Personal Blog of Mike Bowden

 Well as you can see I have gotten my blog back live and operational. It’s been a long time coming and I finally made time to do it.

I’ve never been a big blogger and probably never really will. But I do have things I like to discuss from time to time, so I felt it was time to get my blog back operational, updated and live again. Hopefully everyone can benefit from it and enjoy it.

A lot has changed with me since my last posting here and slowly I’ll update everyone as to what is going on, what I’m currently doing and my new profession as a domainer and web real-estate developer/owner.

I won’t make this a long post, I just wanted to get something out there for all of you to read, if there is anyone out there?

If you’d like me to discuss a specific topic, please let me know. I have plenty of ways of contact, pick the best one for you and let me know what’s on your mind.

Recently I have been extremely swamped with my day job and haven’t had much time to get anything else done that I’d like. I have however started a new schedule that I hope will allow for more “spare” time to work on other passions in life. My current job is one that I’ve recently acquired, I have worked for myself for the past 4 – 5 years and this is the first time I’ve had a “9 – 5″, or more like 10 – 7 in this case. It’s new, it’s different, it’s fun and by all means it’s stressful.

When I say stressful, don’t take it the wrong way. A stressful job to mean just means that it’s real work, that requires real thinking and real effort, if it were any other way, it would be boring. So this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, personally I find it a plus. Currently I’m what you would call “Jack-of-all-trades” at this job, but the technical name for my position would be more along the lines of “VP of Operations” since every aspect of the projects I head, go through me first.

I can’t divulge too much information as to what projects I work on, but there is one that we recently launched that I can speak about and that’s Vino.com. This project has been extremely fun, complex and of course stressful. But all-in-all it was an outstanding experience and I learned a tremendous amount from it. There is still much to do with Vino and it will grow by leaps and bounds over the years. Check it out and if you enjoy wine, sign-up for a membership, I bet you’ll be surprised at the quality of wine you’ll receive.

I have a lot of plans for this blog and I’m still working out the finer details. Stick around for more to come, as there will be more to come! Just not sure when “come” will be or how often that entails. But… it will happen, I think!

I apologize, but anyone that has posted comments in the past few days. Could you please re-post the comments you submitted. Seems that I had Akismet configured incorrectly and have lost a good bit of comments as they were marked as spam.

On another note. Some may have notice some of the changes to the blog. I’m working pretty hard on getting plug-ins installed and configured correctly, as well as other minor tweaks, edits and hacks worked in as well. Blogging has never really been a passion of mine, but I’ve taken a liking to this one. So I’ll be releasing a lot of new posts in the near future.

If anyone has anything they’d like to add, want to see more of or would simply like me to review. Please by all means leave me a comment and I’ll get right on it. I love checking out new things and would love some recommendations on just about anything out there that fits my style. I’m big on productivity and business management. So any blog owners out there that write about those types of topics, please leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to start reading your blog and may even write a review about it. Software developers that want me to check their application out, leave a comment about your application and what it does and I’ll be happy to review it.

I’m open to just about anything, so if I didn’t mention it in this post, by all means suggest it.
photo credit: Lisa Brewster

Finally things are getting back to normal around here. We recently moved into a new house and it has taken longer than we expected to get back up and running full force. We decided it was time to get out of our small apartment, which just seemed to get smaller on a daily basis and move into something that would accommodate us a little better. So we moved a few miles from our apartment, which were roughly 1,200 square-feet to a 3-year-old house in a small neighborhood that is roughly 3,000 square-feet. Oddly enough, our costs didn’t go up they pretty much stayed the same.

We’re happy however, things are coming together in the new house and we’re very excited about it. We’ve decided to allow some family to move in with us to help offset some of the costs and to fill it up a little more. Now it doesn’t feel so lonely here. It seems to be working out great and everyone is happy to be around each other. Co-Living is a new trend these days and we’re happy we decided to give it a try. We’re actually in talks of finishing out the basement, which would free up a couple rooms upstairs being used as offices and having some friends move in as well.

Co-Living isn’t for everyone, so I wouldn’t suggest it for the type of person that loves his or her privacy. I’ve had a lot to deal with since we all moved into together. But over time it gets easier and you learn to coup and work out your problems. It’s best to move in with others that are easy to get along with and aren’t afraid to make compromises, you should be the same way as well. If you’re not this type of person, stay clear of this it will just end up causing problems and you’ll be miserable.

On the business front, things seem to be moving right a long. We’ve landed a couple of jobs since moving into the new house. We’re currently working on a custom application that will run on all three of the major operating systems, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. I can’t divulge any information about the project of course, but I will post here once it has launched. Since I’ll legally be able to talk about it then. If all goes well we’ll be getting a contract with these companies, which will be very nice since we’ll have guaranteed full time work.

Went to Sun Valley Beach last Thursday with my in-laws. Seems it’s my birthday present. I’ll happily accept, I could use a day in the sun and get away from all the hustle and bustle of working for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love working for myself and will most likely never go back to a 9-5 job if can I help it. I’ve been working for myself now for around 3 years and have loved every minute of it. My wife and son seem to enjoy it as well, I think they like being able to come see me anytime they’d like to.

Any ways, keep any eye out. I’ll be posting more now that everything has settled down and I’ve got more time to get things completed.

Aren’t translators fun. *looks up*

Welcome everyone to my personal blog. No I do not speak any other languages besides English, yet. Just thought I’d do something a little different.

This blog is basically a dumping ground for me. Anything that I want to say, rant or just get out will go here, as long as it doesn’t fit elsewhere. Anyone is welcome to contact me or post comments, say what you will, I could care less. Just have fun, that’s all I ask.