Movin’ on up…

Usually, I don’t talk shop on my blog, but I’m going to start doing so. Today. Perhaps I’ve not wanted to put too much out there about ME and what I really spend my time working on, seeing it as too transparent or something. Nonetheless, I’m at it now.For those who don’t know, I’m a video producer that has started working in web and the occasional graphic design job. I’m in that place where I’ve needed to change things up a bit professionally. Honestly, I need to earn more money, and simultaneously, I NEED to continue to pursue my aspirations as a screenwriter. Now the macro-subject is better use of my time and discipline to stay productive with time I’ve given to a particular task. My hope is to be able to “condense” my work somewhat, by branching out into web work and straight-up selling web design as service to increase the amount of “billable time” I spend during the day. And I believe now that the only way for me to do that is to do MORE than just straight up video work. For the record I AM listed in the Hoosierwood directory at the Indiana Film Commission’s website. So, hopefully, some work will come from that. Otherwise, I’m eager to do more stuff in the web arena.The fact that I can do web design for less than I can do video work is also attractive. I’m OVER trying to make a commercial shoot a low-budget film. That’s pretentious. Granted, I’ll stay up on DV technology, and stay dedicated to being a Final Cut Pro editor, but I’m not interested in doing the kinds of productions I tried to do my first year in Columbus. That’s not to say that if the right situation came along I wouldn’t bid on it…that’s for certain. And I wouldn’t mind being on the set of a 35mm or HD shoot for someone else, but I’m not interested in overbuilding a DV project for a corporate client.I also want to get back to the writing I did in June (July was too hectic for me to write). I could have a draft of my current screenplay done in about a month if I can block out time each week.Lately, I’ve been getting more and more into cycling. I talked about it in my last blog….or the one before. Today, I started the Carmichael Training System’s “Beginners Training Program” found in the book that Chris Carmichael and Lance Armstrong put out a few years back. My friend Rob Paterson has also started into cycling on the road, and we both being recreational mountain bikers have some serious work to do to get in shape. All I can say is that after this morning’s 1 hour ride, I know it’s going to kick my butt. If you want to give it a shot, you can view or subscribe to my iCal that I created for this workout. Hopefully the CTS legal dept. won’t care!I’m using Dan Schimpf’s MacJournal to keep track of my rides. I hope to learn a better way to use this app, as I really dig it. I just wonder if it’s a bit redundant considering I could do it here in a separate blog. And Dan has yet to make it so that it exports to iBlog…but maybe if I just spent a bit of time with it, I could learn how to do it. Anyhow go check it out for logging your workouts or anything else for that matter.I also put together a couple of tools to help me on the OTHER side of getting fit, calorie intake. You can conveniently lookup the calorie values for a BUNCH of foods here and then log that intake in an OmniOutliner Document I created here. Food Log August 04.ooutline If you don’t have OmniOutliner, give it a shot (Mac OS X only!) Just click on the link below. I should do an entire blog on how this app has revolutionized my computing experience. My wife knows so well that I’m an outline-a-holic now. It’s nearly eliminated my use of MS Office. Seriously. Anyhow, I think the workout schedule, and calorie tracking tools are a boon for me. We’ll see. One last bit of transparency. I weigh 220lbs. and know I need to be in the 180 range. My good friend Rudy Olivo lost a TON of weight this past year and I know I can too. So, figure that I can burn or skip about 7000 calories a week, then I can lose about 8lbs a month…..meaning 5 months to that goal! The rewarding thing is that will get easier to do as I go along (until I hit that mythic plateau…but I don’t care! I’d rather be on THAT plateau than my chubby one I currently live on!)Well, the morning’s about shot, so I better get to it. I’ve got DreamWeaver for dummies sitting there in front of my PowerMac, as well as plenty of other tasks.