I am a cog. This is my blog.

My wife has the nice car. I drive an old ‘97 VW Jetta. It’s the Trek model, in red.

I drive it because it’s paid for, is really great on gas, and honestly it’s a lot of fun for a slow car. To boot it’s in great shape.

Now don’t get me wrong the car has it’s idiosyncrasies. One of them is that the “check engine” light likes to come on occasionally after I get gas. This happens, maybe 2-3 times a year and though it’s just some sort of bug it always pushes me into action to have the car checked out. Do I need new tires? How are my brakes? Is the exhaust I installed last year holding out? It’s funny because I take care of the car on a regular basis. The “alert” just keeps me paranoid about keeping the car running well, so it get’s a good once over a couple of times a year.

I wish I had one of these for my career. Actually everyone could use one. A little alert that will let you know when you’re not cutting edge anymore. A little bell that goes off to inform you that you need to step up a bit and sharpen those mad skills you have. A little something to force you to give yourself a once over.

Now you should probably be doing this every day but occasionally one should look around. Check it all out. Make sure your up to speed and up to date. Stuff’s moving fast and so we cogs need to move faster. Find a little time to learn that coding language or software you always wanted to be an expert in. Start that blog (see my first post ), build that app. Do that thing you do. Can you? Will you?

I think it’s good advice but as always, I’m just a cog and this is my blog.�

So I got the blog up and quickly put a new “It’s Broken” message on my site home page. Need to take a break from the personal work and do some of the work I get paid for

The gelato site is moving along nicely and the client has just finalized some minor creative comments but we are good to go there. The pink jewelry site (how I lovingly refer to it) is far more technical and our developer resources are spread a little thin on that, but those guys (Joe, Elad, Timko and Oleg) will pull it off. As work goes live I’ll be posting about it here on the cog blog.

I did mention in my last post that I would speak more about Flash and the City and about my role at that conference. I will be giving a preso on inspiration and creativity and damn if I’m not nervous as hell. I’ll be in company with brilliant cogs like Grant Skinner and Lee Brimelow who are really smart and capable. Yes, I know, I bring a very different set of skills to the table, but all in all, I’m pretty impressed with these guys. My preso will most likely be a bit off color and slightly manic and I am definitely not opening up any terminal screens! In the end I hope the visions of my performance actually manifest themselves into a really fun and interesting live  performance. In addition to showing some of my “inspirational secrets” I’m also going to go over the AIR app that Elad and I have built (he built it, I just drew it) as an example of how something cool can come to life. Make sure you get your tickets. I think there are only 30 left.

And remember, I am a cog. This is my blog.

That’s where the meat of it all lies. Right in the middle. The beginning is great and gets a lot of attention, but really has nothing to it once it’s over and the end is always so far away. It’s the middle where we dwell mostly. Or at least I do. And so does this blog. The beginning ended quickly. Right after I found out the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org and that the one I was doing wasn’t the one I wanted. That brought me right to the middle. The beginning of the middle, mind you, because the middle of the middle is a whole different ball game. I can just imagine what that will be like.

Anyway I got all that sorted out since this morning and the middle finds me ever extending my knowledge of the CSS on the site. And I am learning about widgets. And PHP. Holy crap a lot of PHP.  That’s good stuff for a cog to know these days. Special thanks to Hafiz Rahman who started me out with the “Our Rights” WordPress template which I have hacked around in. Also I am learning about promotion. And subscription. And many other things which will allow me to tweak this blog to my liking and have you find it and read it.

As I said the end is far away and I will continue to speak about the middle along with a few choice other tidbits I may happen to mention. Like Flash and the City.

I’m just a cog. This is my blog.

Whew. So this is it. I did it. I put up the blog. Finally.

It wasn’t easy and it’s not quite yet where I want it to be, but it will be in time. The technical part is not bad at all, and while I still iron out the kinks in the custom CSS design I’m leaning heavily on a template architecture but I’ll get the look I’m going for – eventually.

Where it was difficult for me was in the actual doing.  I spent more time worrying about how I was going to set it up, about what I was going to say and about how it was going to look, then I did actually working on doing any of those things. The energy wasted on the worry could have powered 20 blogs. I know a lot of other cogs let those things become barriers like I did. Don’t. Just do it. It took me forever but it’s here now and I have my forum and now I can preach to my minions. I’m not expecting thousands or even dozens (hopefully a dozen, that would be cool) but those who do come will know that I am just like them.

One of the cogs.

I too, am one of many trying to make my way in a world that gets bigger and smaller at the same time. I too am an individual in a sea of individuals but amidst many I will try and stand out. I will observe our world (or the tiny part I occupy) and I will document my view from the tooth. This will be my subject matter. This will be my story!  Starting first thing tomorrow. Right now I feel a need to play some Toy Soldiers on XBLA. After all, I’m just a cog. This is my blog.