April 28, 2006
Coachella Sold Out
So I bought an onsite camping pass and a two day pass to Coachella, but due to recently taking on working with one of the largest websites lack the time to go.
I gave my $200 worth of tickets to a friend. Turns out the concert sold out and the camping pass is going for $200 on eBay while the day 1 ticket is going for $80 and the day 2 ticket is going for over $300.
Had I been more of a ticket scalper type that would have been a killer investment...a 200% return. If you would know that they would sell out buying 4 extra would pay for the cost of your ticket, a hotel room, rental car, and the round trip flight.
The thing is I feel like I am close to doing really well, to getting to a point where I can really start saving cash. I sorta want to move, and I would love to buy my mom a house. I could already put down a solid down payment on one, but want to make at least $10,000 a month outside of client work (which is going exceptionally well right now) or work related to my single most profitable channel (which also is going stupid good).
Right now I could lose my reputation and my most profitable channels and still pay the cost of living with my other stuff easily, but I want to be to a point to where I can hook up my mom and have it so money will never be an issue. It might take another year or two of focus, but being able to be semi retired before the age of 30 when I was suicidally depressed and almost bankrupt at the age of 23 sure has an appealing ring to it.
One of my friends just quit his full time job to become a minion / partner of mine. One of our sites makes about $1 a day per page. If we can scale that out to 500 or 1,000 pages, even if the revenue is cut in half that is still $7,500 to $15,000 a month in revenue off of one channel.
I am hoping to go to Bonnaroo this year still. I should buy a plane ticket quick.
Posted at April 28, 2006 9:02 PMInteresting to pass that up aaron. Surely you could have EASILY went and still kept your client, without falling substantially behind on work!!! Ahhh man. But I wonder though, if u will be able to concentrate for the next 2 days.
This client has a HUGE HUGE HUGE site. Truth be told the job is more information architecture than SEO.
I have a partner on the job, and he probably had put more hours in than I up to this point, so it is only fair that I focused on that project.
Plus I already got the car and plane and tent for Bonnaroo. I think I should only go to like one to two festivals a year to keep it something special.
I also need to get a bit more honest with myself and be a bit more consistant with being good to myself on the physical front. When I don't take care of myself physically it becomes a bit self reinforcing of a self destructive pattern. And then it eats into other aspects of life.
What is interesting is that days which I have a possitive happy attitude it must really show in my writing, because my sales on happy days have generally been about 300% of what they are on days when I am not so happy.
There are fluctuations, and feedback and sales may tie into mood, but I think it is beyond that. Nothing scientific on the testing front, but something I would call more than a hunch.
It's hard though...like I think I actively work so hard to isolate myself, and the web is the one main exit from that, but it is not a real escape though, because the way I have been living is not sustainable. I need to get much more social in the real physical world. Conferences and concerts seem to be the only time I venture into the real world. Have a bunch of fun at both of them, but I need to learn to appreciate the day to day of life much more. What is the point of living if I don't? What is the point of living if I need to feel a bit down, isolated, or depressed most days to truly appreciate really cool stuff?
And, with that in mind, I decided that clearing an item off the now stressing to do list was worth far more to me than a break. Plus if I would have went to Coachella my mind would have been stuck on other things and I couldn't have enjoyed it as much as I should.
Events like that are too cool to go all burned out to. Plus if I go somewhere like that when all burned out you can almost count on me being ultra shady and doing drugs and stuff...and really, like I said above, I need to worry about enjoying life more on a day to day basis before I put too much effort into trying to find ways to escape it. I have had too much luck and too much opportunity thrown my way to think otherwise.
I should enjoy well over 90% of my living moments if I am to try to be in any position to tell others what to do. Far more people listen to me than I think should, so I really need to listen to my body and live more honestly...cut it back a bit on the work front and enjoy the life and opportunity I was lucky enough to be given.
Right on - just finished up a week where I seriously cut back on various projects and did things as simple as taking a walk with my wife each day in the afternoon. Springtime is pretty awesome down here in SC and taking a week to get my priorities straightened out did a tremendous amount of good.
