New money and a new infatuation

Well, it's been almost a year since I Visual Analytics and I parted company. I've been on my own, living the life of the "Independent Consultant" since April of last year.

In that time I've learned that being self-employed can be painful.

The past few months have been excrutiatingly slow with the coming of the moneys. Things have finally turned around, though.

In the past few months I've also learned to appreciate Maslow and his hierarchy. When I studied him and his little pyramid, it seemed right enough, seemed on-target. However, having lived the past few months worrying tiny little things like how to make car payments, pay rent, keep the lights on and eat, I can tell you with the some authority: Maslow was a freakin' genius!

It's interesting to watch (in retrospect of course -- when you're in the thick of it, it's anything but "interesting") how one devolves into a huddled mass of fear and worry when you're pondering silly little things like how to pay rent, or if anyone will really notice that your telephone won't be working for a few weeks (only three people noticed: Mom, Stacy and Teresa. I guess I don't get many calls on the home number).

Now that, at least for the time being, anyway, invoices are getting paid, and there's actually a revenue stream to work with, my attitude is must marvy. So much better than it was just a week ago. I'm climbing the pyramid again.

They say that money doesn't make you happy. Maybe not, but it sure makes it easier to pay bills!

So, what of this infatuation I mentioned?

I speak of the venerable and yet still shiny and new Apple iMac. VAI has one in their office to test VisuaLinks on (btw, it's not a pretty thing. They have some work to do to get VL to be Mac-friendly). Still, when no one's using it, I've played around with it a bit.

I like it. I may almost like it enough to consider getting one.

It's the new iMac G5, the one that look like it's just a screen. It's fully self-contained, and has no CPU unit attached. It's VERY cool. The grapics are sweet. The performance is good and the user interface is nearly as intuitive as everyone says it is.

I may be getting myself on of these sometime in the future. Just not right now.

The revenue stream isn't quite that healthy just yet.