I thought I’d take some time today to write a bit about my history, and my motivations for starting this site.
I might as well start at the beginning! I mentioned before that back in high school I had wanted to be a photographer, but chose to go to school for engineering. Halfway through college, I figured out that I didn’t really love electrical engineering, but I had already thrown $65000 towards school, and I couldn’t see throwing that all away. I briefly toyed with the idea of switching up my major to EMACs (Electronic Media Arts and Communications) but that would have basically made me stay in school for at least an extra year beyond the original four. So I decided to stay with electrical engineering, although I did end up needing an extra semester, due to failing a few courses here and there.
After college, I got a job at Intel. They gave me a HUGE $15000 signing bonus, and allowed me to start in 6 months. I took that money, rented an apartment, and promptly took a trip to Europe for 2 months. I enjoyed my time at Intel, and learned a lot about semiconductor manufacturing. A year and a half after I started at Intel, I was laid off. Thankfully I got a nice severance package. It was October of 2002. I wouldn’t have a “real” job again until March 2004.
For the first couple of months I was pretty optimistic about my chances of finding a job. After 3 months, I was forced to leave my apartment, because I was hemorrhaging money. I moved with my girlfriend of the time back to Maine, and into her fathers house. That wasn’t awkward at first, but sure became awkward after a while. I can say a couple good things came out of that situation. The first good thing was that I went back to school for computer science, which eventually lead to the career I have today. The second good thing was that I started my own business during that time, which gave me a taste of self employment. The business I had wasn’t anything glamorous by any means, but it did keep money coming in. I did computer support for small businesses and homes. I loved working for myself, but that specific job wasn’t for me. Ever since then I’ve been trying to figure out how to have my own small business, or side business. Since I am a unix systems administrator, I have considered starting my own consulting company. The only problem is, that it doesn’t provide me the freedom that I would like. If I could find a work from home systems administration job, that would go a very long way, but the reality is, those jobs are few and far between, and they usually require trips to the home office at least once a month. Also, I can’t really see myself as a sysadmin 10 years from now. I enjoy it, but I don’t think I’ll be doing this in 10 years.
Since March of 2004 I have been laid off two other times. It’s definitely unnerving to have been laid off 3 times since graduating college. That is one of my big motivations to starting a side business. I read a lot of personal finance blogs, like The Simple Dollar by Trent Hamm, and I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. Ramit and Trent both agree that the best security you can have is to have multiple streams of income.
I think the best thing about having started this website is that I get to engage both sides of my brain. The right side of my brain gets exercised with photography, and I get to exercise my left side by running the back-end of the website, and writing scripts to automate the workflow of my photos. Ever since I decided to start this website, I’ve been so excited about going out and taking pictures. In the last 2 months alone, I think I’ve taken 2 or 3 thousand photos. That is a bit crazy, I know, but I’ve been having a great time doing it.
I was reading Be your own part time boss on Man vs Debt today, and it really struck a chord with me. I totally agree that the best thing I did was just get up and running with this site. I may not do everything exactly correctly the first time, but at least I’m getting started! In the same vein, Why are you really here? on Smart Passive Income has almost the exact same point. If you have an idea, get started! Don’t wait, don’t just talk about it, take action. I hope I am following that advice!
