use cold. The dishwasher has a heating element inside of it, so why should I pay to heat the water twice? I use an electric blanket at night, allowing me to turn the house thermostat down to the mid 60's, which in this house is more like the mid 50's. I budget, I scrimp, I try to save......

I think the thing that really pisses me off here is that money has been so tight, I can't get more coming in, and the amount that is coming in has been decreasing due to holiday time off. If i could just get more coming in, I'd be ok. I was ok in October before I got depressed after my cancer scare and let my spending habits get out of control again. I know I can do it. But the problem is that I've been paying for Octobers irresponsibility since then, and there's no end in sight. The thing that really pisses me off about that is that I didn't do anything really drastic then! I didn't track my spending, but I didn't go out and spend a lot of money either. But I was spending more on junk food and fast food (comfort items since I was stressed), and had time off of work that I simply could not afford. Then there's the medical bills (don't get me started.....). I drained my savings to keep my rent paid, and now I have almost nothing saved and can't get back on top. I plan, but there's always something that derails that plan. I do not want to live a life of perpetual poverty, so something drastic has to change.......NOW.

I realize though that I'm stressed, and that I shouldn't allow that to prevail. I just need to keep it all in perspective. I'm infinitely better off than I was over the summer, when I was unemployed and borrowing money to keep a roof over my head. But I'm on the rim of the fabled canyon, and could go over at any time. I have so far to go to get to my 5 year goal, and when things like this happen in the beginning it makes it seem like I'll never get there. I just need to try to remember that the things I'm putting in place now will make it easier to achieve that goal in the future. The baby steps that form the foundation show the least visible results, but are vital in building the house.

.....still, I may be digging the pit for the basement, but I wish I could be painting the shutters by now.

The Music Business.

The music business.

Being 30 years old and having a savings account that couldn't pay my current gas bill, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my future and how I'll dig myself out of the hole I'm in. This is obvious if you've read through my 5 year plan and any of my other business related blogs. So I wanted to use this post as a way of breaking down why I'm doing certain things that I'm doing.

I currently run Skyline Sound Studios. My studio rate is only $25-hour, kept low because I don't have a very large marketshare in the recording market for Central Ohio at this time. When that marketshare increases, my rate will increase, allowing me to shed my day job even sooner and make Skyline my full time day job.

But let's look at the numbers.

$25/hour + 40hours/week + 52weeks/year = $52,000.00/year.

This is a calculation of what is coming in only, and doesn't account for the costs of doing business. I'd be making almost twice what I make at my current day job if I can make Skyline full time at it's current hourly rate, which will be nice, but it won't be enough to get me what I want in life.

Good financial planning dictates diversification. This means that you shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket, because if the basket gets knocked off of a shelf, you're out of eggs and have to start from scratch. So I'm looking into other ways of generating an income, and have determined that the music business is where I should continue to focus. This time, it'll be on using the studio as an asset to produce products that will be sold. In other words, I'm starting record labels out of the studio.

Let's explain. I've already expressed my intentions to monetize off of Project DIVIDE and my solo career. This is something that's taking more time to start than I'd hoped, but I'm taking steps when I can. Meanwhile, I've also decided to partner with Nathan Froe to start F.R.O.E. Records, a hip hop label in Columbus Ohio. We've signed Jovy, our first artist. We're going to be hitting the studio soon to record Jovy's first release, which will be heavily marketed online and through other sources.

I'm also considering making deals with other independant artists to work toward promoting their products in exchange for a share of their revenues, essentually acting as a label without signing them to a label. I'd be working for an equal share of their profits.

So what does all this mean? Let's turn to Jack Conte and Natalie Dawn from Pomplamoose.

Yeah yeah yeah. I've mentioned this before, but basically, these two helped me realize that it's possible to make a living off of music independantly in this day and age. So if Jack and Natalie can sell over 100,000 downloads a year, and each of them have their own solo careers as well, then there's no reason I can't follow this model.

So now let's look at some numbers. Let's just assume that I can sell 10,000 downloads each from my solo project, Project DIVIDE, and from F.R.O.E. Records label artist Jovy, and we'll leave the speculated possibility of working with other artists out of it for now. So that's 30,000 downloads I've sold at $1 each, meaning that I'd have generated $30,000! Now, that's not $30,000 for just me, that's $10,000 for each of 3 different projects and I'd need to split those profits between the other parties. But let's just assume that from that, I am able to retain a profit of $10,000. If I add that to the $52,000-year potential revenue of Skyline Sound Studios, I'll be around $62,000 -year. This will be a decent living for an artist to be making, and if these investments continue to grow, then the sky is the limit!

So let's plug that into my 5 year plan.

By New Years Eve 2017, my goal is to have dual residency in Columbus Ohio and in The Greater Denver Area. My studio will have been built into an efficient, self sustaining business by then, and I'll have established income streams from F.R.O.E. Records and my other musical projects. I will have used my recording and musical careers to establish myself as a producer who now has national clients, and will travel the country and possibly the world to work on records. I may or may not start a studio in Colorado, as there are studios I've partnered with there that are already up and running that I can work from. If I don't start a commercial studio in Colorado, this may help me save the cost of starting a new facility and trying to gain a marketshare in that market, but we'll see. I would at least have a private production facility so that my musical career could continue without haulting, and that would allow me to continue working on Project DIVIDE and my solo career from either Ohio or Colorado. And now, on January 5th 2012, the clock is ticking. I have officially less than 5 years to implement these things. Fingers crossed. With luck, and hopefully with Laura by my side, I'll be looking back on this blog on December 31st, 2017, and be toasting my accomplishments to a glass of champaign from within the Rockies.

Happy new year!

2011.

There's so much I wanna touch on. I don't honestly know where to begin.

It's 1 week before Christmas 2011.

On Christmas Day it will be 18 months to the day since we drove out of Conifer Colorado in the moving van……

……it'll be 1 year and 2 months approximately since Sarah first hinted that she was having second thoughts about our 12 years together……..

……it'll be 1 year exactly since she let it slip on Christmas Day 2010 that our relationship was in fact over……

It'll be 10.5 months since she finally was able to move her belonging out of the house, and transformed from my best friend into a major source of stress and despair in my life.

I'm over it. I've indicated this. I've moved on, and am now with a woman who loves me, respects me, has faith in me, and who I doubt I'll ever be able to let go of because of those reasons…….and because of so many more.

But the fact is that I still have a lot of anger and resentment. It's bubbling up like crazy right now, and I need to get it out.

For instance, I've made no secret of the fact that I was in love with the Rocky Mountains. It's approximately 18 months now since I've last laid eyes on them before slipping away like a thief in the night. If you read this blog, you know how big of a loss that has been for me. But just when I thought it was getting better……….it got worse.

Over Thanksgiving this year, I went to Atlanta Georgia to visit my family. This was my first road trip of any significance without Sarah, and it was a much needed experience. I wished that Laura could've been there, but I made the most out of being in the region. On my way back, I stopped in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.



I'm not sure if this was a great trip, or a big mistake.

There I was, completely in awe and completely in love with the landscape. It was like having the Rockies in the heart of the Plains. I was geeking out, taking photos and videos at every turn. I went to the top of Clingman's Dome, even though it was covered in a cloud bank and I couldn't technically see beyond 30 feet. But it was covered in conifer trees, and I was breathing the cool thin mountain air, and I honestly felt like I was at home again.

It was something my soul needed…….

…….but now I can't stop thinking about home. I can't stop getting hourly flashes of the landscapes I left behind 18 months ago. It's a constant reminder of everything I've lost, and it's driving me nuts. And note that I am not exaggerating when I say that it occurs hourly.

I'm planning a return trip with Laura in June, and it'll be nearly 2 years since I left, but it won't be enough. I have too many places I'll want to see when I'm there, and I'll have too many people to want to visit, and I'll never want to leave. I know this will be a great trip spiritually, but then I'll leave again. I don't know how I'll handle that.

I know I'm getting all emo about a bunch of geological features that really hold no significance to how I live my life, but there's nothing like this place that I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't imagine anywhere more beautiful, and when I lived there for two years I'd constantly be out and about looking at my surroundings. They gave me peace, and they were a spiritual escape.

………and now they are gone. Now the relationship that defined me for 12 years is gone. Now the business opportunities I had begin while living there are gone. Now, after everything I've given up over the last 12 years for one person, I had to start from scratch in every way this year.

That infuriates me.

I remember one year ago this week. Sarah's brother's birthday is on the 23rd of December, and we'd usually head for Wheelersburg around that date. But Sarah and I would have our own Christmas celebration before opening gifts with family. I remember doing what I felt was a symbolic measure to show her that I was changing and going to be acting more responsibly, which was a great divider for us. I remember getting her mother, brother, and her brother's wife, to pitch in for a laptop for her for Christmas. This was to replace the one I'd dropped and busted just before we moved from Colorado. After getting her a laptop, I also bought her Mario for her Wii. These were both items that she wanted very much, and I got them for her as a symbolic gesture that I was going to be more responsible and take everything more seriously.

She loved the laptop. She loved the video game. She was ecstatic………and she seemed to appreciate the note in the Christmas card attached to the laptop that said that it was a symbolic gesture.....but 5 days later it was all for nothing.

January came, and I was begging her not to move out. It would be a financial nightmare for me, cause I wasn't sure if I could afford this house on my own. I was showing her that we could pay off our debts if we stuck to a budget and be in a better financial place if she'd just stay in the house and not increase our individual monthly expenses by adding on her own set of rent and utility bills. I begged and pleaded, and she seemed interested……….

But then on February 5th, I came home to a nearly empty house.

I kinda feel that if you're gonna leave someone, and they didn't want you to, that the least you could do is leave them some fucking furniture. I kinda feel that if you're the one to leave, you forfeit that stuff. You're leaving the person behind after all, so are you really gonna take away most of the possessions that you both shared as well? I don't think that's fair. She left me with my studio gear, a TV, a couple of end tables, and my grandfathers old easy chair that I had been sleeping in for the past few months.

I still feel abandoned. I still feel cast aside. I still feel like I wasn't important to her anymore, and she was making no secret of it. I still feel like she lost faith in me long ago, and despite the fact that I was legitimately willing to change my ways to be a more responsible person, she'd heard it enough and didn't give a fuck anymore.

I'm still angry.

This is my cross to bear, but it's still here. It won't go away. It's been fucking with me all year.

Couple that with the fact that I'm now separated with the place that I literally was in love with, and seeing no easy way back to it………..

………..but though it may not be easy, it will happen. It won't happen as soon as I want it to, or I'd have never left. But it will happen. It's just going to take some time now to put a few things in place first.

The things in life that are worth it are worth fighting for. I'm about to bring a reckoning to the pattern my life has seen for it's first 30 years. Ohio has tried to put me in the ground this year, and it doesn't want to let me leave, but I'm waging a war. I will not settle for less. There is no reason I should, because there's no reason I can't have exactly what I want. Period.

So what do I want?

Refer to my 5 year plan to get an overview of what I'm trying to achieve by New Years Eve 2017. There are a few things I've started since writing that blog that weren't mentioned, such as my new record label that I've formed, or my efforts to go into artist management. If I can take one of the artists I have full faith in to another level, then I have earning potential from that and it'll be easier to live life on my terms……

……because as I said, I refuse to compromise.

So let's summarize. I want dual residency between Denver and Columbus. I want this for two reasons. 1 is Laura. She's got ties here that I won't take her from, but I want to live life with her in the Rockies. So this would be a great way to keep her with her family, while getting my mountains back. 2 is for the business possibilities. I'm establishing the label here in Columbus, and I'm establishing the studio here in Columbus. I'm hoping to make those viable income streams while then establishing myself as a national producer who is hired around the country to produce records. Denver makes sense, because it's a major music market. The Flobots and The Fray are both from there. Denver would be a great music industry hub for me.

This is going to take a lot of work. I have to get myself out of debt in the next 5 years, build several businesses into profitable enterprises, reach out to a nationwide artist market as a producer, and create financial independence, all while being a full time student with a full time day job at the moment. It's a bit overwhelming at times. But for the last 1/3 of my life, I've put myself on hold for someone who ultimately cast me aside. I felt that was worth it, because I was happy. Now I'm 30, have nothing saved, and have been through hell in the past 10.5 months.

It's time to change the game. It's time to stop compromising on what I want. It's time to reach for it with every ounce of my being. FUCK EVERYONE who stands in my way. I WILL have EXACTLY what I want, and I will not settle for anything less.

To the one who cast me aside, I'm still angry. Deal with it.

To anyone who wants to hold me down, or who doesn't believe that I can do this, go fuck yourselves.

To Laura, the woman I love with all of my soul, thank you for your undying faith in me. I promise to give this everything I have and build a better life for both of us.



To the music industry, look out for me. Here I come.

To Colorado, stay beautiful for my return.

Time to change the game

I've been trying all year to pull myself out of what I've often analogized as a personal tailspin. The bottom fell out in the first half sending me into a personal and financial tumble that nearly crashed over the summer. Since then I've been trying to pack on as many tasks as I can to get myself pulled out of the whole, but the burden of the work I now have can be crippling.

Something's gotta change......now.

I'm a full time student with a full time day job. I can't change that right now. But I've also been packing on a number of other projects hoping that one of them will be the game changer. The result is that I'm stressing myself out.

So it's time for a change. I've got to prioritize. I've got to approach all of this in a more intelligent way....one thing at a time. Sure, the workload still seems like a mountain. But instead of trying to blaze a trail to the top all at once and burning out quickly, this way I can climb it in incriments and be able to enjoy the view from the top, while stopping to smell the roses regularly.

The lowest priority for me right now is my own music, specifically my solo project. I'm stepping aside for a bit. I've got a Project DIVIDE EP to finish mixing, with a mountain of videos to edit for it. I've also got Enemy By Mourning's record to finish, which is getting close. But then, after the EBM record, I've got the flagship artist on my new record label F.R.O.E. Records.......a hip hop artist named Jovy. We've got to start recording Jovy's first release under the label and I'll need to focus heavily on the marketing campaigns once the record is done. So there's no real room for my solo music for a few months. But that said, I've got to make sure I buckle down to get things done as quickly as possible over the next few weeks while I'm on a break from school.

Time to get real here.