Revenge of the Gamer

Have you ever discovered something so profound that you knew it would change the world forever?  For me that moment came in 1994.  The world was a different place back then.  Bill Clinton was President.  NAFTA had just been signed into law.  Kurt Kobain was found dead in his home from a self inflicted shotgun blast. 

Almost no one had a home computer.  Neither Google nor Internet Exlorer existed.  DVDs hadn’t been invented.  Very few people had cell phones and those that did looked like this:

 

I’d just graduated high school and enrolled for my first semester at Santa Rosa Junior College.  I wanted to become a journalist, so one of the first classes I took was Electronic Journalism.  I had no idea what the course was about, but I figured it had Journalism in the name so I’d give it a shot.

The class ended up having nothing to do with Journalism.  It was actually a computer course about creating web pages in a language called HTML.  I felt duped.  I didn’t even own a computer and neither did most of my friends.  What was the point of learning this odd new language?  How would it help me get my writing published?

At that time no one knew what the internet was.  Yahoo hadn’t gone public yet.  The only web browser was the beta version of Netscape.  Words like dot com were only known to a select few computer geeks, and the few who did get online did so with a slower than molasses 56k modem.  DSL and cable modems didn’t exist.

By the end of my first day of class I no longer considered Electronic Journalism a waste of time.  Quite the opposite, my attitude did a complete 180.  I realized that the world wide web was going to change everything.  I saw the potential of what the web would become, and I wanted to be on the cutting edge of that digital wave.  The information age had begun.

I was so excited I changed my major from journalism to computer science.  Before long I lucked into a job at a company called Advanced Fibre Communications where I had my first taste of professional programming.

I loved it.  I regularly worked over 80 hours a week, often with no weekend. I didn’t care.  Writing code got into my blood, and I couldn’t get enough of it.  Over the next six months I wrote a variety of programs using something called Visual Foxpro (kudos if you remember it).

Unfortunately my stint at AFC only lasted six months.  The company decided to implement a rival technology called SAP and my entire department was let go.  Since I didn’t have a degree getting another programming job was out of the question, but I didn’t give up.  I decided to go back to school.

I took a part time job working at a local computer store to help pay the bills.  The job was an important step, because it taught me a whole new set of skills.  I learned to build and repair computers, set up networks and most importantly troubleshoot computer problems.

Within a year I became the head technician.  A year after that I was running the store.  I went from knowing nothing about computers to building them from scratch in my sleep.  I learned the ins and outs of running a small business, but the more time passed the less profitable the computer store became.  Worse, it consumed enough of my time that I dropped out of college.

Through it all I was left with the nagging feeling that I was missing out on the world wide web.  I kept thinking that there was some way I could tap into it to make my fortune, but I was too busy dealing with a rocky marriage and paying my rent to give the matter much thought.

Eventually I decided to leave the store and  took a job as a database coordinator for the telecom division of Nokia.  Within a year I became the youngest software engineer on their payroll.  I didn’t have a degree, but they were desperate for engineers and I was an exceptionally fast learner. 

The next twelve months were the most fun I have ever had professionally.  Management brought me a broad array of problems, and I was allowed to solve them however I wished.  I loved coming up with creative solutions and thrived on the challenges I was presented. 

Unfortunately it didn’t last.  I was doing a great job, but the telecom division was losing money at a record rate.  Nokia decided to close the plant I worked at, instead outsourcing our jobs to Taiwan.  My coworkers and I became a victims of the dot com crash, and we weren’t alone. 

Over six hundred thousand engineers were suddenly without a job, and I spent the next ten months in a fruitless search for work.  I applied for everything from bench tech to network security to junior programmer.  My resume was chock full of relevant experience, but there just weren’t any jobs to be had.

So I packed my bags and moved to Los Angeles.  The market wasn’t any better down there, and when I didn’t find a job in the IT field I took a temp position in the mortgage industry.  Within a month they promoted me to funding assistant.  Then funder.  Then I took over the lock desk.  Then I started drawing docs.

Somewhere along the way I took over the entire IT department.  I created the website, fixed the computers, set up our eFax, ran the network, set up the linux server and did everything else a small company demands of a computer guy.

I worked there for six years and used my command of technology to help fund forty million dollars in loans every month.  I worked 60+ hours most weeks, but I made money like it was going out of style.  The problem was that while I loved the computer work I hated the mortgage industry.  I also hated Los Angeles.  So in 2007 I decided to move home to Santa Rosa.

I spent a few months looking for a job, but unfortunately there wasn’t much in the way of tech support, networking or programming.  In the end I took a job in a call center at Redwood Credit Union (an amazing company to work for).  Last December I transferred to a new department with an accompanying pay raise and love my new postion.

The thing is I miss programming.  I miss creating software from nothing but raw ideas and the power of my imagination.  I get some of that fix from my writing, but I still get the itch to code.  

Which brings us to today.

I haven’t done much programming in the last three years.  Sure, there have been a few side projects but nothing steady.  I desperately miss programming, so what can I do?  The answer struck me like a bolt of lightning.

Stop trying to find a programming job and start working for myself.  Why not write my own software?

In 2008 I bought an iPhone.  I was fascinated with the sheer number of apps you can download.  Some are free, some have a small cost.  As soon as I saw them a lightbulb went on.  Why not write my own applications?

I did some research, but unfortunately Apple requires you to develop using a Mac.  I’ve always been a PC user, so I would need to shell out nearly a thousand dollars to buy the computer, and another hundred to enroll in their developer program.  I refused to drop that kind of money, because I worried that I might not see a return on my investment. 

What if I couldn’t come up with any good ideas for an app?  What if I was lazy and didn’t spend the time learning the Objective C language after I dropped the money?  I fell prey to my own fears and shelved the idea.

Since then three things have changed.  The first is my writing.  Since February of 2009 I have belted out an average of two thousand words every day.  This has helped me cultivate a newfound discipline and I asked myself a very serious question.  Could I harness this discipline for other parts of my life?

The second change came when I answered that question in January.  I decided I was going to start working out and applied the same discipline that I’d learned from writing.  I was apprehensive at first, but seven months later I’ve gone to the gym almost every day.  I’m stronger, in better shape and feel like a completely different person.

More importantly I’ve proven to myself that I can apply discipline to other parts of my life in order to build habits that will allow me to accomplish serious goals.  It’s filled me with a confidence I’ve found lacking in recent years, and its got me asking myself what else I can accomplish.   

That question was answered last month when a friend brought his iPad over.  When I’d first heard about it I dismissed it as an overpriced toy destined to fail.  Then I spent ten minutes using it.  The experience took me all the way back to 1994 when I first discovered the World Wide Web.  I knew immediately that the iPad was going to change everything in the same way the web did.

My prediction?  Tablet computers like the iPad will replace both desktops and laptops in the next ten years.  I realize that’s a bold claim, but hear me out.

They are smaller, lighter, more portable, and more aesthetically pleasing than a laptop.  They allow you to do everything from surfing the internet to reading books to writing a term paper to watching netflix.  It can hold your entire music collection, picture collection and your entire library of books with room left over.  It can even be set up on your desk like a picture frame so it can cycle through your photos like a slide show.

I just took mine to Yosemite and used it for everything from navigation (driving directions) to working on my novel while watching the sun set.  I use it at work during meetings to take notes and have even set it up to deliver presentations using Powerpoint.

I believe the tablet PC is the next logical step in the evolution of computers.  It’s going to replace traditional laptops and PCs the way DVDs replaced VHS.  The same way Smartphones are replacing the traditional cell phones.

We are standing on the verge of a massive change in personal computing that will rival the advent of the world wide web itself.  In the next decade you will see more and more people adopt this technology.  Already universities are brainstorming ways to work tablets into their curriculums.

The hardware will only get cheaper, and when it does more and more people will buy them.  The iPad looks amazing, but few people are willing to drop $500+ for one.  What if you could get one for $35?  Tens of millions will purchase them as the price drops, creating an ever larger pool of people willing to buy software.

So what does this have to do with me getting back into programming?  There are fifty million iPhone users.  There are nine million iPad users, with a million more being added every month.  There would be even more, but that’s as fast as Apple can make iPads.

I can write applications for both using the same language, which gives me access to nearly sixty million users.  Tablet technology is still in its infancy, so there will never be a better time for me to start making apps.

This has the potential to be extraordinarily profitable.  How profitable?  If you charged $.99 cents for an app and .01% of iPhone/iPad users decided to buy it you’d make $60,000 in raw revenue.  If a full 1% liked your app you’d gross $600,000.  Those numbers are  theoretical of course, but not as much as you might think.  One of the engineers I worked with at Nokia got into iPhone programming in 2008.  A game he made grossed over $50,000 in the first year.

Am I expecting similar success?  Not even close.  It might happen, but its more likely that I’ll see much smaller returns since my first app targets a limited audience.  Still, even a couple hundred dollars every month is more than I have right now.

Once I made the decision to become an iPhone developer I spent a few days brainstorming.  Three potential apps took shape, and one is simple enough to finish by the end of the summer.  I decided to work on that one first, but before I began I thought it was a good idea to see if there was any existing competition.  To my surprise their isnt!  My app will be the first of its kind to market.

Now that I had my idea I needed an iPad, a Macbook, a website and an Apple Developer membership.  Add in an advertising budget and I realized I was looking at a $3,000 investment.  That’s quite a chunk of change to spend on the chance that an iPhone application I haven’t even written yet will take off. 

Bear in mind that I have always been a conservative pragmatist.  I’ve never spent so much as a dollar in a casino, because I don’t like the odds.  I don’t take chances unless I am pretty damn sure I will see a return on my investment.  Polite people call me frugal.  Not so polite people call me miserly.

So you can understand how hard investing $3,000 is for me.  But you know what?  I decided to bite the bullet and do it anyway.  My rationale went something like this.

When the world wide web hit in the mid 90s I wasn’t in a position to ride the wave like so many of my older friends.  I was young, untrained and had no capital. I didn’t know squat about advertising or marketing.  I couldn’t even afford to buy myself a computer, much less get a business up and running. 

I knew how big the web would be.  I told anyone and everyone who’d listen.  Fortunes were going to be made.  Yet I was powerless to claim a piece of it.  Instead I watched as people I knew got rich.  I saw first Yahoo, then Google become the powerhouses they are today.

Don’t get me wrong I learned some very necessary skills during that time.  Today you’d be hard pressed to find someone more versatile or knowledgable about computers than I am.  I can program, do tech work, web design, database creation, build and repair computers, set up networks…you get the picture.

Still, I’m left with this hollow feeling.  I missed a golden opportunity to ride the digital wave to fame and riches, and that’s haunted me ever since.  It was a once in a lifetime chance, or so I thought.  Now I am not so sure.  I believe I have a second chance and I plan to capitalize on it.

When I was 18 I lacked the drive and discipline to start my own company and make it profitable.  Today I have both.  I can do this.  I will do this.  I have invested nearly $2,000 in hardware and software.  I have looked into advertising, marketing and establishing a killer website.  I have written my first test application.  It’s on my iPhone even as we speak.

In another month I plan to have a beta version of my first iPhone / iPad application ready to go.  I’ll also have another blog post up in the next week or two detailing my progress and marketing strategy.  Wish me luck!

How many people do you know that are currently unemployed?  I have two family members and a double handful of friends that have been unable to find work no matter how long they’ve searched.  Some have been looking for as long as two years.  One has given up entirely.

The economy lost 11,000 jobs a day since December of 2007.  Over eight million jobs simply disappeared, leaving people scrambling to find work.   Many people are asking when the economy will improve.  They want to know when the jobs will be coming back.  The answer is grim.  They aren’t.  The old industries and ways of doing business are dying, and many of us will need to retrain for different fields if we want to find work.

There are many factors preventing the revival of existing industries.  When taken together they paint a very disturbing picture about the future of the American economy.

Trade Imbalance

As you can see from this chart the US hit its peak as an exporting nation in 1970.  Until that time we sold more goods to the world than we bought, and we invested the difference.  Our nation was the richest in the world because we out produced everyone else.

We invented cars, radios, televisions, planes and home computers.  The world clamored for these inventions and we got rich meeting the demand.

1971 was the first year that this changed.  Foreign companies took our inventions and created cheaper, more efficient versions.  Suddenly we were importing more than we exported, and the imbalance increased year after year.  Why buy a Ford pickup when you could get a Toyota for 70% of the price?  Why buy an American television when you could get a Sony cheaper?

U.S. companies scrambled to find a way to become more competitive.  They knew that they needed to reduce costs if they wanted any hope of competing with their foreign rivals.  Unfortunately this was no easy task.  Foreign based corporations had cheaper labor, cheaper material cost and cheaper development cost simply because their countries had less wealth.

As a result American companies began going out of business at an alarming rate.  Over the last forty years we transformed from a manufacturing economy to a FIRE economy.  Steel Mills, auto plants, canning companies and many other businesses folded as they were undercut by cheaper foreign competition.

In their place came Finance, Insurance and Real Estate companies.  This transformation has so overwhelmed our economy that every one of you knows several people who work in one of the FIRE industries.  I’m living proof.  I currently work for a credit union, and before that I worked for a mortgage bank.

Why is this a bad thing?  None of those companies produce anything.  They make their money on the backs of the manufacturing economy.  Remove that manufacturing and eventually the FIRE industries go out of business.  An economy needs goods to survive, and we’ve lost the ability to produce our own.

In 2009 we imported 380 billion dollars more than we exported.  From blenders to TVs to washers to cars we’re buying from other countries instead of manufacturing ourselves.  That simply isn’t sustainable in the long term. 

The less we produce the less the dollar is worth, and eventually the world will stop taking worthless pieces of paper in exchange for their goods.  Traditionally the dollar was backed by gold and silver, but when it was decoupled in 1979 our currency was no longer based on anything.

In theory its value comes from the manufacturing power of what was once the most powerful nation on earth.  However, that power fades every year thus weakening the once mighty dollar.

Outsourcing

Most of us are painfully aware of jobs being outsourced.  From the auto industry to toys to engineering our jobs have been shipped overseas at an ever increasing rate.  When did this begin?  Why did it happen?

U.S. corporations have long searched for a way to remain competitive in our new global economy.  The best way to do this is cutting costs, and one of the largest expenses most companies face is labor.  If you have to pay someone $45 an hour, pay for pensions and pay benefits as U.S. automakers do how are you going to compete with a company that pays $7 an hour with no benefits?  It can’t be done.

That leaves a CEO in a difficult position.  Either you move your manufacturing overseas and pay that same $7 or you get undercut by your competition who does.  The long term effect of this outsourcing has been devestating.

Fifty years ago one third of U.S. jobs were in manufacturing.  Today that number has dropped to less than 10%.  In the last decade alone two million manufacturing jobs have moved overseas.  This means that today four fifths of our 131 million person work force is in service based industries.  Which brings us too…

Automation

How many of you have used the Redbox DVD service located in most grocery stores?  It’s a pretty cool little setup.  You browse a computer terminal, select the movie you want and pay a buck a day to rent it.  You don’t generally have to wait in line, and the service is far cheaper than going to a video store.  The service has exploded in popularity, but unfortunately it has created a grim side effect.

Do you remember when there was a Blockbuster on every corner?  Those days are gone.  Blockbuster has closed over 40% of their stores and has lost billions in the last few years due to the rise of Netflix and Redbox.  Thousands of employees were laid off, and you can bet that number will increase as Blockbuster rolls out new Redbox like kiosks.

How many of you have used the automated checkouts now located in Walmart or your local grocery store?  They sure are convenient, but they also reduce the need for both checkers and baggers.  Technology is destroying service jobs at an alarming rate, and the people it displaces lack the job skills to seek other employment.

This sort of automation has also been embraced by manufacturing.  Robotic components are replacing many jobs that have traditionally done by humans.  The more this happens the more people are forced to search for work elsewhere.

If you lose a service based job your only hope is retraining for another industry, but competition for those jobs is already fierce.  Even if you make it back to school and come out with say an accounting degree you are fighting against a sea of accountants with job experience for the few open positions.

An Ever Increasing Labor Pool

Millions of immigrants and high school / college graduates enter the work force every year.  So many that we need to add 150,000 jobs every month just to meet population growth.  Yet that work force is already saturated by the unemployed who have been seeking work for months or even years.

Worse, our graduates are some of the worst educated in the world.  They aren’t graduating with the skills necessary to find employment.  They are being trained for jobs that no longer exist.  Even engineers and programmers can’t find jobs after graduation, because those jobs have moved overseas. 

Most of these graduates are saddled with enormous debt ranging from $20,000 to over $100,000.  How will they pay that back with no job?  It’s a bleak situation and one has to ask.  Who is benefitting from all of this?

The Top 1%

The wealthiest 1% of U.S. citizens control a staggering 42% of our wealth.  Contrast that to the bottom 80%, which controls just 7%.  The numbers haven’t been this skewed since the Great Depression.  Coincidence?  Or course not.

No economy can function when the bulk of the wealth is in the hands of so few.  A healthy economy is one that distributes the wealth across a much broader spectrum, as was the case in the United States in the 50s and 60s.  Back then the wealthiest 1% controlled just 8% of our collective wealth.  Their share of our economy has increased by 500% in just under 50 years.

Since they have the vast majority of the money it means the bottom 80% don’t have the capital necessary to create new businesses, the lifeblood of our economy.  That makes creating new jobs extraordinarily difficult, and puts the average citizen at the mercy of large corporations who have no sympathy for their plight.

Quite simply they are siphoning the wealth from the middle class and casting the vast majority of americans into perpetual debt slavery.  Our livelihoods are disappearing to line the pockets of the mega-rich who have a stranglehood on our politicians.

Nor is this the first time it’s happened.  The same rampant greed crippled the U.S. in the 1920s, and led to the Great Depression.  It took fifteen years and World War II to pull us out of the economic collapse wrought by the richest men in the country.

Is it any wonder that we’ve lost over eight million jobs in the last three years?  That figure doesn’t even include all the self-employed people whose small businesses folded.  Many estimates suggest that the number of jobs lost is over ten million when you take those small business owners into account.

The official unemployment statistic is 9.5%, but that’s a completely bullshit number.  It doesn’t include anyone who was self employed, or anyone whose unemployment benefits have run out.  The Senate’s failure to pass the latest unemployment extension removed 1.2 million from the official statistics, which makes the ‘official’ unemployment lower.  How much sense does that make?

The real unemployement number is closer to 16%.  Some estimates place it as high as 20%.  This is easily verifiable.  Of the people you know who are old enough to work how many are unemployed?  There’s a pretty good chance that one in five of your friends is out of a job.

Nor will this trend reverse itself anytime soon.  Our trade imbalance prevents manufacturing from returning.  Our service jobs are being gutted by automation.  The flow of jobs being outsourced hasn’t slowed.  Our education is the worst among the developed nations of the world.

The ugly reality is that most U.S. jobs are not coming back.  If we want to compete again we need to deal with these problems, or our future is looking pretty grim.  We need education reform.  We need to develop new manufacturing industries.  We need to stop the outsourcing of our jobs.  We need to halt the flow of illegal immigration.

If we can’t accomplish these things expect to see our standard of living continue to deteriorate.

Not all bad news

If all of this sounds like gloom and doom there is a silver lining.  As our standard of living drops and the value of the dollar decreases it makes us more competitive globally.  Eventually it will be cheaper to manufacture goods here than it is in China or India, and when that happens expect to see a return of at least some of our manufacturing jobs.

Also, even if 20% of our work force is unemployed that means that 80% is employed.  The bottom won’t fall out of our economy tomorrow, but we will see a slow decline no matter what we do.  You know what?  That’s ok.

Americans have lived beyond their means for so long that we forgot what being frugal meant.  We are going to have to return to the core economic principles that catapulted our country to greatness, and when we do we’ll begin the long climb back to prosperity.

The next two decades will be difficult, but it will also return our nation to the work ethic and drive that made us the wealthiest in the world.

Goal #1- Lose 50 Pounds

I’ve been working hard all year to lose weight.  Believe me when I say it’s been a constant battle, one that I have nearly given up more than once.  Despite the pitfalls along the way I stuck with it and now that I’m halfway through the year I’m glad I did.  As of this morning I am down 13.8 pounds since January 1st and 17.2 pounds since my peak in March.

I was originally shooting for 25 pounds by now, which means I am a little over half way to the goal I set for today.  On the one hand it means that I failed my stated goal, but that’s viewing things from a glass half empty mentality.  I lost 13 pounds.  If I double that in the second half of the year I’ll still have lost 26 pounds, and while that might not be where I want to end up it is most definitely progress.

It’s important to remember that the year isn’t over either.  If I am more diligent in the next six months I could easily lose 20 pounds or more.  I might even hit my goal of 50 this year.

I believe that’s possible.  From January through April my weight see-sawed back and forth, hitting its peak in mid-april at 241.  That means since April 15th I’ve lost 17.2 pounds.  That’s 1.72lbs a week.  There are 26 weeks left in the year.  That means at this rate I could lose another 40lbs.

Will I?  Probably not.  There will be plateaus, but as Bruce Lee once said, “There are no limits.  Only plateaus and you must get past them.”  I can and will continue to make progress, and if I am diligent I will hit my weight loss goals for the year.

Goal # 2- Get in good enough shape to go rock climbing

You know it occurs to me that I have no idea how good of shape I need to be in to go rock climbing, which makes this goal very difficult to measure.  What I can measure is how good of shape I am to go hiking.

When I began in January I found simple hikes very challenging.  The east trail in Armstrong Woods was a serious endeavor, and the first summit on Sugarloaf Mountain left my legs shaking and my breathing labored.  At the end of the first quarter I’d completed much more challenging hikes, but it still took a supreme effort to get to the top.

Now hikes that nearly killed me are literally a walk in the park.  I can climb the entire first summit of Sugarloaf at a brisk walk without pausing even once.  A ten mile hike is a fun excursion instead of a grueling personal challenge.  I feel like a completely different person.

I know what sort of shape I was in when I played paintball before.  It was good, but I am in far better shape today.  I can exert myself continuously for an hour with ease, which is perfect to get out there and play.  I’ve lost enough weight to fit into my old gear too.  Which leads me too…

Goal #3- Get back into paintball

On the one hand this goal could be considered a complete failure as I haven’t actually gone out and played.  On the other I have been working incredibly hard to get in shape and I’ve dug out all my old paintball gear.  Today is July 1st.  I need to stop making excuses and just go play.  Making this weekend is a good time?

Goal # 4- Finish and submit The Bond of Jhordil

This goal hasn’t gone so well.  I’ve spent the last three months brainstorming, writing treatments, writing character backgrounds and re-writing the first few chapters.  The end result?  I haven’t finished very much fiction at all.  Initially this was all part of the plan, but I’m starting to worry.  How long do I linger in the planning stage?  When do I get back to actually writing fiction?

I think its time.  Starting today no more planning, no more plotting.  I start belting out fiction again and try to get an entire manuscript completed before the start of the 3rd quarter.  If I don’t I’ll never have enough time to edit it before the end of the year.

Goal #5- Finish and submit 12 short stories

I’ve totally dropped the ball on this one.  I’ve only worked on one short story since March, and its only half finished.  Unforunately I’ve begun work on other goals and this one is suffering for it.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to get everything done that I wanted to when I set these goals in January and this is an acceptable casualty.

I’m still hoping to get more short stories done, but if I don’t hit 12 I’m not overly concerned.  Creating iPhone apps and getting the Evil GM Book ready is more important.  More on that in the refocusing section.

Goal #6 Learn how to use my expensive new camera

This one is definitely a win.  I’ve used my Rebel to take over 4,000 pictures since January, and there’s no teacher like direct experience.  I’ve learned about lighting, angles and a whole host of other basics.  I still have a ton to learn, but I use the camera FAR more than I ever would have imagined when I bought it.

It’s nice having a nice camera wherever I go.  You can really capture some amazing moments!  Most recently I photographed a rattlesnake I ran into up on Sugarloaf mountain.  Damn I love that camera.

Goal #7 Visit Yosemite  

This goal is about to be realized and I’m very, very excited about it.  As a birthday surprise Amelia booked a bed and breakfast outside the valley.  We’re taking a four day trip to explore as much of Yosemite as we can see.  I can’t wait!  Another goal realized =)

Expect tons of pictures!

Goal # 8- Find a gamer chica who makes my heart sing

Amelia isn’t much of a gamer, but she is definitely a chica who makes my heart sing.  We’ve been together for five months, and every day seems better than the last.  Another goal realized!

Goal # 9- Add $200 a month to savings

This goal is utter failure incarnate.  I have blown far more money this year than I ever expected.  My savings are gone and for the first time in a couple of years I have some credit card debt.  As a result I’ve started a much more restrictive budget and have gotten a lot more frugal.  More on this in the refocusing section.

Goal # 10- Pay my car under $3000

Err, well technically I succeeded at this goal.  The loan is paid under $3000.  In fact it’s paid off.  Unfortunately it was replaced with a much larger loan for my truck Kermit.  How much larger?  I owe $22,000 at 3.69% interest, so about $25,000 with interest factored in.

Yikes, you’re probably saying.  I know I did when I first considered buying the new truck.  But then I did some really serious thinking, and realized that it was a very good idea for me to take on massive debt.  That’s crazy talk, right?  Not at all.

You see the US dollar is about to undergo some major devaluation, what the average person calls inflation.  We’ve printed trillions upon trillions of dollars, and what’s more as of yesterday even the U.N. is clamoring to move away from the dollar as the world reserve currency.

What this means is that in a very short time the dollar won’t be worth squat globally.  For example let’s take my truck, which is manufactured by a Japanese company.  They sell it for $22k based on the current value of the dollar versus the value of their own currency, the yen.  If the value of the dollar drops by 20% then they need to raise the price of that truck by 20% to compensate, which would go up to $26,400. 

If I saved up the money and bought the truck in five years the money I saved would lose a lot of value along the way.  The average rate of inflation is way higher than the 3.69% interest I’m paying, so I’m net saving money in the long run.  I understand that this sounds like rationalization to blow money, and in a way it is.  But it is also the truth.  If you have money in savings it is losing value.  The interest you are being paid to keep it in the bank is not nearly as great as the rate of inflation.

So if you have good credit, need or want a new vehicle and are in a position to buy now is a great time.  In my case I wanted a truck I could have for 10 years or more.  Toyota pickups from 1980 are still on the road today, and if I take care of mine I could be driving it when I turn fifty.  Even if I don’t it should retain much of its value, which means I have a tangible asset I can sell later if I wish.

I wouldn’t apply this same logic to credit cards by the way.  I have a great rate on mine, 8.99%.  But the rate of inflation is usually under that, which means if I carry a balance I am net losing money.  So recap- car loan good, credit card debt bad.

Goal #11- Be nicer to myself

This is another victory.  I have always been my own worst critic.  In the past I expected everything I do to be perfect, and if I failed even slightly I berated the crap out of myself.

This year I have embraced a different attitude.  I don’t need to be Captain Perfect.  I just need to try.  As long as I am making an effort to achieve my goals its all good.  I don’t need to drop 50 pounds tomorrow, or publish my novel by the end of year.  But I do need to try to do both.  Honestly it feels good.  Like I’ve excorcised the phantom version of my father that follows me around bitching about all the things I’m not good enough at.

I am good enough.  What’s more I’m happy.

Refocusing

This part of my year in review is new.  Setting goals in January was great, but I need to leave myself room to abandon current goals and add new ones.  Much has changed in the last six months, and I want to alter my course accordingly.

New Goal #1- Develop the EvilGM iPhone / iPad application

There are 40 million iPhone users and six million iPad users.  Every month there are more of each.  If you write an application you gain access to that entire market.  I spent some time brainstorming with Jeff and realized that I am sitting on an application that every gamer worth his salt is likely to use.

Assume 50 million total users between iPad / iPhone by the time I make market.  Most people who own one or both are geeks, so I’ll assume one out of a thousand actually plays / played roleplaying games.  If my unscientific guess is even close to right that means there are 50,000 potential clients.  With effective marketing lets say I reach 10% of them.  That’s 5,000 sales.  At $4.99 a pop that’s nearly $25,000. 

I have a feeling I’m lowballing the number of gamers who have an iPhone, and if I make it appealing enough I may be able to target more than 10%.  The key will be advertising, but if I start making money on my app I can afford to advertise with www.rpg.net, Knights of the Dinner Table, Dragon Magazine, Gamegrene and anywhere else I can think of.

This means that if I do it right I could be sitting on a goldmine.  I have some very concrete ideas for the app, all of which appear easy to implement.  There are some things I can’t do myself, but finding a good artist is easy.  Our webmaster at work is good, and there are iPhone forums for development where I can probably meet others.

This project will not be easy or quick.  I need to learn Objective C, which looks easy enough as it’s a C++ derivative.  I will need to pour a ton of hours into development and testing.  I will have to start a new business.  I will need to research advertising.  I will need to register a domain and get an impressive looking website together.  I will have to pay a lot of money for artwork, advertising and other expenses.

In the end it should all be worth it.  If I can pull this off and make even a small profit I’ll have discovered a new revenue stream that will never be obsolete.  If I can develop several related apps and brand them together I can continue to create and tweak tools for gamers on their phones.  If its successful I can even make alternate versions for other phones like the Android.

I know that this is an ambitious project, but its one I am dead set on making a reality.  I can do this.  I have most of the skills already and am very confident I can build the rest.  Hard work and dedication are something I’ve learned a lot of recently, both from writing and from working out.  I just need to keep the same work ethic and keep my eye on the prize.

New Goal #2- Accumlulate wealth

This one goes hand in hand with the previous goal.  I’m old enough that I’m starting to seriously plan for retirement.  I recently wrote a journal entry about it, the gist of which is I want to be financially independent enough to travel.

There are two ways I can do this, both of which work in Tandem.  The first is to increase my revenue.  If I can make money doing things like iPhone apps then I can meet that part of the goal.  Add in things like my Evil GM book, my novel and anything else I can create.  The bottom line is I need a pile of intellectual propery which will continuously generate money.  I won’t go into that in detail here as I have already done so in my journal.

The other part of the equation is living frugally.  It means having a budget and sticking to it.  The good news is that I’ve set one up and am starting to really examine every penny I spend.  This will take diligence, but I believe its worth the effort.

Alright, thus ends the review of the first half of 2010!