During the last recession, in 2002, I picked up some contract PHP programming work to make ends meet. One of the clients I picked up shared an office with another firm. The firm was successful, and I talked to its owner, Sam, fairly often. His business did a few million dollars a year in sales, and Sam himself was wealthy. He was also an excellent business owner.

He considered his employees valuable assets and invested in top-of-the-line computer systems to make sure they could do their jobs well. His business used computers heavily, creating a set of files for each client that were then kept forever should the client ever come back and want more work done. (For this post, it’s not relevant exactly what his business was, although you can replace it with any business that works heavily with computers and keeps a “master record” of client files, such as any accountant or law firm…or perhaps your own business!)

He had a state-of-the-art network setup, especially for the time period. All of the computers his employees used were networked to a file server where all the master documents were kept. That way, any employee could go to the file server, pull up the folder pertaining to a certain client, and work with their documents. Changes were then automatically saved to the file server so no employee ever had to worry about where the latest copy was. Sam’s employees printed out hard copies whenever a client came in, but the records on the file server were the masters.

Sam didn’t believe in hiring cheap labor, so he hired a local tech guy, Mark. Mark’s tasks included setting up new computers, maintaining the network, and making sure the file server was always available, since it was the “brain” of Sam’s business. Sam, having been raised near Silicon Valley and being fairly technically savvy, was insistent that Mark do regular backups, since he knew how much damage it could do to his business to lose all of the master records for his clients.

Sam spent a lot of money to ensure that his computer systems and network had high uptime, since even an hour or two of downtime cost his business thousands of dollars. He was also security-paranoid; the file server and his office computer weren’t connected to the Internet, as to reduce the chance of either one getting infected with viruses.

In summary, Sam was a fairly technical, smart, savvy business owner who seemed to be doing everything he could to ensure that his multi-million dollar business would continue running with no downtime.

Sam’s Costly Mistake

Then, one day, disaster struck. Sam had relied on Mark to perform regular backups. Unfortunately, Mark, in the interest of billing more hours to Sam, had set up a manual backup process that relied on him, Mark, physically coming into the office and swapping out backup drives, then taking the backup drive back to his office for safekeeping. Sam was in the process of changing this manual process when the entire file server crashed. Sam was upset, but he called Mark and asked for the backup drive back to restore all the data.

A quick technical detour: Mark had set up Sam’s file server with cheap hardware RAID-5 with three drives. The “backup” process basically was Mark coming into the office, swapping one of the three drives, and rebuilding the array. Unfortunately, Mark, not understanding quite how RAID-5 worked, had taken the parity drive back to his office.

This wouldn’t have been a problem had a single hard drive in the array died, which was what Mark assumed would happen. What actually happened was that the entire motherboard failed, taking the cheap onboard RAID controller with it. This was one of those uber-crappy controllers where if the controller died, there was no ability to recover the array.

In plain English, the failure of a single cheap part had just brought Sam’s business to its knees.

In a panic, Sam called in another computer specialist, but the data was a jumbled mess. Sam eventually ended up calling a data forensics company that recovered most of his data…10 days later, and costing Sam thousands of dollars.

Can you imagine what would happen if your multi-million dollar business was down for 10 straight days, and you had none of the master records your clients depended on you to keep?

I’m telling you this story not for Sam and Mark, but for you. I see far too many small businesses with no backups. With no backups, you are in a far worse position than Sam. If you take away one thing from this blog post, it is: If you don’t have an automatic backup system on your computer, you are guaranteeing that you will lose critical data at some point.

Don’t ignore this just because you have a “tech person” who does your backups, either. You should be in charge of backing up your business files and knowing how to restore them should data be lost.

Please read the rest of this post carefully. Follow the instructions below, and you will be backing up your files 15 minutes from now.

Backing Up

Here’s the backup system I use. It takes less than 15 minutes to set up and runs automatically. Plus, I will show you how to make sure it’s working.

The first step is to download Jungle Disk. It’s a great piece of software that allows you to easily back up on a schedule to the Internet. It costs $20 (there is a free 30-day trial) and then a small monthly fee, depending on how much data you have. As a point of reference, I back up both my server and my desktop computer to it, and my bill runs about $12-$13/month. Yours may be less.

Jungle Disk dumps your backups into a “bucket” on Amazon S3, which is then distributed to multiple datacenters around the world. Your data is secure, protected by multiple passwords. You can access it on multiple computers if you wish. Run through the setup program. If you don’t have an Amazon S3 account, Jungle Disk will walk you through setting up one. If you’re using Windows, Jungle Disk will ask you if you want to set up backups only, or as a network drive as well. I like setting it up as both, so I can access all my files on J: as well.

Jungle Disk will then ask you when you want to back up. I set mine to back up weekly, on Saturday night. I also checked the option to back up immediately if a scheduled backup is missed. If your computer is shut down during the scheduled backup time, when you turn it on again, it will start backing up right away. I recommend this option.

Jungle Disk will ask you what you want to have backed up. This is a good time to make sure all of your data files, especially from programs like Quickbooks that put them all over the place, are in “My Documents.” If they are scattered around your hard drive, make sure you move them all into “My Documents”. Then back up that, as well as your favorites. Unless you know for sure that you will need another folder if your computer crashes, you probably don’t need to back up anything else.

If you’re one of those people who stores important things on the desktop, first, stop that! But if you insist, make sure your desktop is backed up too. Take it from a former tech support person: Do not store important files on your desktop. Put them in My Documents instead.

Finally, Jungle Disk will start its first backup. Depending on how fast your Internet connection is and how many files you want backed up, this may take days. That’s okay — let it run, and don’t turn your computer off. This is a good time to clean out anything you don’t really need.

Only the first backup takes a long time; future backups only upload changed files, so they will be much faster.

If you ever need to restore a file, even if you’ve just done something silly like deleted a document you now need, just click the “Restore Files” button in Jungle Disk, or go to J: and copy the file back.

Time Machine and other “external drive” backup systems

If you have a backup program that backs up to an external drive, like Time Machine on the Mac, I recommend also setting up Jungle Disk. To me, it’s like buying home insurance. What happens if your house or office burns down, or thieves break in and steal your computer — and the external drive that’s sitting right next to it? Jungle Disk protects you from all of these scenarios, since your data is stored safely online. I have seen people get bitten by this before. Please don’t rely solely on an external drive.

And, for heaven’s sake, if you know anyone still using CD-RWs, DVD-RWs, flash drives, or worse yet, tapes to back up their data, please send them this article. Those are not sufficient as a sole backup method. Please urge them to join this century and also back up online!

I urge you to take this seriously. Sam’s story is only one of many I’ve seen — as the owner of a hosting company, I watched many people lose their entire business due to bad backups or no backups. I watched grown men and women break down and cry. On top of that, I have personally lost entire (profitable) websites due to corrupt backups.

For your business, backups are a life-or-death matter. Since Jungle Disk is so easy to set up, there is no excuse. Even if someone else handles your backups — even if you already back up to an external drive — even if you can’t afford the monthly fee — if you can’t afford to lose what’s on your computer, back it up yourself and check regularly to make sure you can restore files. Don’t make this common business mistake.

If this sobering reminder can prevent some of you from losing your entire business, I am glad to have been of service.

Recommended Reading:

• Jungle Disk. Download it now and save yourself hours of hassle. It works on Mac, PC, and Linux. (This isn’t an affiliate link.)

I realized last month that I want to get into blogging a lot more heavily in 2008, and “SlashChick” just didn’t fit me any more. It marked my time on Slashdot, and I don’t spend time on Slashdot any more. It also had connotations of “slash” fiction (male-on-male sex scenes derived from popular movies), which I wasn’t aware of when I created the persona, and to which I don’t have any desire to be attached. I needed a new online persona — one that I was comfortable promoting, one that I didn’t have to explain, and one that most people could type easily if I said on the phone (people had tons of trouble with “slashchick”.) I put a lot of thought into this, since I felt the domain I picked would stick with me for a long time, and I didn’t want to buy a domain and regret the decision later.

I settled, finally, on erica.biz. The domain was owned by a typosquatter, excuse me, “domain name speculator”, who was willing to sell it for several hundred dollars. After a couple weeks of negotiation, he came down to a price I was okay with and I decided to buy it. Why did I pick erica.biz? Well, Simpli is a .biz and that’s part of what defines the company — we’re not a .com; we’re not typical; it’s a short and easy name to remember and type. erica.com is also owned by a speculator (after being a porn site for a long time — I wanted to buy the domain name back in 1998 and it was owned by a porn site then), but this speculator didn’t respond to my requests to buy the domain, and probably would have wanted an outrageous price for it. Simpli was one of the first companies to use .biz successfully back in 2001, and now I will be one of the first people to use a .biz to promote…myself.

What happens next? The domain is mine and it’s in the process of being transferred to my eNom account. Currently it still points to the typosquatter’s page, but that will change in the next couple of days. ALL of the content you currently see on SlashChick.com will move to erica.biz. That is a huge undertaking, but one I’m up for. I’m hoping also to launch a new design for erica.biz at that time to coincide with moving everything off this domain, but don’t expect anything super-fancy — I’ll probably start out with a basic Wordpress theme with a few customizations, like I have here, and add to it or change it as I go. Most places where I have accounts will also change to reflect my new handle, “ericabiz”…and I’ll add those places onto my new website as links. The new website will also have more information about me, like a better “About” page and information about my public speaking. Finally, it will be a portal to all the projects I’m working on or am interested in.

I’m very excited about this change. It’s been in process for a while now, and it’s finally coming to fruition. November 19 marks my 3-year “blogiversary” on SlashChick.com. My goal is to have all the posts moved over to erica.biz and only a placeholder here on slashchick.com by that day. I’ll make an announcement once I’m ready!

You may have noticed recently that email updates for SlashChick.com were broken. When you received an email, the title didn’t show up.

Upon further consideration, I decided to abandon the old system and sign up with FeedBurner so you can receive an email whenever I update my blog. FeedBurner is nice in that it displays the entire blog post in your email, and it’s operated by Google so you won’t receive spam, etc. from their service.

If you’d like to subscribe via email, just put your email address over there -> and follow the instructions that pop up when you click the Subcribe button.

I’ll be updating much more frequently in the future, so please subscribe via email or subscribe via RSS to receive my latest updates!

Oh, and for those email subscribers who missed my last post, here is a link: Sharing My Journey to 1 Million Dollars (Part 1).

This year, though, rental was going to be another $2000. Even split, it’s hard to justify that cost. I knew I could probably find something decent to buy on craigslist. I spent pretty much an entire day (Saturday) reading online and trying to decide what I wanted. There are many options. I could have bought a conversion van and put a small camping porta potty in it (cheapest), or bought a truck and a 5th wheel trailer and towed the 5th wheel (most expensive.) I looked at my cash situation — I had about $3K accessible, and could stretch that to $4K at the most. That ruled out a 5th wheel + truck. It still left lots of conversion van options, but after thinking about it some more, I decided I probably didn’t want to go to multiple Burns without an RV or trailer of some sort. Porta potties are nice but you do have to empty them, and a conversion van didn’t get me a fridge or cooking gear.

On Sunday morning I decided I really wanted an RV. (Well, ideally, I wanted a 5th wheel and a truck, but I wasn’t keen on getting a loan to do so.) I hit up craigslist in earnest and started calling around. I made a list of what I wanted: automatic transmission, under 100K miles, working toilet, smogged, runs well, holding tanks for black & gray water were the top priorities. After that, stove/oven, air conditioning, propane refrigerator, solar retrofit potential, and generator were the “nice to have” features.

I found a perfect RV at the very top of my budget: $3900. But it had a generator! So Richard and I drove up to Oakland to take a look. Oh, he was a beaut… I fell in love at first sight. Original 1970’s decor, complete with green shag carpet. A working toilet. A Honda generator!! Air conditioning! Dan and Patricia, the sellers, were as sweet as could be. They spent hours with us showing it off and I could tell they had put a lot of love into it over the 8 years they had owned it.

The RV started right up and I took him for a (very slow) test drive around Oakland and Berkeley. There is some goofiness (the RV door sticks a bit, the parking brake isn’t catching quite right, the sound system was stolen and will need to be replaced, and the stove and oven may or may not work.) But all in all, he’s in excellent working condition considering his age. He drives well and the engine sounds great.

As I was driving him home, I knew he had to have a name. The interior was very retro, and I was amused that I had bought such an old “backwards” RV, so I christened him Retrograde.

Retrograde!

I have to go get him smogged and registered this week. (Dan and Pat gave me a $60 credit toward the smog check, so my total came out to $3840.) I also need to put some insurance on him. I paid cash and have title in hand, which was the best part… I knew I hadn’t stretched myself too thin. Even at about $1000/year in maintenance, which is what Dan and Pat sounded like they had put into him, it’ll still be about as expensive as renting an RV for the next 3 years for Burning Man. Plus, I own him now, and can take him to Tahoe or camping or wherever we want to go. Oh, it was a happy day yesterday. Totally exhausting, but wonderful. Welcome home, Retrograde!

More pictures of Retrograde on my Flickr page

I have several goals:
1) Make my time at the office of maximum effectiveness, as I want to be in the office no more than 8-9 hours a day. (No more 12-hour days every day, please.) Putting the same amount of work into an 8-hour day as I had in a 12-hour day seemed hard, but I’ll tell you how I successfully managed to do it.
2) Free up some time to exercise for 1/2 hour or more at least 3 times a week.
3) Get rid of side projects that were taking up my weekends so I could have weekends free to read, brainstorm, hang out with friends, go shopping, and catch up on TV and movies.

I started reading The 4-Hour Workweek, which is an interesting book that I’ve seen mentioned on several blogs lately. I expected a bit of an ego trip from the author, Timothy Ferriss, and there was a bit of ego there, but what I found most interesting were the radical changes he made in his life that simply weren’t obvious to most people (including me). For instance, he sets aside 1 hour every day to read and respond to email, and keeps his email client shut off the rest of the time.

I implemented a variant of this, deciding to keep my email client off during the day except for predefined times that I would have it on. I was moderately successful: I immediately noticed my productivity spiked, but since I didn’t set aside a time to respond to email, some emails did not get responded to. I’m going through this weekend and responding to them, but that is obviously sub-optimal. Next week, I intend to set aside a time every day to respond to emails and ensure that all emails from that day are responded to on the same day, as well as just reading them and sorting my inbox.

The biggest change I made was inspired by Timothy’s book, however, and this improved productivity dramatically: I stopped reading blogs at work. That was a huge difference. I didn’t realize how much time reading blogs took. Timothy points out in his book that “batching” saves an incredible amount of time. That is, instead of taking 5 minutes 20 times a day to read email, you can “batch” and do the same amount of email reading and responding for 1 hour. 5×20=100 minutes; 1 hour=60 minutes.

Reading blogs, for me, turned out to be the same way. I typically now read them at night when I get home — I can read them more effectively once a day instead of 10 times a day. Plus, most blog posts aren’t that time-sensitive. I sorted my RSS reader into two categories: Daily and Occasional. I put all the blogs I wanted to read on a regular basis under Daily. I put everything else (mostly news aggregators like TechCrunch) under Occasional. I stopped reading blogs at all when I was in the office, and also asked my friends to email non-work-related blog entries to me on my Gmail account instead of IM’ing them to me. I read the Occasional blogs only when I have plenty of extra time.

Those 2 changes allowed me to squeeze about 2 extra hours out of my day. I’ll continue to work on other time-saving changes. But 2 hours was enough for me to move on to the next phase of my plan…

Today I signed up for a gym membership at a local gym. I’ve listened to lots of friends who talk about gym memberships and the most common reason the memberships fail is that the people sign up for a gym membership with no set plan of action. I didn’t want me to be a gym membership failure, so by the time I walked in to the local gym today, I knew what I wanted: a reasonable monthly rate; to do Pilates; and to have a personal trainer do several sessions with me to get me up to speed on all the machines and design a workout plan that I could do effectively. I also committed to myself to pay for additional personal training if at any point I felt like I was falling off my goal of exercising at least 3 times a week. Finally, I know that gyms are fairly negotiable up front, but once you sign, you’re in — so I went in knowing I wanted to negotiate.

The gym I went to offered a free month of Pilates training (cool!) and 4 free personal trainer sessions if I signed up for a 1-year commitment and paid $65 monthly and a $75 signup fee. They also offered free daycare, and I didn’t need free daycare, so I negotiated another 4 free personal trainer sessions instead (that’s about $265 according to their list prices, by the way.) Included in the monthly fee is unlimited use of the gym and nice pool, plus free group workouts every day. I looked at the group workout calendar and immediately determined that I would be best served by signing up for the “core strengthening” session twice a week. I figure the 3rd time every week will be what the personal trainer wants me to work on solo; if that doesn’t work, I’ll reassess later.

I have just allocated $855 for fitness over the next year (plus any workshops I decide to do, like continuing Pilates, tennis, or dancing lessons), so I need to be committed to this. I am open and flexible to design a fitness plan that works for me, but I also know I’ve spent some money now, so I must follow through and work diligently on achieving my fitness goals for the next 12 months. I plan to go in at 9 or 9:30AM 3x a week (this means getting up earlier than I am used to.) I’m pretty sure this will work. I’ll keep you all posted.

I talked about goal #3, eliminating side projects, at length in my previous blog entry, so I don’t have anything new to report there. I’ll keep posting more time-saving tips as I find them.

The self, however, is not composed solely of thoughts, but is expressed by taking action and doing the things it most wants to do. For me, there are a breathtaking number of things I want to do. There are so many that I tend to pick up things to do at a much higher pace than I can actually process and do them well. This problem of overcommitment has plagued me my entire life.

When I meditate and settle my thoughts, I often come back to “What’s most important?” For me, “most important” cannot be defined simply as “things I am good at.” There are far too many things that I’m decent at, or “good enough” at, that were I to attempt to do something in every realm where I am “good enough”, that I would spend my entire life doing mediocre tasks and being bored by them. Thus, I had to take a step back even farther, and define what is most important to me, not simply to everyone else in the room at the time when I am making a decision.

In other words, I must simplify my life, and whittle down what I do to the things that I am absolutely the most passionate about, or else I risk being stuck in mediocrity and futile labor and being unable to pull myself out of that quagmire.

The purpose of this blog, in part, is to attempt to define who I am in a series of posts, each outlining a tiny part of my personal character. Grief, sorrow, and forgiveness have been a big part of this blog, but so have joy, excitement, and acknowledgment of those who have been there for me, and the answers I have sought.

That brought up another train of thought, and one which I’ve been very attached to lately, but which has also (sadly) been the one that has been preventing me from writing for the past 6 weeks. You see, instead of writing to ask something, I started reading, meditating, and thinking to answer the questions I had — and I had many. For a while, I had to take a hiatus and stop writing in order to listen, to form opinions based on the writings and teachings of others who seek enlightenment of the Self and Whole.

I’m back, and ready to share what I’ve learned so far.

First, I defined what was most important to me (personally.) These things included writing, the Internet, reading (books as well as blogs, and newspapers), finding patterns, and solving problems. I also enjoy being in charge and being my own boss…I’d find it difficult to work for anyone else. But most importantly, overall, I found I enjoy helping other people. Thus the crux of my current predicament — I love helping people and solving problems, but the quality of the problems I volunteered to solve was low (web development, for instance.)

I turned my attention to a slightly different focus. Knowing, then, what my motivations were and what was most important to me, what did I want to do? I know that one of my large purposes in this life is to help other people eliminate fear and overcome obstacles…to obtain goals previously thought of as impossible, and to influence people to change in a positive manner and thus leave a lasting impact on the world. Instead of a series of small, relatively unimportant tasks, then, I needed to focus my objectives and only say “yes” to those things that aligned properly with my Big Goals.

I started to clear things out in my head. I realized what my unimportant tasks were. A lot of volunteer work that I had previously performed needed to be completed and then filed away. A lot of previous things that I had said “Yes” to needed to be turned into a “No” or “Not any more” due to my changing life circumstances. I don’t doubt that this left a few hurt feelings, but I did apologize and made what was the most important step — the realization that I can never again say “yes” to these sorts of things, that if the request for help does not completely align with my Big Goals, that I have a duty to myself (and to the world at large) to say “No, I’m sorry.”

And life goes on… either the task gets done by someone capable, or it does not get done. In neither case, though, does it rest on my shoulders.

This may sound facetious to some of you. “How can you turn away people who ask for your help — especially if your skills align with their needs?” And the answer is simple — my life involves a call to action to help millions of other people. I can’t spend time doing web design or volunteer work for a small group if I could instead be turning my focus to things that help thousands or millions of others. If that still sounds bad to you, I recommend that you set bigger goals. There’s no reason you, too, can’t go out there and help millions of other people. But to do it, your life must be keenly focused so that every resource you have is turned toward that goal. Your most valuable resource becomes your time — so much so that you’ll need to hire layers of other people just to help you out. If you succeed, your success will be breathtaking. And if you fail… is there really such a thing as failure if you set out with a goal to help millions of other people, and only succeed in helping hundreds or thousands of others instead? Really? Here’s the worst that could happen — you only improve 1 person’s life. Your own. If you’ve put happiness in your own life, you haven’t failed.

So…now what? I have a couple more volunteer projects that I need to stop. I have a series of blog entries I need to write. But most importantly, what I must find is time. From having someone clean my house to having a personal assistant who can help me/Simpli do the tasks I don’t have time to do (such as filing papers), I must clear out my time so that I have time to do what matters most to me. Once those repetitive, menial tasks start disappearing from my horizon, I can start achieving bigger goals. As I do this, I expect to write more (after all, that was one of my Big Goals for 2007 — “blog more often.”) I expect to work less. And I expect that I will feel happier and more fulfilled, because instead of energy-draining labor, I will be spending time living my dreams and fulfilling my passions.

If this sounds too frou-frou to you, just wait…you’re going to see it unfold week by week in my life, and be able to change decisions about what you want to do with your life. Hopefully, this setting and meeting of Big Goals will encourage you to set bigger goals and be more motivated to live your dreams. That is, after all, why I am here.

I generally try to avoid writing blog entries when I’m emotional. This time, I am emotional. In fact, the emotions started out as me being really upset at someone I’m close to not acknowledging me (or even acknowledging my existence.) Normally, when this happens, I go into this spiraling depression. I’m proud to say this time that’s not the case. In my anger and frustration, I (finally!) realized who I really am and what I want out of life.

As to FG (update: FG is part of his initials, in case you’re wondering why I call him that) Seth told me you’re still reading this blog. I hope you’re reading this entry. I have something to tell you, and I’m doing it via way of this blog because it’s important for me to put this out in the world. I’m ready to tell you that I’ve forgiven myself.

You see, a long time ago I really hurt FG — who loved me more than anyone ever has before. I did a bunch of shitty things because I was angry at how the world had treated me, and I was a kid who had not ever been acknowledged by my parents (or acknowledged in that awful “constructive criticism” way that was what my mom thought was love). I was so upset and so miserable from how I had been treated that I thought the only way to handle things was to treat everyone else like crap, too. And boy, FG, I did a number on you. I fucked you over big time.

It took me years to figure out who I really was. Now I know who I am, and I can tell what’s different. What’s different is that when shitty things happen in my life, I don’t feel a black hole in my heart any more. When I’m not acknowledged in the way I want to be, I don’t get destructive and lash out. I don’t feel this huge emptiness in my heart. Instead — and this is totally weird and not what I expected — I am initially angry, and then I feel a strong love. I feel love for those who acknowledge me and those who are there for me, and I can actually thank them. I pull them in for hugs and kisses and reassurance, and I know they are there for me.

Similarly, I hope to be the best friend for them and there for them when they are in need. I find myself listening a lot more. I find people GET IT. They are drawn to me because they know they can tell me things and I’ll listen, and offer advice perhaps, but mostly it is just that people are comfortable with me. Our clients tell me Simpli is a hugely different company than any other hosting company out there. On the phone with a client the other day, the client remarked “You know, Simpli sticks out like a sore thumb in this industry. We stick with you because of you. I have been in the business many years and I used to buy only on tech specs. Now I realize the importance of building relationships. That’s why I chose Simpli.”

In other words, I’ve moved my heart out into the open. I acknowledge that this has its risks. This blog and anything else I post can be used by those who are negative to construe me, or my company, as something negative because I put myself out there and make myself a target. But I take that risk because I realize the huge, HUGE importance of letting people know that there are real people out there is so much bigger than the potshots people take. I used to take potshots when my anger got the best of me. I used to snarl at people who were so nice. I made “nice” mean “fake” in my mind because I couldn’t understand how people could be nice without wanting something or having ulterior motives.

I’ve totally changed that perception inside myself. I’ve found that you create your world. If you want to create a world where most people are nice, and those who aren’t can be safely ignored, you can do that. That’s what I’ve done. I’ve ripped down my company and totally rebuilt it in the past 6 months. New routers, new switches, all new employees, new client portal, new IP addresses, new bandwidth providers. This absolutely parallels the evolution of my heart and my own personal journey to find myself. I’ve found that I define myself by how I help other people. Helping other people is my “heart goal” — that overriding value, above everything else, that makes me tick. What upsets me so greatly is lack of acknowledgment. I want to be acknowledged for what I’ve done in this life, both personally and professionally. I know I’m destined to make a huge mark on this world, and I’m not afraid of that destiny like I used to be. I just want to make sure those around me see it in me and really get it. It’s a tall order for someone to really get how much I want to change the world…not just change those around me, but to actually go out and help millions of people…personally.

It is these “down” moments I have, precipitated by those around me who can’t see that shining flame in my heart, where I find that my heart grows ever stronger, and my goals ever larger. It is incredibly frustrating to me that I can’t seem to find a partner who really “gets it”… but then again, my goals probably would overwhelm most people. *smiles*

Anyway, FG, since this post is for you, here’s what I want you to know. I know who I am now. My heart is filled with love and I love even in dark moments. You can look into my eyes now and see that I am that person you saw a glimpse of so long ago, and now I’m an amazingly strong version of that person. You know that I’m sorry for what I did, but what’s just as important is that you needed to see that I really have become what you saw — that what you saw in my heart was real. You also needed to know that the scared/angry part of my persona was gone.

It’s gone.

A long time ago, I described myself as having a 70/30 split between a vulnerable “inner side” of my personality and a hard outer shell. Those two sides have merged to form something unique. I’m still strong and aggressive. I have to be to accomplish all that I want. But even the strong and aggressive part is guided by an equally strong heart and desire to improve the lives of everyone I meet in this world. When things are going well, I am strong in ensuring that I am constantly moving forward, and when things aren’t going so well, I am strong in figuring out what went wrong and where I want to go next…guided by my heart goal of helping others, at all times.

I had to forgive myself for all of that crap I did in order to get to this point. I did, and while I’m still not proud of the things I did in my past, I know that my future is unmistakably bright. As long as I remember the love in my heart and continue to be guided by that, there is no limit to the things I can accomplish.

I wrote the other night, “Whatever it is you want out of your life, find it and commit to it and bring love and joy and passion to it…and be happy in those moments.” That is the way I live my life now. I know what I want, I’m committed to achieving it, and I’m not scared any more. FG, I think that’s what you saw in me so long ago. Now everyone else can see it too.

This entire health issue has led me to a deeper realization, which I wrote in an email to S this morning, and after some thought, decided to post here. This is what I wrote to him, verbatim (except that names have been shortened.) I hope that it will bring some of you to a deeper understanding as well.

As I understand it, we are not much more healthy than we were as a culture thousands of years ago. Sure, we may live longer, as a consequence mainly of better nutrition and recognition of certain cause->effect relationships (washing hands regularly->fewer contagions enter the body). But we are not, as a whole, healthier on a day-to-day basis.

There is a deeply ingrained belief system in our culture that we must go to a doctor (a professional) to cure all ills. You and I now know this to be just one of many paths. For instance, there are many ills that can be cured simply by realigning Self with Nature and Source. In particular, those “common” afflictions such as colds and infections can be cured without the need for a doctor.

Yet our culture, this one, the one that we live in now, insists to us that we must see a doctor to cure these common problems. We are constantly being reinforced by TV ads for medications, our own parents who have the same belief system, and by friends who think they are just telling us to “do the right thing” and go see a doctor to get “cured.”

I was not aware how deeply ingrained my belief system about doctors was until today.

There were several things I could have done to not make these boils as bad as they were. I needed to realign myself in even a deeper way than I had already tried to. I needed to ask for healing on a daily basis and receive it. I needed to do simple utilitarian chores like changing my sheets and washing my clothes. But none of this did I do until today, when I finally saw a doctor, and realized that subtle changes after the doctor visit had taken place. In particular, I felt that I was healed. This, more than anything else, will cure the boil.

Now you and I will recognize a very important lesson, albeit not without a significant amount of discomfort and pain that I have been through in the past several weeks: that those people who claim that alternative medicines do not work, who believe that the natural cures so well-researched and in use for thousands of years are lies, have such an ingrained dominant belief that doctors will cure them that truly, only doctors are able to cure them. The fact that I was not aware of this ingrained belief system in myself until today shows how far beneath the surface it lies; so far that most, when reading what I have just typed, will write me off as a quack.

This system was reinforced by my parents, who see doctors on a regular basis, by M, because his belief is so far dominant that he can’t even think of doing anything else, and even by you, L, and others who said “You might want to see a doctor about that.” And, in the mindset that I had and have, that is correct. It was the only thing that cured me.

I fought the doctor visit not for true root belief, but for fear of visiting the doctor, which is the wrong approach and an excellent way of treating myself to more misery when I finally did go to the doctor.

Now I have two choices: I can either wipe out the entire ingrained belief system that doctors will cure me, and I will not need to see them; or I can embrace my belief system, understand that it is a belief, but not a totally bad one, given the options, and go to the doctor quickly and get things cured instead of letting them sit around in me for weeks. No other path will work, because any other path is simply rejection of one of the two above paths.

It is an interesting dilemma, with each having its own rewards: the main reward of the first path being that I will feel more in control of myself and have more harmony, but will be difficult to fully embrace given our culture; or the second path, an acceptance of the primary belief system in our culture and tacit acknowledgment and nod to those who have created this culture. The second one will put me in better harmony with those I choose to help, since they are here in this culture; the first will put me more in tune with myself and better able to regain health quickly so I can help more people. The first, of course, is a much longer road than the second, because tearing down an ingrained belief and then rebuilding it from scratch, especially with the poor documentation of alternative cures that this society has, will be difficult and time-consuming.

This was an excellent realization for me and one, I hope, that I will not have to realize again in the way that I did this time around.

Then the Bears got into the Super Bowl.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I’d decided that if the Bears got into the Super Bowl, I’d go to the Super Bowl. I’m a third-generation Bears fan and grew up being teased mercilessly by my peers at a time when the Cowboys were the team to beat. When I realized during the playoffs that the Bears had a strong chance, I started looking into Super Bowl tickets. Of course, they were ridiculously expensive…about $3000 for a pair at the time. I decided I had better uses for $3000.

I gave myself a salary increase as of 1/1/2007. My salary is still not up to where I want it to be, but I have about $760 more a month after taxes now. That, combined with the decreased rent from having a housemate, made me figure I was safe going into a bit of debt for a couple months (I had some stockpiled money, so it wasn’t $3000 in debt) in order to get a HDTV, a new couch, and host a Super Bowl party.

I got a new couch that I really like. It’s brown microfiber — very comfy! Then, last weekend, I decided it was all or nothing, and shopped around for a plasma TV. I’ve wanted a plasma TV ever since years ago when I saw one of the very first Pioneer Elite plasmas in a store (playing Lord of the Rings) and realized there was no other TV with a comparable picture. Plasmas then, of course, ranged into the 5 figures for a 50″. So I waited…and waited…and waited. My stated goal was to buy when a 42″ hit $2000 or less. That happened a couple years ago, but due to the low salary I was paying myself and the high rent costs I had, I couldn’t afford anything. — rent was then 55% of my take-home income. With my current salary and housemate, rent is now running 28.5% of my monthly take-home pay — a dramatic difference. My goal is to get that number to the government-recommended 18.5% of take-home pay through further salary increases and dividend payments from Simpli.

Back to HDTV. I did my research and consulted AVSForum.com extensively. Besides the fabled Pioneer Elite, which was out of my price range, the recommended HDTV seemed to be Panasonic. I visited Costco and Best Buy to do more research. Costco had a coupon that brought the 42″ plasma down to $1300+tax. That seemed like the best deal I was going to get.

Until I searched “panasonic plasma” on craigslist. Seems a lot of people were moving and had to sell their plasma TVs. The going price for a Panasonic 50″ plasma was about $1500. I measured my TV shelf and a 50″ would fit perfectly! I emailed several sellers and found one selling a Panasonic 50″ plasma for $1400. This is the same TV that Best Buy is selling right now for $1999. I asked Seth if he wanted to drive up to Livermore with me to pick it up, since his car would actually fit it. We did so, and now I have a beautiful new TV for a much cheaper price than I would have paid in a store! The only downside is that I only get the remainder of the warranty, and it may be difficult to actually utilize the warranty since I wasn’t the original purchaser — but hopefully I’ll never have to use it. I haven’t had any problems so far with the TV.

I soon figured out that the TV wasn’t the only thing I would have to upgrade. My ancient Sony first-generation DirecTiVo would have to go, too. It only supported 4:3, and the compression the TiVo used, which wasn’t noticeable on my old 27″ CRT, was painfully obvious on the plasma. Back to AVSForum (and TiVo Community as well) to do more research. It quickly became clear that I had two options: 1) Stick with DirecTV and pick up their own PVR, or 2) switch to cable and pick up a Series3 TiVo. My loyalty to TiVo is stronger than my loyalty to DirecTV, so I made a switch I never thought I’d make: I switched to Comcast. I negotiated with them for a better deal since I would get digital cable and high speed Internet from the same provider. Reading the forums later, I realized others were getting better deals, but I negotiated the Digital Silver package, HBO, and high-speed Internet (which was bumped from my current 4Mbit to 6Mbit) for $100/month including tax for the first 12 months. It saves me about $23/month from the Comcast and DirecTV package I had before, and in a year I can call and negotiate again.

Comcast came out to install, but they didn’t install correctly. I’ll spare you the details, but it took 4 phone calls and some Googling to figure out the problem. After the 4th phone call, everything finally started working. That was about 2AM yesterday. So I’ve had HD for almost 24 hours now, and…um…it rocks!

Most of my friends don’t even have TVs. A lot of them pile on my couch to watch shows like Boston Legal every week. I’ve always been one of the more TV-obsessed of my friend circle. It’s weird…most of my friends will watch grainy videos on YouTube for hours and then not be interested enough in “TV” to buy their own TV. I’ve never had too much hangup or pretense about my TV watching. I have a TiVo (and now I have a really nice Series3 TiVo!) so I watch whenever I want. I watch a fair amount of TV, but never feel pressure to watch it…it’s just something I do for fun.

Before this week, I could count on one finger the number of 16:9 HDTVs people I know personally owned: 1, and that HDTV belongs to my parents. Now I have one and I just have to shake my head at all these so-called geeks who have crappy TVs or no TV. HDTV is awesome!!!! Not only are most of the primetime shows in HD, but there are some really neat HD-only channels. For instance, right now I’m watching M:HD, which is just music videos in HD. The music videos are cool, and better yet, there aren’t any annoying VJ’s, and they play a great selection. (The Eagles live was one of the most recent videos they played.) The only commercials are for Mitsubishi HDTVs. HBO has a HD channel, and there are a couple other HD channels that just play old TV shows or movies in HD. Yesterday, one channel ran about 12 hours back-to-back of “The X-Files” in HD. Most of the popular sports are broadcast in HD.

I just don’t think that most of the population is aware of how many shows there are in HD. I sure wasn’t — I thought most shows were still being run in 4:3. It looks like most current primetime shows are taped in HD and then downconverted to 4:3. Even two of our local news stations are running the local nightly news in HD. Better yet, the switch to digital TV means networks can cram more stuff down the same size pipe. The local PBS station, for instance, has converted itself into 4 PBS stations (none HD, it appears, but all digital), which each play various PBS content at any given time. Two local networks have added on 24×7 weather channels in their digital lineup. This is way cool.

The Series3 TiVo gets my thumbs-up, too. It finally has an integrated Ethernet port (what took you so long, TiVo?!) Since my router is upstairs, I bought a Logitech Play Link off of woot.com and plugged one end into the TiVo and one end into the router upstairs. Voila, instant wireless! (It’s not very fast, but it doesn’t need to be.) The front of the TiVo shows what show you’re recording right now, which is nice. The remote is well-designed, but oddly appears to be missing the “List” button, which I used frequently on my old TiVo to go right to the list of recorded programs. (Without the List button, you have to Tivo-button->Select, which is not terrible, but I miss the List button.) The Guide is much faster (FINALLY!) and adding a Season Pass is much faster. Finally, with a 250GB hard drive instead of my old TiVo’s 30GB hard drive, it can record a lot more programs.

I’m very happy with my purchase, even though it means I’ll be paying it down for a couple months. No biggie… soon it’ll all be paid off. In the meantime, I’m preparing for 20-30 people to show up on Sunday for an awesome Super Bowl party! Woo!