Thanks to both Craigslist, myspace & Dice, I've been doing a lot of freelance work. I usually try to target small companies that can't afford a full-time IT staff, but needs someone to setup all their computers, shared drives, user accounts, do maintenance & troubleshooting from time to time, and such & such. It's a great experience as I get to meet with individuals, get to learn about their business & sometimes consult them on the kind of PC or software they should invest on. My first priority is to make sure the client has a reliable system that won't break all the time. It should be also affordable. It's better to spend few extra hundred dollars on a Dell Latitude over Inspiron. I'm also a big supporter of open source. I always advice people to try Open Office over Microsoft Office, Thunderbird over Outlook, Avira AntiVir over Symantec Norton, or Ubuntu over Xp, and definitely not Vista. Most people give me a blank look the first time I mention Open Source and that's when I take out my laptop & give a little demo of the things they would normally do on a proprietary software.
When working as a freelance I meet many different kinds of people with all kinds of unimaginable businesses. Like the time, I met a woman who called me around 12.30 in the morning to invite me to play tennis with her at UCLA next day. Excuse me, did I miss something here...??!! I never even talked about tennis with her before, ever.
I always try to get as much information possible from the clients before going over & working on something. This gives me the opportunity to prepare myself whether if I need to carry any extra hardwire or software with me. Alas, that doesn't happen all the time. No matter how much I ask about their particular problem, you can always expect something to creep up on you. For instance, the time someone asked me to help with her laptop. I showed up to not only her laptop, but her boyfriends desktop in the next office & the wireless internet as well. Now there's no wire running to his office but he wants to go online. I get on the phone with his boyfriend & tell him the alternative to running wire would be an USB Wireless adapter. Next question:
"Well, do you have it with you? How much is that gonna cost?"
"I don't have one on me, but you can get one at Office Depot..."
Well, isn't that a waste of my money. What's the point of you coming out & you can't fix the problem?..."
I respond angrily, "Most techs don't carry this kind of stuff with them unless you had mentioned beforehand. Beside, I was called to work on laptop with virus issues."
Right then his girlfriend takes the phone from me & talks to him.
Yet, at the end of the appointment just smile at them, give 'em a business card and ask for future appointments & referral to their friends. Chao.
Well, enough of freelance junk. Here's a cool video I came across recently. He's got few other nice videos on YouTube. Check 'em out.
Jesus Loves You - Part 2
Lately, I've been listening to the Kean's "Under the Iron Sea." I love the album, especially Hamburg Song & Try Again are two of my favorites in it. I had a chance to see them last year at a festival in Lawrence. It was a great show. We got free tickets to the show & Keane did an amazing performance. Loved it.
Beside listening to Keane, I was a little surprised to find people here in LA are more religious & waving their bible than people in Kansas or even Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa or even Missouri. It's not unusual to see someone handing out church pamphlets at the bus stop, in front of a coffee shop, or someone signing some church song out loud in the bus. On one occasion I was reading Victor J. Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exists" at a park. When out of nowhere this older lady came up to me. She saw the big bold word God printed on the cover & exclaimed that I'm reading a book about God.
"Yeah, it's actually a different kind of book. It examines the existence of God." I told her as I tried to continue my reading.
"Oh, you don't believe in God? You know when you die, you will burn in hell forever unless you accept Jesus as your savior. " As she puts her hand on mine sitting next to me.
At this point I look at her angrily & tell her, I'm not interested. She doesn't care about that, she shuts her eyes as she starts telling me her memorized lines about accepting Jesus. By now, I began to get really upset. I move my hand from her grip. She stops & opens her eyes to see what's going on.
"Listen, I'm not interested at all. I don't care either. I just want to go back to my reading if you would excuse me now."
She gets up to leave. Before leaving she tries to hand me a pamphlet. I just ignore her going back to my reading.
Beside listening to Keane, I was a little surprised to find people here in LA are more religious & waving their bible than people in Kansas or even Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa or even Missouri. It's not unusual to see someone handing out church pamphlets at the bus stop, in front of a coffee shop, or someone signing some church song out loud in the bus. On one occasion I was reading Victor J. Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exists" at a park. When out of nowhere this older lady came up to me. She saw the big bold word God printed on the cover & exclaimed that I'm reading a book about God.
"Yeah, it's actually a different kind of book. It examines the existence of God." I told her as I tried to continue my reading.
"Oh, you don't believe in God? You know when you die, you will burn in hell forever unless you accept Jesus as your savior. " As she puts her hand on mine sitting next to me.
At this point I look at her angrily & tell her, I'm not interested. She doesn't care about that, she shuts her eyes as she starts telling me her memorized lines about accepting Jesus. By now, I began to get really upset. I move my hand from her grip. She stops & opens her eyes to see what's going on.
"Listen, I'm not interested at all. I don't care either. I just want to go back to my reading if you would excuse me now."
She gets up to leave. Before leaving she tries to hand me a pamphlet. I just ignore her going back to my reading.
Jesus Loves You
As far as I recall, in Kansas there were only two times I came across someone trying to save me from hell. The first instance was, of course at the university. I started hanging out with few people I recently met. One day few guys asked if I would like to go to a drive-in movie in Kansas City. I was really excited about it since this was my first time at a drive-in theater. On our way, we stopped in Lawrence to pick up few more people, few great looking chicks too. I was getting more excited. So, we rolled in to the theater. Everyone got their lawn chairs out. Someone offered me one too since I didn't bring one. We all went to the little store inside the theater & grabbed something to munch on during the movie. I was feeling great. As the movie was about to start, everyone got up & got in a circle holding each others hand. I didn't know what was going on, asked someone & he said they were going to thank the lord Jesus before the movie. Huh?! Did I miss something?
So, I stayed out of the praying circle. Just watching. After the prayer, everyone claiming their sit back one guy came up to me. He wants to know why I didn't join them thanking the lord Jesus. I told him I am not very religious. He proceeded to tell me about the beautiful thing of accepting Jesus & so forth until he realized I wasn't paying any attention. Needless to say, I never hang out with them again.
The other instance was, I was hanging out with two of my friends & they asked me to take them to shopping. So, we went to Kohls. I left the girls to their shopping & I was minding my own business waiting for them outside. And then out comes this guy, we strike a good conversation about life, wife & what not. After a while, he starts telling me more about his family. How he's home schooling all his children & everything. I went to a private school myself, but the whole concept of home school really awed me. I was curious, I wanted to know how does it work, how do they go to college & all of that. After a while, he proceeded to give me few pamphlet & asked me to join their little school. Of course, I'm in college & I declined. He suggested I should at least check it out sometime.
So, I stayed out of the praying circle. Just watching. After the prayer, everyone claiming their sit back one guy came up to me. He wants to know why I didn't join them thanking the lord Jesus. I told him I am not very religious. He proceeded to tell me about the beautiful thing of accepting Jesus & so forth until he realized I wasn't paying any attention. Needless to say, I never hang out with them again.
The other instance was, I was hanging out with two of my friends & they asked me to take them to shopping. So, we went to Kohls. I left the girls to their shopping & I was minding my own business waiting for them outside. And then out comes this guy, we strike a good conversation about life, wife & what not. After a while, he starts telling me more about his family. How he's home schooling all his children & everything. I went to a private school myself, but the whole concept of home school really awed me. I was curious, I wanted to know how does it work, how do they go to college & all of that. After a while, he proceeded to give me few pamphlet & asked me to join their little school. Of course, I'm in college & I declined. He suggested I should at least check it out sometime.
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