So exactly one week after I quit my job (read: after exactly one week of laziness, beach days, day drinking, partying and sleeping in until noon) I sent a random email to a old client as I was cleaning up my email. He was a guy who reached out to me via reddit almost 3 years ago for some tech copywriting and freelance work. Nothing big ever came of it but his email was still starred so I figured, "what the hell" and shot him a reply to his 3 year old email. Side note: I wouldn't realize until later that his email wasn't in my standard, professional gmail account. No. It was in my insomniasexx email account. That only makes this more impressive.

He gave me 10 minutes and zero interest. I called, we caught up, he was busy and not interested, I shot him an email with my recent work and outdated portfolio, and patted myself on the back for at least reaching out to him. It was kinda scary but it felt good after. Like, "Oh - that wasn't so bad or awkward." I emailed Thursday at 2am and the call was a Tuesday, Sept 2nd at noon.

The next day, my friend and I decided we were going camping. On the way to Jalama Beach in Santa Barbara, I ignore a call from an unknown number. Seconds later, I receive and email from the guy I had talked to the day before. I call him back and he patches in his creative director.

They ask me all sorts of questions about my process, the work on americhip.com, etc etc. Then they say they have a meeting with [two huge tech companies that you all have heard of] on Sept. 26th and need a site / company built out. The product exists and works, the funding is there, contracts with suppliers and distributors and all sorts of stuff have been signed. They just need to look like it's an actual company before Sept 26th.

Naturally, I said, "sure why not. I love a good challenge." I sent them a scope of work and estimate from a grocery store parking lot, from from my phone, and figured whatever. I over estimated my hours and gave the highest hourly I've ever given. I figured, even if they want 6 months of work in 1 month, they're still going to pay for 6 months of work! I let them know I won't have cell service until 10am the following day. That was Wednesday, Sept 3rd, 10am.

I drove up the hill to the cell phone spot and I had at least 6 emails of varying degrees of urgency. I find myself unexpectedly on a call with 6 guys with Big Ass titles to go over the project in more depth. I was in gray sweats, gray sweatshirt, greasy hair, no makeup, and sandals. I was sandy, dirty, and covered in smoke from last nights fire. I was standing on a hill with a foot of thorny grass poking my feet. My moleskin was propped on a decrepit old fence / barbed wire and I was trying notes faster than I could think. There was so much information to take in and this was so not the state to take it in. Oh well.

They tell me they've emailed me NDA, vendor service agreement, and signed off on my stuff. They will need an invoice and my banking info so they can wire me my 1/3 deposit. That was 9am Thursday and I hadn't showered since 9am Tuesday.

I received the deposit (about 125% of what my total monthly income was at Americhip) when I was driving back to town the next day.

Since then, I've successfully built a site essentially by myself for an industry I know nothing about. I learned Eclipse and the ridiculous Java based back-end their using so we don't have to code all the user permissions, accounts, etc. I still have to integrate the Java though. I don't know Java. Fuck Java. I've learned how to set a tomcat server and build the template / theme / project / permissions to it. I've learned what a permgen mem error is and how to fix it - even when the server won't restart.

I've read heaps of documentation and averaged 60/hours a week of work. I just got off a call with one of the guys regarding content, which should be done by tomorrow night. Because having content done 12 hours before a big meeting is the way to do things.

I worked 17 hours yesterday and went to bed at 3am. I woke up at 9am today and will probably work until 3am again today, with a sex/sleep break somewhere in there.

If you read my initial post on quitting my job, you know I went into it not expecting to make money, especially this soon. I'm making 3.5x what I made at Americhip from one client this month. I have 3 other clients I'm not even including in that number. In addition to the nice, unplanned income increase, I've done exactly what I wanted: I've worked with new people, learned new skills, and challenged myself to grow every day. So far, I've done it. Fuck yes.

All I can say is, thank god for sex. Otherwise the stress from this turnaround time would have most certainly killed me by now. 2 more days and I'm back to beach life. This was a nice little break though. :)

Checking my email on the hill:

The fence & sign at "Cell Phone Spot":

Hubskified that shit

Holy shit I just made a butt load of moeny and I look like this

Let's go surfing!