On Land

I'm on a new mission. After 2 years of recovering, refoundationing, and rebuilding, I'm adrift again, another period of punctuation in the amorphous flow of life.

I got back from Europe with only the promise of a job (giving bike tours), nowhere to live. Stayed with friends and parents and looked. Found the Castle: a 2-story graystone with 12 people living on 3 floors at the center of Logan Square.

People came and went, performed music/comedy/poetry, built things, went out too much, stayed in too much. And only one suicide attempt.

Then, after years of threatening to give up bike tours for good, I found my way out.

I have sympathy for people who are stuck—for I certainly was—but you can't get out if you're not constantly trying. It's like shooting rockets into space; you don't always know how much escape velocity you need.

For my escape, I uncovered web development, a métier that I enjoyed so much that I would do it for no money. That not being sustainable, it's nice that it is, in fact, remunerated. And pretty well at that.

But I did it for no money, pursuing my own projects—building websites that I wanted to use—and then fell in with a startup whose website I had already tried to use.

Dabble.co has been around Chicago for 2 years. They are an online marketplace for real-life classes: scotch tasting, glass blowing, photoshop, jewelry making, and so on. I submitted a bike maintenance class before I ever thought about working in websites. But then I couldn't work out the details, and the idea fizzled.

Here's the timeline as far as I can tell:

* 6/24/11 - We start following each other on Twitter.
* 4/6/12   - An email from a new contact: "So Dabble is looking for a developer..." (But I don't yet have nearly enough experience. Just started teaching myself a month earlier.)
* 7/9/12   - I have more experience, they still have a need; they agree to bring me in.
* 7/24/12 - Came in for the first time to Catapult, the startup incubator shared office.
* Did an unpaid stint with them for the rest of July, August and September; still needed experience.
* October, took a contract for a different website.
November, started working (contract) for Dabble for real money.
Little by little, the 20hr/wk contract became more like 30-40.
Which brings us to now: working 40hrs, making more money than I've ever made.

I'm also feeling freer than ever. Funny what a little money will do.