Ben: Good to know I’m not alone, and thanks for the link!

Peter: Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps…

Mike: My Everests include learning new technologies in order to put my ideas in motion. So far I’ve conquered MySQL and PHP as of the writing of this post (on Linux to boot!) I’ve still got some mountains to climb (writing software that learns, for example). I’ve got to keep telling myself that “too difficult” isn’t an option and if someone else is able to do it, I’m just as able. I’ve just got to get past the mental block that’s telling me I can’t. I also have personal Everests to climb. You know, things that normally get turned into new years resolutions and are just as quickly dropped the day after the ball drops :-). Must. Get. Back. On. Horse. I would like to write a novel (and a book on web development) and it isn’t that I haven’t already tried. I’m just dealing with that finite commodity we call time, and I’m a little in the red right now. :-) I find that breaking the tasks down into smaller chunks helps so maybe I’ll serialize my novel writing in blog form (though I’m thinking I’ll keep it separate from this site so I don’t mix the content too much).

So there you have it. :-)

See… good things come to those who wait… for global warming.

Otherwise, if your in a hury I can lend you a pair of mittens.

I think dear Teddy said it best [you were quite prozaic as well!]. I have learned this truth in my life already. I’m a passionate man. It’s a double-edge sword. You are too Ara. Passion can be a wonderful fuel – just gotta start that passion-engine. It is wonderful to be at once realistic, but also stubborn and just doing it – whatever ‘it’ may be.

You know how many projects I started myself – and so many seemed insurmountable. Sometimes I would look at things and tell myself ‘I have no idea how I will EVER do this’. Yet I did it. Baby steps, and a lot of research and trial and error was what it took. Funny thing is, along the way, people either admired my stuborness (or perseverance, seems to be a synonym in this context, hehe) or they disimissed me and counted the days when I would fail. I smiled at both – I couldn’ have cared less what anyone thought, because, I TRIED. That’s it! And when it was over, I once again looked at my now completed project and once again I thought to myself ‘I don’t know how I DID it, but I must have done it, because no one else did it for me…’

Have faith in yourself. And if, at the end of the day, you can tell yourself (not anyone else – you can lie to others, but never to yourself) I have done my best and utmost, well then Ara, no mather the outcome, you have done it.

Best of luck, and keep us posted! (And finish that damn book! I’d like to buy it, read it, critique it and put it on my shelf!)

I’ve fallen on my face a few times…I think it’s because one foot is bigger than the other…

There are plenty of good resources online about failing and learning from it — I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently: http://www.igotnewsforyou.com/blog/2006/07/embrace-failure-learn-from-it-and-you.html

Good luck and happy birthday! 30 is a big one, I remember it semi-fondly. *grin*