Hey guys...
I want to catch up with all of you but I am too damn lazy to read through the "pictures of yourselves" and "where you live now" and "how you are" threads...
Do me a favor: Hit me with 3-5 bullets that sum up what's new with you in say, the last 8 years :-)
Rastafare:
WHERE: We live in South Florida. Spending alot of time in The Cayman Islands though. It sucks, lemme tell yah.
WHAT: I run my own company selling "work from home" and "internet marketing" training. Quit working in advertising and design four years ago and never looked back... Still design my own websites though, and work with a very small group of marketers who pay me retarded amounts of money in consulting fees.
HOW: Doing great. The kids are 6 and 8. About two years ago I brought my wife into the business and out of her job as well, so we get to hang alot. Spend a ton of time in the pool. I am a bike freak these days: I try to ride 20 miles every morning.
Rasta
Ill Play...
WHERE: Live in Northwest Connecticut, in da hills. Travel a bunch for work to mainly chicago, dallas, and irvine
WHAT: I work for Mega Corp Inc and am a lean six sigma expert
HOW: Awesome. Found barefoot/minimalist running almost a year ago and it cured my long time knee issue. Lost 30lbs i didnt know I had, run about 60-80 miles a month. Kid is 16 months, he's the coolest thing I've ever laid eyes on. Wife is awesome, teaching high school and enjoying her time off.
WHERE: My wife, (soon to be son) and I live on the northwest side of Chicago. Working partly outta the house, and a bunch downtown.
WHAT: Run my own commercial photography business shooting small tabletop products (jewelry, especially) and architectural photos. Also work as an in house marketing/collateral/advertising AD for a financial and legal consulting firm downtown.
HOW: Generally, awesome. Got married last year. Got a son on the way this year. Have decent insurance and predictable baseline income for the first time in a decade, and making good headway building out the photo business more. Loving the people around me, and the way I feel about myself, the work I do, and the future.
WHERE: Baltimore, Maryland, aka (C)Harm City, commute daily to Washington DC for work.
WHAT: Just hit 10 :eek: years as an editor for Agence France-Presse working on the internet journal web product, these days I do voice overs for AFPTV videos sometimes as well.
HOW: Chillin'. Four cats, it used to be three, but then some drunk (or more likely doped up on some kind of heroin-crack cocktail) guy left a baby kitten on the train, so now it's four. Husband is good, though not happy about the state of Nigerian football, but otherwise good. He works for McCormick. We have more spices in our kitchen than we could possibly know what to do with. Lost and kept at bay 60 lbs in last 4 years. In other news, I hate Amtrak. And our neighborhood transvestite hookers. 
WHERE - a 150 acre farm in South West France with my wife, daughter (4), son(3) and something in the region of 100+ animals
WHAT - decided to drop out of the rat-race and become a rare-breed organic pig farmer and fulfil my dreams of a living self-sufficient life-style. Had the good fortune to meet someone that now employs me to build the back-end of web-sites and fit the work around my farm. So tend to work 8-10 hours a day on the farm and 8-10 hours a day on IT.
HOW - apart from not enough hours in the day I'm the happiest that I've ever been, kids are fantastic, wife is amazing, french living is superb, mountain views, great weather, I have an income and we're living the dream.
8 years? Uhhh...
Where: Toronto, then to Montreal, then to a nicer neighbourhood, then to an even nicer neighbourhood. I'm moving again Saturday, into a bigger apartment.
What: Quit a good job working for an online gaming company, moved to Montreal, worked at a startup design agency for less money, said startup shut down and I went to work for one of their clients in the garment biz as an illustrator/ graphic designer, got laid off, went to work for their competitor... after 5 years in Montreal I realized I was still making less than I was in Toronto... my old boss at the startup came back and scored me a very decent paying corporate UI/UX/IA job (which is OK but I miss the crreativity of working in garment) , and now I'm doing that until the project I've been involved with on the side comes to fruition and I can quit this boring shit
How: Freakin' awesome. My daughter's 4 and a half, Steph & I have been together 15 years, I'm starting to travel more which is fun, making decent coin for a change and I anticipate things getting even better work-wise in the not too distant future.
Originally posted by: rastafare Do me a favor: Hit me with 3-5 bullets that sum up what's new with you in say, the last 8 years :-)
Nothing :(
Where: South-west UK. Small-town, just how I like it.
What: The startup I'd been working for for six years went belly-up at the end of 2008, so I decided to try going it alone. It's been up and down, but up at the moment (thanks in part to regular work Techno has put my way).
How: I'm busier than I've ever been and enjoying the freedom of self-employment. Kids (boy 6 and girl 8) surprise me every day. Wife is starting a new career in distance learning, and enjoying it. Living 10 minutes from the beach is hard but somehow we put up with it
I like reading that people are doing well. More life stories, people
Where: New York City. I'm living in SoHo (or really the border of SoHo and the West Village, making it . . . er . . . SoWeVi?). Living here with my girl, Naomi and we're getting married in August out in Seattle.
What: Sold my part of Snepo and went on to do some consulting for Gucci for the last six months. Now I'm at a rad little startup called Indaba (check out the 'my new gig' thread to see me in one of their promo vids). Also, I'm working on another startup that is painfully close to beta-launch.
How: I'm awesome.
Life is good 
Where I'm in Sunderland, the city in which I was born and the city I still love.
What In 2008, I left the 9-5 corporate career ladder to do consulting/contracting. It worked out really well and did a 2-year stint doing digital/strategic consulting for the NHS.
Now, I'm focusing on obtaining outsourced work from the public sector, whilst still doing bits of private sector work too. Got some massive contracts and hope to be very well off within 2 years.
How I've put on a lot of weight, mainly due to dislocating my knee on a marathon. I feel otherwise great though and am about to holiday in the Dominican Republic. My son turns 8 in November and we are bonding more and more as he ages.
Overall, life is pretty damn good. If I could change one thing, I'd probably lose three stone without dieting.
Oh, and I changed my 12s username.
8 years...
WHERE: Same place, Austin TX. New home, great roommate, finally have an office space that isn't also my bedroom.
WHAT: Graphic design, web design/development, carpentry, built several large art installations, several of which were built to burn, worked Burning Man DPW for 2 years. Playing in a pretty big rock musical in 2 weeks.
HOW: Well... Six years ago I dropped my old moniker ("Zed"-ray) for a less innorwebs-traceable presence here at 12s, and to separate this level of personal interaction/opinions from the professional/family side of life. 4 years ago discovered the "hippy religious group" I was in was actually a cult, complete with dangerous cult leader etc. So left that and also went full-time freelance. Then the economy took a massive nose-dive and I spent the past 2 years scraping together any work for any amount I could find, just to pay rent/bills. Now I've got several different solid work referrers and soon will be making almost 5x's as much as I have been monthly for the past 2 years, so I'd say things are on the up =) Can't wait to get my truck fixed...
Where: Sanford a suburb in the central FL area.
What: Just got a job after 7 months of unemployment doing SEM for a content delivery company. A hair of design now and then, but glad to be out of the subjective end of marketing.
How: Doing great. Kids 1.5,4, and 5 so the house is never quiet unless they're asleep. Curtis starts kindergarten in the fall and Chloe pre-school. As for me and Mrs. Zaaa we're peachy, just not much going on aside from things dealing with said kiddos.
WHERE: Cary, North Carolina, a little suburb of Raleigh
WHAT: DUDE! I'm working for the fucking company that made Unreal Tournament! I am getting paid to play games and talk about it. I work on their websites, do some design work, run their forums and post to all of their social media.
HOW: I lost a lot of weight and exercise every day and I'm doing great. My exercise is video games! I play the dance and fitness games. Sunshine is overrated. I'm also a cougar now. lolz. I'm really happy Rasta and so very happy to hear from you!
It's like some weird AA reunion in here.
Originally posted by: Flak I'm really happy Rasta and so very happy to hear from you!
I'll bite.
WHERE: Toronto (well, Greater Toronto, but it's all the same)
WHAT: In the last 8 years? Jeebas. Quit working in web for a tech reseller in '05, dove into the agency world and had an absolute blast. Economy crunched, I got laid off in Spring of '08 and immediately landed a very well paying tech/marketing job with a commodities company... that up and VANISHED in late '08. All 100 or so employees later found out that the CEO was running a Ponzi scheme. Wonderful. 5 or so months of belt-tightening and light freelance work, after which I landed a PM job at a tech startup in the digital signage space. Been there over a year, and I have to say it's one of the most challenging, stressful positions I've ever had. But it's also got the potential to be one of the most lucrative as well (or at least... that's what I keep telling myself).
HOW: Keep on keepin' on. And that's all I have to say about that.
Good to see you around again.
WHERE: Grand Junction, CO
WHAT: I kept truckin with my web business i started in 01 and built it up to about 5 employees at one time. had sales, design, programming all that jazz. about 2 years ago I was down to two employees and they both moved so it was down to me and i found out this odd thing... without paying for employees i was actually making decent money. so i moved my office back to my house and i code sites just like old times... except now i do it for about 10x what i was charging when i started. I'm also doing well with my music, we just signed a deal with a radio promoter so our tunes should be all around the nation in a couple months.
HOW: got 2 kids, a girl who's 8 and a boy who's 5... they are both in school and love it. i have gained about 15 pounds and don't exercise at all even though i pay for a gym membership. I also shun my wife's attempts to making me eat healthier at every opportunity.
WOW...
Everyone sounds like they are doing awesome. It's amazing how many of us have kids now:-)
And Flak, working for unreal tournament... How fitting! LOL
Rasta
Originally posted by: mclarkson [quote]Originally posted by: rastafare Do me a favor: Hit me with 3-5 bullets that sum up what's new with you in say, the last 8 years :-)
Nothing :([/quote]
I don't buy it, breddren... Something is new!
Rasta
Originally posted by: Technomancer WHERE - a 150 acre farm in South West France with my wife, daughter (4), son(3) and something in the region of 100+ animals .
Dude!!!
Just say when you need farm hands to work and drink wine for a month... We are so there
Rasta
There's an open 12s invitation here. So you and your family are welcome anytime.
N-gen and Big Ern plus their lovely ladies have both visited.
We use workaway and have volunteers of various nationalities staying here throughout the year to help on the various projects we have - this is our profile.
So you can either work 5 hours a day for food and board or you can laze about do nothing and contribute to food and booze costs - we're easy either way. And I never need much arm-twisting to visit the various domains for armagnac tasting.
Where: Stellenbosch, South Africa
What: Been working for myself for 8 years now. Had some very tough times, but this past year has been very good to me. Bought a second apartment recently, where the rent more than covers the bond.
How: Lost a big client recently, because of a political decision. Took the site from 16k hits per month to 1.6 million, only to be replaced by someone who's never built a website in his life, and threw away 3 1/2 years worth of data.
Apart from that kick in the nuts, I have a couple of potentially huge projects coming up - that could enable me to employ a couple of people for the foreseeable future, and set me up with a good residual income. So the next couple of months is going to be hard work with little income, but I'm not too worried.
Where: Manchester, UK
What: Working at the University of Manchester doing usual flash shite, lab videoing and general geekery. Been told that the work we had lined up for this autumn has been scrapped because the lecturers were too lazy to get their asses in gear. Bosses are having a meeting in July to see if they still need us around. Tense times (again).
How: Other than work worries that seem to have been a part of my life ever since I moved to the UK, generally good. Lost bags o weight and have become slightly obsessed with cycling. Writing a shit novel, still married and (thank the maker) no kids.
Do you know Ben Mallow?