skeleton of a creature that might just find a way to come alive…

the project today was to begin to tackle the beast of the question of what i’m doing with myself for the rest of the summer. i haven’t talked much here about the lunchmaking business idea, but i did a one week trial run of making lunches for some folks in the office, and i learned a few good things:

  1. i love the idea of getting paid to cook: spending my time figuring out stuff to make and then sharing it with people is fun and rewarding.
  2. transportation and scalability are major factors in lunch delivery, and the number of customers i would need to actually profit from the endeavor is higher than i originally estimated.
  3. there are a number of travel opportunities in the next few months that are relatively high priorities for me right now, and it would be difficult to both devote myself fully to making lunches and be free to take off as needed to take advantage of said opportunities.

the repercussions of these lessons have been stewing this past week as i hung out with my mom and enjoyed the holiday, and i realized today that i have pretty much decided that, while i may continue to test ways to make food to sell while i’m in town, it is not my first priority for the summer, and if that’s the case, i either need to find another job or just embrace a month or so of continued debt and turn my energies to more important matters.

after exploring some part-time job options and looking at a calendar and playing sudoku with the potential pieces of my schedule (to steal victor’s amusing metaphor), i have tentatively decided to opt for the latter plan.

in other words, this weekend i’m going to try out the idea that i dive fully into travel and my own unpaid work for the next few months, using up my welch allyn cushion, making money where i can with food and whatever else presents itself as i go, possibly accruing a bit more debt, and letting the bits and pieces in the stewpot of my brain marinate a little longer before turning the heat down in order to divert more energy to the pursuit of income.

this might be an unwise decision, but when i’m honest with all the parts of myself that i can’t really sum up here, it feels very much otherwise, so i’m enjoying the chance to pencil in the first few pieces and see how the view opens up as i camp at crater lake this weekend.

here is the skeleton i have sketched out in my thinking today:

july 6 – 8: crater lake – car camping and hiking with friendly meetup folks
july 11: fly to pittsburgh – crash the edge, stay with reed, bum a ride to wv
july 12 – 15: masontown, wv – all good
july 20?: harry potter book party/wake for the unknown victim
july 21 – 22: san francisco – wordcamp
(allow the norcal contingent to compete for my company so as to save travel and enjoy good times? transport to truckee on the 30th?)
july 30 – aug 15: lake tahoe – backpacking the rim trail with christie
(fly to indy from sfo?)
aug 17 – 19: bloomington, in – sugar hill
(fly to sfo from indy, and either portland from sfo or san diego from sjc?)
if portland {
aug 25: portland – sue and michael get married!!
(fly from portland to vegas or san diego?)
}
else aug 20 – 26: san diego
aug 27 – sep 2: black rock city, nv – burning man
(fly ___ to indy? play with the bardzells?)
sep 8: bloomington, in – the 11th annual decadent garden party
(fly from indy to ___, ___ to portland)
sep 10 – oct 2?: breathe. make money. take a sailing class. keep up aikido.
oct 26 – 28: las vegas, nv – vegoose
nov 11 – dec 2?: palm beach gardens, fl – mom’s ordination. holidays. breathe. make money. help mom build up her online presence.
dec 2? – jan 1: coastal oregon? – NYE 2007
2008: portland, take two? new zealand? the ocean? italy? the summer festival circuit?

all those question marks on next year should imply that all those things are still considered very much up in the air, but their ghosts are staking out claims to some of my attention. turning question marks into periods is the point of all that comes before.

one step at a time.

comments? advice? warnings? interest in tagging along?

3 Responses to “skeleton of a creature that might just find a way to come alive…”

  1. Erik Says:

    hmm.. it’s prett ty unlikely that I’ll be in San Diego on those dates. hmm.

  2. kynthia Says:

    well, that’s part of why it was a conditional.
    but who knows, it might be fun anyway, and if you aren’t there i will simply have to return again soon in the fall. :)

    we’ll puzzle it out.

  3. Josh Says:

    you can most probably crash with us in San francisco.

    Captchas are hard on a phone! Not as typo friendly as humans…

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