iVaughn.com :: The Blog

My email to Jason Calacanis…

bigvjohnson — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:39:32 +0000

I recently overhead on TWIT a few months ago that as an alternative to the blogging lifestyle he had been enjoying for quite some time, millionaire technology entrepreneur Jason Calacanis had begun an email list. A list to whom he composes roughly 1500 word emails simiar in content and context to the blog entrys he was previously known for. Well lets jus say I had no choice but to sign up, my internal geek had already filled out the sign-up form before had even had a chance to read it.

Well needless to say, I’ve been getting emails on a semi-regular basis (maybe monthly to semi-monthly) however none have hit home or been as rivetting as his most recent The 120% Solutions.

This email seemed so in-depth and yet personal that I had no choice but to indulge my desire to reply and the following was my effort to do just that. (Note: It may be prudent to read the email prior to reading my response to get good understanding of context.)

Mr. Calacanis

I know I’ve got to be one of only about 17,000 replies you’ve received regarding this astonishingly well thought-out and developed email. I myself, a (soon to be graduating) information technology college student am looking out at the big bad world of reality with a sense of sheer terror.

I’ve worked hard, taken plenty of classes and am looking to accomplish a feat that is growing all to uncommon in today’s college society, graduate in four years like you’re supposed to! But all has left me virtually jobless, completing maybe 10 hours of freelance web development work a month and getting paid net 45 (which btw is long enough to forget you even did the work and all of the sudden wonder where the money mysteriously came from), as well as literally broke and in debt up to my eyeballs (thank goodness I’m tall or I’d be in over my head). The question I would like to pose to you, is what sort of advice and or criticism might you have for a young guy like me. I see the economy is disarray, I see my bank account in deep red, I see my dreams of technology fortune slipping into the distance and I feel the weight of reality falling on my shoulders.

I’m a little unsure what the odds are I might ever receive a response to this reply, I simply wanted to share my thoughts in hopes that it might spur thought for a future email addressed to the stressing college student who once thought it couldn’t get worse that an all-nighter in the library during finals week and now realizes that they may be the best is EVER gets for a while to come. I’m not going to lie, I’m scared, I’m nervous and I’m completely un-financially capable of financing a graduate degree in engineering (yep, I took note of that) so I’m also in need of an alternative solution.

I sincerely thank you for your time in the event that you read this and would simply like to add that if you ever find yourself on TWIT(My favorite

podcast) and accidently say the words “Hi Vaughn, I just wanted to prove that I DID read your email” I wouldn’t mind one bit

-Vaughn Johnson-

Johnson.Vaughn@Gmail.com

www.iVaughn.com

My Sick New Setup

bigvjohnson — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:35:08 +0000

Okay, so I had a stroke of brilliance earlier this evening and have managed to amass a total square pixelage(just made that word up) of 4,370,720. Check it out!

Why do I even bother?

bigvjohnson — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:42:48 +0000

Its become as much a part of my weekly routine as anything else vital to my sane existence. Every Sunday afternoon, I tediously go through the weeks To-Do list, knowing full well it is only destined to grow, and attempt to schedule each and every working moment of the week Monday thru Friday. This effort does wonders for my immediate phyche, putting my worrisome mind at ease that I do in fact have all the time I need to accomplish any and all tasks I’ve been assigned while still leaving room for the essentials in life, like the Bar and Tiger Woods 2009 for PS3.

The problem I’m beginning (and by beginning I mean its been there all along but I’m just now starting to realize it) to all to blatantly notice is in my execution of this carefully laid out plan throughout the duration of the week. What good is a weekly assignment schedule if I end up blowing off three hours of scheduled study time to go to Best Buy with my roomies, buy Top Gun on BlueRay and sit and be a vegetable all night? Its starting looks like its no good. I struggle with this issue however each and every day, I am contently fighting a painful battle between the things I want to do and the things I need to do.

My question for all of my (and by that I mean none, atleast not at the time of writing this) readers is, am I overreacting? Is my intense overuse of MS Outlook’s task and calendar features just a high quality attempt to reach a level of efficiency that most only dream about or am I truly loosing my mind as I follow a [poorly written at times] software program blindly into a deep blackhole where free will is only free if its 7-8:30am on a Saturday morning because thats the only time slot I dont have already filled with pointless other shit?

Wow, another post, less than a week after the last one!?!

bigvjohnson — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:42:09 +0000

Hey all, (Why I feel the need to address anyone when I know no one reads this thing, I’ll never know)

I’m actually doing it, I’m friggen blogging! Its not as hard as I imagined it would be. I read all these frequent blogs on all sorts of topics and I think to myself, I a)cant even write all that well, who would read my shit, and b)the only important news I read comes from other blogs so I’d just be repeating what that guy already said. So I’ve since ditched the dream of iVaughn.com becoming the next Lifehacker or ArsTechnica and have re-focused my blog on a more valiant and obtainable goal, to a attract so goddamn readers! So, here goes nothing.

As an aspiring IT Professional and avid computer software user, I’ve grown acutely aware of the many nuances and caveats that need to be kept in mind at all times while planning a life through a peice of software, take for instance MS Money Plus. I use it religiously, to plan my bills, track my account transactions and balances, manage my budget and forecast my future cash flows, but what happens when you simply read the number that MS Money spits out and never consider how it might have obtained it? All sorts of shit, that’s what. Needless to say I’ve come to the realization that I need a job, after noticing that my projected year ending (2008) balance of $1500 was greatly skewed by Money’s unique ability to take an average of all the monthly income I’ve generated over the past 9 months and assume that I am still capable of generating that today. So, for the sake of argument, lets assume that I cannot, as the past 9 months of income were the result of a lucrative on-campus job which I gave up to participate in an even more lucrative summer internship, neither of which mind you, do I still have today. In any case I realigned the estimates with what I considered most reasonable and saw the bottom line result plummet to just above $350.

I have since contacted the local campus bookstore about a graphic design job for arounf 12 to 20 hours a week, and roughly $7.90 an hour. Not nearly as lucritive as my previous employments but income none the less, I will keep all posted and I look forward to any wayward web surfers stumbling upon my site and commenting.

Thanks.

The Big Switch could become The Big Paper [I hope] – my new book

bigvjohnson — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:01:43 +0000

So I’ve got to write a paper, needless to say I’m not sycked. Its not a short one, 10 to 15 pages, and its not a simple one, select an emerging technology and write about how it either is, or could be a competative advantage. I’ve chosen the cloud, cloud computing that is, on the premis that the ermerging technological innovations surrounding it will undoubedly affect the way many current companies do business as well as the business models of many current and future startups. More on the book I bought, Nicholas Carr’s new one, The Big Switch, to help me achive this miricle of paper, in a later post as I hope to being posting at a much higher rate. No joke! I’ve made it an Outlook Task, its so totally official, before long it will be as much a part of my weekly routine as sex, alcohol, TWIT, MacBreak Weekly, and Buzz Out Loud…I’m just kidding, alcohol isn’t ALWAYS weekly, only when I can afford it

The trick to writing, is reading…

bigvjohnson — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:13:29 +0000

Now while I highly doubt I’m anywhere near the front of the line among others who have either said or published this before, I still think there is plenty of small significance to my story that makes this post worth writing. I’ve been a college student for over 3 strong years now, I’ve listened to the lectures, and attended the workshops (well okay, so I’ve attened some of them), but it seems strangely obvious to me that no lecturure or workshop leader could possibley instill in you the ability to write well, without inspiring you to first try. Its not what anyone can say aloud, that bolsters the imagination to generate elequent prose that flows from the lips and resinates somewhere deep within the cranium cortex (the term, that I just made up three seconds ago, for the deepest part of the brain where words become inspiration and shoot that envigoratingly tingly feeling throughtout your body), but instead what anyone, and I litterally mean anyone, can write with nothing more than monent of deep thought, a quill and a piece of parchment, or even an iPhone these days, who knows.

The point to this post is to point out a realization I all to recently discovered about my writing style and ability. It stems from the everyday books, articles, and posts that I read on a daily basis. There are an astonishly few who are born with the ability to write, and write well, the rest of us must learn through the power of inspiration and the desire to do so.

A Life Plan?

bigvjohnson — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 02:26:42 +0000

In my endless attempt to become more active blogger and more influential contributor to the new, more social Web 2.0, I have done my best to stick to a fairly strict schedule of reading and participating in other, more famous, blogs, such as Lifehacker, Endgadget and Digg.

I came across a Lifehacker post this morning in my GoogleReader feed that highlighted the CEO of a publishing company, Michael S. Hyatt. Mr. Hyatt explained the tactics, processes and mindsets that he uses to both create and maintain what he refers to as “A Life Plan”. I must say this is one of the longest posts I have taken the time to ready fully in quite some time. It has inspired me to attempt a similar feat. While I am still but a wee young’un at a ripe ol’age of 21. I can see great profitability in creating a life plan. I find myself in constant battle with the internal me that wishes for only the best eventual outcome, no matter how treacherous the current road may be, and the more external me that wants what I want, when I want it, living in the moment, in the now, with little regard for the future.

As I have complained in other blog entries, I have a hard time finding time to post my thoughts, ideas, and stories. I hope I can turn a few things around in my life, take back some things that I realize mean less, and invest more of myself in the things that mean the most.

I look forward the future and all it’s grandeur possibilities. I also look forward to the eventual development of a “Life Plan” of my own.

-Vaughn-

Blogged with the Flock Browser

How do some people find the time???

bigvjohnson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:07:01 +0000

I’ve been trying to get into the whole blogging thing for quite some time now, but I can’t seem to find the time to really make writing a part of my standard routine. I read all of these blogs that look to me like those writing them have almost literally nothing else to do with their lives.

I’ve got a personal website, www.iVaughnom that I developed with basic HMTL in Dreamweaver and I’ve built a blog page into it and have spent almost a year now looking into the best way to integrate this WordPress blog into the template page I created, and yet here I am, still lacking such integration and complaining about not even having time to write blog entries let alone hard code my blog into my site.

This is all I have time to write for today…perhaps I’ll have more next time.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Using Flock – Its a revelation!

bigvjohnson — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:27:18 +0000

So I was listening to TWIT the other day and Leo kept babbling about his new favorite web browser Flock. So, of course, like the loyal TWIT listener that I am, had to download it and try it out. Its great!

I’m submitting this post not from my ivaughn.wordpress.com blog page itslef but instead directly from a popup window from within Flock. If your a geek who loves the web for the social aspect, Flock is a must have!

Blogged with the Flock Browser