AnywhereMan

Today I had three different people contact me about three different full-time contract positions to do development. On a normal day, I get zero inquiries like that.

I also had someone call me to inquire about having me help them develop a website containing photos that you must be 18 to view (I turned it down). Oh yeah, and it was LOCAL! Totally random.

…And now the entire city of Grand Rapids is without power.

Really, a substation or something like that caught on fire. Luckily it happened today and not last week when I had lots of deadlines. There are still plenty of important tasks that I was hoping to accomplish today but a few hours of delay shouldn’t make too much of a difference.

So far the outage has lasted about two hours and I’ve already learned a few things in that time:

• Having a MacBook Pro is nice. Actually, having my main computer be a notebook is in itself nice. When the power went out, all the desktops at the Chamber of Commerce office (that CommonSpace is connected to) went instantly black. Which means if you hadn’t saved what you were working on, too bad. On top of that, the 5 or so hours of life I can squeeze out of this thing mean I can at least get some things done. This blog post is one of those things.
• Having a mobile hotspot on my phone is nice. When the power went out, I was able to flip the hotspot on and send any important emails before going offline for a while. Normally I can work all day using the hotspot feature, but that’s with the phone plugged in. I don’t get much time running it on the battery alone.
• Many necessary tasks can be accomplished without internet access. So far I’ve cleaned up my MacBook’s desktop which was overflowing with files. I didn’t need web access to send half of them to the trash bin and the rest to organized folders. I’ve been needing to clean that up for weeks.
• I need to force “disruptions” like this into my schedule. Sometimes I think having a wide-open schedule for development time can be too open. I possibly neglect some of the offline activities that should have higher priority. It also give me a chance to spend time with my wife and kids in the prime-time of the day.

Isn’t it amazing what you can learn in two hours without power?

No, I’m not turning my blog into Twitter (“What are you doing?” or “What’s on your mind?”), but I wanted to create a post where all of you can introduce yourselves.

What is your career? What do you do? What do you want to do in the future? What is your website URL? Or your blog?

Are you a freelancer? Do you telecommute and work for an employer? Are you unemployed? Do you work in an office?

What are your hobbies? Where do you live? What are you super excited about right now? What are you passionate about?

Why do you read AnywhereMan? What suggestions do you have to make this community better?

Really, this post is open to all of you. Tell us about YOU, as much or as little as you want. Maybe it’ll lead to a new networking opportunity for you. I’ve got the multi-threaded Disqus comments enabled, so feel free to interact with one another.

Just tell us what you’re doing…

Last week my wife went cross-country skiing down on the lake by our house. When we made it to the far end of the lake, we stopped for a breather and I noticed an area on the shore where a beaver had been hard at work. There were a few trees down and I decided to take a closer look at its handiwork. I snapped the above photo as I explored.

Looking at this photo, I realize how much of an artist a beaver is. From huts and dams right down to the pattern of teeth marks on a downed tree, the evidence of the beaver’s hard work is beautiful. Beavers were made for chewing and building. They excel at that, and thus their job-well-done becomes a work of art.

I love experiencing the final result of people doing what they do best. Something as simple as the pancakes made by the top cook at the local cafe to the skyscraper designed by a famous architect to the simple but powerful WordPress plugin developed by a tinkering high-school student. Experiencing excellence, whether simple or complex, never gets old.

People (and animals) doing what they do best results in a masterpiece.