Dan Bailey | interactive marketer, geek, cyclist, writer, etc.Dan Bailey | interactive marketer, geek, cyclist, writer, etc.

February 24, 2014 • Life • 127

Reading, 2014

As you may know, from following me on here, I read a lot, and normally I keep track of things pretty closely — titles, word counts, completion dates, etc. Last year, I was off-track and didn’t follow my progress too closely. I wound up reconstructing much of 2013 from memory. This year, I’ve started using Goodreads again (me), and have been keeping a close view on what I’ve been reading.

I know that in 2012 and 2013, I read a ton of science fiction, to the exclusion of almost everything else. With an on-the-fly list that I can easily check (Goodreads), I’m keeping more of a balance this year, and I’m on-pace to hit my goal of 50 books.

Obstacles

So making the goal of 50 books this year has three major obstacles. First, I’ll have the usual family/job responsibilities, like you’d expect. Second, I have the custom bicycle business. Lastly, I have the thing where I’m writing again on a regular basis — content creation versus content consumption.

The good news is, I’m dead on schedule for completing the goal. The year is roughly 15% over, and I’m 16% of the way to goal. Can’t argue with that.

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February 22, 2014 • Life, Writing • 118

Wild Times

I’ve been pretty remiss in updating this blog lately, and I’m sure that all two of my readers are highly disappointed by the lack of tripe multiple times per week. So, yeah, sorry about that. Things have been more than a little bit crazy around here. The kids are well, and healthy. The job hunt continues, with a few promising interviews having gone down in the past week. Bicycling–building and riding–has stalled with the shitty weather. I’ve been doing some writing, some of which I hope to get self-published on Amazon in the coming months. The big news is:
Continue Reading

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January 27, 2014 • Life • 130

Personal Update

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog, hasn’t it? Sure has. I haven’t forgotten about it. I have been hard at work with job hunting and managing the interaction between the new kid, Sam (pictured above), and Eddy, the toddler, who is finally accepting that he has a younger brother.

The Job Hunt

Obviously, it’s still ongoing. Things slowed down around the holidays, as people weren’t in the office. It’s full swing again, and I’m plowing ahead with putting apps in all over the country (and even outside the country). Today, I’m going to sit down and re-do my résumé, gunning for a shorter, more succinct document. The goal for today is ten applications out with the new doc, and do some more work on sharpening my coding skills (not necessary for the line of work I’m after, but useful).

The Bike

I’m sending my postcard today for the Almanzo 100, a hundred-mile all-gravel road race that takes place on May 17th. I’ve signed up twice before — the first time, I had to abandon due to mechanical mishaps, after about 35 miles of racing. The second time, I didn’t start, as the weather radically differed from the forecast and I was without any warm clothing. This year will be different. Packing everything and the kitchen sink. Even selling my Cervelo P2C in order to cover the costs of building up a new CX frame for myself.

For training, I’m going to move the road bike and stationary trainer into the house today. I’ll be combining a lot of stationary work with a kettlebell, a medicine ball, and some good old-fasioned body weight exercises (push-ups, crunches, squats) in order to get ready for a fairly full season.

My race intentions this year are to do a few road events, possibly try my hand at the velodrome, and then to race a season of cyclocross.

Writing

It’s coming along fairly well. The book on email marketing is coming along quite nicely, and I am hoping to have it wrapped up and published by the end of March. On the fiction side, well, I continue to pick at the science fiction novel like a scab: a little bit here and there off the edges, without actually getting to the meat. What I should do is shelve it until the email book is done.

Conclusion

Things are okay. While my unemployment has run out, we’re still okay financially. We’ve got several months before we have to start sweating horribly. The family’s good, I’m better now than I have been mentally in some time. Life rocks.

What’s new with you?

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December 30, 2013 • Life • 126

What I’ve Learned in 2013

White vinegar does an awesome job of removing surface rust from steel.

In 80′s movies, whenever they have to explain where something is, they’ll say it’s “near the mall.”

People who have multiple kids at home and still manage to find time for themselves are fucking heroic.

It is easier to think when not surrounded by clutter.

A toddler with a new sibling is a great metaphor for a business on the receiving end of their business model being disrupted.

A blog is an insanely great tool for self-reflection.

Job hunting is tedious and annoying until I’m actually in the interview, and then I have a great time of it.

Having the summer off is a wonderful thing — I got to spend a ton of time with my son and ride the hell out of my bike.

I’m ready to get back to work.

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December 16, 2013 • Life • 111

Closing Out 2013

1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?I don’t think there was anything noteworthy this year that was a “first”…
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions and will you make more for next year?I can’t see anywhere that I wrote down resolutions for 2013. I will make a few resolutions for 2014, which I will post here at a later date.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?Kate gave birth to our second child, Sam.
4. Did anyone close to you die?No.
5. What countries did you visit?None.
6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?Steady employment; rewarding work.
7. What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?November 26th, the day Sam was born.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?Shipping a bike to a customer in West Virginia.
9. What was your biggest failure?Losing my job.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?A few colds, broke a toe, etc.
11. What was the best thing you bought?An iPhone 5.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?Nobody that I can think of.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?The NSA.
14. Where did most of your money go?Bills.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?Iron Man 3.
16. What song will always remind you of 2013?“Blurred Lines”
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier
ii. thinner or fatter? thinner
iii. richer or poorer? poorer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?Biking! I did a ton of it this summer, mostly on the mountain bike, and I lost about 15 pounds of beer gut and felt a lot sharper, mentally.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?Lamenting my lack of success in the framebuilding biz. Better to just do it.
20. How did you spend Christmas?With family.
21. Did you fall in love in 2013?I was already in love, duh.
22. What was your favorite TV program?Uh, good question. I don’t know.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?Nope.
24. What was the best book you read?I really enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s David & Goliath.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery of 2013?I don’t know that I had one. This seems to be the year of individual tracks and not full albums.
26. What did you want and get?More time to ride my bike. A full-term pregnancy for Kate.
27. What did you want and not get?A new job.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?Mmm. Hard to say. Nothing that I saw jumped out at me as an exceptional movie.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?I will be 41 (on the 22nd). I have no idea if there’s anything planned. I’m not really worried about it.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?A new job. A winning lottery ticket.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?Casual. Jeans and hoodies.
32. What kept you sane?Riding my bike. Playing with Eddy.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?Nobody.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?The NSA surveillance of American citizens’ communications.
35. Who did you miss?Nobody.
36. Who was the best new person you met?Um. I got nothing here. Sorry.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:I had the “attitude is everything” lesson reinforced.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.I’m a monster, I’m a maven
I know this world is changing
Never gave in, never gave up
I’m the only thing I’m afraid of
– “Amazing”, Kanye West

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November 11, 2013 • Life • 72

101 Things Update

It’s been far too long since I last posted an update on my newest stab at the 101 Things in 1001 Days. Largely, that has been because during my unemployment, my focus with my free time has been largely oriented toward finding a new job. When I haven’t been doing that, I’ve been spending time with my kid or plugging away in the workshop.

Status As of October 31, 2013

Items Accomplished in July through October: 0
Items Underway in November: 3

Total Progress: 7/101 (6.9%)

Days Remaining as of 11/1/13: 686
Tasks Remaining: 94
Days Per Remaining Task: 7.2

Accomplished in the Above Timeframe

Nothing. Nada. Job hunting and spending time with the kid has taken priority.

In-Progress

3. Build personal cyclocross frame
Underway! I’ve figured out a blueprint and a paint scheme. I’ll be running a photo update series over at Flickr as things progress.
45. Try 10 new (to me) restaurants (7/10)
Went to Quang. Good food. Spicy!
74. Identify 10 constellations (1/10)
Added the Winter Triangle.

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October 30, 2013 • E-Marketing, Writing • 232

Book Progress

So the book on email marketing is coming along. I’ve been writing snippets where I can, and haven’t been as concerned with structure. Using FreeMind, an open source mind-mapping tool, I’ve managed to hash out what I want to cover in the book. Scrivener is an amazing tool, and I’ve been hammering through various sections as the mood strikes me. I’ll use Scrivener’s tools to get everything into a readable structure.

I wanted to do NaNoWriMo this year, but with my focus on the email marketing book, I’m of a mindset of putting it off until 2014. I had planned on using it as a springboard for the fiction work I’ve been pecking away at, but I don’t think that’s a fair amount of attention to give it. To successfully complete NaNo requires 50,000 words, and really the novel is going to be something on the order of 120,000 to 140,000 words. And NaNo requires 1666 words per day to actually successfully complete it…not a daunting task, but when everything else is considered, it’s actually a pretty hefty undertaking.

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October 22, 2013 • E-Marketing, Writing • 70

Writing the Book

For about four years, I was the go-to guy for email marketing knowledge inside a Fortune 100 company, and it was a role I enjoyed a great deal. During my stint, I was tasked with supporting nearly all of the U.S. divisions of the company in a role that started as part of a team and gradually diminished to just me. To use an over-tired cliché to describe the knowledge acquisition, it was “like drinking from a fire hose.”

That knowledge has stayed with me, and in the past week, I started doing something with it. I’ve been writing a book on email marketing — it’ll end up covering a pretty wide swath of the domain, and I am going to try to touch on every point I possibly can. Given that I won’t need to do a ton of research, and I won’t need to deal with creativity issues, I figure I should have a rough draft done in 3-4 weeks’ time.

As for publication, I plan to release it for the Amazon Kindle and Apple’s iBooks, at a reasonable price point — much less than you’d pay for something similar from a major publisher, yet priced so that after Amazon and Apple take their cuts, I’m in a position to actually make a little money out of the deal.

If there’s any topics you’d like to see covered in the manuscript, now’s your chance to chime in. Comment below, or contact me via email.

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October 20, 2013 • Life • 63

Thursday Rocked
Did a bunch of stuff on Thursday before the weekend in northern Minnesota. Above is a picture from the time in the workshop, where I was checking the angle on the miter.

Before Noon:
- woke up, had caffeine and Excedrin
- wrote two blog posts for Pallas Athena
- sent out resumés
- woke, changed, and fed child
- cleaned kitchen
- bathed child after massive diaper blowout
- load of laundry
- cleaned up hosting server, including takedown of unused sites
- put child down for nap
- removed speakers, switched computer to headphones
- cleaned up downloads folder
- second load of laundry
- framed up this blog post
After Noon:
- emailed Don Walker about presenting at NAHBS
- started mindmapping a non-fiction book on email marketing
- second load of dishes in washer
- took child for walk
- viewed some tutorial videos on Scrivener
- started writing book (900 words)
- fed kid dinner, put kid to bed
- cleaned up workshop
- checked DT miter (pictured above) and brazed DT/HT joint, was smooooooth
- began modifying BB shell angles to support short top tube geometry
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October 9, 2013 • Life • 170

Tuesday Accomplishments
More-or-less in-order:
- woke up
- sent out 5 resumés
- flickr updates
- re-arranged workshop to accommodate new workbench
- listed leftover lumber on Craigslist for free
- got rid of same lumber not even 20 minutes later
- fed kid lunch
- hit OfficeMax for shipping supplies and printer paper
- hit Home Depot for hacksaw blades and other minor stuff
- took Eddy to the park
- got Eddy down for nap
- worked on fork in garage, prep for later brazing
- ran to Target for batteries and more shipping supplies
- watched a bit of TV with Eddy
- fed Eddy dinner
- took walk with Eddy (1.4 miles)
- gave Eddy bath
- put Eddy to bed
- printed out resumés for tomorrow’s interview
- interview prep
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