Creative at Home

A few years ago, before I decided it was necessary to return to school, I was spending a lot of my time doing woodwork for my home. Its really another extension of my creative nature, but I have always enjoyed trying new or more challenging things. In this case it became a necessity because of the expense involved in owning an old house. More on that another time.

My wife needed a nice cabinet for our dinning room. The image at left is the result. It is based on an early project done on the program "The New Yankee Workshop". I am still trying to master a number of wood working skills, but I am at the moment facing other priorities. I believe I can develop my skills further than where I am now.

For the moment though my main priority is to learn more about web technology, especially understanding blogs and related technology, and how they might aid me in marketing my freelance business and have fun in the process.

Class Activity Tonight
We had a guest speaker tonight, Jami, a fellow member of last semesters classes, who is an experienced blogger. An English major, she has moved into web design now, and has a wide range to talents. One of the things I was impressed with was that she started blogging while in the military, and her subject matter was what she was most familiar with at the time, the military. It made me recall the comments of a Marketing/Salesmanship instructor I had in college many years ago. He said that "successful salespeople are those who really know and believe in their product". This holds true for artists, designers, and writers. Whatever the subject matter of a blog, the author must have a passion for and believe in the subject he or she has picked as the focus of their blog if it is to be successful. Otherwise it is just a shell, and thin at best.

I also liked Jami's opening comments in her talk.  She presented classic comments and quotes from clients from hell.  Regardless of how sophisticated our technology might be, some client comments always seem the same.