errantember

Today I submitted my very first for-pay App to the App Store! I quit my job almost exactly one year ago to become a professional mobile game developer. In that time I have partied a lot (budgeted and planned for), published one free App in the App store, and continued to build my amazing business network. When I return from Burning Man I will still have 6 months of money in the bank, plus whatever income I've gotten from my game. I plan to ship, on average, 1 game per month for the next 6 months to a year. I firmly believe that in that time I will go from a few dollars, to supporting myself, to eventually making more money than I did in the corporate scene. I'm already planning on spending a good portion of next summer in Portland, rather than continuing to roast here in the 100+ heat. I will adopt out my dogs and take other steps to make long-term travel easier. It feels great to have accomplished all this going into Burning Man, which, for Burners, is a bit like New Years.

And now I have less than 48 hours to get ready for Burning Man.

Life is good.

Unlike many other people, 2010 was a good year for me. I'm sleeping late, have great relationships with friends and lovers near and far, am working on Permaculture during the day and iPhone development at night for myself and no one else, and on track to a new career doing what I love on the road.

o I successfully found and worked 6 months of an in-office job for the first time in about five years, and after being unemployed for about a year, and after working for the same company for nine years. I wanted to be reminded of how stupid and awful it was, while saving money to transition to freelance work.

o I successfully quit that same job to go on an extended vacation to Burning Man, Portland, Alchemy (the awesome Georgia Regional Burn), and Hawaii, following the advice in the Four Hour Work Week about mini-retirements. All of these trips except Hawaii were paid for in advance with money from my corporate job, and I arrived home from Hawaii with over 12 months of money in the bank to make my career transition. I met many current and made many new friends and lovers on the trip. This is the first step in becoming someone who can do his job from anywhere there's an Internet connection, allowing me to be on the road and visit people more.

o I've gotten a good start on iPhone and iPad development using Gamesalad, a tool designed to help non-programmers make games. I'm setting a February 10th date for my first submission to the app store, and I will then ship another twice a month for at least three months. If I can get $1000/game, I'll won't have to do any outside work to support myself.

o The Rate of Return on my retirement account, which I manage myself, was about 50% for 2010!

o I've navigated through Significant Drama to keep my little home-rental/co-op project going. As a result, most of my mortgage payment is paid for by my housemates, and my home continues to get nicer and more valuable a lot faster than I could do it alone. This year I'll finish remodeling the master suite and renting it out, while remodeling the garage and moving in there, which will net me another $300/month.

o I did a complete battery replacement on my electric scooter, enabling me to continue doing most local driving at around 1 cent per mile.

o I'm continuing to shrink my lifestyle and my Pile of Stuff to increase my happiness and personal freedom.

Thanks to everyone who made 2010 a great year!

I'm definitely having one of those days where I'm getting distracted by pleasure-seeking, etc. I had this totally decadent, possibly-the-best-hamburger-I've-ever-had meal experience prepared by Joseph, which kicked off the debauchery. Afterward I had several small helpings of the homemade vanilla ice cream I made yesterday. I then proceeded to install a toilet, and now that I'm back home, even though I'm *totally* not hungry, I'm craving...SOMETHING! Flavorful food, porn, whatever. And I think I know why.

Although I've been accomplishing a lot around the house recently, and that was certain one of my main priorities in quitting my corporate job, I haven't really gone into "where will the money come from?" mode yet, mainly because the upcoming trip to Hawaii is still keeping me in vacation mode. However, after the recent Austin Linchpins meeting, I got a reference to Game Salad, which is a system for non-programmers to develop iPhone games. It sounded really great, and worth trying, and I just downloaded it. However, if I use it, I'll actually be working toward the day when I might get paid for something as fun as mobile application programming. And all the little distractions and craving that are popping up are *textbook* signs that I'm avoiding anything to do with "work."

Hopefully as the start of a habit, I'm going to try meditating, which I haven't done for quite some time, in place of scratching that itch.

I just bought an iPhone, and therefore have a new number. If you want it, let me know and I'll send it to you.