08:14 – No word yet on when Barbara’s dad will be discharged from the hospital to the rehab facility. Barbara said her dad’s personality has changed. She’d never expected him to behave nastily, which he’s doing now. I told her we’d probably be nasty too if we were in his situation. He’s tired of being in the hospital, and being sent home and then immediately going back didn’t help any, either.
Our new friend Abby stopped over yesterday so I could help her get a domain name registered and get her set up on my shared server at Dreamhost. Abby’s mother is a friend of Paula, our neighbor across the street. We met Abby last autumn, when Paula hired her to dog sit Max, her very old dog, who needs someone with him constantly. One day, I spotted Abby raking leaves in the front yard. I asked her if Paula was also paying her to rake the leaves, and she said Paula hadn’t mentioned it but it needed to be done. So she’s a worker.
Abby is 26 years old and can’t find a job. She graduated from North Carolina State University in 2009 with a major in history and a minor in art and design, and then spent two years at the Irish School of Animation, Ballyfermot College in Dublin, Ireland, where she received a Higher National Diploma in Computer and Classical Animation. She’s smart, hard-working, and confident. But right now she’s limited to doing freelance work because the job market is simply abysmal.
Paula recently made an extended trip out to California and hired Abby to dogsit Max while she was gone. Over that couple of weeks, Barbara and I saw Abby frequently and decided we really liked her. I asked Abby if she did stuff like designing logos and brochures. She said she did, so I invited her over to our house to talk about doing some stuff for our business later this year. She rang the doorbell at the appointed time. I opened the door, found her standing on the porch, and invited her in. She asked if I was sure it was okay with Barbara for her to be here when Barbara wasn’t. I assured her that Barbara trusted me, and wouldn’t object to the two of us being alone in the house. So she came in, and we had a long discussion about logos and brochures, writing (she wants to be a writer), and everything else under the sun. When I told Barbara about Abby’s concern, she just laughed. The next day Barbara saw Abby out with Max and went over to tell Abby not to worry about being alone with me.
So Abby stopped over yesterday so we could get a domain name registered for her, get email set up for the domain, and so on. I’d originally intended to register her domain on Godaddy.com, where I have my domains, but as it turns out Dreamhost is also a registrar so I decided just to register Abby’s domain there.
Abby wasn’t sure whether she should register the domain, and it was obvious to me that she was concerned about whether having the domain was worth spending the $10 to register it. I told her she’d be nuts not to register it, particularly since she’s running her own business. I told her that I understood her problem because I remembered being young and poor. I was trying to figure out how to pay for the domain myself without making her feel obligated to me, but as it turned out that wasn’t necessary. I’d forgotten that Dreamhost bundles one free domain registration or renewal per year with an annual hosting contract. So when I clicked on the Register Domain button, the charge came back as $0.00. I explained to Abby what was going on, and she protested that I should use that $10 credit myself. I told her that all my domains were already registered at Godaddy.com, and that using that credit myself would require moving a domain over to Dreamhost, which wasn’t worth the time or aggravation.
When I told Barbara about all this later, she completely approved and said I should explain to Abby about pay-it-forward. I told Barbara that I’d already explained that to Abby and told Abby that some day five years from now or 25 years from now she’d run into a nice young person who needed some help getting started and that would be Abby’s chance to pay it forward. I also told Barbara that I suspected Abby would try to do some free design work for me in return for the help I was giving her, but that I’d insist on paying Abby her regular rate. Barbara said she agreed absolutely. No free work from Abby. She can just add that to her pay-it-forward account balance.
If Abby wants to work in animation, she’s in the wrong state. But I’m sure Pixar and the like are swimming in apps right now. Disney is said to be brutal to work for – their two animation studios were nicknamed Mousewitz and Gooofenwald. And sfx houses in the US are going bust due to foreign competition and subsidies. (The sfx shop that did the main work on “The Life of Pi” is in bankruptcy.)
Bob, could you download this audio book and give it to Abby?
http://noisetrade.com/jonacuff/quitter-audio-book
It’s a motivational book about how to quit your day job and start doing your dream job.
It doesn’t exactly fit Abby’s situation, because she doesn’t have a day job to quit, but I think it may help motivate her to start (and grow) her own business. If it doesn’t help, then at least it’s free.
The free download ends soon (maybe today), so that’s why I suggested you download it for her rather than forwarding the link to her.
Yeah, I’m sure she knows that animation is a very tough industry to get a job in. I didn’t know about the Mousewitz and Gooofenwald thing, but it doesn’t surprise me at all. Creative stuff period is hard to make a living at. But it’s what she wants to do. As I said, she’s smart, hard-working, and determined, which is a good combination for running her own business. It certainly doesn’t hurt that she’s also a pretty girl.
I attempted to download the “free” book Dave mentioned, but it insisted that I give them a working email address, which I wasn’t about to do. I’m not a big fan of self-help/motivation books anyway. Abby seems plenty motivated already.
That’s fine Bob, I simply mentioned it because you said she was “limited” to doing freelance work. Even though she will have a bunch of competition, I think she can start her own business and thrive. The key is to do it without going into debt, which I would imagine you already told her.
Thanks. Yes, I’ll talk to her about the three big mistakes: going into debt, hiring employees (as opposed to using contractors), and renting space she doesn’t really need.
Netflix has a new four stream family plan:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/22/4253820/netflix-launching-11-99-family-plan-four-simultaneous-streams
Netflix now has 30 million subscribers:
http://paidcontent.org/2013/04/22/netflix-q1-2014-earnings/
That is approaching DirecTV’s number of subscribers, I believe. I should have bought Netflix stock the other day.
I wish that Netflix would bring out a service that carries over the air content and “cable” content such as AMC, Syfy, TMC, Fox News, CMT and all the other 10,000 channels on DirecTV. I would leave DirecTV in a New York minute. I am paying them $100/month right now for all these channels with a DVR.
BTW, the new “Defiance” series on the Syfy channel is the new “Firefly” according to the wife and daughter. That is the impression from the first episode. It is very well written and the actors are above average including Julie Benz.
And now bigger than HBO
http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/netflix-surpasses-hbo-in-u-s-subscribers-1200406437/
It’s just time before the content owners take the deals to them instead of being locked up by with losers.
I watched the Defiance premiere. Uh, not the next Firefly in my opinion. I’m willing to wait for it to bloom, but after Terra Nova was cancelled after one season, I’m thinking Defiance is heading the same way. Large outdoor sets, lots of extras and kind of cheesy graphics is a couple of spots will make it hard to justify the price. Terra Nova had the same death. I wish they would have been more creative with the “aliens”. Seven different kinds and they were all “humans” with makeup slapped on them. They had an interesting “alien” mech army, all CGI, but they were wiped out by the male lead. Julie Benz is wasted in her role as mayor of the city. She would have been better as the owner of the whore house.
I hope SyFy doesn’t poke the pooch on Defiance like they did with Farscape.
Jeezum, I’ve tried but I just can’t get into sci-fi anymore. To me, history and the real world are strange enough. It’s like those old-time phony Wild West town sets on the Hollyweird lots; the real entertainment was behind the facades. And the real history was nothing like it.
The dystopian future scenarios I can sorta dig; I kinda liked “Jericho” and was peeved they ended it.
I hope SyFy doesn’t poke the pooch on Defiance like they did with Farscape.
Huh? I watched Farscape. It got really weird before it got better, right at the end. But it did go 4 seasons. And that last little mini series a couple of years ago was fairly good.
Defiance has a solid back story and good, not great, actors. A western theme with rifles, revolvers and glowy knifes. And spaceships crashing on the planet every couple of hours. And the failed terraforming of the Earth is cool. And yes, humans in 7 different aliens suits, this is not a X-Men movie with 60 minutes of CGI. And Julie Benz’s sister runs the whorehouse and bar as a kindly, benevolent madam. Yes, cheezey graphics is way better than no graphics (you gotta use your imagination on these shows). Plus the town doctor was excellently acted by a human hyborg (one of one) and written with lots of quips: “If you rush me then we all go boom” and “Friggin deadbeats” were two of my favorites. BTW, you netflixers may be able to watch on hulu for free* (*free if you do not mind a lot of commercials):
http://www.hulu.com/defiance
Unfair. As all too often: Defiance seems to only be available in the USA. How/why content owners can be so stupid as to restrict their own sales, I just do not understand.
The same thing has happened with LastFM: no longer available in Switzerland, because of content licensing issues: content owners shooting themselves in the foot, over and over and over again.
And they wonder why we pirate (which is entirely legal here).
Unfair. As all too often: Defiance seems to only be available in the USA. How/why content owners can be so stupid as to restrict their own sales, I just do not understand.
Sorry, do not know what to tell you. Maybe the Swiss language version is not ready yet (Ha!, as if that is going to happen).
The USA is the dog and the world is the tail on these kind of items, I’m afraid. Do most of the Swiss speak English BTW? My Swiss customers speak and write English very well. I am starting to see DVDs released in French in addition to the normal Spanish alternative.
BTW, they redid the USA GDP estimates the other day and added intellectual property content and sales. It upped the USA GDP by 3%, not a inconsequential number.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-21/us-gdp-will-be-revised-higher-500-billion-following-addition-intangibles-economy