The Panic Of '08: The Lost Decade

Well, this is certainly the zeitgeist of the moment isn't it? We all scrude!!! It'll take decades to bring it back! We all skrude! Worst economy since the Great Depression. WeBScrewed!

Bullshit.

But still it is a bad time for a lot of folks.

The Panic Of '08: The Lost Decade: "So, let's remember what's passed in between, now that the last eleven years have been, financially speaking, wiped clean."

I have a few things that I will be doing to 'weather the storm' so to speak.

1. I will not spend a nickel on Hollywood movies at the theaters. Just not worth it. They make crap like they have done for the past couple of decades, but now spend millions making starlets hang in the sky while kicking people all around her. Yawn.
   
2. We are going to open the studio up to creatives and those who need a place without spending a ton of dough for it. Kind of a 'creative space' for designers/photographers/illustrators and writers. No more wasted space.
3. Limiting myself to only purchasing music that I really think I will be listening to in a few months. That means Jazz, Classical and Opera to me. Listening to last years Beyonce is simply painful.
4. Organize. Quite simply organize. Get files where I want them. Have things at my fingertips. Too much time wasted looking for something I should have at my digital fingertips.
5. Use video conferencing, Skype and Adobe meetings more. A lot more.
6. SEO the hell out of everything I do. Expand the reach of Lighting Essentials.
7. Clarify what I want to shoot and design. No more wasted shoots 'for fun.' Still will be doing shoots for fun, but they will be dead on to what I am trying to do.
8. Video tape every shoot I do from this date forward. I want a record of what I am doing. Will not forget ever again to video the shoot.
9. Create some integral partners to help get folks who need some guidance. A group of people helping people may get more synergy going.
10. Redouble my efforts at creating value for my clients. Whether design clients or photography clients, I want the clients we have to absolutely not even think about using someone else.

These things are pretty simple.

However, I will spend. I will buy things that are of value to me. I think that will be the only way out of this problem. And the problem may be that there is too much value placed on crap. A simplification shouldn't result in a lot of pain. Can I live without this years iTouch? Yeah, sure. I can. Wish I had 32Gig, but maybe I will have to be a little more judicious in what I put on it for a while. Bye bye, Beyonce.

I believe that the American people have the ability to pull this thing out. Government put us here. Government that is made up of elitists who vote pay raises for themselves and ask us to 'pay more' and 'share the pain' and 'sacrifice.' One of the silliest and insipidly dangerous of the current situation is that we are being 'led' by people who have no contact with what is real.

Our new first lady believes that "$600 wouldn't buy a decent pair of earrings" and congress believes that borrowing 1.5Trillion will stimulate something... yeah, more misery they can then offer to lessen... in exchange for more power.

Will we give it to them? Yeah, probably. Unfortunately.

Super. We can be like France soon. Cool.