Friday, August 15, 2008

Good week.

Another whirlwind week went by.  I bumped into some problems with my complicated router deployment, particularly with the connectivity to the wireless AP.  It's difficult when the standards involve connecting an AP to a switch, and the device I'm connecting it to is a switch card inside a router, which is a completely different animal.  They've been using the network for a week now, so I think all the kinks are worked out.  The rest of the stuff that needs work is just preferences in the voice mail system, and adding a few routes to the VPN, so they can reach all the resources they need and so voice people can get in there and set up the auto-attendant, etc.

I've been watching the Olympics a lot, so there went most of my spare time.  About the time I get tired of gymnastics, track and field starts up.  I think I'll be glad when it's over.  I would never otherwise watch volleyball.

I've been doing a lot of reading, too.  Following that entrepreneurship workshop in Chicago, I've been reading books on entrepreneurship, wealth building, and so forth.  When pressed with the question of what kind of business would I start if I had to start one, my mind goes in a million directions.  I have a lot of talents and quite an accumulation of knowledge, mostly technical.  Doing that kind of self-assessment is eye opening.  I could definitely do technical services and IT equipment sales and leasing. 

Being a landlord for the past 7 years has also been eye opening.  I've taken risks and had some victories and some losses, and it's sort of balanced out. On the upside, I learned a ton.  Now that I've worked for the smallest of companies, two employees, and the largest, nearly 100,000 employees, I know what works in all of those environments and what doesn't.  I've also seen the growing pains of small companies going to medium sized.  I've seen mergers and spin-offs.  I realize that I've helped make a lot of other people very rich.  It makes me wonder when it's going to be my turn.  The answer is simply, when I follow in their footsteps and lead an actual business.  So, that's what sparked my interest.  Anyway, you miss all of the shots you don't take.  As a real estate investor, I'm carefully watching the OFHEO data for my area every time it updates.  I'm starting to see house prices solidify and even appreciate again.  I would be sort of foolish to cash out at the bottom, but on the other hand, I could leverage some cash now by picking up some foreclosed properties at the bottom.  It's still a gamble.  A service business is not a gamble.  The only cost is time and effort.  The upside is huge.  Anyway, I'm looking for ways to capitalize a startup technical services business, an industry I know inside and out now.  I can lay the groundwork now, so when the time comes to branch out on my own, I'll be ready.

No comments:

Post a Comment