One of the great things about working for myself is all the control I have over where my work comes from and what leads I choose to pursue. All of the work I’m doing right now comes from acquaintances and referrals. I have an RSS feed from some popular job boards, but I’ve responded to less than 1% of all the listings I’ve seen over the last 10 months. I keep a Craigslist feed in my RSS reader mostly for comic value.

Craigslist is one of the phenomenons of internet publishing in recent memory. They’re part of what’s putting newspapers on their heels by providing classified ads for free or a minimal charge, an area where most newspapers make their money. But that’s a separate discussion. Continue reading »

I don’t have a business plan (GASP!). I don’t have a mission statement either. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine strongly advised me to write a business plan and to come up with a mission statement, explaining how a mission statement is so beneficial to doing business and growing your business.

How’s this for a mission statement?

The Company’s primary objective is to maximize long-term stockholder value, while adhering to the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates and at all times observing the highest ethical standards.

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Disclaimer: I intend to use ANDYMISM as a space for my artwork and random ideas, not as a forum for political discussion. The following might well be regarded as a random political idea I could probably defend quite fiercely, but won’t.

A good way to get an ineffective military is to mandate service. Bad idea for any nation trying to maintain power. Bigger isn’t smarter and it’s definitely not better.

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Judo and tango are hard things to do. Learning technique and gaining skill in either judo or tango isn’t easy. Try something new and you will not get it right the first time. Or the fifth. Maybe by the sixth or seventh time, you’ll have the idea down. But you forgot to do this or that and you need to put some soul and expression into it. And how about the timing? Or the music? Or during sparring or on a crowded dance floor?

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I’ve tried journaling before. I’ve thrown away plenty of half filled journals stuffed with angst ridden adolescent writing. 

During my senior year of high school, I bought a small journal with a soft, brown leather cover. In the first few pages, I made some sketches and noted that I wanted to learn to draw.

That was the last time I sat down to draw anything except organic compounds and Lewis structures.

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