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• • May 2008
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Shane from Shane & Peter forced this one on me. Okay, he really didn’t. He didn’t even ask. But on their site he’s posted a series of questions which I’ve answered here. It’s a sort of mock interview game and is a good glimpse into the lives of freelancers/entrepreneurs.

As this is a relatively new blog and I’m a relatively new blogger, this is a great way to bust out of obscurity and get to know some of you.

Unless you don’t want to know me. In which case I’ll keep the paper bag on my head.

The Interview

1. What’s your personal mission statement?

   To do the best I can for as many people as possible.

2. What’s the biggest mess you’ve dealt with this year?

   I had a barista at a local coffee shop confide in me that she’d lost a loved one recently. I didn’t know what to say other than, “Hmm…how ’bout that mocha now.” I felt terrible about that for quite a while.

3. What current entrepreneurial efforts consume your time?
   • Getting this site right here off the ground
   • Keeping my design business off the ground.
   • Finishing my book. It’s fiction and I’m having a blast with it. Too much fun to actually consider ending it.
4. Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?

   I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t do what I do. I can’t even leave the house without a sketchbook and paperback flanking my sides.

   Plus I’m atrocious at working for other people and I don’t march well.

5. Boxers or Briefs? or as Naomi says, Bikini or Thong, duh?!?

   Boxers. Sometimes commando. Hopefully not at the same time as Jonathan.

6. What do you do when you’re not [designing | programming | managing | writing | toiling for the wo/man]?

   I used to get grounded when I was a boy. Well, I’m still a boy but I was a younger one once. And when I got grounded my parents would send me to my room. That’s where I kept my sketchbooks and Legos. So getting grounded back then made me about as happy as earning a million dollars now would. If they’d locked me in a bare closet, I’m sure I would have gnawed off an arm so I’d have had something to draw on the walls with.

   What I’m saying is that I do what I do all the time. And at those times I appear to be doing something else, I’m not.

   Okay…so sometimes I stop. That’s when I play my guitars, drive very too fast, climb large rocks and talk to my friends.

7. What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?

   One thing? Jeez. Keeping my own counsel, while at the same time realizing that other people come first.

8. What’s your exit strategy?

   I can’t honestly say I know what that is. I suppose that means I don’t have one, but if I were to make one up right here on the spot, I’d say: Make as many people laugh as possible, then dash out when they’re bent double.

9. What is the last thing that made you belly laugh?

   Family Guy.

10. Have you ever been in business before?

    I actually got my first business license when I was an embryo.

11. At what point do you consider yourself successful?

    When someone else says “thank you” and means it. When someone else pays me for something I know I did a good job on. Every new RSS subscriber makes me smile as does every new comment. When someone laughs. When PayPal sends me an email that says “funds have been received.”

12. What was your first experience with a computer?

    Atari, baby! It aggravated me to no end and I broke about 236 controllers. Then we upgraded to a Commodore 64, which aggravated me to no end so I broke the desk. Then I got a 486 PC which aggravated me to no end when it broke itself. Then I got a Mac and I haven’t been aggravated since.

13. Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates in a jello wrestling match, where’s your money?

    For some reason I can’t help thinking Bill Gates would choke on the Jell-o and suffocate. I don’t think Jobs would even have to show up.

14. Where do you do your best thinking?

    Anywhere noisy. I’ve got wicked bad tinnitus, so if it’s too quiet all I can think about is “Do you hear the satellite that’s about to crash into the house? Is there a new freeway running through my living room?”

    But if there’s noise around I can think. That happens most often in coffee shops with my ‘phones on. In my car. In the shower. While playing guitar.

15. What does your average daily work / life balance look like? How much time do you work, play and sleep?

    My schedule is:

    • Get up at 7, shower and dress well so I still feel like a professional
    • Get a cup of coffee, don’t eat breakfast and get right to work
    • Continue to work and not eat breakfast until I wish I’d eaten breakfast
    • Continue to work and not eat breakfast until lunch, which is breakfast
    • Go back to work until 6-ish
    • Eat dinner
    • Wish I hadn’t eaten so much dinner
    • Pledge on my father’s hands I’ll eat breakfast tomorrow so I don’t roller-coaster and feel like shit after dinner again
    • Work until 8ish, 9ish, 10ish…whichever seems appropriate at the time
    • Sprinkle fairly liberal amounts of guitar playing, writing and bouncing off the walls throughout the day
16. If I could introduce you to anyone, who would it be?

    I see my father all the time, but I’d like to see him again right now. Fascinating fascinating man.

    But that’s not really an introduction is it? For a real introduction I’d love to meet my new pal Collis and my other new pal Gia. I’d also like to meet Terry Pratchett. And I just read Naomi’s response to this whole game and now I want to meet her too. Even more than I wanted to before.

17. What stops you from giving up when you are frustrated?

    Taking walks and looking at the clouds. Remembering where I came from and where I’m going. My family and friends. And I’m as stubborn as a mule. I’d probably give up a lot more than I do if I were intelligent.

18. If Chuck Norris and Steven Hawking had a baby (hey it’s my damn interview), would you vote for her for president?

    Only if she thought the Constitution wasn’t up for negotiation.

I fell in love with the questions some other respondents created, and I’m gonna answer a few of those too, just for fun. Thanks all you folks who inspired me!

• Flight or invisibility? (Jonathan)

  I think being invisible would bug a lot of people. They’d be uneasy and wouldn’t invite me over. Plus I’d have to wrap myself in bandages and wear a hat to show where my head is. But then again, maybe people would clean up their act if they thought I was always spying on them. That might be the answer to world peace!

• If you had the choice of making a million dollars by selling to a million people for a buck or selling to a hundred people for ten thousand dollars each which would you choose? (Coote)

  I’d go for making one-million people my customers. That would be quite a market share and if “the money’s in the list” as they say, I’d be set.

And now for my own question:

• If you could put one thing/place/concept in Mr. Rogers’ Land of Make Believe, what would it be?

Now get all thee hence and participate! Spread the word and let’s get to know each other!

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