The latest diet fad

The stomach flu diet! Lose 6 pounds in two days! Of course that’s mostly water. I feel like crap and have had one meal in 36 hours: toast. And that was yesterday.

Future planning

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while but haven’t done so until now.
A little over a month ago I had a meeting with a friend in the print media business to sort out some work-related issues (which still haven’t been resolved). This person has been in the print and online business for a long time and I have tremendous respect for his opinions. After a while the topic turned to my website/business and where I was planning to take it. I told him that I didn’t know. And to be honest I still don’t.
There are two main things that I’m really unsure about:
1) How long do I want to do it?
Unless something unexpected happens, theoretically I could spend the next 30 years writing reviews of digital cameras. I don’t see them going away and if something better comes along I could probably transition to it. Then question is: do I want to be doing this for the next 30 years? After nearly 7 years of working on the DCRP site I’m pretty sure the answer to that question is “no”.
So then what? Do I close up shop one day and just let it die? Sell the site? Get a successor to take over the business?
If I leave, then what do I do with myself? Another desk job? Something good for humanity? It would be hard to give it all up because, to be honest, it pays very well, I’m my own boss, and I feel like I’m helping people (though not in the right way, IMHO).
2) Getting help
Over the last 7 years my workload has increased and along with that, my stress level. In order to keep myself sane while continuing to grow the site, I’m going to need to hire help at some point. The question is, what type of person and when do I hire them?
Who I need:
- Salesperson
- Grunt worker (takes pictures and product shots, gets cameras to review, etc)
- Writer
The problem is, I can’t hire all three. I’ve thought about getting an intern for #2, but I’m 30 miles from a real university and I need them here where all my equipment is. A salesperson would certainly be nice, as well. But the real questions arise about a writer. My fear is that if I have someone else writing that my site will “lose its voice”. I believe that DCRP = Jeff Keller and changing that could be asking for trouble. Not everyone agrees with me on this, though. Another person suggested hiring someone (a partner with a real vested interest) to help out and over time they would acquire “my voice”.
A related issue is what happens if something bad happens to me. If I was “out of commission” for a while, that could be the end of my business. I don’t like to think about that scenario, so I’ll just say that it would be nice to have someone take care of things while I’m on vacation.
This may sound selfish, but I’m hesitant to hire someone because I’ll have to pay them, which takes money away from my “buy a house closer to civilization fund”. Once that’s taken care of (hopefully by the end of next year), or if my income goes up again, then I would be more willing to hire help.
Obviously I have a lot of uncertainty about the future of my business (and my own life as well), and I need to figure it out at some point. The friend whom I had this conversation with initially says that I should think about it now, rather than waiting for something to happen which will force me to make a decision.
I don’t think everything will be resolved by writing a blog entry on a site where I normally complain about less important things, but maybe some wise soul has words of advice.

Hardware store pissing contest

I was making my way from Brentwood to the freeway when I saw something that almost made me drive onto a light post. It was a sign that said “Coming soon, 136,000 sqft Lowe’s Home Improvement store”. Now you’re probably thinking, so what? Well, what shocked me was that they’re building this store directly across the street from Home Depot. Not just any HD, either — when it opened last year it was the largest in the world (137,000 sqft). So now we have two HUGE hardware megastores right across the street from each other. HD is in Brentwood while Lowe’s is in Antioch. In a way I’m glad to see Lowe’s, as I hate Home Depot passionately. But this is only going to make traffic congestion on the main drag there even worse. How about some decent places to eat instead?
Update: Turns out the Lowe’s is acutally 163,000 square feet. My God!

The final bill

Audi billed me $1983 for going over the mileage limit on my lease. I should be able to get about $200 of that back, but still… ouch.

More hibiscus love

Last week I was singing the praises of my hibiscus plants. While watering today, I saw something I just had to take a picture of:

(Click for larger image)

Fall is coming

(click for larger image)

Am I dreaming?

Is it possible that maybe one day the marketing geniuses at the various camera manufacturers will see the value of websites like mine? While they’re watching reality TV in their big suburban homes we’re busting our butts, often during the weekend, covering their products at no cost to them. Yet so many of them treat us so poorly! Is it too much to ask to get information and review units without having to ask, get ignored, ask again, escalate, and finally get somewhere? As one of the top four (and probably top three) camera websites on earth, you’d think they’d go out of their way to get their products on my site. Send me the stuff I need and I’ll do a nice job of promoting your product — assuming it’s not a bad one of course. Is that too much to ask?
Oh, and I’m not just speaking for myself — I’m well aware that my cohorts in the website business are frustrated as well.
Update: Oops, I already complained about this back in May.

DCRP mentioned by Walt Mossberg

Apparently this article will be in SmartMoney magazine… no word on if I’l get mentioned in the WSJ as well. I think it’s a great honor to be mentioned alongside the “big kahuna” of camera review sites, DP Review.