Home Alone For The Weekend

Yesterday, Shelly left for Cedar Rapids to spend some time with her extended family and attend her cousin's graduation, which leaves just me and the dogs to hold down the fort this weekend.

I'm a Myers-Briggs introvert. Lots of people are surprised by that because I'm loud and enjoy talking. However, much of the reading I've done on the difference is more about whether being with other people recharges or drains you.

I'm married to an extrovert (we balance each other well). When we go out and spend time with 10-12 friends, she comes home energized and talking about it. I need some time alone to recharge.

At any rate, that means that, while I would never volunteer to spend *all* of my time alone, a weekend here and there is just what the doctor ordered. So, it's me, the home theater, the grill and my laptop and maybe a meal with a friend until Sunday night.

I'm working on a CakePHP project that holds some promise as a commercial product/service. It combines 2 of the things I love: writing and technology. It also targets a potentially lucrative target market: retiring baby boomers. It has no real start up costs other than time building the software and writing the content and the results of the service would be a net gain society (do no evil). I really think this could work.

This is not a billion dollar idea or even necessarily a million dollar idea, but then again, a mere extra $215,000 over the next 10 years would pay off my house. An extra $5000 a year would mean a fabulous vacation. An extra $10,000 a year could mean taking a couple of months off.

The last time I took a stab at the product/service market directly, I was too focused on trying to make a $60,000+ living out of the idea. As a result, a product that was making $30,000/year was a "failure". This time around, I'm not going to do that. I *never* want this thing to be my fulltime job. Just think of the difference between winning $10,000 in the lottery this year and making $10,000 this year as your job. One feels like a lot of money, the other is poverty.

I'm holding back the details of the project itself until I'm a little further along, but I'm really excited about this particular project. If you want to know more about it, send me an email or talk to me offline.