Time to get soliciting again

In late June I sent out 40 or 50 solicitation e-mails to Columbus area doctors and dentists, following a fund-raising tip from a filmmaking book. Included in the e-mails was a short message and an attached letter containing the information that has become the About Aimless page. I didn't get any responses.

I'm not stupid; I knew it would take a lot more than 40 or 50 e-mails to find the support I'm seeking. But I didn't even receive any responses saying, "Your idea sounds neat. Unfortunately we're currently not in a position to assist." No responses at all. That's when I realized I needed a web site ASAP. A web site would enable me to keep the e-mail messages short, allowing people to look into Aimless at their own convenience, instead of reading a two-page letter they probably never wanted anyway. Also, I believe people would be more responsive if there was a web site to show how much work I've put into this project; to show that I am very serious about it. So I turned my attention to finding a web host.

Right away I sent maybe 15 or 20 e-mails to web hosts I found through a Google search for "'Web Host' Columbus, Oh," and I received responses from a couple people. One of them agreed to host the web site for me, but she was very busy with her existing clients, so I patiently waited a couple weeks for her to set up a meeting with me. But by then I really needed to get the show on the road; I had designed and created enough pages for a complete web site, and there was not much I could do until they were out there for people to see. So I sent my prospective host an e-mail saying I need to get the show on the road, and that I was about to start sending more solicitation e-mails to other web hosts because I just can't keep waiting. I'd been patient, and my patience was only holding me back, taking me off task. One passage from the e-mail I sent her describes the mindset I'm striving to maintain:

Aimless is about going out and getting, like you did when you started your own company. It's about giving and receiving and making fair trades. It's about not allowing excessive patience to continue being such an obstacle. It's about: "Here's what I have to offer. If you want it, act now or risk losing your opportunity to someone more insightful and decisive. If you don't want it, nice meeting you. Good luck." And I have stuck to the framework defined in the last sentence with everyone except you.

So do you want it?

Within an hour or two I started sending e-mails to other hosts, mostly just to find a back-up plan in case my current situation didn't work out. (I'm digressing here. Let me get back on track.)

It was two weeks ago when Glenn Shope from Net Acceleration offered to host the Aimless web site. After thinking about it for a day (or "sleeping on it"), I agreed to accept his offer. And 13 days ago the Aimless web site became a reality. It was still a couple days before I'd uploaded enough material to make the site worth checking out, and I've been doing a lot of tweaking over the last ten days or so. But the site is pretty solid now and I need to face my fears and start begging for assistance again. That starts today.

That is something I could not do before. I couldn't ask people for help when I desperately wanted to open a pizzeria. There are a lot of good reasons for that--about 200,000 good reasons--but there are also plenty of good reasons for me to chicken out with Aimless, too. But I'm not going to.

Aimless could also be called "Fearless." I have been afraid to make important decisions in my life, to ask for help, to go out and get what's mine. I'm a pussy, and that's surely one large reason I worked for $7 an hour at age 32. Well, I'm not going to be a pussy anymore. I have nothing to lose anymore, and that's why Aimless exists. Ideally I want to get back the feeling of fearlessness--of freedom--I had in early June, but right now I'm a little afraid. I'm afraid to face rejection. I'm afraid to ask people for help.

That fear ends right now. Today it all begins again. As soon as I post this entry I'm going to send all those doctors and dentists a follow-up e-mail. Only this time it will be from an official-looking e-mail address and the letter will be short and sweet. Then I'm going to find more people to send short e-mails. Then more. And I'm going to do this for as long as it takes because Aimless is no joke. Aimless is no dream. Aimless is real, and Aimless will become something very special to the American people beginning now.

I finally have a real blog

It's way easier to get a blog set up than I figured. I just went to blogger.com, following one of my own Google ads, and set the thing up. The cool thing is that I can choose whether I want it to be on my server or theirs. I have chosen to keep it on my own server for the time being. For as easy as it was to set up this blog, it sure was extremely difficult at the same time, due to a bunch of technical problems and stupid stuff.

Anyway, I have been doing a lot of stuff to the site the last few days. You probably can't tell, though, because it doesn't look like I've done much. But I've gone through each of the pages and made a lot of code changes to make the pages look alike from one browser to another. I was shocked when I visited the site from Explorer because it looked a lot different than it does in Netscape. It still looks a little different, but nothing huge. I don't know why different browsers can't just all read the same code. That's stupid.

All right, so I keep jumping a bunch of new hurdles, thinking I'm almost home free, but then I encounter new hurdles. What'll be next? Right now I just need to go make some pizza dough because I am starving. Unfortunately the dough won't be ready to use for a couple hours. Urg!

Oh yeah, and this will remain the location of the blog because this blog is worth keeping.

Blog Forum

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This "blog" is moving to this location in the Aimless Forums.

So for the blog (in case this dumb html editor screws up the links), go to http://aimlessmovie.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=16. And for the Forum index, go to http://www.aimlessmovie.com/phpBB/.

Swim

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I'm about to go swimming for the first time this summer if I can find my trunks. Me white boy. Very white boy.

Hey, is anyone actually reading this?

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Since this "blog" does not allow commenting, I don't really know if anyone has been checking it out. Well, I do know it's very unlikely that anyone has been checking it out because 1) The site is only a week old, and 2) With the site only being a week old, there have not been many visitors yet.

Anyway, if you have been checking in on this "blog" periodically and you would like to comment on what I have to say, I request that you take your comments over to the Aimless Forums. The format of the forum is actually useful, and I would really like to get some action going over there, whether it is related to Aimless or not.

Baby steps

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Now that this web site is running and looking presentable, it's about time to start sending out e-mails to anyone and everyone in hopes of finding prospective sponsors. I knew before I got very far into this project that I'd likely face at least a 95 percent rejection rate (or non-response rate), but I can't let that stop me because I know someone out there is waiting for the opportunity to be a part of something like Aimless. Who is it? I don't know, but I'll find them.

Not a lot of people know about Aimless yet, but I'm happy to report that I've received very positive feedback from those who do. It just confirms my belief that this is worth doing--that people will be interested in what I'm trying to create.

A few things

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I can't even remember what I was going to write about here. There is so much going on inside my head, it's not even funny. Oh yeah: My progress, Net Acceleration, and Twerky.

Let me start off with Net Acceleration. Glenn Shope and Net Acceleration are totally awesome. He has been kind enough to set me up with web hosting for this site because he gets it. He understands that I am passionate about Aimless, and he wants to help me nurture that passion. Also, I can only assume he understands how his assistance will eventually pay off big-time for him. I mean, he offered to host this site literally 20 minutes after I sent him an unsolicited solicitation for assistance, which actually kind of freaked me out. It just reinforces my belief that I will find people willing to provide the assistance I'm seeking. Some people get it; others don't.

Twerky. If you noticed the photo at the bottom of the "home" page, you may have figured out that my cat had a leg amputated yesterday. Poor little dude. But you know what? He doesn't care. I picked him up from the vet's today, and he's running around and "smiling" and happy as can be. He's a special little guy, and I love him.

I am tired from another 12+ hours of working for free, so I think I'll just skip the part about my progress. If you didn't already see this, here's Twerk yesterday morning before the operation:

OK, for some reason this doesn't seem to want to show the picture. I know I got the code right, but it's still not here. Whatever. (All right, I fixed it. Man, I really don't like the html editor I'm forced to use right now. Hopefully by Monday I'll know how to get around it.)

Another one

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Well, I'm coming around. Got some pages up, but I really don't want to keep using this template. I sure hope there is a way to allow comments to this blog. Not much point in having one without allowing comments. I mean, I could just make another regular page for all the stuff I'm saying here.

First Blog Entry

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This is my first blog entry. Trying to figure out how to set this shit up. Getting frustrated.