Tapped out and ramblin' on

So my buddy asked me today why I haven't posting much lately.

I'm pretty tapped out.  All of my visceral moments have been exhausted in the past two months at work.  We're juggling demanding clients, a dwindling economy, skittish job prospects, unyielding bureaucracies, and cashflow that is more of a trickle than a, well, flow.  Couple that with clients who are holding on to their money instead of paying us for services rendered, thus continuing the domino tipping that forces us to delay paying our consultants for services they've rendered in good faith.  Non-profit developers, while noble, are not liquid.  Their visions are often not congruous with our need to stay in business.  But they're our clients, so we work with what we've got.

On the upside, we were humming like a well oiled machine for the deadline we just wrapped up today.  For the first time in many moons we generated a synergy that has made the process not only bearable but somewhat pleasurable.  We're ultimately paid to make instructions for contractors to build buildings.  Boiled down, it's graphic communication to be understood by all.  Too much nebulous information, and it's obtuse.  Too little useful information, and it's useless.  Too much useless information, we're just filling up paper and covering our asses.  The key is to synthesize the information in a way that the plans are transparent in their ability to communicate.  A good set of plans is worth umpteen times more than the fee required to generate them.  And therein lies the rub--a good set of plans looks like anyone can do it.

Kinda like racing a bike (or not, as has been my MO of late).  Looks easy.  How hard can it be?  They're just pedalin' and yakkin'.  Some morning radio guys were raggin' on us this morning--one of them lives in Kensington, near Beach Drive, the place where "the freaks in lycra turn into their own personal Tour de France" and "take their lives into their own hands".  This all stemmed from the news release of the NYPD copper who assaulted the Critical Mass rider this past July--if not for YouTube the cyclist would have been in a heap of trouble, not the cop (who really put himself in a heap of trouble).  Ask George Allen what he thinks of YouTube.  If not for viral video he may have been the prez.  But I digress--the point of this paragraph is that we're hated on the road by more people than we think, and many people probably think the Critical Mass rider got what he deserved just because he was riding a bike.  It doesn't help that Critical Mass flaunts its "subculture-ness" and doesn't apologize for it--it just sucks that we become the objects of scorn, derision, and sometimes violence because of it.

I'm done.  I'm also too lazy to link to that video.  It's there on YouTube.  While you're there check out the video that prevented yet another good ole boy from possibly becoming our next pres...